From the Quarterly Review. 1. Life in Fejee, or Five Years among the 1853. as some have supposed, by the Dyaks of Borneo, has always seemed to us of the most problematical character. Those who maintain it, including, we are bound to admit, not only theoretical geographers, but very close observers, such as John Williams, have to get over the difficulty of a series of migrations from West to East, that is, against the steady breeze of the unvarying Trades, and by the aid of those irregular westerly gales, the mad winds,' as some of the islanders call them, from their caprice and uncertainty, which prevail at most for only two months of the year. They have to controvert the equally unvarying current of Polynesian tradition, which (as Mr. Ellis points out) speaks of colonization as 5. Our Antipodes: or, Residence and Rambles uniformly proceeding from the East; corroin the Australasian Colonies. By Lieut. borated by the insulated cases of migration Col. Godfrey Charles Mundy. 3 vols. Lon-which have taken place since the Pacific was don. 1852. known to Europeans—all, we believe, in the 6. Auckland, the Capital of New Zeland, and same direction, when accomplished in native the Country adjacent; including some ac- vessels. They have to answer the puzzling count of the Gold Discovery in New Zeland. question, How is it, if the Eastern Polynesians came from Asia, that they inhabit the part of the We endeavored in a late number to trace ocean farthest from Asia-that a vast portion of the recent history of the spread of Christianity the insular region, lying directly between the in the multitudinous islands of the Eastern presumed colony and the presumed mother Pacific, inhabited by the Polynesian race. country, is occupied by a totally different race, We observed on that occasion on the remark- the Melanesians, or Oceanian Negroes, whom able similarity of the type of features, stature, no one, so far as we know, has connected with and language among tribes so widely dispersed any Asiatic origin? Again, we know of no over the surface of that great ocean, belong- similarity, except that of language, which has ing to this common stock. It is necessary been established between the Malays and Polythat we should recur for a moment to the sub-nesians. The slender Malay resembles neither ject, in order to render more intelligible the in hue, nor face, nor figuré, the tall and bigdistinction taken by modern geographers be- boned islander; nor has any really significant tween Polynesia and Melanesia.* London. 1853. shown a readiness to abandon their pristine analogy of habits or religion been pointed out. It was long ago suggested that the root of And to what does a mere radical identity of the common Polynesian speech is to be found language amount, as a proof of identity of in the Kawi,' a branch of the Malay lan- race? Does any one doubt, for instance, that guage; the researches of William Humboldt the mass of the French people are of Celtic, are said to have established the fact; and not of Roman, descent-and yet has not learned men have already affixed to those who the antiquary the greatest difficulty in detectspeak it the name of Malayo-Polynesians.' ing a single Celtic root in the common lanWe are in no degree qualified to dispute these guage of the country, which (with the excepconclusions. But the fact of these islands tion of more recently-imported words) is having been actually colonized from the re- wholly and exclusively Roman? The fact is, gions now inhabited by the Malay family, or, that some families of mankind have always The three volumes of the French popular tongue on occasions of conquest or migrapublication "L'Univers Pittoresque," devoted to tion, and acquire a new one, as remarkable Oceanie," are compiled by M. Domeny de Rienzi, as the obstinacy with which others adhere to himself a voyager in the South Seas and the East.it They contain a great deal of information, and, although published in 1836, remain the best "Handbook" with which we are acquainted for vast tracts of the populous Pacific. This writer divides that ocean into four regions: Polynesia, comprising the groups we have already described, and also the extensive archipelagos of the Caroline and Pelew Islands, north of the equator and west of 180 deg.; Melanesia, including (besides the groups we have placed in it) Australia and New Guinea; Malaisia, or the Malay archipelago; and Micronesia, containing the many clusters of small islands in the Northern temperate Pacific. Supposing the colonization of the Eastern Pacific to have proceeded from its American shore-supposing it effected by one wave of that vast migration, of which another wave carried the Aztecs to the tropical plateau of Mexico-it will be not an unreasonable hypothesis, also, that the singular family of mankind to which recent geographers give the of the original native races whom that coloniname of Melanesians, comprises the remnant color They preach the Gospel to all who will hear it, morning, noon, and night. They administer medicine to the sick, and settle disputes for all parties. They are consulted about every importhat is going on. They are lawyers, physicians, tant enterprise, and have their hand in everything privy councillors, builders, agriculturists. zation disturbed. The confused and fragmen-in one little 'lotu' or 'converted' island, the tary dispersion of these tribes, so far as we are missionary with his gentle and submissive acquainted with them, as well as their general flock: on another, within sight, the smoke riinferiority, seems to countenance such an hy-sing from the burning village, and the cannipothesis. Even circumscribed within its nar- bal revelry of its conquerors: on a third, eager rowest limits-lying north of the parallel of traffic driving between a chief and his people New Zealand, west of the 180th meridian, and an European or American cruiser. The east of Australia, and south of the equator missionaries here are in their true element. Melanesia seems to include rather a multitude of distinct nations than a single people. The inhabitants of these islands differ from the Polynesians proper in being much darker of approaching to the real Asiatic negro of New Guinea, or Negrillo of the Papuan race, with whom they have been sometimes allied by ethnographers. But, with this exception, they seem to possess no common and They are exposed, without arms and withdistinctive feature. They present, therefore, out protectors, to the evil passions of the most a remarkable contrast, and very unfavorable bloodthirsty of all known races of mankind. one for missionary purposes, to the singularly And great is their reward- the progress of homogeneous character which, as we have their mission is eminently encouraging, not seen, characterises the Eastern Polynesians. only as regards the extent, but the character Some tribes, as those of Fiji, are remarkable of their conquests. for gigantic stature: others, the reverse. The This great Archipelago, as yet very imperlanguage of some seems a Polynesian dialect; fectly known, contains, it is thought, not less other groupes have many languages of their than 300,000 inhabitants. The two principal own, said to be totally distinct both from the islands (of which Viti Leuvu is the largest) Polynesian and from each other. Some have are represented as equal in size to ordinary estimated that in the New Hebrides there is English counties. They are intersected by on the average a different language, or dia- lofty ridges of volcanic mountains. There are lect, for every 5000 souls. The whole archi-dwellers in the interior of Viti Leuvu who pelago presents, in short, to the ethnographer have never seen the sea-not, however, so a kind of labyrinthine confusion, out of which much by reason of actual distance, as from the the patient labors of the missionary and the certainty to which the adventurous tourist philologist will no doubt ultimately educe some systematic arrangement. would be exposed of being literally, not figuratively, eaten up before he could reach his Within two days' westerly sail of the Soci- object. The valleys are singularly fertile and ety Islands lies the first Melanesian groupe, well watered, and abound in the vegetable that of the FIJI or Feejee Islands (we adopt riches of the Eastern and Western Pacific, the continental orthography, to which English which seem to meet at this central point. Mr. writers, not without a struggle, seem at last Lawry says he has seen and handled 'the tea to have generally resigned themselves in for- plant of China, carraway-seed, nutmeg, arroweign nomenclature), which, like the former, root, capsicum, and sarsaparilla.' The ethnois a province of the Wesleyan missionaries.graphy of this noble group is puzzling; and Of all the races of the Pacific hitherto known has much exercised the ingenuity of scholars to Europeans the men of Fiji are the most in that science. The color of the people is sanguinary and ferocious in their practices; many shades darker than that of the more and at the same time nearly the highest in easterly islanders, and, together with other point of natural endowments. And, conse- peculiarities, seems to betray a Melanesian quently, the beginning contest between light origin: but many of their customs, as well as and darkness here assumes an intensity which their stalwart proportions and lofty stature marks it in no other quarter. It seems as if the ( far above the height of any other nation very approach of dawn had added new hor- which I have seen,' says Sir E. Belcher) rerors to the night: never were war and mas- semble those of the Polynesians proper; while sacre, with their attendant atrocities, so rife their language is said to be a polyglot, comamong these savages as now. The progress pounded of many elements. Their industry, of the battle' (says Mr. Lawry in one of the energy, and personal activity contrast strongly works cited in our former article) now going with the indolent habits of most of their neighon in Feejee between the old murderer and bors. Mr. Lawry expatiates on their very his conqueror and lord is waxing hot, and superior character as servants, to the Tongans, hastening to its close.' The strangest features who, though they are more comely in our of the collision between civilized and savage eyes, are not so sharp, nor so well-disciplined, life seems here brought prominently forward: as the Feejeeans: an advantage, however, more than compensated by the imbred fero- self over every sleep he takes, which is from city of the latter witness the horrid story three to seven years long,' and thus produces which he elsewhere tells of a young girl earthquakes. Ravuyalo, the destroyer of daughter of the king of Opo,' who was taken souls, endeavors to intercept and annihilate as nursemaid into a missionary family, and set the spirit of the dead on its escape from the forthwith about murdering the infant. Her body. He is believed to reside at a place plan was to avail herself of those times when called 'Nambang Gatai,' on the road to' Bulu,' the child was cross, to hug it in her arms so the separate state,' or land of souls. strongly as to crush its frame together!' It died soon after the device was detected from the internal injuries inflicted through these vindictive embraces. 'In Tonga,' says the same writer, the children at school sit with all the gravity of judges on the bench: whereas the raw and lively children of Feejee, just wild from the sea-shore and the bush, are like so many merry-andrews.' Their taste for commerce and barter is well known to navi gators in those seas. Captain Erskine notes that the position of their women is rather elevated, and The town is inhabited by people of this world; and the town occupied by Ravuyalo and his of sight. The people of the natural town are, nesons, though in this vicinity, is nevertheless out vertheless, well acquainted with what is going on in the spiritual town, by means of a paroquet, which gives notice whenever spirits are passing to another world. If only one is coming, he calls once; if two, twice; and so on according to number. Such is the romantic myth told by Mr. Lawry; it should, however, be added, for the caution of grave inquirers who seek to enrich their collections with legendary stores, that the the intercourse between the sexes, without pre- people of Fiji are (according to John Jackson tending to any exalted feelings of modesty or the sailor, whose strange narrative of his two principle, is conducted with great delicacy, excepting in cases where the bad example of disso-years residence among them forms an appenlute white men has spread its contamination. dix to Captain Erskine's Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific'). And to complete the catalogue of their bet- the greatest adepts at fabricating a lie, or exter qualities - they seem to have a due appre-aggerating, that ever I heard of." ciation of literary merit. A Feejeean poet, says Mr. Hale, will often get twenty tambuas (whale's teeth) for a song or dance -a rate of payment, proportionally speaking, which an European maestro might find it difficult to at tain. issuing, full clawed and tailed, from the flank of Mount Pilatus, in the work of the learned natural ist Scheuchzer. We know the obstinacy with which British tars and Norway fishermen cling to their sea-serpents; and the Indians of the Mississippi swamps, not content with the real terrors of This fine people are bowed down by the with the legendary cawani." their alligators and gar-fish, people the marshes The reader may most crushing and hideous superstitions known consult Sir George Grey's little narrative of one of to exist in the world. In Captain Wilkes's his journeys in New Zealand (printed in Maori volumes will be found long dissertations on and English) for the legend of the three "Tanitheir voluminous theology. They seem to whas," evidently draconic monsters, and the feats have more definite notions of a First Cause living reptile, equally horrible, was actually seen of the Maori chivalry in subduing them. But a than are common among the South Sea islan- by Jackson the sailor in the interior of a Fiji isl ders; and a strong belief in the immortality and, if we can believe him. "One day, when I of the souls of all animated things. Next to was at a place called Vusaratu, the natives gave the maker of all—who is acknowledged un-in papalangi (white man's country.) me some eels to eat, and asked me if we had any der various names - they worship the God Ndengei, said to be enshrined, in the form of a serpent, in the district of Nakauvandea in Viti Leuvu.* This deity slews or turns him Whence arises the extraordinary universality of the popular belief in the existence of monsters of the serpent class? We have seen it attributed to a dim recollection of the great Saurian reptiles which or.ce inhabited the earth; but the period of these creatures was a comparatively early geological age; and the huge extinct quadrupeds of much later times have left no such general tradition behind them. The symbolical Dragon of Chima seems to be the very same fabulous animal whose conquest has immortalized St. George and More of More Hall; the same whose "ancient brood" is still believed by the matter-of-fact Swiss peasant to lurk in the caverns of the High Alps; whose portraiture is preserved, as seen by a burgomaster, เ When I said we had, they asked me if there were any king eels among them? I answered, No; when they straightway conducted me to a fresh-water hole, with a temple erected at one end. In this hole there was an immense sized eel; his body at the thickest part was as big round as a stout man's thigh, and his head was enormously large and frightful; but his whole length I could not tell. They said he was two fathoms long. I inquired the meaning of the temple. They said it was his, and that he was a "kalou" or spirit. I thought I would prove the veneration they held him in, so I pointed my musket at him, and cocked it. They seemed to be extreme'y agitated, and begged me to desist, and then ran off and fetched some cooked bread-fruit to propitiate him for the insult offered, which he took from their hands. They told me he was of a great age, and that he had eaten several infants, which they had given him at different times; children of prisoners taken in war." Fiji is under the double yoke of a chief hood | patched such quantities of pumice-stone, that and priesthood, whose relations to each other you could in a little while observe the stones diwe cannot distinctly trace in any of the vo- minishing, although the beach was thirty or forty lumes before us, but whose combined power yards long. — Erskine, p. 456. has reduced the mass of the people to a state of The practice, common to many other savage abject submission, in which the most unheardof cruelties are both witnessed and suffered nations, of burying living persons when they with apathy, as part of the common lot of man. become a burden to others, is so ordinary, that Buried alive in the holes dug for the posts of (according to Captain Erskine) an aged or the chief's home strangled in masses at his decrepit person is rarely seen among them. funeral — their living and writhing bodies used But it is attended with horrors peculiarly their Mr. Williams (a missionary who has asrollers,' over which the monstrous war-ca- own. noes are dragged up the beach (a barbarity lived four years in these islands) gave Captain which struck Mr. Ellis with horror in Otaheite, Erskine an account of an attempt which he had where it was only practised on corpses) - the ineffectually made to induce Tui Thakau, an Fijians take it all as part of the inevitable bur- elderly chief, to embrace Christianity during den laid on them, gravi sub religione. A an illness: district called Drekete, according to Jackson, is considered the lowest of all, and is actually kept for human sacrifices and for food upon any public occasion. They are not allowed to lift arms in their defence, but are supposed to be not only neutral, but passive and resigned to their fate, from whatever hand it may come. Although there are many canoes on each side their river, they never get ferried over, but always swim; and in fact they never expect it. So habitual is their hard fate, that they look upon it as a matter of course, and not only resigned are they, but even pleasant! We will select a less revolting instance of aristocratic outrage from Jackson's narrative. Revelita, a great chief, had paid a visit to a village of serfs with his suite, and called for his dinner. The poor inhabitants, having been paid such visits before, knew what sort of guests they had to entertain, and hurried accordingly. They, in their haste and desire to please, took the victuals up before they were properly cooked, and The brought them in the most humble way. lazy courtiers and tasters informed Revelita that the victuals were quite raw, and observed at the same time, that it was an old offence of that place in particular. The chief flew into a passion, thinking that his dignity was slighted, and ordered the inhabitants to assemble before him. They did so, and it happened to be on a beach that was completely covered with pumice-stone. They crawled on their hands and knees. waiting with resignation the result of the anger of the chief. At last he looked out of the door, and began to abuse them at a tremendous rate, and said he did not know how to punish them, as it was of no use killing them, because they would be glad to get off so easy. One of the courtiers observed, that it would be easier for them (the inhabitants), hardened slaves as they were, to make a hearty meal from the pumice-stones, than for such a chief as Revelita to eat the pork underdone. Revelita said. "Well thought of," and commanded the poor Batiki fellows to begin at once, which they immediately obeyed, and des On the following morning Mr. Williams, whilst standing at the door of his house, was a good deal surprised, having left the chief in such high spirits so short a time before, by being informed by a Feejeean, evidently proceeding on some important business, in a low tone of voice, as if not desirous of being overheard, that Tui Thakau was dead, and that preparations were going on for his burial. Not doubting the truth of the information, but knowing that the preparations partly consisted in strangling the wives of the deceased, Mr. Williams, hurriedly apprising his colleague, Mr. Hazlewood, of the circumstance, Ihastened with him to the chief's residence, with the humane intention of endeavoring to save the lives of some at least of the destined victims. As they crossed the threshold they stepped over the body, yet warm, of the first strangled wife, whilst two men, each holding the end of the fatal cord, were performing the office of the executioner on the second, then in the agonies of death. Tui Kila-Kila, the heir to the chieftainship, sat at a short distance, with a scowl of fierce determination on his countenance, whilst in a more remote corner, to the astonishment of the missionaries, reclined old Tui Thakau himself, apparently in no more infirm condition than on the previous day. A remonstrance on the atrocity of such proceedings during the life-time of the chief was met by a stern announcement from Tui Kila-Kila that "his father was dead; the spirit had quitted him yesterday: he before them was no living man, but a corpse whom Seeing they were about to carry to the tomb." that no expostulations were likely to be of any avail in favor of the old man, whose mind, from his composed silence, was evidently made up to his fate, the missionaries turned ther attention to the surviving wives, whose lives they were successful in saving, the two already sacrificed being considered as sufficient for the occasion. The principal wife, a woman of higher rank than any person present, had escaped the usual fate, Feejeean custom requiring that the ceremony of strangulation shall be performed by one The bodies having been of an equal grade. placed in a litter, and the old chief in another, the funeral procession began, the principal wife and son fanning his face as they conducted him usage on strictly economical grounds. "It to his living grave.-Ib., p. 231. was all very well for us, who had plenty of beef, to remonstrate-but they had no beef but men!" The missionaries even assert that the language "contains no word for a simple corpse; but the word used, "bakola," conveys the idea of eating the body." It is common to call a human being, when considered as an article of diet, " long pig." All enemies killed in battle are, "as a matter of course," eaten by the victors. A body, properly roasted and prepared, is sent as a present of great value to friends: The particulars of a still more repulsive case will be found, by those who are studious of such horrors, in the last page of Jackson the sailor's extraordinary narrative. The women, however, are usually willing and often eager to meet the fate which awaits them when a husband dies. In an instance which came under the cognizance of Mrs. Wallis (the wife of an American who traded to these islands, and the accuracy of whose little work-Life in Feejee' is attested by the missionaries), the chiefs of Bau would not consent to strangle any of the women of a deadly enemy whom they had succeeded in clubbing. They wished bim to feel the effects of their hatred in the next world by not allowing him to have a wife to cook for him a thing indispensable according to the Fiji creed. 'Come, strangle me quick,' said his faithful partner, that my spirit may go with the spirit of Nalela, and comfort him; he is even now faint for food.' When The hideous banquet excites a kind of frenzy she found that no one would do her the friend- resembling intoxication. Even whites have ly office, she resolved to starve herself, and sometimes yielded to the maniacal propensity. tasted nothing from the 21st to the 30th of the month. It was with the greatest difficulty that Mrs. Wallis then persuaded, or rather combelled her to eat. "the limbs are tied, say in a sitting form, and there they remain; when dressed, they take the body up, paint the face red, put a wig upon the head, put a club or fan in the hands, as they may happen to fancy, and then carry the whole as a present to be eaten by their friends. They sometimes travel far with this spectacle, which, when met in the path, may easily be mistaken for a living man in full dress." M. Gervais, one of Dumont Durville's officers, found that the crew of a whaler who accompanied him on a visit to a Fiji chief had great difficulty in resisting his invitation to join the feast; and Forster observed a similar longing in some of Cook's crew of the Resolution, while others "suffered the same effects as from a dose of ipecacuanha" from the mere proposal. In the practice of cannibalism the people of Fiji "equal, if they do not exceed, all known races." It is impossible to give, except by reference to the ample details of the volumes before us, any idea of the excesses to which it is carried. This custom, the ex- When war will not afford the requisite vicistence of which at all it was at one time the tims, a Fiji party will often surprise persons fashion to disbelieve, has been traced, in some by stratagem, solely for the purpose of devourregions, to motives of ferocious revenge; in ing them a whole village will lie in wait for others, to superstitious fancies-to an un- a man and his wife, returning from their natural appetite-to actual deficiency of other plantation. Women are preferred, when nourishment: but in Fiji all these causes choice is free. If a chief has been well feastseem to co-operate. Whether by way of ren-ed by a friend, it becomes a point of honor dering the last honors to a deceased enemy, with him to return the compliment with equal or treating his remains with the extreme of munificence, however scarce the requisite contumely, the Fijian warrior equally devours game may be. An instance of this kind gave him-only with some difference of language occasion for that exploit of heroic humanity and ceremony. It is related by one of the on the part of the two missionaries' wives, missionaries that the king of Bau, when a Mrs. Lyth and Mrs. Calvert, who interrupted rebel chief was killed, commanded his tongue the work of massacre by their presence, to to be cut out. Holding it in his hand, he which we called attention in our former artijoked over it, and apostrophized it as the in- cle. It is no detraction from the merit of strument of evil, as a preliminary to eating these brave women to notice, that the success it. The heart, liver, and tongue, are favorite which crowned their interference was possibly morsels. Tuihilahila, king of Somoromo, thus owing, in part, to the superstitious feeling preaddressed the baked body of a once intimate valent among the natives that it is unlucky to friend, whom he had captured and slaughter- persist in an undertaking which has been once ed-"Thou hast been my brother; had I interrupted-a feeling powerful enough to fallen into thine hand, should I not have been unnerve the fiercest warrior, in the full exeaten forthwith? And dost thou think of an citement of the orgie or the fight. Thus, in escape?-No, verily!" But Thakombau, one of the Tahitian attacks on the French, a another eminent warrior, when lectured by poor missionary stepped forward to implore Captain Erskine on the subject, defended the the natives to desist, and fell by a chance |