Contexts - Rough Guide to Fiji - page 306

EARLY RELIGION AND CUSTOMS
Two tiers of gods ruled the living: the highest-ranked gods, the kalou-vu , were universally
venerated immortals. For everyday affairs, the people sought blessings from a collection
of localized gods known as the kalou-yalo . These were ancestral spirits who in the living
world had been respected chiefs or triumphant warriors. These gods commanded the
weather, had powers over war and sickness and were called upon to bless the people with
abundant fish and fruits, but were otherwise not invoked. Contact with these gods was
conducted through the high priest ( bete) , a member of the priestly clan or bete mataqali .
The bete sat in a high-roofed temple known as the bure kalou and, possessed with yaqona ,
would call the spirits to descend down the tapa cloth hanging from the temple roof and
speak through his body.
MANA
Blood spilling was an integral part of Fijian custom and imbued items with what was
known as mana , or spirituality. Mana was especially important for warriors and chiefs;
their personal war clubs were anointed in human blood in order to bring them mystical
powers. War canoes were launched over the bodies of sacrificial victims and the building
of temples and chiefly houses required people to be buried alive with the foundations. Can-
nibalism (see Reverend Baker and the curse of Nubutautau ) was the apotheosis of such
blood lust, with war parties constantly scouting for unsuspecting victims. Direct tribal con-
frontations were less frequent, though when they occurred they tended to take the form of
the sacking of entire villages by uprooting crops and burning houses, usually once the sur-
vivors had surrendered and moved on to new land.
POLYGAMY AND WIDOW STRANGULATION
Polygamy was commonplace among the early Fijians. On a man's death , his spirit was
believed to linger in the village for four days to haunt his enemies, during which period
it was also customary for the widows to be strangled to death in order to accompany the
husband's spirit to the afterlife or Bulu .
WITCHCRAFT AND SUPERSTITION
Witchcraft and superstition were similarly deeply ingrained in Fijian culture. Certain
people had the power to invoke the spirits to taunt their enemies, most notably through ill-
ness, in which case the village sorcerer would perform an elaborate yaqona ceremony to
chase the spirit away and reveal the perpetrator.
European encounters
Bypassed by the early Spanish explorers who had headed north to the Philippines, Fiji had
to wait until the seventeenth century before European ships reached Fijian waters. In 1643,
Dutch navigator Abel Tasman , who had discovered New Zealand and Tasmania the previ-