Fiji, once called the "Cannibal Islands," will next month confront its dark past when chiefs of a remote village perform a traditional ceremony of apology for killing and eating an English missionary.
The village, now known as Navatusila, is expected to present heaps of whale teeth and mats to descendants of Reverend Thomas Baker, killed in 1867.
"I can understand the interest -- I mean we used to eat each other and that must be interesting in this day and age," current Navosa paramount chief Kuini Vuikaba Speed said. "We are fortunate we now live in an environment free of that practice."
Formerly known as Naqaqadelavatu, the village is located in a remote part of Navosa province. It was the most beautiful part of the interior some 900m above sea level, dotted with ravines and streams.
Baker, an Englishman born in Playden, Sussex, who was sent in to the interior after working in Fiji since 1859, presented a whale's tooth to chief Nawawabalavu on arrival. Presenting a tooth usually guaranteed safe passage and protection from the ferocious hill tribes, known for their merciless killings.
"I wish to do good by the people," the missionary wrote in his last letter to his wife two days before he and his group were surrounded and killed by 30 men. "If I do not go now, I shall never go."
Chief Nawawabalavu told Baker he did not like Christianity and vowed never to change. But he accepted the whale's tooth and agreed to guide the party towards the coast.
Baker's story is told in letters he dispatched before continuing into the hills and a diary, now bound and kept in trust by the Fiji Museum library.
The records show he was optimistic about continuing safely as there was no visible war or antagonistic attitude from villages he was passing through.
"I think much about you and the little ones, especially Alice," Baker wrote to his wife. "I do not fear the natives and we hope to do them good. Kiss the children for me, all of them and tell them to pray for me. If I can accomplish this, I shall be the lion of the day."
He had his first brush with hostile natives while sailing towards Bua, northeast of the main island. Natives, fresh from a tribal war, sailed alongside Baker's canoe hurling abuse.
"I thought Fiji had not yet stained its shores with a missionary blood. Am I to be the first?" he wrote.
His aide Setareki Suileka noticed lights moving toward the village as Baker slept, records say, as a nearby chief sent word that he wanted the missionary dead.
When Baker spotted more people converging towards Naqaqadelavatu, he knew he was in trouble.
"Lads, let us be quick or we shall be killed," he urged his group, according to records passed down from two people who survived the attack.
But they were led outside the village by chief Nawawabalavu and Baker was struck down with a long-handled tomahawk along with seven others.
The bodies were rolled into ravines but later retrieved from a river. Baker's body was placed on top of the pile of cadavers and, according to museum records, it was butchered on a flat rock at the village stream.
One woman however scolded her people for the senseless murders and performed Fijian rites on the three men before they were feasted upon. Later Naqaqadelavatu was demolished by its own people, who believed they were cursed.
The apology next month will not be the first. In 1903, the chief's son spoke with "distress and pain" as he asked the church to forgive the murders organized by his father.
A previous paramount chief of Navosa, Qoro Vuikaba, organized a provincial apology to the Methodist Church during the 150th anniversary celebrations of the arrival of Church nearly 10 years ago.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion