austraLasia 754
FIJI: SAINTS AND SINNERS
Setting the record straight
SUVA: 13th November -- Today a group of Fijians are setting the record straight. The concept of holiness has always been attractive to the Fijian, especially because of its similarity to long-held Polynesian and Melanesian beliefs in mana and tapu. In fact, early Christian missionaries to Fiji (1830's) found the appeal to holiness of life to be one entry point to otherwise closed hearts and minds. There was great rejoicing amongst Methodists when the Chief of Fiji's predominant and powerful tribe from Bau, Cakobau, accepted Baptism.
But Fijians, at the very time when Don Bosco was dreaming of native youngsters calling across the waters to the Salesians to come and help (4th Missionary Dream), had a habit at the time which was not readily countenanced by Christian missionaries. They would kill and eat their enemies. It was not so long ago in historical terms that this decidedly sinful habit ceased. The first Salesians to arrive in Fiji permanently five years ago still recall the young lad walking across the yard proudly claiming his great-great grandfather had a personal tally of 800 corpses. A consuming interest in mana, then, since this was one of the purposes of the act, to gain some of the enemy's power. The lad's g-g-g was in fact a gentleman named Udre-Udre, and the tally was actually 872. You can see his grave and a stone for each near Rakiraki.
But today the record is being set straight. In 1867, Reverend Thomas Baker ventured into the Highlands to convert the as yet unreached souls of the mountain area - and was killed and eaten along with eight Fijian helpers. The great-great grandson of the cannibal chief's time and place, Ratu (chief) Nawawabalavu, today welcomes 11 Australian descendants of Rev. Baker to his village to officially apologize. There is a strong belief in the village, in fact in all of Fiji, that this particular act of cannibalism was misguided and has caused untold misery to this very day to the village descendants. The Fiji Prime Minister will also be there. He is a convinced Methodist and, politics aside, a good man. Both the villagers and the Australians are hoping that things will improve, especially for the kids who have no school to go to unless they walk 25 kms across the mountains to a weekday boarding school - which they do, each Sunday afternoon. A possible place for Salesian activity? Well, we would have to convert them from methodism first!
Nawawabalavu, by the way, means 'the long wait'.
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'austraLasia' is an email news service for
the Salesian Family of Asia-Pacific.
'austraLasia' is an email news service for
the Salesian Family of Asia-Pacific.
