I FIRST ATTENDED the native church on my seventh day on the island. Fijians attend church three times on Sunday: early morning, afternoon, and dusk. Wednesday morning too, at dawn, is a church date. The lalo, or native ceremonial drum, calls the hour of church. I went clad in my wrinkled blue suit wearing socks to hide my puffed, poisoned feet.
The women enter first and sing a long mournful song for about ten minutes. They seat themselves on the floor on the left side of the room at the front. When the mournful song is finished the men come in and sit on the right. Behind them in neat rows are the boys, and to the left the girls.
The natives are a beautiful sight on church day. The halo of dark frizzy hair is combed and oiled to eye-catching perfection. Sunday-best sulus are broken out and short-sleeved colorful shirts are worn. Where the skin shows it is oiled with wali wali, an aromatic coconut oil, which makes it coppery.
The proceedings, despite the Fijians’ natural religious seriousness, have a dash of humor. In the back of the room sits one of the village elders, glowering over the boys. He carries a thin, twenty-foot rod. Let one of the boys scant his sabbath duty, and he is nicked sharply on the head. The little boys, in fearful fervor, bend to their songs and prayers.
My throne was placed beside the pulpit. The pastor and his two assistants were last to enter. The pastor was wearing my pin-stripe tan coat which he had found in the wreckage. He had offered it back—but I insisted that he keep it. It was a late collegiate cut, three buttons down the front and abbreviated lapels. The sleeves struck him well above the wristbone, and across the front it was tied with a string—since it wouldn’t button around his massive chest.
Services commenced with a deep-throated, fast-moving chant accompanied by the time beat on a steel triangle. A highly persuasive prayer then ensued from one of the deacons. When he finished he mopped his tear-stained cheeks with a large white handkerchief. He prayed directly to God and not with the honeyed words or through the ears of a fastidious parish.
Another weird thrilling song was voiced up. The other deacon, my philosopher friend, poured some of the salt of his wisdom into a very moving prayer. He too wept openly as he prayed. It was strange to see these towering, heavily muscled men weeping volubly on their knees. Another song ricocheted around the close walls; and my friend the pastor advanced to the pulpit.
The sermon that followed was the most convincing that I ever heard: yet I knew not a word that he spoke. He expounded the Word in no uncertain terms. In thundering tones, with his great fists beating the pulpit, he dinned his inspired message into every rapt ear.
A final song was sung and services were concluded.
I took a stroll around the barren little room. The pulpit and two crude benches were its only ornamentation. It didn’t even have a kerosene lamp on the ceiling. On one wall was a colorful whisky advertisement showing a picture of a shark. The walls and floors on the inside were unpainted. Church!
The church was about twelve years old, paid for by the natives from their copra gathering and built by the Colonial British Government.
That afternoon I enjoyed one of the most delightful treats of my whole stay in Fiji. Una had caught me an uga vule (pronounced “oonga vooly”) or giant coconut crab. It was the first I had ever seen, like something out of King Kong in the miniature.
Offhand he appears to be a compromise between a crab, a lobster, and a tarantula. The width of his great claws is often more than two feet, and the plier-like, heavily toothed pincers on the end can amputate a finger. On the very stern end of the uga vule is a fist-sized round shell, looking like a small bag. When captured he is kept alive as a future food supply by a vine tied to this bag and suspended from a limb, or the hut ceiling. Hanging thus, claws down, he is helpless. He lives by climbing palms and cutting down the nuts from which he tears away the tough fiber, somehow breaking open the tougher nut and consuming the milk and soft meat inside.
The delicious white meat of the giant crab is a meal for three men. It is tastier than lobster. I often had lobster, or urau as it is called, but never when I could have uga vule. The meat is most toothsome when boiled, though the natives prefer it roasted in the shell over hot coals. The saclike pod on the creature’s back contains a rich natural sauce which seasons the soft sweet meat.
The islanders were unusually kind and generous with food. Not a meal passed but that a dozen contributions came in from the fires of the surrounding huts. When the fishermen returned at night from the coral lagoon, they always brought a delicacy or two. The men who foraged each day in the jungle invariably returned with some special fruit or vegetable. Even the children at their play ran upon odd tidbits in the jungle or along the sea front and brought them timidly forth.
Whatever was offered me, I ate. I never questioned the validity of a single bite. If I needed reassurance there was plenty of it. The natives in their buoyant health were bounteous guarantors for their food. Their beautifully muscled bodies, milky teeth, perpetually pleasant dispositions—in general, their health and verve—were a perfect testimonial to the fare they thrived on.
I ate baked eels and raw turtle eggs with perfect aplomb. Boiled octopus, fish heads, and dried sea worms—no matter what, I took them all as they came. Una prepared many odd dishes for me. Some of them looked mighty queer, but so long as my strength grew and the wrinkles filled out, I didn’t care what she stewed up.
Whatever I wished to eat, I had only to suggest. I had but to say “Kai kai uga vule” and Una strode off into the jungle, returning in a while with one of the giant coconut crabs. If it was eels I wanted or turtle soup, or if it was lobster or clams, Una always took up her burlap sack and walked wordlessly off to the lagoon. If it was a fruit or vegetable from the jungle I wanted, Itchy or one of his six boys swung onto one of the narrow jungle trails and soon brought it in.
On Sunday night after my first week on the island I began to snap out of weakness. My body began to look like what a body should look like. A padding of flesh appeared around my thighs and I could sit down on my bones without needing to support part of my weight on my hands. The cushioning effect was better for sleep, too. Flesh was appearing throughout the body, which, because of my seemingly large hands and feet, made me look less like a clubfooted pup.
The next morning, Monday, November fourth, I felt strong enough to think in terms of getting off the island and continuing my journey to Australia. I called Itchy and gave him the lowdown. I told him I wanted to get going. He looked grave and displeased; but he called a few of his neighbors to sit in on the plans.
They were introduced, but the names turned out to be unrememberable, so I just called them Joe, Bill, and Mike. I proposed to them that we doctor up one of the outriggers and weigh anchor for Lakemba, about forty miles away. This they vetoed immediately. It was the hurricane season, a time of variable winds and unpredictable calms. Too risky; don’t be in a hurry; take it easy, they said.
Itchy suggested we await the arrival of the copra boat in January. All agreed that it would be better to wait than venture out on the sea and made to adjourn the meeting. I said no, and explained I hadn’t seen my wife in eighteen months, and couldn’t wait any longer.
They listened as I unfolded a plan for signaling passing ships, provided there were passing ships. My sails, though chewed by the reef, were somewhat intact; so was my halyard and the copper block to heave the sail up with. I proposed we cut the top out of a prominent coconut tree and rig my gear to it, so we could raise and lower the sail as a signal if we sighted a ship.
That afternoon my ragged little mainsail was fluttering from the bald head of a conspicuous coconut palm.
In the evening the chief informed me that a ceremonial Yangona or native beer bust was to be held in my honor. I didn’t know what he was talking about, but if it was going to be fun, I assured him I wouldn’t miss it.
Shortly after, I was seated on my throne at the apex of a circle of cross-legged men on the floor of the chief’s koro. From where I sat in my rickety varicolored chair made from Pagan’s timbers, I looked down on the whole assemblage: a sort of king of nothing. Several weak lanterns dimly bathed the dark room. The men were in a festive mood. Elbows on knees they chatted pleasantly, waiting for the ceremonial to commence. All the village elders were present. Young boys, teen-agers, were allowed to look on from the door.
To the center of the circle walked four village girls, who sat facing me. They were to perform a meke ta, or dance in my honor as guest. Four more came in and sat down back to back with the others, facing away from me. Another sat just inside the doorway with the inevitable iron triangle and bar to beat time.
The faces of all were decoratively smeared with white paste. Garlands of hibiscus fiber, dyed purple and entwined with flowers, hung about their necks. Their breasts, arms, and legs glistened coppery with wali wali. On their wrists, ankles, and upper arms were bands of coconut frond and flowers. In their beautifully groomed bushy hair, and behind their ears, were flowers. In the right hand of each was a flower.
The time beater at the doorway started the ball rolling. The girls facing away from me sang one of the rich tribal songs and all clapped in unison. Those facing me sang with the others, at the same time waving the hands and arms gracefully in pattern. The expressive arm and hand movements were telling a story I couldn’t follow, but it was beautiful and sincere. What ensued was a dance sitting down—which is the way the Fijians do it.
As the dance progressed the girls changed places several times; the singing grew to a high pitch, and more expressive and picturesque movements came into the dance. In fact, by the time they finished they had done everything possible to do sitting down, short of standing and dancing.
I arose and applauded, and insisted on shaking the hand of each performer as an appreciative gesture. Such enthusiasm prompted them to put the whole show on again. The next time I merely smiled.
Then came the Yangona. This comes under the title of Fijian alcoholism, without the imputation of Alcoholics Anonymous. Yangona is a native drink the partaking of which hasn’t the distasteful results that our own similar “ceremonials” involve. The drink is evidently healthful. It is enjoyed only by the men, and then only on special occasions.
It is prepared by pounding the kava root in a hollowed log stump and mixing the pulpy root with water by hand in a large shallow wooden bowl. The pulp is strained from the water through the fibers of the hibiscus plant, leaving the water brownish and “spiked.”
The leader of the singers then comes in, sitting respectfully before the kava bowl. She claps twice as a traditional expression of reverence, and a coconut shell is filled from the bowl and handed her. This she brings to me, the guest, who quaffs it off and passes the shell back. It is refilled and taken to the chief. And thence to every Tom, Dick, and Harry till the bowl is emptied. Then a new decoction is made up. While the drinks are being passed and while fresh bowls of the brew are being mixed, the men chatter and banter across the circle.
Yangona has a taste that is indescribable. But there is nothing mysterious about its effect. It is heady, inducing a giddy drowsiness. I should have quit after my second round. By the tenth, I was all for singing “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” and raising general hell with the boys. Shortly after, Itchy wisely decided it was time to take me home before the party got too rough.
The next morning I had a hangover which was nothing more than a semi-diarrheic condition. It left me a bit shaky at the knees. Among the healthful qualities of Yangona is its action as a physic.
Una fed me lightly on breadfruit noodles cooked in coconut milk with vasua or clam. I washed it down with lemon-grass tea and had a papaya to finish with. She scolded Itchy for leading me astray in “that den of iniquity.”
That afternoon of the fifth of November was spectacular. Shortly after lunch a cry rent the village. There was something on the horizon. A sail! Itchy and Mike came dashing in, overflowing with gibberish and pointing to seaward excitedly. I knew it was a ship from the cry of “laca mota” from the beach, and sought my walking stick.
Itchy was impatient with my slow gait—he picked me up in his arms and ran across the village with me as though I were a stalk of bananas. Gione, one of his sons, brought my throne. Sitting on the beach, I could see the sail and part of the cabin of a copra schooner making down the coast.
Mike and Joe were working the sail. When I said “Up,” they hoisted it. When I said “Down,” they hauled it in. The vessel moved along till she was abeam of us. Mike and Joe agitated the sail madly. I stood on my chair waving my cane and shouting; everybody was doing something to attract attention. We screamed, we jumped, we waved. The vessel moved serenely down the coast and out of sight. I felt empty. Everybody looked disappointed, but Una seemed pleased that the boat hadn’t seen the signal, and hadn’t come for me. She came up and let me know that I wasn’t bula (strong) enough to leave the island.
I concluded that there wasn’t enough diversion in the sail alone to catch attention. Possibly it couldn’t be seen from so great a distance; even if it could, it might not be recognized as a distress signal. I told the chief and suggested we build some brush piles on the beach to be lit next time we sighted a sail or funnel. He agreed. At his command all the boys in sight hustled into the jungle. Soon four impressive tinder heaps graced the beach.
Itchy was dead set on giving me a shave and trimming my hair. He had been agitating to do it all week, and each day I had stalled him. I dreaded this worse than tooth pulling. Many times I had seen the men shave themselves with cold water, laundry soap, and razors honed on a chunk of grindstone. Itchy was determined to get to the bottom of my whiskers. I could delay no longer.
My beard was five inches long and blond as platinum, from the constant touch of the sun. My hair had overgrown my ears and forehead, and was well down toward my shoulders. It too had been breathed on from above and was streaked with blond. It was all this blond business behind the sun-browned face that had so startled the beachcombing children that day I had peered down on them from my aerie in the rocks.
Itchy had an old pair of dull scissors for the shearing. Bill, Joe, and Mike oversaw the job. Hair flew and whiskers scraped. After an hour of manhandling and unforgettable misery I was bald-faced and near bald-headed.
Seeing myself just after being shaved was a jolt. It was a foreview of what I may be at ninety-nine. A skeleton of my real self peered back from the glass: wrinkled at the deep-sunk eyes; enlarged at the cheekbones and shallow in the cheeks; heavily veined over the forehead: bony at the jaw and throat; wide at the ears. From cheekbones to hair line was a swath of sunburned color; below was sallow flesh long hidden by my beard.