Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/196

 166 FIJI AXD THE FIJIAXS. the favorite ^vife of Tiiikilakila used to say it was " the portion for the priests of religion." Women seldom eat of hakolo, and it is forbidden to some of the priests. On the island of Moala, graves were not unfrequently opened for the purpose of obtaining the occupant for food. Chiefs say that this has also been done on Vanua Levu. Part of an unburied body was stolen and eaten in 1S52. When there are several bodies, the Chief sends one or more to his friends ; when only one, it is shared among those nearest to him ; and if this one has been a man of distinc- tion, and much hated, parts of him are sent to other Chiefs fifty or a hundred miles off. It is most certainly true that, while the Fijian turns with disgust from pork, or his favorite fish, if at all tainted, he will eat bakolo when fast approaching putrescence. Human bodies are generally cooked alone. I know of but one ex- ception, when a man and a boar were baked in the same oven. Generally, however, ovens and pots in which human flesh is cooked, and dishes or forks used in eating it, are strictly iabu for any other purpose. The cannibal fork seems to be used for taking up morsels of the flesh when cooked as a hash, in which form the old people pre- fer it. It seems strange that man-eaters should be afraid to eat the porpoise, because it had ribs like a man ; yet many old heathens have assured me that they used to have such fears. Rare cases are known in which a Chief has wished to have part of the skull of an enemy for a soup-dish or drinking-cup, when orders are accordingly- given to his followers not to strike that man in the head. The shin-bones of all bakolos are valued, as sail-needles are made from them. If these bones are short, and not claimed by a Chief, there is a scramble for them among the inferiors, who sometimes almost quarrel about them. Would that this horrible record could be finished here ! but the vakatotoffa, the "torture," must be noticed. Nothing short of the most fiendish cruelty could dictate some of these forms of torment, the worst of which consists in cutting oflT parts and even limbs of the vic^ tim while still living, and cooking and eating them before his eyes, some^ times finishing the brutality by offering him his own cooked flesh to eat. CANNIBAL FORKS. CANNIBAL FORKS.