Fiji Islands History

Brief history of Fiji Kannibalism 18.4.2011 - younger cannibalists

No one knows exactly when we island inhabitants came to the South Pacific. The Fiji Islands, however, were invaded between 1600 and 1200 B.C. according to archaeological findings. Samoa, Hawaii and New Zealand were later invaded by the Polynesians (around 800 AD). It is widely regarded as a crossroads of the South Pacific.

Fijians' corporeal characteristics were similar to those of the Melanesian negroids (Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands), but instead adopted the Polynesian (Tonga, Samoa, Hawaii, etc.) Cultures. The Polynesians first established themselves on the islands and later the Melanesians.

Fiji has adopted Kannibalism from their long journey at sea. No. As these seafarers ended up in Fiji, Kannibalism became part of the Fiji food. Not forgetting the steady growth of the populations on the islands has resulted in increased pressure on nature, ownership and people. Earlier historic reports by missionary Christians such as John Hunt (1848) and William Cross (1842) showed the cruel and inhuman behaviour of the early Fiji people.

A report in John Hunt's 1859 publication "A Cannibal Missionary", in which he saw the wild ones excavating the recently entombed tombs for food. He saw in the Wesleyan misionary Thomas Williams' 1858 publication "Fiji and the Fijians" the woman of a chieftain from a small Lakeba Isle ( "East of the Mainland") that ran away in the midnight.

This ambush of the English Reverend Thomas Baker was the last known Fiji act of cannibalism (1834-1907). In 2003, after 136 years, my family from the small town Nubutautau (who were in charge of the Thomas Baker death) apologised to Thomas Baker's offspring all the way from East Sussex, England (BBC News- Nov2003).

Fiji's premier and 600 members of the Fiji administration, as well as the media, took part in the celebration. Locals thought that they were excluded from state services and essential goods because they were doomed. Northwest Fiji, if you drive on the King's Road near the city of Rakiraki, you come past this cemetery (picture below); according to the Guinness World Record (2003), it was a tribal chieftain for the "most productive cannibal", who consume between 872 and 900 deaths.

This report's story is somewhat hazy, but it has definitely eaten more than 100 in all. New Zealand and Fiji were first discovered by Able Tasman (1603-1659) in 1642. Later Captain James Cook sketched the Polish islands of Tonga and Fiji in his 17th century explor.

The Europeans called Tonga the "friendly islands" and so the Christians went from Tonga to Fiji to convert the "heathens" to Christianity. Early Wesleyan misionaries came to Fiji in the early 1800s. In 1870, when self-proclaimed Sir Seru Cakobau, Ratu, had Fiji relinquished to Britain, he heralded Christianity as the predominant religious denomination that brought about the end of Kannibalism.

When we were young, we were never told the true history of the cruel, martial and cannibalist cultures of our history. Inquisitiveness and with the help of the web led me to search for items that had been published by seafarers and missionsaries in the mid-19th century.