1835: Power of Fijian chief converted in Tonga, Josua Mateinaniu of Fulaga, eased the entry of David Cargill and William Gross first Wesleyans to Lakeba

1835: A Fijian chief who had been converted in Tonga, Josua Mateinaniu of Fulaga, who accompanied the first Wesleyans to Lakeba in 1835 , was a person of far greater importance than most previous accounts allow.

Educated and high status: His status and his command of both Tongan and Fijian eased the entry of David Cargill and William Gross of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society. Recognizing that effective Christian mission in Fiji depended to a large extent on the attitude of Bau, Rewa and the Tui Cakau, the Wesleyans sent Josua Mateinaniu westward alone from Lakeba toward the end of 1835 to mingle with the many Tongans who were spread out through the islands and to sound out the situation in the strongholds of the high chiefs. He was a well informed scout who advised on the future course of gospel warfare.

Josua Mateinaniu brings in a big congregation: By September 1836 he was back at Lakeba. On the Sunday after his return Cargill’ s small chapel was overflowing with a congregation `of 300 or 400 Tonguese from the Leeward Is. of Feejee. ‘ Many of them had embraced Christianity through the instrumentality of Joshua, an accredited Preacher whom we sent among them 10 Months ago. He has acted with great zeal and fidelity’.

John Garrett, “To Live Among the Stars”(book reviewed in the Journal of Pacific History, Sept, 1998, by Roderic Lacey) . Geneva/Suva: World Council of Churches in Association with the Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific. 2-8254-0692-9

July 1839: William Hunt records a cannibal dinner

John Garrett, in his book, “To Live Among the Stars” recorded Wesleyan Christian Missionary views of Fiji.

July 1839:  Missionary William Hunt wrote in his diary;  “From July 1839 Hunt and his family lived at Somosomo on Taveuni, where the Tui Cakau, an elderly warrior and intemperate man-eater, presided over his war-wracked realm of Cakaudrove,where his son, Tui Kilakila, wielded much of the effective military power”
Lyth’s world-view different: Richard Burdsall Lyth, another notable missionary, who was both minister and medical man lived with Hunt through a period of bloodshed and danger at Somosomo. Lyth’s matter-of fact Yorkshire temperament accorded well with Hunt’s.

Missionary personalities: By comparison they found Missionary, Cargill moody;  Missionary, Gross, who suffered at Rewa from severe dysentery, was relatively weak. Hunt’s Somosomo journal astonishes by clear-minded assessments of a world where its author was a stranger. Somosomo gave Hunt the apprenticeship for his later crucially important work on Viwa.

Hunt’s view of Fiji culture: He was far from naive about the impression the Methodists created in Fiji: “The god and the priest are in their opinion so connected as to be one and the same; I asked a person the other day if he knew who Jesus Christ is, and he said yes; I was Jesus Christ and often when we pass the houses the children call after us, Jisu Ruisiti, thinking either that we are pleased when we hear the name or thinking the name belongs to us, most likely both . . .”

Cannibal customs: These were recorded by others in the mission with distraught horror, were to Hunt a matter of calmer consideration; he observed before stepping in to reform. After a battle, he “studied the sacrifice of a captured chief, who was given to the God, cut up and cooked about three or four yards from our fence; I saw the operation which was performed with a skill and dispatch that might be expected from well-instructed cannibals”. I saw a priest sitting in the door of the temple looking at the men who were employed in cooking, etc”.

Permission to go into the temple: On another occasion Hunt went into the bure kalou, the god’s house, to become better acquainted with the religion to which he was presenting an alternative. “We requested permission to go into the temple,” he wrote, “which was granted, and we took our seat near the High Priest and the old King. ‘

Preparations for war: Hunt’ s journal went on to describe the chief’ s prayers before a battle, the presentation of highly prized tabua, whales’ teeth, and coconuts. After the war ended he later laconically reported that the women danced to welcome the fighters home and that “the songs on these occasions are very lewd.” Hunt, Lyth and Thomas Williams, their successor, were on good terms with the priest of Somosomo’ s great war god, and visited his temple.

Death of children of missionaries: Disease affected the mission seriously during its first period. At Somosomo Hannah Hunt’s twelve-day-old baby and one of Mary Anne Lyth’s children died. Cargill’s wife Margaret bore a child who died at Rewa and herself succumbed afterwards to protracted dysentery and haemorrhage. She had been Cargill’s mainstay – one person in Fiji who loved him. Plunged in grief, he sought and gained leave to return to England with his small orphaned girls, against the will of Gross, who thought he should have stayed on. Gross offered to lodge the children in his house if Cargill decided not to go. The two British pioneers of Wesleyan Christianity in Fiji were not easily compatible’.

John Garrett, “To Live Among the Stars” (book reviewed in the Journal of Pacific History, Sept, 1998, by Roderic Lacey) . Geneva/Suva: World Council of Churches in Association with the Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific. 2-8254-0692-9

By the early nineteenth century Tongans were familiar infiltrators of Fiji. They traded in canoes and wooden bowls

Tongan migration and settlement on Wallis for purposes of family reunion, migration and trade were an aspect of a wider restless movement at of canoes from Tonga, along the sides of a triangle with its other two points in northern Tonga and eastern Fiji.

Long pattern of Tonga – Fiji engagement: From the sixteenth century onward Tongan trading and dynastic connections, formed in the Lau group of Fiji, had opened up a pathway for Tongan rovers through Lomaiviti, central Fiji, to the large and influential islands of Taveuni and Vanua Levu.

Tui Cakau, dominated the Cakaudrove “kingdom”:  Taveuni’ s highest chief, the Tui Cakau, who dominated the Cakaudrove “kingdom” reaching to Vanua Levu, had become traditionally allied with the Tui Nayau, whose ancestors derived their title from the island of Nayau but had come to dominate Lakeba, the main landing point for incoming Tongan canoes.

By the early nineteenth century Tongans were familiar infiltrators of Fiji. They traded in canoes and wooden bowls. Tongan names and titles had become joined, through intermarriage, with the family of the Tui Nayau. This Tongan connection aided the coming of Christianity from Tonga to Fiji.

John Garrett, “To Live Among the Stars”(book reviewed in the Journal of Pacific History, Sept, 1998, by Roderic Lacey) . Geneva/Suva: World Council of Churches in Association with the Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific. 2-8254-0692-9

October 1874: Chiefs sign Deed of Cession of Fiji to Great Britain

One original of the Deed of Cession was retained in Fiji, and until the late thirties of the present century was in the archives of the Colonial Government. Full text below.