On the Meaning of Kalou and the Origin of Fijian Temples. Author(s): A. M. Hocart Source: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 42 (Jul. - Dec., 1912), pp. 437-449 Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2843196 Accessed: 09-02-2016 18:59 UTC

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This content downloaded from 178.250.250.21 on Tue, 09 Feb 2016 18:59:56 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 437

ON THE MEANING OF KALOU AND THE ORIGIN OF FIJIAN TEMPLES.

BY A. M. HOCART.

To assertthat most of the Europeans who lived in heathen Fiji quite nmisconceived its religious beliefsmay seem presumptionin such as have only comneto know that countrytwenty-five years afterits finalChristianization. But we shall call in the wordkalou6 as witness to the truthof this charge,and to the misrepresentationsto whichFijian religion has been subject notwithstandingthat Fison had suggested its true nature and that Dr. Codringtonguessed the truthfrom very inadequate data. Hazlewood defines the word thus: " A god, also a falling star which the natives took for a god . . . Kalou is used to denote anythingsuperlative. whethergood or bad."' Williams writes: " The native word expressiveof divinity is kalou, which,while used to denote the people's highestnotion of a god,is also constantlyheard as a qualificativeof anythinggreat or marvellous. . . . Unless, as seems probable, the root-meaningoof the termis that of wonderand astonish- ment, etc."2 Mr. Basil Thomson repeats Hazlewood and Williams almost verbally, and seems quite satisfied with them.3 And yet the meaning is so obvious that one feels almost ashamed to fillpaper tryingto prove it, nor did it escape Fison'sgood sense when he was " inclinedto thinkall the spiritualbeings of Fiji, including the gods, simply the Mota tamate."14 The only correctionwe should make is to cut out the " inclinedto think" and removethe objectionable " gods,"which has caused all the trouble. The confusionis the less excusable as the true meaningof kalomis recoverable even to the present day from the language of childrenin the Lau or Eastern group,where Christianityhas now been supremefor some seventyyears; only we must firstbe aware of the equation tevoro= timoni= kalott. The secondof these wordsis, of course,our " demon"; it is used chieflyin the Eastern Islands; but tevoro has now becomienaturalized in the language all over the group,and is apt to pass itselfoff both on whitesand natives as of Fijian origin, much to the detrimentof anthropology. It will be of some serviceto expose the impostor,who is none other but our own word devil as pronouncedby the Tahitian

1 Fijian Dictionary,s.v., kalot. 2 Fiji and theFijians, vol. i, p. 216. 3 The Fijians, p. 111 f. 4 Codrington,The 3lelanesians,p. 122.

This content downloaded from 178.250.250.21 on Tue, 09 Feb 2016 18:59:56 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 438 A. M. HoCART.-On the Meaning of Kalou teachers who first brought Christianityto Fiji.' Now since tevoropossesses meaningsnever held by its English original,it must have usurped the functionsof some native term, and we should fixupon kalon as the dispossessednoun, even if all the men who reinemberedheathendom were extinct. But thereare stillenough living to save us fromthe uncertaintyof inference; Seremaia of Kalarnbu2says tevorocame in with Christianity,the old wordis kalou. Inia of Tamavua3holds the same opinion. Avetaia Kurundua,the ancientchief of Vuna on the Waimanu, is an authorityfull of weight,for not only has he foughton the heathenside against Mbau, but he has intelligenceand a clear style not at all commonamolng Fijians: he avers that kalou alone existedof old,and tevor-owas unknowln. I have been told by a white man that the people of Sengganggain Madhuata,the scene of the last heathenrevolt, still exclaim " kalon" on seeingan apparition,and a Madhuata boy confirmsthis. Nor has the word completelysurrendered yet to the intrudereven in Lau; for a boy who was kicked down by anotherdefiantly asked his antagonist " Are you a devouringkalom (kalon kana)"? whichanother explained as devouring tevoro(tevoro kana). Keni informsme that even in Vanua Mbalavu the old men still use kcalo fortevoro; and this is noticeablealso in Lakemba. Having established our equation, let us look into the meaning of tevoro. Alipate Vola, a young but intelligent Lakemban, distinguishesthree classes: (1) tevoorosimply; (2) yt ; (3) lnveniwai. The vt are the so-calledgods; theyare also termed tevorovit, arid not uncommonly(invariably by the old men) kalomytt, though the latteris getting to be obsoleteand does not seem to be always under- stood by the young. On the otherhand, the authorof an essay on the decline of native population,4rejects tevoroas implyingevil works and reinstates them as kalom,vtt. The tevoroproper are the souls of the dead (yalo ni mate)as everyonein Fiji knows or oughtto know,and as the followinginstances will sufficientlyprove: When the boys of the Provincial School of Lau were still new to the place, they stood in great dread of tevoro,because therewere no less than threeburial places in the grounds,and one quite close to the dormiitories,too; nor were these fears unshared by the adults. Quite recentlyan old man, born in heathendays, broughta Toriganvisitor to have a look at the school; on theirreturn home they both fell ill: " That hill is an evil spot,"he said to me, "it is inhabited (tawa); there are too many tevorothere, plenty of graves,everybody who goes therefalls ill; the last steward was in a serious condition and when treated with taitshi medicinerevealed that a 'thornychief ' (tiranga votovotoa)buried there had smitten him." The Lord of Nayau once sent wordto his nephewnot to go down to the village alone at nightas the chiefslay buried on the hill and mightdo him a hurt. One of the scholars being isolated in a small house came to see me with tears in his eyes, and asked leave to sleep in the dormitory,because a man had been

1 The Tongan is tevolo; the Samoan, accordingto Williams' Nl'arrativeof Missionary Enterprises,devolo. 2 Age about 50. 3 Naitasiritribe near Suva. 4 See HibbertJournal, October, 1912.

This content downloaded from 178.250.250.21 on Tue, 09 Feb 2016 18:59:56 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions and the Origin of Fijian Temtples. 439 buriedthat day withinthe grounds,andl he was thereforeafraid of tevoro. A death down in the village was enoughto frightenPoasa, whoannounced to a friendthat he would beard the rules and sleep two in a bed rather than lie alone when a tevoqro was abroad. Tarongigetting up at nightsaw a tevorogo fromthe assistant-mlaster's house to the graveyard: he knew it to be a tevorobecause his hair stood on end at the sight. Not long,ago he thoughthe had seen a tevoroin the riight and put it dowinto some human bones kept in the school. "I dare not cut firewood near the grave,"said Ilaitsha, " lest the tevorosmite me." Melaia Lutu, a learned old lady, once asked me: " Have you seen tevoroin Europe? the ghosts of the dead you know,"' and proceededto relate how a half- caste,recently lost at sea, came in the nightand sat oii Loata's chest,that she cried out and awoke. The taitshiis a commondisease in Lau; the name is merelyTahiti pronounced in Lauan fashion,and is due to its introductionby the Tahitian teachers. It is caused by a tevoro,who deprivesthe patientof consciousiness.In one of the two cases that came to my notice the patienlthad deliriumand pains in the stomach. Those present declared a tevorowas devouringhim (e kocaniaa tevoro); when the leech2 asked him the name of the tevoro,he said it was Koroiravotu,a man of Levuka in Lakemba, who died beforethe patient'stime. The causes of tatitshiare souls of the dead (yalo ni mate) anidalso tevorovut. I cannot omit here a veryinstructive case: one Sunday as I passed by a graveyardin companywith an intelligentboy, a woman was weepingby a newly made grave; the boy was shocked: it looked heathenish,3it mightdo on a week day, but on a Sunday' . . . It would not be so bad if she had companywith her,drinking kava. In vain I argued that sorrowingover the dead was legitimate; he retortedthat she mightmourn at home,and was not to be convincedbut it was heathenish. The temptationto nmoralizeupon this is too stroi)gto be resisted; how dangerousit is for anyoneto pull down native beliefsto make roomfor new ones, unless he thoroughlyunderstands that with whichhe is doingaway, lest the good be destroyedwith the bad. The early missionaries,with theirheads full of Kings and Chronicles and Greek mythology,saw nothingin Fijian religionbut what theyhad been accustomedto expect; theymistook kalou forgod, stripped the imagined deities of this supposed honourable title, and brandedthem as devils, unwittingthat theywere attachinginfamy to departed souls, makingmourning at tombs a heathenish and evil practice,and forbiddingvisible supportsof pious remembranceto a people who thinklittle of what theydo not see and whomthey already accused of a want of natuiralaffection. To returnto our business,I have heard a wraith (yalo mbula= livingspirit) spoken of as a tevoro,though contrastedwith true tevoro(tevoro ndina). An

1 " . . a tevorornai Pcapalangi,a lyaloni mateya." Ya has the forceof you know, of course. 2 I proposeto use the wordtechnically. 3 Vakatevoro:the word used to translateour "heathen"; it means literally"possessing devils" or devil-like.

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intelligentboy whomI consultedon the correctnessof it was quite positive at first that a wraith is a tevoro,then added the qualificationthat it " was so reckonedin part onrly."I I can cap this, however,for I have heard the wordapplied to the living: the tribe of Ndereivalu on the Udhiwai2 used to hold a ceremonyof remiiovingthe ashes fromthe fireplace,the lukkundravu, as it is called among them,ta ndravn among the coast people; theywould make anioffering of taroto " the old, weak,and white-hairedcmen who are tevoro,are nearlydead."3 A similarusage was foundby Dr. Riversand myselfin Mandegusu,Soloinon Islands4; a very old man was asked to be propitious(mcana) to the fishingbecause he was "all same tomnate,"tomcate meaning,the dead. Williams foundedhis definitionof kalou on its use to express admiration,but tevorois now used in preciselythe same way,an additional proof that it has taken the place of kalou, since tevorowas intendedto defame the " gods" and not as a complimenit.A native composeronce excused himselffrom teaching my school boys music with the flatterythat he was afraid of the " whitetevoro," who knew more than he did, and would pick holes in his performance. In the same way our SolomonIslanders would comparewhites to tomatefor cleverness. To the threeclasses of tevor-othere used to correspondthree classes of kalon: (1) kalontyalo or ghost; (2) kalonyvn; (3) kalounrere. It was not so verylong ago that the word ceased to designate ghosts in the interiorof Viti Levu, as the followingstory will show : A child died in Serea in the morning; Medhawatuwent offto plant,expecting it would be buriedbefore he returnedin the evening. While he was away the youngmen tied a stringto his mosquitonet. On his returnhe foundthe child unburiedand the people wailing; vexed and grumblinghe went into his house; as he squatted down to stir the fire he noticedthat his mosquitonet was moving: " A kalou " he exclaimed,and taking an axe dealt it a great blow,ruining mats and net. He was much annoyedon discoveringthere was no kalou afterall. It is doubtfulhow far even now the word tevorois reserved forwhites, and kalon still reignsin theirprivate talk. Accordingto Malani (in Genealogy,p. 444) if a ghost(yalo ntimate) appeared theywould say: " So and so has come as a kalou."5 "Apparitionswere formerlycalled kaloin,"says Seremaia of Kalambu; if a man was buried theycalled him theirkaloun, and vanua kalou,(place of kaloun)was synonymousfor grave. In Sawani, the chief village of Vuna, the kaloinyvn, Tuleka,

1 E wilivaka tikinanga. 2 In the maps called Wainimala,but I have been assured that the Wainimala is from Unda upwards,in Nakorosulethe propername is Na Udhiwai; the peopleof Naindereivaludid not seemcertain about theirbit. 3 Na nggasemaluralumu sikosikoa sa tevorotu sa volekani mate. 4 Also called Eddystone; the Narovoof the chartsand Simbo of the residents. 5 "SSa lako vakalou mai ko Ka." In his young days bothtevoro and kaloutwere used for ghostsof the dead.

This content downloaded from 178.250.250.21 on Tue, 09 Feb 2016 18:59:56 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions aqzd the Origin of Fijitn Temples. 441 was only a slayerof souls and had no practical importance: they had recourse chieflyto kalomyalo, or souls of the dead, especiallyin war. When they saw a shootingstar theywould exclaim: " 0 ! a dhavmna kalou." (0 ! thekalou is rushing past.) Avetaia Kurundua thoughtthese kalou were the souls ofmrnenor kalou vu that live in the bush,he could not quite tell which. It was a universal custom to invoke the ghosts of fathers and remoter alicestors. The Lord of Tumbou in Lakembal says: " Houses were somnetimesbuilt on graves as peace-offerings(isoro) on behalfof a sick child; fora fatherat his death became the kalou of his son. Feasts and many othersacrifices were made to the souls of nen; in offeringthem up they mentionedthe father'sname in the prayer." Saimone Ngonedha,of Nakorosule,states: " If my fatherdied he was my kalon and Malouof the whole clan also." When Seeman2visited Namosi a number of Seruans were slain and eaten: " One leg was said to have been depositedat the grove(? grave) of Viriulu,the deceased king and fatherof Kurunduandua." This cult of the dead goes on at the presentday in secret; examplesof witch- craftare veryhard to obtain,but I knowof one whichoriginally came fromKandavu. The details are irrelevanthere, sufficeit to mention that the present holderin buryingthe fatal leaves invokeshis kalontto kill so and so; now this kalou is none otherthan Panipasa, the informant'sgreat-grandfather, and it is the rule of this charm that a man calls upon his great-granidfather:"By him is the charin effective."3 I shall translate Saimone Ngonedha's account4 how the soul of the dead is secured:"Now the son ofthe deceasedl nobleman (turanga) went to bringtheir ancient club or spear to stick it on the grave over the dead man's head. . . . As forthat club which stood over the dead man's head on the grave, four nights after the death three or four sons (luvena) or brothers(tadhina) of the nmanpainted them- selves; they decked themselvesout verybravely as if apparelled for war; they bore theirweapons, then theywent to the grave to pull out the club to carryit to the shrine (mbure); they might not meet on the way with any man till they reachedthe house (mbure)that was its shrine. The name of the club was the soul of the dead (yalo ni mate). It [the yalo ni mate]was foundin the variousfamilies of the noble or commonclans5 in theseveral families in theirseveral shrines (mbure). . The niameof that shrinewas the mbureIcalouz, it was ministeredto (nggaravi) as the spiritof war (kalontni ivalm) or spiritof sickness(i.e., that heals sickness), or spiritof plantations or fishing,or animals,(i.e., hunting). It was the comple- ment (ikuri) of the ancestralspirit (kalou vu) or great spirit(1oalou levu)." I have

I Really a Matuku man; he has seen heathendays. 2 Missionto Viti,Macmillan & Co., 1862,p. 174. 3 Koi koyaka y,angakina na wai. 4 He was workingin Taveuni for musketswhen the annexationtook place; he has an astoundingmemory, is an inexhaustibletalker, and an unusually good narrator for a Fijiaii. 5 Fijian clans (matanggali)are not,as a rule,exogamous at the presentday.

This content downloaded from 178.250.250.21 on Tue, 09 Feb 2016 18:59:56 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 442 A. M. HOCART.- On the Meaning of Kalo2& found the same customamong the tribes of Nandereivalu,Emalu,l and Nambom- budho; the informantsmentioned no cult of the club, but all agreed in calling it "yalo," and keeping it in the house; the Noiemalu carry the club to war. In Nanggelewaithey also mentioneda customof stickinga club on the grave withthe words: "This is thy club; let us kill a man in war." This appears to be a distinct rite,for the club was left to rot. The ancientkalou have been cast out by Church and State, but into manya house thus sweptclean theyhave returnedin forceand thinlydisguised as luveniwai sauturanga,and such like, so that the last state is oftenworse than the first. It is interesting,therefore, to know that theirvotaries conmmonlybring clubs and staves to the medium(vnminduvu) to be anointed with kava and become the house or shrine (qnbure)of their"friend," as the guardian spirit is called. I possess such a staff,the abode of " Lindinayaseyase,"but the mediumhad one inhabitedby no less than fivehundred. Along the lower Rewa there used to exist a class of ghostsknown as kalom turanga,or noble kaloy. In Tamavua they were ministeredto by the "Noble Family" (yavusa turaniga),a branchpresumably bastard or cadet of the chiefly family. " These ghostshad no names,so numerouswere they; they are the chiefs that are kcalot. . They say theyare the ghostsof the chiefsthat die and go to stay in Nadhau. . In the prayerto the kcalouturanga they enumerated all the graves of chiefs." The Ravu Sambe were dangerousghosts (kalou) that smotemen: " They are the ghosts of irascible chiefs; . . . it was their character formerly(i.e., in their lifetime),chiefs that used to kill men for eatinga big fishor stealinga woman." Avetaia Kurundua's grandfatherwas a " kalo"; his gghostused to entera jar (sangga) on the kawrua,2and announce his coming by a rattling(tanggiringgiri) inside. The soulsof common people (tacmata kaisi) werealso ministeredto (nggaravi) but theyhad their several little shrines; therewere the souls of the headmenof the clan (turangani matanggali): if a man died he became a kalou.3 The souls of chiefs(yalo ni tmranga)entered the parrot(kula). The tribeof Lomaivuna,which centres roundViria, was once part of the same tribe as Vuna; theyalso have a kalou vu called Tainaki, and kalottturanga, which are the souls of chiefs,both have the hawk as the vessel (wangga) intowhich they enter. A littlefurther up the Rewa in Natavea they only made offerings(soro) to the souls of the dead, and made themin the kalou shrine(mbure kalou); these souls of the dead were describedas " owningkalom " (kalombitaukcei),4 the chiefs that died of

1 Alwayscalled Noiemalu(Mr. Ad. Joske wronglyspells Nuyamalu); but noi,as Fison pointedout, means dwellers in, and therefore,to be consistent,we musteither speak of the Kai Nandereivaluand the Noiemalu,or else of the menof Nandereivalu and Emalu. 2 The two paralleltie beamsat the end of a house. 3 IKevcakasa mate, sa kalou nga: sa hasa positiveforce, as myauthority on grammar puts it,"there is no disputingit (veimba),it is heavy(mnbimbi), whereas e wouldbe light(macmanda)." Ga indicates,according to the same authority,that he is kalou fromhis death onward,without nga it would mean merelythat be is kalou at the timeof his death. 4 Itaukei,owner, is the titleof chiefsabout theseparts.

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old to whom offeringswere made; they made no offeringsto the souls of commonpeople.' One informantwent so faras to say: " If a man worshipsa stone, a ghostof the dead is there; theyhad no other kalou. Our birdwas the parrot (kula), that ghost(kcalou yalo) entered the parrotto go with themto battle. The souls of commonmen did not enter animals." A second visit to the same tribe failedto obtain a repetitionof this mostimportant statement, no wondersince in Fiji it is only one in a thousand that can thinkclearly, and the rightman was not there; but the existence of kalou yalo was confirmed,though the ratherdull teachercould not offer any explanationof the term; he thought,however, that Roko Semba, their"god," must have been a mnan.2 We should expect that goingstill furtherinland these souls of the dead would overspreadthe wholereligious system allowing the kcalou vu merelyto peep through; but strangelyenough from the junction of the Udhiwai and the Wainimbukaupwards these latter are masteragain, witb this difference,however, that they stand at the head of the pedigrees,and do not go furtherback than eightor nine generations, whereas no east coast pedigree (excepting Moala) ever seems to get back to the kalou yvu; moreover,private deities certainlyflourished under the shadow of the yin, whereas,on the coast,they seem to have declined,just as the commonpeople have gone down withthe rise of the chiefs. The kalou yv are sharplydistinguished from kalou yalo in mostplaces; it is doubtfulhow far this is due to the influenceof missionaryteaching; it is hard to findanoldman who can expoundthe days ofhis youth,and themiddle-aged mzen, our mainhope, though accurate in facts,have been influenced theoretically by the doctrine that the " gods" are fallenangels anteriorto the creation,and if the new heathen- dom denies that theyare devils,it has takeniup with enthusiasmthe theorythat they are primaeval.3 Even men who have known heathendomgive a cautious adhesionrto the new doctrine,while takingcare not to accept the responsibilityfor it or for the ancient beliefs; thus Inia, forsakingthe truth,thinks the old men erroneouslytook the kalou turanga fordeparted spirits,possibly they were kalom yvn; Avetaia Kurundua says theyhave now been taughtthat the kalou vu existed from the beginning,and are really fallenangels. It is certain,however, that the distinctionmust have emerged in pre-Christiantimes; the only questionis how far it was so in the variousdistricts. The ultimateidentity of kalottvut and kalou yalo can hardlyhave been unknownto the men of Vuna and Viria; and it is uncertainhow farAvetaia does not perceiveit even now. Inia knows of the identificationof kWalotvu with departedspirits, for he says "But kalou vu also we falselyrepresent as souls" (Ia na kalou vu tale nga enda

1 Fijian is entirelyrelative; the contextrefers to public ceremonies,and this statement probablyrefers only to publicrites. 2 The prayergiven in Hazlewood'sGrammar, p. 63, calls upon the kalou mata ni vanua: by analogythese mustbe the souls of heralds; notealso thatRoko Tui Viwa (Noble Lord of Viwa) is also mentioned. 3 This does not seem due merelyto the fact that they have been Christianlonger and thereforeremember less about secondarycults. VOL. XLII. 2 H

This content downloaded from 178.250.250.21 on Tue, 09 Feb 2016 18:59:56 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 444 A. M. HOCART.-Onl the Meanitg of Kalou lasutaka mte yalo). In spite of the enda (we inclusive) it must be an old theory, since Inia does not believe it himself. As a rule the inland tribes have an ancestor who was a kalo?J,but whose children were men; at least, this is the present doctrine. These kalou do not enteranimals, and bear no trace of an animal origin,though always connectedwith one, and are transparentlyhuman chiefs. Among the Waimaro tribe the ancestor is Nggamau and his sons are the ancestorsof the variousclans, with theirvarious temples; they were invoked publicly (e tumwba),whereas the inferior7calou, to wit, the ghosts of fathers and grandfathers,were ministeredto in private (e vale). The grandsonsof Nggamau were men. So also the Nambombudhotribe have a kalou to ancestor,whose son was born a man (sudhu vakatainata). The expressionkalou vU is in itself conclusive enough,for vu is the base or trunk of a tree, metaphoricallythe root, the origin; in Naitasiri and Vuna it is used of the great-grandfather.'The Lauan tupua is obviouslyTongan,2 and the etymologyso obvious that a boy of sixteen could derive it fromtubu, to grow (Fijian tunmnu),and explain it as "the stock of generations" (a itwmbuturmbuni kawa). The Fijian tmrb?,6 is in many parts of Fiji the term for the paternal grandfather. Abortionsor miscarriages3in noble familiesare a commonspecies of "great kaloun" (kcalou levtm); though they may be distinguished from the kalou vn (and naturally,since they are not ancestors),yet their positionand cult are identical. The present dynastyin Lakemba is called the Vuanirewa; it is an offshootof the Katumbalevu clan, and has, therefore,the same kalou vat,Tokairambe,4 but it has added theretothe still-bornchild (lttu ndra) of Niumataiwalu,the founderof the dynasty,and his wifeTarau. I give an extractof genealogyto show the eldest livinggenerations:

NIUMATAIWALU TF Tarau.

Still-born. RASOLO T LaufituT c. 1800.

MALANI T Dhiri. TALIAI TuPou T

VUETAASAU T Monggei. KILAI. Tangidhi. TUIMEREKE.

MALANI.

1 Cp. iu giz in Torres iStraitsCambridge Expedition, vol. vi, p. 93. 2 Tala tupucain Tonganis a tale of ancientdays; it is also used in Lau. 3Williams, op. cit.,p. 216: " Monstersand abortionsare oftenranked here." 4 Wronglyrepresented by Williamsas a deityacknowledged all overFiji. He it was, and not Tui Lakemba,who enteredthe hawk,Fiji and theFijians, p. 216; Frazer, Totemismand Exogamy,vol. ii, p. 135; Tui Lakemba has no animal. This is but one,and not themost seriouis of Williams'inaccuracies.

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Malani, the son of Rasolo, also received a cult; he it is to whom Calvert refersas " a late brotherof the King (Taliai Tupou) who was now deified."' The tribe of Namata's great kalou was " He of Ndelainumnbu" (Ko Mai Ndelainumbu); but an abortioncalled "He of Nanduruvesi" was later adopted by the sub-tribeof Namata as their kalou," He of Ndelainumbu" being thenceforth restrictedto the Naimbili sub-tribeonly. Ratumaimbuluof Mbau and Ovea is a snake,and mightbe adduced to prove that the kalo.6is a totem; but the name is too transparent:it mneans" The Lord in the Tomb,"or " in ghostland." The East coastpeople, it is true,will oftentell you that theirtevoro is a hawk,or a shark,or someother animal, but it will not be long before they will let you know that this animal is the " body" (tolo) or " vessel" (wangqa) ofa ghost; the highlandtribes, on the otherhand, do not appear to believe in metempsychosis,and I never remember them to have spoken of theirtotem simply as tevor'oor kalou, though they might call him mnanumanuvuw (ancestor animal). I believe I have also heard manurntanutevoro (tevoro animal); but the proper name is idhavu ni yadita in the east, and vutiyadha in the west: both mean " the utteranceof the name." Kalou vu are generallynot known by their real naines,very often they are called vasu to such and such a place; it is hard to see how theycould be vasmunless they had once been men. Among the Kai Vuna, when the ghostof the dead entered the jar, the people said: " Ah, that is the ghostof the vasu to Naitasiri,or vasu to Loinaivuna." The latterwas the title of Avetaia's grandfather. Crossing the dividingrange between the iRewaand Singatokarivers, we find ourselvesin the midstof another language and morerudimentary customs. The word therefor kalont is nitu,2 and as it has not been promotedto the status of god,there is no vacancy for tevoroto fill; the wordis, therefore,still currentin the dialect (except in Vatulele), though the word tevorois substitutedin speakingto whites. Now Seremaia3of Neilanga4 definesit thus: a ghost(yalo) that walks in the dark -and howls, my fatheror . . . ") He supposesthat in Mbau, tevorohas been applied to Satan: "Mbau misappropriated(kauta taii) the word kalou to mean God"; he asserts that Tonitonisau,the great nitu of the Tio clan, is their first ,chief,from whom the present chiefs are descended, and adds: "of old we worshippedghosts of the dead only; we now know the true God." The tribe of Mbukuya,the originalinhabitants of the leftbank of Mba River, ,dreadeven now a nitn called " vasu ki Mbukuya." Its birth was on this wise: a woman of Mbukuya was married to a man of Mba, but she committedadultery with a man of the clan of Oso in the tribe of Tambanivono,and by him became pregnant; it proved a miscarriage. Once a man of Teindamuwas inspired and

1 Secondpart of Fiji and theFijians, MissionHistory, p. 112. 2 When not immediatelypreceded by the articleyanity. 3 He has killed his man and puts down his bad teeth to cannibalism. 4 Nailanga is the officialspelling but that is Eastern Fijian. 0 Yalo ka ndatutlako e na mbtbtombutoka kaila, na tanzangguse . . 2 H 2

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said: "I am yourvasu; my motheris so and so; I go to dwell in Mba; if thereis a war I shall come and foreshowit to you." Viseisei on the coast southof Lautoka also worshipsan abortion. There is besides a countlesshost of beingswho are said to be neitherghosts of the dead nor ancestors; they are known as kalou rerein the east; the west calls them nlmtvcat(stone heads), and groups them togetherwith Tuwawa, Ndrim', Mandingi, and others,as distinct from the nitu&proper. But the cult is not materiallydifferent from that of ordinaryghosts; among the people of Waimaro it is mixed up withthe ordinarycult, for the song or incantationof the rerementions kalotmvqu that appear in the genealogies,and we might remain ignorantof its connectionwith the rerebut forthe refrain:- rerevondo mai. rereembark. In the Highlands and the west they are spiritsof war,and that is precisely the chieffunction of the kalou yalo ofVuna, Lomaivuna,and Natavea. Luveniwaiis the modern name; there are several varieties; the one called Sauturanga is dedicated to Nadhirikaumoli and Nakausambari, who shot Ndengei's pigeon'; Ndakuwangga,the great sharkof Taveuni,receives the devotionsof others. It is, therefore,a reasonable hypothesisthat the kalon rere was a cult of the dead, somewherein the Highlands, which so struck the imaginationthat it spread all over, and of course no tribe but the inventorwould know who the spiritsreally were. On passing down to the coast it became mere play. I must, however, mentiona theorywhich I have heard fromno one besides Saimone Ngonedha: it is that each man has a luveniwai, which is the spirit of the blood of his mother,and is merely brought into closer relation with his human brotherby the mysteries. This is probablya new and individualtheory, but it is interestingas showing that some men still find the need of assigninga bodyto unattachedspirits. The application of kalou to men and wonderfulobjects is quite simple,and does not require Williams' hypothesisat all; the ghostsof the dead are mana and work miracles; anything,therefore, that seems miraculousis kalou, not always metaphorically;there is no doubt that when musketswere dubbed "kalou bows" (ndakai kalou) the nativesreally thoughtthey were made by spiritsor were spirits themselves. A formernative officerin the police told me that in the government's little war against the Highlanders,the breech-loadingguns were firstgiven out to the police; the enemyseeing theirdeadly effects cried out: " yaniiti,yanitnt." The white man was probably firsttaken fora ghostfrom ghost land,2 and later,when his humanitywas proved,his wondersseemed wroughtby spiritualagency. At the presentday nativesare firmlyconvinced that the circus (in whichall conjuringand

I Cp. Basil Thomson,The Fijians, pp. 138 etseq. 2 Accordingto SaimoneNgonedha the Highlandersused to kinowTaveuni and Lau onlyas ghostlands (vanua ni yalo).

This content downloaded from 178.250.250.21 on Tue, 09 Feb 2016 18:59:56 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions and the Origin of Fijian Temples. 447 illusions are included) is a kind of luveniwai,and cannotunderstand why the cult is tabooed to them and allowed to the whites. A boy once inclined to think photographymight perhaps go by spiritual agency(vakatevoro). Dr. Codrington' is unnecessarilysubtle, besides being grammaticallywrong, in tryingto explain how Tui Kilakila could say: "I am a god." The Fijian would be koyantna kalon, which,notwithstanding the absence of all verb,is definitepresent, and cannotrefer to some futuretime. Tui Kilakila called himselfa kalou, because,like all chiefs,he had mana, and was in so far a kalou; forit is an accepted doctrinein Fiji that the words of a chief have mana (e mana na vosa ni turantqa)2; I hope to show in some futurediscussion how this mana may have becomeattached to them. If any doubt survives as to the meaning of kalou, a studyof temples and graves should finishit. The resemblancebetween a modernFijian grave and the foundationof a house is hard to overlook. In Lau they both consist of long mounds,prevented from crumbling away by a borderof roundedstones piled up or of slabs planted in the ground; chiefs'graves, like chiefs'houses, are higher. In the Highlands stumpsof tree-fernare oftenused in both house and grave. What is the use of hypothesis,however, when facts are at hand? Rudimentarysheds of corrugatediron withoutwalls are still set up, " out of love to the dead," over their resting-place. In Lau and Kandavu it was the customin heathentimes to erect a small " movable house " (vale siki), consistingof a roof erected on a rectangle of fourbeams, so that the whole could be lifted up in orderto weed the mound,and weedingwas sometimesan act of propitiation. Erskine writes3: " Mr. Knapp saw in the village (Levuka, Ovalau) the grave of a child . . . which he described as a diminutivehouse about 2 feet long,and of correspondingheight, with doors and windowscomplete, formed of colourednative cloth, and restingon a foundation of white native cloth." In Williams' Fi'ji and theFijitans we find: " Over some of the gravesa small roof is built,3 or 6 feet high,the gables of which are filledin with sinnet,wrought into different-sizedsquares, arranged diagonally.,4 Also: "In certain parts of Viti Levu the same reason is assignedfor buryingtheir dead in the temples." A Lakemban nobleman,Roko Kilai, was buried on the top of the foundationsof Tui Lakemba's temple. Mrs. Gordon Cummings5in Somosomo "c ame to an old graveyard,and noticed that the fence round it also enclosed a large native house. Here it was that the father of the present Tui Thakau was murderedand his wifestrangled at the funeral. They were buried in the house, whichwas then abandoned and renderedtambn to all Fijians." How much better had it been if Williams had given concreteinstances instead of generalstatements whenhe says: " The spot on whicha chiefhas been killedis sometiiuesselected as the site of a mbure,"what we shouldlike to know is, who was the kalon worshippedin that mbure. It is not proposed to derive the temple from the grave, but both from a

ielanesians, p. 122. 2 Cf.Man, X, 56. 3 TheIslands of the WVesternPacific, 1853, p. 216. 4 pp. 191, 193. 6 At Homein Fiji, vol. ii, p. 44.

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commonoriginal, to wit,the dwelling-house,or more especiallythe "hall " (mbure). A good instanceis to be foundin -alvert's historyof the mission: "He found her (Tangidhi) removedto the house of a late brother(Malani) of the King, who was now deifiedand said to be specially present in his old house."' The men of Mbukuya regularlyburied people in houses. The tribe of Yalatini, to the east of Mba, also buriedin houses; if theyselected for the purpose the foundationsof an abandonedhouse theybuilt up the whole again to " cover over so and so that the rain and sun might not reach him,"and the new house was used as a dwelling. This seems decisive enough,and we can confidentlyaffirm that in Eastern Fiji graves are degeneratehouses of commonpeople, and temples the exalted halls of chiefs. Modern housesin certainparts of the Highlands stronglysuggest by their veryhigh roofsthe picturesof old Fijian temples,and it is thereforepossible that the mbmurekalou has retained the original architectureof the ancient home of the people. We can now understandwhy the mbltre(temple) " though built expresslyfor the purposesof religion . . . was less devotedto them than any others." The truth is that it was not built expressly"for the purposes of religion,"and that Williams was merely giving his inferenceas fact, and a most paradoxical inference,too.2 Burial in houses was not practisedin Naitasiri,as faras my informationgoes, and templesmust thereforehave been introduced. But offerinosdo not necessarily requirea temple; thus,the clan of Nawavatu in Kalambu, Naitasiri,used to visit with presentsthe stone of Tui Nanggumu in Nanggumu; therewas also a temple called after that place, which corroboratesour inference. The Naitasiri graves were regularlycleaned; in Lau it was the custom beforea tingga matchto clear certainplaces in the bush knownas vanua tevoro(now; formerlyof course,as vanua kalou) in orderto obtainsuccess in that game. Kalon, in short,means nothingmore or less than " the dead"; it stands fora conceptwhich runs unchangedthrough the whole of Melanesia, though manyand various are the verbal foris it assumes: tomnattein PRoviana,nggohele in Nduke (Kulambangara), zhiolo in Vella Lavella, tindalo in Florida,3arernha in Tanna,4 and countlessothers. The multitudeof wordsfor one idea requiressome technical term: I suggestmanes. The thesis maintained in this paper may seem over obvious; only lately Mr. Basil Thomson has treated Fijian religion as ancestorworship5; but, with

1 Loc. cit. 2 Op. cit.,p. 222. 3 Codrington,op. cit.,p. 124. 4 Turner,Nineteen Years in Polynesia,p. 88. 5 The Fijians, p. 112, I canniotrefrain from expressingmy astonishmentat findilnga repetitionof Williams'impossible statement that " Ndengeiis the joint symbolof creationand eternity" (cp. Fiji and theFijians, p. 217); it wouldbe impossibleto translatethis intoFijian so as to be intelligibleto a native,to say nothingof its being conceivedby them; a peoplewho have a wordfor a point of time(gauna), but none for periodor timein the abstractand have been obligedto adopt our word(taime), are not likely to rise to such loftysymbolism, which is somewhatbeyond me. Williams' statementthat the kaloutvux " are supposedto be absolutely

This content downloaded from 178.250.250.21 on Tue, 09 Feb 2016 18:59:56 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions and the Origin of Fijian Terrples. 449 the exceptionsmentioned at the outset,none seem to have got hold of the plain directtruth. Fijian-xeligionhas been laid hold of at the wrong end, and it has required" cycle on epicycle,orb in orb " to fit the supposed meaning of kalou to the facts: deification,kalon vu importedfrom Polynesia, prostitutionof sacred buildingsto secular purposes,delight in the worshipof monstersand so forth. But no better excuse could be pleaded than that distinguishedanthropologists have been misled by present confusedusage; the facts above adduced make it hard to maintainwith Frazer that tevoroare deities " which,though no longerconceived as animals,can yet assume at pleasure the shapes of those animnalswith which they were formerlyidentical."' I have never yet come across a coastal Fijian who identifiedthe deitywith the animal or spoke of it as turninginto an animal; the expressionis always that the kalou is " embodied" (vakatolo) or " envesseled" (vakawangga) in it or entersit (dhnrun?a)2;both these terms are applied also to the " priest" who is possessedby a spirit; in fact,when I have asked " what is the 'body' or ' vessel' of so and so "? I have generallybeen told the name of the priest. As for the Highlands, that is another question; it seems extremely doubtfulwhether Dr. Frazer's descriptionwill fit them: I do not see how it is possible; but the whole question of theirtotemism is veryinvolved and calls for furtherinvestigation. Nor will this paper be entirelywasted if it can conveya hint,which I have so far missed in literature on Fiji, of the diversitywhich exists, not merely in individual names, but even in the very type of religious beliefs prevailingin variousregions.

eternal,"is equally valueless; not onlyis the idea un-Fijian,but we could quote manya famous vn who was born: Ndaunisai,Tokairambe, Nggamau, Kumnbua vanua, etc. EvidentlyAvetaia did not learnthis doctrineof immortalityfrom his fathers. 1 Totemismand Exogamy, vol. ii, p. 140. 2 Somewherealong the Rewa (I cannot find the passage in my notes), I was told that sharksdid not bite unlessa tevoroentered them.

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