Fiji Chapter: Part III

The second day where I discover that 1.5h really means 30mn :) 

The day finished in another nice Resort: Upraising where I deposited my backpack and took off with another traveller to the Village next to the resort.

Waidradra Village, a typical Fijian village. 

Quiet and kids playing all over to shorten their day. 

Found a group of kids playing volleyball. Boy the Fijian love their volleyball and Rugby! We stopped to play with them, it was fun, some spoke english some not but we had great time. 

The game ended with an invitation from the parents and a welcoming to their house with a Kava Ceremony, very friendly one but nice.

The Kava (or yaqona) Ceremony goes like this:

_  Everyone must sit down and remain seated during the ceremony.

-       The Chief of the tribe (or the house for my experience) strain the bare root of a pepper tree, pounded into a fine powder, through a cloth to keep out the grit, then mix it with fresh water in a large hardwood bowl, called a Tanoa.

-       The kava then served in a halved coconut shell, men drink first and then the women.

- Clap once with a cupped hand making a hollow sound

- Yell: Bula!

- Drink in one gulp

- Clap three times

- Say: Mathe

It tests like muddy water, literally, with a bit of bitterness. 

But the gathering, watching the process of making the Kava, the ambiance is unique, of course without knowing how the ceremony could’ve been developed to in the older days.

As my second host in Fiji explained to me later that in the old days Kava Ceremony was also a sort of welcoming visitors in the Cannibal tribes, and at the end of the ceremony of the chief or the tribe eat them. I was thankful that I wasn’t an adventurous traveller in the 19sJ

I found out later that Fijians adopted  cannibalism from their long voyage at sea.  The lack of adequate nutrition forced these sailors to consume the dead in order to survive. During wartime, the skull of the defeated chief was used as a kava bowl offered to the relatives of the defeated.

The ambushed of English missionary Reverend Thomas Baker was the last cannibal act known in Fiji (1834-1907).

Today, there is no more cannibals in Fiji and it’s even used as a joke, a Fijian joke of the national rugby team that visited Scotland back in the 1980’s.  During the half time break, a Scotsman asked a Fijian player how they would treat the loosing team playing against Fiji.   In reply he said, “We eat them.”