Raiatea Fire-Walkers

From Our Own Correspondent.

Papeete, Aug. 20.

PASSENGERS on the cruise liner “Maunganui" were given an exhi bition of the ancient fire-walking cere mony at Raiatea early in August.

It is certain that all of them will be received into full fellowship in the Ananias Club when they relate their ex perience to friends and neighbors at home. Old residents of the Islands hold honorary life memberships in chapters of that ancient society located in their natal lands, if they have ventured to describe what they have seen and heard at fire-walking exhibitions.

The best description of this fire-cere mony we have seen is contained in a widely-read book written by a man who

never witnessed the ceremony. He re paired this omission, however, by lifting a chapter from that charming and au thoritative work: “Raiatea La Sacree”, by Paul Huguenin, Ancien Directeur des Ecoles des lies Sous le Vent, who resided in Raiatea at the period when that prince of sorcerers, Tupua, presided over the fire-walking clan.

The modern fire-walking exhibitions are tame affairs compared with the spec tacular celebrations staged by Tupua.

Nevertheless, they are astonishing enough, and continue to defy all attempts by the uninitiated to penetrate the mystery of how a raging furnace can be so tamed, that living beings can pass through it. unharmed.

H.M.S. “Leith", of the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy, paid a visit to Papeete, Tahiti, in early August.