The Mystery Of

Fire-Walking

Prom Our Own Correspondent PAPEETE, April 2. mHOSE who seek to penetrate the J. secret of the fire-walking cere mony practised at Ra’iatea, have tried to find some clue in the invoca tion spoken or chanted before the celebrants enter the fire-pit.

This invocation —full of archaic terms —has been translated into English by Mr. J. Frank Stimson, of the Bishop Museum.

In sending a copy to the writer Mr.

Stimson commented: “The original text, I believe, is as accurate as is possible to get it nowadays. It was written down by Mr. Young, nearly 50 years ago, and was checked over afterwards. Person ally, I am inclined to think that there is strong internal evidence that the ceremony is one of fire-worship. If so, it must be of great antiquity, as the use of many words now obsolete would go to prove.”

The chant begins by an invocation to “Te Nu’u Atua” (“The Conclave of the Gods”) imploring them to “Awake!

Arise! Your feet shall take you to the firepit. The rain-waters and the salt waters shall go also. The daemon of

darkness and the spirit of light, the flaring of the fire, the shadows of the fire, shall go together.”

A later stanza: “O powers of dark ness! O powers of light! Waters of the land! Waves of the deep! Bright, blaz ing of the firepit! Wavering shadows of the firepit! Bear up the footsteps of the people advancing.”

And, finally: “O great goddess Flame Consumer of the Heavens! All is cov ered!”

This “Flame Consumer of the Heav ens” was, undoubtedly, the goddess of volcanoes, Pere (Hawaiian, Pele) “who, and her train of sister goddesses, were of Tahitian origin, as is shown in the genealogy of the gods, in archaic Hawa iian names, and in Tuamotuan folk lore.” (Henry).

The volcanoes of the Society Islands have been inactive for a thousand years or more; but Pere and fire worship were

probably brought by early Polynesians from their ancient East India homeland, where volcanic mountains flame and smoke perpetually.

Naturally, in Polynesia, she estab lished herself on Havai’i-a (Burning Havai’i —in the Hawaiian Islands) “whose volcano, formerly, was always brightly burning.”

Research in mythology, exploration into archaic lore, and critical examina tion of the chants and invocations available have, so far, brought no enlightenment as to the secret of fire walking.

Even scientists have come, beheld, and gone away baffled.

MANOA SERU, a Fijian, who was well known in Suva as messenger for the Bank of New Zealand, died in April after a three months’ illness.

MR. and MRS. H. H. VASKESS re turned to Suva, Fiji, at the end of April, after furlough spent in Sydney. Mr.

Vaskess is secretary of the High Com mission for the Western Pacific.