From Cannibal

to Commando

By Robert Dean Frisbie

rpHE Fijian Commandos, now fighting X in the South-west Pacific, have won a reputation for bravery, discipline, and contempt of death. Their amazing achievements in Guadalcanal, Bougain ville, and elsewhere have become history.

The Fijian Commandos are Christians; but one hundred years ago their ances , tors were ruthless cannibals. Bearing in mind that racial traits are inherited, often in a disguised form, through many generations, the question is postulated: Is the Fijian Commando’s defiance of danger and death, his superb discipline, his nride in his unit, and his zest for sol diering a residue of his ancient heathen customs? I believe the reply is affirma tive.

The concept of physical death aroused little if any fear in the ancient Fijian.

More often than not he embraced the opportunity to die in the prime of life and viewed with chagrin the prospect of longevity; and this was because he believed he would enter his Hereafter in the same nhvsical state he was experienc ing immediately before his death.

In the early 19th century, a Fijian often demanded death by the hand of his near relative; and the relative com mitted murder, in taking the man’s life, only in the same degree that a civilised man would commit murder in hastening the death of his suffering and incurable friend. In the latter case the civilised man is saving his friend further pain; in the former case the relative is assuring the Fijian eternal happiness, as a man in his prime, in the Hereafter. fTIHERE is a reliable account by John X Jackson, published in the appendix of the “Journal” of Captain J. E.

Erskine, RN. of a Fijian chief who, hav ing decided to die, watched the strangu lation of his wives and their burial, listened to his own funeral service, lay in his grave, and submitted to being buried alive. Furthermore, Jackson reported the case of 30 women being ■willing to die and follow their husband into the after world on learning of his death by drown ing.

The dead man’s brother, Tui Kilakila. would not agree to this, but ordered that 15 of the women, who had borne children, be strangled, as was customary, while the remaining 15, who were childless, find new husbands.

Still again, Jackson told of a gift of uncooked food being presented to him and how he found a virgin had been supplied as part of the feast. When Jackson took the girl for his wife instead of his oven he-was ridiculed.

Barbarous customs. certainly, but nevertheless sunerb examples of a people’s unqualified faith in an after-life. Young women in that day and place offered no objection to marrying men older than themselves because it would doom them to early death on the passing of their husbands. This they looked forward to eagerly, for they wished to abide in the Hereafter as young and desirable women.

READING the accounts of ancient Fiji we are at first appalled by the ruth lessness of a savage people. We read of villages being segregated for the nurpose of supplying cannibalistic feasts for the chiefly people; of men being buried alive in the post-holes of a king’s new house; of slaves being used as rollers for launching a heavy war canoe; of King Thakambau begginsr Captain Erskine. when the latter’s gunners were firing at

a target ashore, to order their fire directed at a canoe full of people.

But in the same volumes we read that the Fijians were hospitable, generous, and intelligent, with a marked sense' of honour, the habit of obedience to their chiefs, and with a religious culture per fectly suited to their needs. Further more, they were easily persuaded to change their harsh way of life when milder customs were introduced.

Mr. Harold Cooper writes: “The Fijian is a devout Christian. When the Com mandos were not on Sunday patrols they could be seen in Guadalcanal’s little thatched churches joining in worship with their comrades of the Solomon’s Scouts. Those who decry Britain’s colo nial record mieht ponder this picture of the former cannibal and the former head hunter kneeling together to give thanks for a new way of life ...”

True enough, but. unhappily for the Japanese, the spiritual change in the Fijian is more in semblance than in fact.

It is a new garment on an old form. The heathen culture has been shaped into a form outwardly resembling Christianity but the inner man remains unchanged.

After King Thakambau embraced Christianity and his thousands of sub jects followed his example, they professed belief in the Biblical Heaven, but only because that Heaven was identified, by them, as their ancient underworld. The fact that a, new description of Heaven displaced the old description was of no importance: the ancient conviction of a life after death remained: and this con viction is expressed to-dav in tlje Fijian Commandos’ defiance of danger and death.

The missionaries succeeded in domesti cating the Fijian’s aggressive impulse, which amounted to diverting it into social channels. When the Pacific war broke out. and the Fijian Commandos were sent against the Japanese, the impulse resumed its old authority Add to this aggressive impulse the Fijian’s intense love of soldierine, his pride, his obedience, and his discipline—all residues of his ancient savage life—and you will under stand why he is one of the world’s best soldiers; and you will credit the stories United States Marines tell of fierce black men stalking the enemy in the jungle, following their scent, charging into their camps at night, and facing death with fierce exhilaration.