Fijian Bible

Centenary of its Translation by the Rev. John Hunt

IN August the Methodist Mission cele brated the centenary of the transla tion of the Bible into Fijian. This exacting work was done by the Rev. John Hunt, who has been described as a “saint among cannibals.”

John Hunt was the son of a Lincoln shire farmer. In due time he entered the Methodist Church and felt the call of the Mission field. He prepared him self for work in Africa but it was de creed that cannibal Fiji should be his task.

He and his bride reached Sydney in a sailing ship and in October, 1838, left there for Tonga, en route to Lakemba, Fiji. It was then about eight years

since the first Tahitian Christian teachers had secured a foothold in Fiji.

John Hunt and his wife were first appointed to Rewa, then to Taviuni and finally, in 1842, to the island of Viwa. in the same year that the Hunts reached Fiji, there had arrived, also, the first printing-press and, with it, two ex pert craftsmen. Thenceforth parts of the Bible were printed in Fijian; but it was not until three dialects had been used that it was realised that, to avoid lin guistic chaos, one of the fifteen dialects spoken in the Fijian Islands would have to be accepted as the lingua franca, After deliberation, Bau was chosen, and subsequently all books were printed in that dialect.

In 1843 it was decided to print the complete New Testament, and for this task was chosen John Hunt, who under stood Fijian better than all his brethren and who also had the other qualities necessary for a translator who would be

setting standards for future generations of primitive people. As his assistants he had the Rev. R. B. Lyth and the Rev.

John Watsford, and a Fijian called Noah.

The British and Foreign Bible Society made a grant of £3OO towards the cost of the work.

In 1847 the job was complete and the first copies began to come off the mis sion press. Such was the demand that further editions were printed at Lakemba and by the Bible Society in London, and in that same year it was decided that Hunt should undertake the translation of the Old Testament.

However, soon after accepting this commission, Hunt, never robust, collapsed and died at the early age of 36, worn out by ten strenuous years of mission labour.

His mantle fell on the Rev. David Hazlewood, who was already at work on the first Fijian dictionary. The transla tion of the Old Testament was finished in 1854 and the following year the first complete Fijian bibles were received from London.