"We Used to Eat People": Revelations of a Fiji Islands Traditional Village

by R.M.W. Dixon

Overview

Living in a reed hut on Taveuni--the "garden isle" of Fiji--the author studied the native language and carefully observed their traditions until he was accepted as a (somewhat unusual) member of the village.

Despite five cyclones the summer of 1985, daily life was idyllic. Cannibalism has been abandoned, reluctantly, at the behest of the new Christian God. But the old religion survived beneath the facade and priests danced naked on the beach beneath the full moon. The village pulsated with factions and feuds, resolved by the stern but benevolent chief, whose word was law. Legends told of a princess born as a bird, who was killed and thus became a comely maiden--but the murderer had to be cooked and eaten.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476671819
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers
Publication date:	12/27/2017
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

R.M.W. Dixon is an anthropological linguist at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia. He has authored many books on linguistic theory, and grammars based on fieldwork in the Amazonian jungle, in the rainforest of north-east Australia, and in Fiji.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Maps
Author’s Note
1. Getting There
2. “This is paradise”
3. Our Village
4. “No cyclone today!”
5. “Do you want to live or do you want to die?”
6. Becoming a Part of the Village
7. A Divine Visitor
8. A New House and a New Baby
9. “Oh dear! Roopate is getting ready to go!”
Epilogue
References by Chapter
Index