To home page

To Gardiner table of contents

To Gardiner Table of Contents

To Next Section

To next section


From J. Stanley Gardiner (1898), "The Natives of Rotuma," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 27:477. 

XVII. CANNIBALISM.

It was not the custom to cook and eat the slain after a battle; indeed, it was held in the greatest abhorrence. There has been, however, an account of one such act transmitted down. It is said to have occurred in a period of very great famine after two successive hurricanes, when nearly all the pigs and food had been consumed.

Koufossi, the son of Riemkou, chief of Faguta, was the sou, while his wife was a girl called Hapta, who belonged to, and had three brothers living in Itomotu. By her he had a son, called Timora. During the famine the three brothers came down to see Hapta, and offered to take Timora to Itomotu, as there was more food there, and the famine was especially bad in Pepji. [fn. There is no papoi land in Pepji, while there is a large swamp in Itomotu.] Koufossi at once allowed them to take the boy, and told them to feed him with anything fresh they could procure, meaning human flesh. They then started for Itomotu, and, as they were passing Tarasua Point, they saw a bunch of bananas, which they proceeded to cut down to make food for the boy. After they had made a fire and oven to cook the bananas, the owner's wife came up and asked them who had given them leave to take the bunch. They then tried to put her off; but without avail; so one made a sign to the others to keep her attention occupied, while he came up behind and killed her with one blow on the head with a stick. They then roasted her, and, after feeding the child, finished the rest of her between them. Later on they killed the woman's husband, Taipuni, and his brother, eating them likewise. Finally the three brothers were stoned to death on the reef flat in front of Itomotu, and then eaten by the man and woman's relations, their bones being all placed in one hole.

Timora lived to manhood, but was unfortunate in everything that he undertook and never able to get a wife. He was finally killed, when quite an old man, by having his head crushed by a stone in battle.


To home page

To Gardiner table of contents

To Gardiner Table of Contents

To Next Section

To next section