by Tim Flannery
4
FIJI AND NEW CALEDONIA
A limit to our explorations had to be drawn somewhere amid the sprawling islands of the Pacific Ocean, and we decided that it should be at Fiji in the east and New Caledonia in the south. Beyond that, the size of the islands, their ecological complexity, and the number of mammal species each harbours drops rapidly away.
Fiji and New Caledonia are so distant from New Guinea that land mammals such as rats and marsupials have never reached them. But reptiles and birds have a greater capacity to cross the sea, and prior to human settlement both island groups were havens for bizarre, gigantic feathered and scaled creatures. The heaviest land creature on both island groups was a now-extinct horned tortoise. The shell of this gentle herbivore was around a metre long, and its tail was encased in bony armour that resembled a medieval mace. On its head were two horns resembling those of cows. On both island groups a similar top predator existed—a terrestrial crocodile, also now extinct, with a box-like snout and teeth that varied from sharp, cutting kinds in the front of the mouth to blunt crushing pegs at the back. At a metre or two from snout to tail, it was not fearsome to humans, but was clearly capable of consuming a range of smaller prey.
A variety of large, flightless birds also once inhabited these island archipelagoes. On Fiji a giant flightless pigeon, reminiscent of the dodo of Mauritius, was the largest of the feathered tribe, while on New Caledonia a giant megapode, a relative of Australia’s brush turkey, filled the role. This creature would have been around a metre long, and it had a great bony knob atop its bill. Piles of stones found in various places around the island are interpreted as being the remains of the great mounds it accumulated in order to brood its eggs. The only native mammals on both island groups are bats. No extinct mammals have been described from either island group.
The inexorable tide of human settlement was slowed by the immensity of ocean separating Fiji and New Caledonia from their nearest neighbours, and it was only about 3000 years ago that humans first reached them. By then, the great pyramid of Giza was already an ancient monument. Though recent, the human impact was profound. Horned turtles, land crocodiles and gigantic flightless birds all disappeared, doubtless into that black hole that lies between nose and chin on the human anatomy. The pigs and dogs carried by the settlers must have done their bit, too, to hasten the demise of the island endemics, as did the rats that had hitchhiked on the settlers’ canoes. Like introduced rats elsewhere, they probably had a major, though as yet largely undocumented, impact on the smaller fauna.
The indigenous cultures of Fiji and New Caledonia differ from those of the Solomon Islands and most of New Guinea in that they are more hierarchical. Chiefs and men of status, who ruled over workers little better off than slaves, were a feature of traditional life in Fiji. By the time of the arrival of the Europeans political power seems to have been in the process of being manifested over very large areas. Indeed, by the early nineteenth century, on nearby Tonga, which had strong cultural links to Fiji, the leader Finau had consolidated power and established the region’s first kingdom.
The Fiji group consists of more than three hundred separate islands, at the centre of which lies the large landmasses of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. Both originated from volcanic activity and are tens of millions of years old. They have high mountains and are home to a great deal of unique biodiversity. The first European to sight the group was the Dutchman Abel Tasman, who passed by in 1643. Subsequent European mariners tended to avoid the place, deterred by tales of cannibalism and ferocious warriors. A few beachcombers, whalers, bêche-de-mer traders and assorted ne’er-do-wells, however, fitted into village life as best they could. In 1874 Fiji became a British colony, and sugar planters imported labourers from India to work the canefields. Today, the population of the islands is made up mostly of indigenous Fijians and the descendants of those Indians.
In contrast to Fiji, New Caledonia is an old continental fragment which had separated from eastern Australia around ninety million years ago. It has very few offshore islands. The Loyalty Islands (which are part of New Caledonia politically) are much more recent in origin and are biologically distinct. New Caledonia is renowned for its extraordinary biodiversity, particularly plants, the most ancient of which belong to lineages that last flourished globally during the age of the dinosaurs.
New Caledonia, along with Hawaii, was James Cook’s greatest discovery. Australia, New Zealand and other larger landmasses he charted had all been sighted earlier by European mariners. Cook encountered New Caledonia in 1774, during his second voyage, naming it New Caledonia (Caledonia being the name the Romans gave to northern Scotland) because the sparse vegetation of the island’s nickel-rich mountains reminded him of heather-clad peaks. French missionaries began arriving in the 1840s, and in 1853 the French government formally annexed it. Like Australia, New Caledonia served as a penal colony.
Today, New Caledonia remains one of the world’s last European colonies. Technically, it is known as a ‘special collectivity’ of France; only in July 2010 was it decided that the Kanak flag (the flag of the indigenous people) should fly beside the tricoleur as an official flag of the territory.
At the time we conducted our surveys the political environment of both Fiji and New Caledonia was changing quickly. Heading up the Fijian survey was Dr Sandra (Sandy) Ingleby, now collection manager in mammals at the Australian Museum, while I led the New Caledonian survey. Both surveys required multiple expeditions over a number of years, and Sandy was on occasion assisted by Pavel German and myself, while Alexandra Szalay assisted me on expeditions to New Caledonia.
CHAPTER 14
Bats at the Limit
In the nineteenth century Fiji had a bad reputation. Also known as the Cannibal Isles, it was a mariner’s worst nightmare to be shipwrecked there. Yet many Europeans did visit, and some forged friendships with the locals. One such visitor was the New Englander William Endicott, who stayed in Bona-Ra-Ra village in 1831. His vessel the Glide was engaged in collecting bêche-de-mer—a sea-cucumber sold in China as an aphrodisiac. Because the bêche-de-mer has to undergo lengthy processing ashore, those involved in the business had to reach an accommodation with the islanders.
During Endicott’s stay a raid on a mountain village had occurred, and the warriors of Bona-Ra-Ra brought back three bodies bound to long poles, each of which was carried ceremoniously into the village by six men. One body was given to a neighbouring village. One of the other bodies was recognised by an old woman as the killer of her son. Enraged, she took her revenge by filling a small dish with Kava and ‘presenting it to the lips of the dead savage bade him drink … She then dashed the liquor in his face and broke the dish in pieces upon it.’ Then, breaking a bamboo water container on his head, she told the men to dismember the body with the bamboo slivers. Endicott’s account still makes vivid reading:
They commenced … cutting up the body. The heads of both savages being now taken off, they next cut off the right hand and the left foot, right elbow and left knee, and so in like manner until all the limbs separated from the body.
An oblong piece was then taken from the body commencing at the bottom of the chest and passing downwards about eight inches, and three or four inches wide at its broadest part. This was carefully laid aside for the King … The entrails and vitals were then taken out and cleansed for cooking … While this was going on, the lobu or oven was prepared … An excavation is made … [and] a large fire is then made in it, with small stones placed among the burning fuel … and as the bodies are cut to pieces they are thrown upon the fire, which after being thoroughly singed are scraped while hot by savages, who sit around the fire for this purpose. The skin by this process is made perfectly white …
The head of the savage which was last taken off, was thrown towards the fire, and being thrown some distance it rolled a few feet from the men who were employed around it; when it was stolen by one of the savages who carried it behind the tree where I was sitting. He took the h
ead in his lap and after combing away the hair from the top of it with his fingers picked out the pieces of the scull [sic] which was broken by the war club and commenced eating the brains … I moved my position, the thief was discovered and was soon compelled to give up his booty.
The stones which had been placed upon the fire were now removed, the oven cleaned out, the flesh carefully and very neatly wrapped in fresh plantain leaves, and placed in it. The hot stones were also wrapped in leaves and placed among the flesh, and after it was all deposited in the oven, it was covered up two or three inches with the same kind of leaves, and the whole covered up with earth of sufficient depth to retain the heat.21
Cannibalism was so embedded in Fijian culture that the proper ritual greeting of a commoner to a chief was ‘eat me’! Today, Fiji is an independent nation with a strong connection to its cultural traditions. My first exposure to the contradictions inherent in this history came while I was director of the South Australian Museum. I’d been asked to remove a picture of a Fijian cannibal feast from public display and was somewhat reluctant to comply, in part because the request came from a person who admitted knowing nothing about Fiji, and also because the picture was part of a gallery dating back to 1948—then the oldest intact museum exhibit in Australia. Some months later we received a visit from Fijian officials, and I asked their opinion on the matter. Their advice was to leave the picture in place. It was part of their heritage, they said, and they should not be ashamed of it.
Cannibalism sends such a shudder through us that we tend to grasp instinctively for moral, rather than biological explanations, for its existence. Yet even in our own society cannibalism has been accepted under certain circumstances, including the British navy, which implicitly condoned cannibalism among sailors who had resorted to it to survive. I think that biology, rather than ethics, offers the best explanations for both the taboo most of us observe against cannibalism, as well as the practice itself.
From an evolutionary perspective, the reason that such a strict taboo against cannibalism exists among most humans, most of the time, is it can incur high biological costs. These include the risk of parasite transmission as well the transmission of some very nasty diseases. Kuru is a brain disease (related to mad cow disease), which spreads only through cannibalism. It was prevalent among the women and children of the Fore people of New Guinea who, as part of the mortuary ritual, ate portions of relatives who had died. Prior to the outlawing of cannibalism by the Australian administration in the 1960s, the kuru epidemic was so severe that some villages were populated almost entirely by adult males.
But we must also remember that cannibalism can offer its participants benefits as well, in the form of a large return of protein. And in some circumstances, such as that faced by starving castaway sailors, that benefit can outweigh the costs. Among island populations also the cost-benefit ratio is altered. This is in part because island populations are often too small to sustain the diseases and parasites that are present on the mainland. Indeed the Fijian Ratu Udre Udre, who lived during the nineteenth century, purportedly ate hundreds of people without evident ill effect. Also islands often support few large land-based creatures, meaning that protein is at a premium for their human inhabitants. This suggests that if the benefits of cannibalism are likely to outweigh the costs anywhere, it’s on islands. And indeed it’s among the islands of the Pacific that cannibalism flourished.
Recent genetic studies have shown that the Fijians have a unique history. All Fijian men possess Y-chromosomes of Melanesian origin, while Fijian women have mitochondrial DNA of Polynesian type.22 The most logical explanation for this is that, at the time the ancestors of the Polynesians were expanding through Melanesia, a canoe was hijacked by Melanesians and the males done away with. The hijackers voyaged into the Pacific, discovering the virginal islands of Fiji, which they then commenced peopling with their offspring from Polynesian women.
Fiji has a curious colonial history, which helped preserve traditional culture. Rather than do away with the ratu (chiefs), in 1876 the British administrator John Thurston established the Great Council of Chiefs, which was to act in an advisory role to the colonial government. Over a century later, in the 1980s, this was to have unfortunate consequences for democracy in Fiji.
If, arriving in Suva on the island of Viti Levu, you decide to stay at the Grand Pacific Hotel, you might feel as if the colonial era has never ended. The place is set by the water, with high-ceilinged rooms, lazy overhead fans and impeccably groomed waiting staff of the kind that you read about in Somerset Maugham novels. For a few days, as Sandy and I organised permits, travel and equipment, we enjoyed the atmosphere as well as a few evening gin-and-tonics there. But soon the day came for us to head into the hills—we’d decided that we should begin by surveying Viti Levu’s highest peaks. Our base would be a village near the Monasavu dam, at an elevation of around 1000 metres. At this altitude the forest is little more than alpine scrub, but the species present are intriguing.
One of the most interesting plants to occur there is the beautiful whale-tooth pine (Acmopyle sahniana). Its Fijian name draubata comes from its leaves, which are dark green on top and white below and resembling in shape the sperm-whale teeth that are the most esteemed possessions of traditional Fijians. The plant is an ancient relic, known only from two tiny populations that cling to razor-edge ridgetops in the highest mountains of Viti Levu. Fifty million years ago, however, its relatives were widespread in southeast Australia including Tasmania. For reasons that remain unknown, by thirty-five million years ago the genus had disappeared everywhere except New Caledonia and Fiji.
Before we could explore this amazing natural world, we had to seek the permission of the local village chief, and that, we soon learned, meant making a gift. A decision on the type of gift required was quickly made, for we heard through a friend that the chief would like a dinner set of English china—a twelve piece setting, of a quality suitable for entertaining other chiefs. I gulped somewhat at the expenditure and, hoping that the spirit of Miss Scott would understand, went out and bought the best set I could find in Suva.
But there was one more hurdle. The men of the expedition—namely me—would have to drink kava with the chief. Kava is an intoxicant made from the roots of a bush-like member of the pepper family that is native to the Pacific Islands. Its stems look rather like fleshy, knobbly canes. Great bunches of the plant with roots attached can be seen for sale in markets and by roadsides throughout the islands. I had drunk kava once before, in Vanuatu, when I was invited to the nakamal (kava-drinking hut) patronised by Father Walter Lini, who was then prime minister of Vanuatu.
The nakamal was a small wooden structure with a dirt floor, and bench-seats and counter made of branches round the walls. The kava was served in a half-coconut shell and it was, I recall, ghastly looking—reminiscent of very dirty dishwater, and tasting little better. I managed to force down a few cups, after which I felt supremely calm—indeed almost cosmically omniscient. But when I tried to stand up I found that my legs were like rubber bands. I had almost no control over my body, and writing, I later learned, was entirely beyond me.
As my eyes adjusted to the gloom of the hut I saw that the long-term effects of drinking kava were even worse. Old men, their skin flaking from their bodies, their muscles slack and their eyes red and staring, sat on the benches around me. They looked like something out of an old horror film, but they were clearly having a good time. Several were from Pentecost—the island where young men practise land diving, from which the modern sport of bungee-jumping is derived. The young men of Pentecost are required to jump from high platforms with vines tied to their ankles that pull them up just as they kiss the mud below. It takes some courage, and one of my drinking companions was adamant that he had the courage—however his unconquerable fear of heights precluded him from participating!
In Vanuatu, the kava drink is made by mincing the roots of the kava plant in a meat grinder and mixing the pulp with water. There is litt
le ceremony involved in drinking it at a nakamal, other than a mighty gulp accompanied by a clap of hands and swallowing a biscuit or a piece of dried fish. But things are very different in Fiji. There, traditionally, the drink had been made by young women who chewed the roots and spat the pulp out into a large, ornate and highly prized kava bowl. From there it was doled out into half-coconut shells, and consumed with a protocol as intricate as a Japanese tea ceremony. As it happened, we were going to one of the most traditional villages in Fiji—I wondered how much of the kava tradition survived there.
Quite aside from my misgivings about the local manufacturing process, I was worried about the impact of the kava on my body. How could I possibly work under its influence? When we arrived at the village the chief was waiting for us. He accepted our gift of the dinner setting, then ushered us into an open-sided hut where half the village seemed to be assembled on mats on the floor. Near the chief lay the kava bowl, glazed from innumerable ceremonies and already full of the greyish liquid. A circle of drinkers had formed, and I was bade to sit cross-legged on a mat near the chief while he made a speech in Fijian. So awed was I by the formality that I dared not ask how the kava was made, or what the chief had said.
When the coconut shell was offered to me, I dutifully emptied it at a gulp. Relieved, and thinking the ceremony over, I made to unbend my legs, but stopped when the chief said something and the crowd burst into laughter. Apparently we had to empty the contents of the whole kava bowl and to cut and run now was considered impolite. Somehow I got through four or five more shells-full. When I got to my feet, miraculously I found I could stand and walk without feeling like I was on the moon. Fijian kava, I found out, is far less intoxicating that the Vanuatu variety. A Fijian friend also told me what the chief had said when I went to get up the first time: ‘Hey, he’s leaving because he’s scared he’ll piss the bed tonight from drinking too much kava!’
