Living in the shadow of cannibalism
Thu, October 02 2008
The 75-year-old woman who’d left her village at Nasauvere in Naitasiri to marry Ratu Sailosi Nawawabalavu and settle down at Nabutautau in the interior of Navosa in 1949, spoke from the heart.
It was a plea for assistance. A call from the wilderness. A call for something a sizeable number of the population consider a right — a good road.
The widow wasn’t mincing her words. She didn’t have to.
There was no need for her to impress anyone. Her wrinkled face, weathered hands and eyes had lived through years of hardship.
They were testimony of a life that brimmed with hard labour.
Her husband died in 2005, at the age of 82. He was a third generation direct descendant of the man (Ratu Nawawabalavu) blamed for killing Rev. Thomas Baker on the morning of July 21, 1867.
Aliti sat there, shamelessly emotional.
Every one of her three daughters and four sons were born at Nabutautau. The nearest health centre, at Bukuya is a couple of hours west by foot. She delivered her own children and that of other mothers in the village.
It was a reality she wanted highlighted.
As most wives in urban centres get off a bus or a cab and walk a few metres home with their shopping, Aliti is sometimes forced to get off at Nanoko Village, with her shopping packed in a used 10-kilogram sack to trek through the jungle on a four-hour walk home that would leave most urbanites gasping for breath.
Her needs far outweigh the wants of most urban dwellers.
She does not have the luxury of catching a bus, a cab or minibus home.
But this is the reality of life in this inhospitable terrain. Nabutautau sits hundreds of metres above sea level in the heart of Viti Levu. You can get to the village by four-wheel drive vehicle with a driver willing to accept road conditions that are described as horrible, rugged, and life threatening, travel by horse, or walk.
The road conditions are not for the faint hearted.
Nabutautau is surrounded by mountain ranges.
The main road heads deep into the heartland of the hill tribes. It’s a road that knows no mercy.
Villagers talk of travelling with ropes, to pull vehicles on portions of the road that are so bad in rainy weather, that even four-wheel drive vehicles have trouble.
“I’d like to be alive to see a good road made for us,” said Aliti, who has to fork out $150 one way to get her produce to Ba.
Elders like Aliti believe a proper road can change their lives.
Cabinet has approved funding for road upgrades. The estimated cost of the project is $8.8 million, and is expected to be completed by July 2009.
Whether it was a curse from killing a missionary in 1867 that has troubled them over the years, or just a matter of simple logistics, Aliti knows it’ll take more than promises and talk to help them realize their dreams.
[The people of Nabutautau have long lived with the tag of ‘killers of the Reverend Thomas Baker,’ the only white missionary to be killed and eaten in Fiji. There are many stories on why Mr. Baker from Playden, a village in the Rother District of East Sussex, England was killed and cooked by the people of Nabutautau on July 21, 1867.
The people of Nabutautau believed they were cursed after that event and apologized to the direct descendents of Mr. Baker in 2003. Isolated, with no proper road, no medical facilities and no school, the locals blamed their difficulties on the crime of their ancestors.
Cannibalism died out in Fiji in the mid-19th century with the acceptance of Christianity.]
The people of Nabutautau believed they were cursed after that event and apologized to the direct descendents of Mr. Baker in 2003. Isolated, with no proper road, no medical facilities and no school, the locals blamed their difficulties on the crime of their ancestors.
Cannibalism died out in Fiji in the mid-19th century with the acceptance of Christianity.]
By Fred Wesley
