Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
LOLÓMA,
OR
Two Years in Cannibal-land:
A STORY OF OLD FIJI.
PREFACE.
The object of this romance is to preserve in a readable formsome record of the ancient manners and customs, traditionsand superstitions of the Fijians, the most numerous and themost interesting race of savages in the South Pacific, who arerapidly disappearing before the terrible push and civilisation ofthe white man. The opportunity of acquiring information onthese subjects is fast slipping away with the older aboriginalinhabitants, and if not now seized upon it will be gone for ever.I have endeavoured to bring before the reader a picture of lifein Fiji as it was before that portion of the New World“stretched its dusk hand to the Old.” To be of any value tothe ethnologist, it is the first requisite of such a work that its details,so far as they relate to the country and its people, shouldbe strictly accurate. In this respect the sources from which Iderived my information render the book, I believe, thoroughlytrustworthy. I desire to acknowledge my obligations to theRev. Jesse Carey, for many years a missionary in the FijiIslands, for his valuable assistance in translating legends andsongs, and in placing at my disposal a quantity of otherimportant material. Hearing of the progress of the story, MrCarey furnished me with a bundle of manuscript, accompaniedby the following remarks:—
With a view to the more intelligent discharge of my daily duties in Fiji,I added to other necessary studies the antiquities of that country. Themore I examined the subject, the more I was assured that it was one ofgreater extent and interest than had been supposed. This belief led me toissue circular letters, addressed to the most intelligent native men in theislands. These letters put forth a long list of questions bearing on Fiji’spast, and concluded with an offer of prizes for the three best works thereonby native authors. Twelve months afterwards this call was nobly respondedto by fifty competitors, and the result was as many essays, some of whichwere remarkably able and exhaustive, besides a large number of papersfrom non-competing writers. I now forward to you the pith of thiscannibal literature, a literature which it was possible to secure only whilethe oldest inhabitants were still on t