A LURID STORY.

Gisborne Times, Volume LIX, Issue 9575, 28 July 1923, Page 6

A LURID STORY.

CANNIBALS IN FIJI. YANKEE JOURNALISM AGAIN

(From Auckland Star Correspondent) SUVA, July 15.

It was some four months ago that n rumor reached Suva that there had been some incident happen up in the mountains in Colo Nortn (the last home of cannibalism, in Fiji, but many vears ago), which had a suggestion that some horrid brutality had boon perpetrated, it was said that tv.o voung men, natives, had quarrelled its to who should have a handsome young woma.ii to wife, and being unable to decide whose she was to be, they had seized her, cut off her breasts, and later killed her. How the story came to he retailed on the beach, is still a mystery. The Inspec-tor-General heard of the rumor and caused the most searching inquiry to lie made, hut not one vestige of fact could he dug up anywhere. No young woman was missing, and the storypvas quite palpably a fabrication. However, some, lover of sensation gob hold of the garbled' tale and the following story, culled from the Honolulu Star Bulletin of June last, will probably cause many people to fight -ny of Fiji, and help to perpetuate a canard, which lias been such lor many long years. The Fijian native is grossly libelled in the article, which lias created much e.nuoyame, ami ui cases amusement (where people know the native of to-day), as there up no sweeter tempered and decent eoiovcu people than Liu- native of these islands. The story is a. weird one and surpasses the average “nenny dreadful.” Here it in: ••FIJI LOVERS REVERT TO OANi N[HALISM, SLAY CTRL. THEN | ROAST AND EAT FLESH.” I As a sweetheart she was not so : much too expensive, but she was nice : and plump and tender. So they ate I her. And it happened m the year ; A.I). 1923.

•Sombre drums of the Fijis rumble down through the . savage centuries in the stories of blood and lust brought from the South. Seas by D. A. Curl, of Pasadena, who spent ten months among the natives of the for scattered isles of the Pacific. The modern cannibals are now in gaol m Suva, awaiting trial, and the girl’s head is exhibit A m evidence of the gruesome charge. “This is the tale as told to me,” said Curl. "Two young Fiji men hac! been keeping company with a giri and they got together and talked the situation over. One had spent 20 shillings or. her, and the other 40, and it would appear she was hardly worth it. So they decided to settle the matter ny killing her and eating her, as they had heard the old men talk of cannibalism in the old days. Luring her from her house they bound her to a tree and built a fire. “Cut of! the piece you like best." said one. Tire oilier started to do so, hut hacked out. “W ell. I’ll do it, said the other, and cut off .her head, whereupon they roasted tho body unci feasted upon it in the manner of their ancestors. One of the hoys, however, talked in his sleep, and soon the whom village know of the affair. Later the head was found hanging in a tree, anti was brought to Suva as ovule*ie«~. Tim men are awaiting trial in the Suva gaol. And the old men nod their heads and: speak in the ancient tongue (whatever that may bel of the days of slaughter, when whole tribes were wiped out, and the bodies of the slain smoked in the earth., ovens for the voters’ feast. “Nobody went to gaol then*” snv the old men. “Hie old days uro gone, Aoo’.vai. they come no more.” . There is not one word of truth in tiie whole yarn.