Final Fiji Fotos
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Wed 15 Sep 2010 01:20
|
Wednesday 15th September 1146 Local 0047
UTC
17:44.33S 168:18.57E
We reached Vanuatu safely at first light on Sunday
morning and are still anchored up in Port Vila on the island of Efate. We
enjoyed Fiji and have a few more things to tell you and a few more images to
show you before telling you about our Vanuatu adventure.
Leaving Fiji, like moving on from most
places is always tinged with sadness but for me the excitement of sailing
off on the wind to another country, another culture and hopefully another
adventure always overwhelms that. And so it was that I was on balance very happy
to leave the reefs of Fiji behing and get out on the open ocean again.
Out with the line in and in with a big Mahi
Mahi! This was a tough fighter and once aboard he was quickly filleted and
converteed into two lunches of sushi /ceviche, two dinners of fillets, two
coconut & papaya curries and one lunch of fillets! This was quite a big fish but what I really want is what we saw on
the quay at Port Vila - image attached!
Before Vanuatu though a few more notes about
Fiji. Fiji was settled by the Lapita people about 3500 years
ago, who were Melenesian and who reached as far as Tonga. They were
distinct from the Polynesian people and this is evident today. We clearly
noticed a shift to melenesian people and culture and away from polynesian
in Tonga.
Fijians were cannibals up until they stopped eating
the missionaries, perhaps like today some of them were unpallatable! It was
reckoned that they started dining on each other about 2500 years ago. >From what
I have read, I think it was more about the symbolism of eating your enemy
than a balanced diet that endeared the practice to them. It was considered the
ultimate revenge and sucha disrespectful end was considered a lasting insult to
the victim's family. Corpes were eaten on the battlefield or more commonly
hauled back to the village deli to be butchered and roasted - but not
after both men and women performed ritual dances and sexual humiliation of
the bodies. It is said that some were even made to watch their own body parts
being eaten. Bloody hell!
Now that's all for this blog - please don't have
nightmares ........
We have attached a selection of images from Fiji:
Local transport in the far north, a village bure, village, cave, a local
policeman and some of the scenery.
|
