Dancers reenact wars between cannibal tribes.
In the summer of 1867 Methodist missionary Thomas Baker made the history books when he became the last foreigner to be eaten by Fijian cannibals. Baker should have known better - he'd been saving souls on the islands for eight years - but for some reason during a visit to the remote village of Nubutautau he reached out to the chief's head to fiddle with his hair comb. His next (and last) visit was to the tribal stewpot.
Back then, touching the head of a chief - especially a cannibal chief - was a strictly enforced taboo in Fijian culture.
Fiji's sunsets are straight off the travel posters.
Foreign explorers had been avoiding Fiji's 330 islands for hundreds of years. English Captain James Cook, for instance, sailed by there in the 1770s, but he didn't go ashore on what was then called "the Cannibal Islands." Captain Bligh's longboat crew kept rowing past the islands after they were booted off the HMS Bounty in 1789. Bligh noted in his logbook: "I dare not land (on Fiji) for fear of the natives."
Horrific tales of cannibalism helped keep the islands off the bucket lists of all but a handful of the era's gunrunners, whalers, sandalwood traders and escaped convicts from Australia. Likewise, missionaries zeroed in on saving souls elsewhere in the South Seas, such as on New Zealand, New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) and Tonga.
Fierce Fijian warriors once paddled this canoe around the islands.
In the 1830s, stories about the stewpots of Fiji finally brought a tsunami of pastors to the islands from the London Missionary Society. Progress was slow at first, and a good number of soul-savers themselves ended up saved -- for Fijian feasts.
The missionaries' big break came in the 1850s when they were able to convert a super-chief named Ratu Seru Cakobau, and over the next few years (but a bit too late for Baker) most of Fiji. As villagers switched to Christianity, they renounced cannibalism.
Pieces of the soles of Thomas Baker's boots are displayed at the Fiji Museum.
Fast forward to today, and you can see what's left of Baker in a museum in Suva, Fiji's capital. Mosey around the Fiji Museum's old-time dugout canoes, rusting rifles, battle clubs, artworks, masks, musical instruments, history charts and the like, and you'll come across an odd-looking glass case spotlighting what looks like chewed up pieces of bark. Actually, they're nine boiled pieces of the soles of Baker's boots (with teeth marks, no less).
Maybe it was a longstanding touch of guilt, or perhaps because the villagers of Nubutautau had run into hard times, but in 2003 they invited 11 of Thomas Baker's descendants to a traditional Fijian matanigausau ceremony to tell them they were sorry for what happened 136 years earlier.
Nick Squires, a reporter who attended the event for the English news service The Telegraph, wrote: "Tearful Fijian warriors in grass skirts and armed with clubs yesterday begged forgiveness from the descendants of an English missionary their ancestors killed and ate more than a century ago.
"In an elaborate ceremony villagers presented woven mats, a dozen highly-prized whale's teeth and a slaughtered cow to 10 Australian relatives of the Rev Thomas Baker, who was murdered, cooked and consumed while trying to spread Christianity in Fiji's rugged highlands in July 1867."
The islands' few settlers came armed to the teeth.
Fijians reportedly trekked from distant villages on foot and horseback to witness the forgiveness ceremony. Also there among 600 onlookers was Fiji's prime minister, Laisenia Qarase, who flew in by helicopter. According to Squires, "Bare-chested men clapped and sang beneath the fierce tropical sun..."
In his story, Squires noted: "Wiping away tears, the chief of the village, Ratu Filimone Nawawabalavu, offered gifts and kissed the cheek of Les Lester, 56, Mr Baker's great-great-grandson." Said the chief: "We believe we must have been cursed, and we must apologize for (eating Baker)... when we have made the apology we will be clean again."
As a roll of thunder sounded across distant ranges, Lester is said to have added: "Perhaps the coming rain is a sign of a new beginning.'"
To seal the apology, the villagers erected a monument in Baker's honor in the center of Nubutautau.
Some vacationers stay in luxury huts at upscale resorts.
Staying there: Fiji's 100 or so inhabited islands host close to 780,000 annual visitors, most of whom stay in 100-plus tourist-class resorts and inns. A hefty number of the properties feature opulent thatched-roof bure huts popping out of the jungle on Viti Levu and on boutique resorts peppering the out islands.
Photos by Bob Schulman