Island Love On The Pacific
A Cannibal Bargain
Henry Theophilus Finck
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_ This story intimates, what may be true, that the Fijians first taught the Tongans the art of war, and if the Tongans were not originally a warlike people, we would have in that significant fact alone an explanation of much of their superiority to other Pacific islanders. The Fijians also appear to have taught them cannibalism, to which, however, they never became so addicted as their teachers. Mariner (I., 110-111) tells a story of two girls who, in a time of scarcity, agreed to play a certain game with two young men on these conditions: if the girls won, they were to divide a yam belonging to them and give half to the men; if the two men won they were still to have their share of the yam, but they were to go and kill a man and give half his body to the girls. The men won and promptly proceeded to carry out their part of the contract. Concealing themselves near a fortress, they soon saw a man who came to fill his cocoanut shells with water. They rushed on him with their clubs, brought the body home at the risk of their lives, divided it and gave the young women the promised half. _