A gift of islands, living in Fiji

June Knox-Mawer

Published by John Murray, hardcover with dustjacket, illustrated
dustjacket some damage

The 300 islands of the Fiji group, standing at the crossroads of Polynesia and Melanesia, reveal a particularly fascinating record of Western influence both before and after the cession to Queen Victoria in 1874.

It is against this historical background—an inexhaustible source of legend, anecdote, fact and comment left behind by the bizarre adventurers that the South Seas have always seemed to attract and to which the islanders have added their own robust ingredients—that June Knox-Mawer traces her own travels and encounters during the last six years. She also threads her personal impressions on flashbacks from the journals and letters of earlier travellers—particularly of the intrepid outspoken Victorian ladies who accompanied them—thus linking past with present and highlighting, in a most interenting and often macabre way, contrasts with the contemporary scene.

She stayed in the household of a Paramount Chief, travelled widely amongst the islands, was enthralled by the talen of an old man who, as a boy, fought against Government soldiers and saw human flesh eaten for the last recorded time in Fiji. She had meetings and friendships with sorcerers and settlers, Roman Catholic priests and Indian firewalkers, tribal kings and equally ebullient ordinary Fijians. As a traveller she was always welcomed with the formal rituals of ancient custom, the drinking ceremony, the legend dances, the feasts, the presentation of whale's teeth. She provides a rich, complex and human picture of Fiji utterly unlike the popular image of a technicolour paradise.