THE FIJI MASSACRES.

Southland Times, Issue 1310, 20 September 1870, Page 3

THE FIJI MASSACRES.

4 The following particulars of the terrible slaughter which lately took place it Fiji (briefly announced in a recent issue) are extracted from the Fiji Times of July 23rd :— We have just heard frightful news from Ba, on the north-west coast of Viti Levu. For some time past the Ba people have been at war with the mountaineers, and a few have been killed on both sides, but a letter just in from the native Minister informs u.% of a fearful massacre. The mountaineers from Navosa came down to Nalotu, an inland district hitherto subject to Ba, and the advanced fortress or Bri-ni-mua of the Ba people. They, put up a- ■war fence, and then Wawabalavu, the Navosa chief, called out and said, " You Nalotu people, I am Wawabalavu; I it was who ate Mr Baker and the Bau men. Do you trust to the Lasakau people? Don't; their trade is fishing. You offer peace offerings or make submission, that you may live." The Nalotu people were filled with fear, and presented peace offerings. The mountaineers then entered their town and remained for a few days in apparent friendliness ; but their number was being continually increased by new arrivals from the hills. They then turned round suddenly upon the Nalotu people and slaughtered 370 of them. That so many have been killed is beyond doubt. Silas, the native minister who lives at Ba, writes : — "The Navunivasi vtown 171 killed, Drantani 114, Koroikewa 58, Nasaga 27 — altogether 370. This number clubbed is clear, but there are many still missing, who are hiding in the jungle, or have been taken prisoners of war to Navosa. Perhaps they are killed, but their bodies have not yet been, found. Only 104 have escaped alive to Ba." The heathen say that the next town they will attack will be Sagunu, the chief town of the Ba district. It is thought that Nabeka, a noted cannibal Ba chief, who is envious of Tui Bi, is one with Wawabalavu in this treachery, and we shall probably soon hear that Sagunu has met with the same^Tateaa Nalotu. "We hear of several whites going to settle in the B:i district. In our opinion they could not settle in a more unsafe neighborhood. There is no intermediate tribe between the mountaineers and Ba, now that'Nalotu has fallen, and neither Sagunu nor any other Ba town is safe for the present. The Lasakau warriors leave today, by order of Cakobau, to protect Sagunu ; but they are "few and feeble compared with the mountaineers. Sooner or later, either by Cakobau or the white residents, or both combined, the Viti Leva mountaineers will have to be subjugated. I Captain Field, of the Mary Ann Christina, informs us that on board the Colleen Bawn, at Tanna, he met with Jamie Lasulasu, who has long since been J reckoned with the dead. Our readers will remember that a boat, which left j Levuka for ' Nasavusavu about twelve months ago, with 17 New Hebrides laborers, their employer, Mr Norman, late of Carlton, near Melbourne, and the aforesaid Jamie, never reached its destination. The boat was thought to have been wrecked, and all onboard lost. Jamie Lasulasu informed Captain Field that when on their way to Nasavusavu, the natives took possession of the boat, compelling them to steer first one way and then another, and threatened to kill them if they did not land them on their own island. On the seventeenth day they murdered Mr Norman, splitting his head open with a tomahawk. They cooked and ate the body, thrusting portions of his cooked companion into the face of Jamie. The journey was long, and with no food or water on board, the hardships may be imagined. The natives died one after the other, till by a lucky chance the boat was cast. upon the shore reef of an island only 20 miles from that to which they belonged. Jamie has been living on that island for the last 12 months, and was perfectly nude when rescued by the Colleen Bawn a week or two since. Mr Norman was a highly respectable settler, who, besides his plantation in Fiji; had a grocery business at Carlton, in charge of which he left his wife, now his widow, when he came down here. He procured the laborers, from the William and Julia. They had been engaged and brought here by Captain M'Liver, and some who came with them are said to be now on Mr Scott's plantation at Vide. A report also reached us of the murder of a man named Maloney, by some white men, on the Sigo Toko Siver.