Spelunking With the Family of Cannibals

I like caves and recently, I seem to be into the macabre, so a cannibal cave tour seemed to fit the bill perfectly.  It was a little pricey, but what the hey.  The airfare was cheap.  So, I booked it before falling asleep the night before.  I was up, bright and bushy tailed in time to meet my shuttle.  The shuttle driver, Josh, and his uncle, Josh, apparently run this tour in conjunction with the chief of the village where the cave is.  During the first part of the journey, I asked nephew Josh if any of the old religions or customs aside from the Kava ceremony are followed any longer on the Fijian islands.  He told me the story of the Methodist Reverend Thomas Baker from Sydney, who made it his mission to eradicate cannibalism in the islands of the South Pacific.  It cost him his life, but it is believed his death was the last act of cannibalism in Fiji.  In the coastal areas and larger towns, there are few if any remnants of traditional tribal beliefs.  Methodist and Catholic are the predominant religions in the island nation, but there are Buddhist and Hindu Temples and Muslim Mosques being built more and more frequently.  In the highlands, the tribes people practice their prior rituals (sans eating people) mainly to appease Thomas Baker's God and lift the curse they believe was placed upon them when they killed and ate Reverend Baker during his last trek into the interior.  Josh told me how the tribe that ate Reverend Baker had abandoned their lands, erected a shrine to him, and had been performing rituals to try to lift the curse ever since it happened.  They believe the curse was lifted about 5 to 10 years ago.  While many of the tribes are no longer practicing cannibalism or many of their prior rituals out of fear of reprisal, they still are not all converted.  There was a Methodist missionary group from New Zealand who were staying at my hostel, too, and some of them told me some of the challenges they face in converting the inner tribes to Christianity, though they are without a real belief system now, since the killing of Reverend Baker.

When Nephew Josh got us to the town of Sigatoka, Uncle Josh took over.  There was another kava ceremony, and we looked at carved artifact reproductions.

Then the chief of a remote village came to pick us up in Sigatoka and take us deep into the interior to the village of Koronihagana.  Nephew Josh typed the name in my phone, and I copied it down.  I can't find it on a map, though.  Couldn't find it in a Google search, either.  I didn't see many cattle, but those I did see were staked out on the side of the road like in much of South America.

When we got to Koronihagana, after about 30 to 45 minutes on a dirt road, there was a sign marking the existence of the Nai Hehe cave.

The village was small with only a few huts made of either block or corrugated tin.  They said there are about 100 people in the village, and everything is done communally.  There are massive fields growing various types of vegetables and cash crops, such as tobacco.  The homes had no doors, and people are expected to just walk in whenever they need something.

Once there, we were handed off to our guide, Vanu.  She was barefoot.  And she led us down this steep drop and through the fields

to the river, where we took off our shoes and boarded a bilibili, or bamboo raft, which she pulled to the other side.

Once we crossed the river, we got off the bilibili and walked some more, crossing several streams, so we were still barefoot.  I was not prepared for this and left my water shoes in the hostel.  I suggest wearing water shoes with thick soles if you take this tour in the future.  After a while, the streams got shallower, and though Vanu indicated we should leave our shoes off, I stopped the group so I could put mine back on.  This was actually after I fell for the first time since my shoulder surgery.  I fell directly onto that shoulder.  Initially, I laid there, feeling my left shoulder with my right hand, seeing if everything felt okay.  While everybody was staring at me, asking if I was okay, and feeling nothing out of place with my right hand, I tried wiggling my fingers and moving my hand, which worked pretty well.  So I rolled onto my back and tried raising my arm.  Success.  The titanium (or whatever the surgeon used) held.  It helped that I fell on soft ground, I'm sure.  I decided I was putting my shoes back on, though, because I didn't want that to happen again!  We finally got to the cave entrance where I had to remove my shoes again.  The stream going into the cave was about mid-calf deep at the entrance and not the easiest of entrances to navigate!

Ya' know how in most tourist caves, there are some lighting mounted in the cave and maybe some foot paths carved out?  Yeah, that didn't happen here.  This is just the way it was back in the day, except the torches are no longer mounted on the cave walls.  Instead, we carried flashlights so we could see.

In the antechamber, you could see all of the bats who nest in this part of the cave.  They weren't concerned about us at all.

As we kept following the stream, there were crystals along the walls and some beginnings of stalactite formations, such as drapes, though not well formed.  Perhaps because this was a "working cave" until just over a hundred years ago, and people are still commonly touching the lower walls, which would stunt the growth of these formations.

There were even a couple of plants growing where no natural light penetrates.  Most of them were white, but this one looked to have a little green in it, though I don't see how it photosynthesis could possibly happen.  This was the first time I had ever heard of rooted plants growing without light.

That was the last decent shot I got of the cave.  The next major hurdle was to get past a "gateway" portion.  Legend has it that pregnant women were not allowed into the ceremonial chambers of the cave, and they had to remain in the area where the crystals and plants were found.  This portion of the cave was supposedly nature's way of preventing pregnant women from entering the ceremonial chamber.  I had to crawl on my hands and feet, with my head barely out of the water and my back scraping the top of the cave to get past it, but I did make it.  Once past that, we were in a huge chamber with a high ledge on one side, looking like a stage.  That stage is where the ceremonial rituals were conducted, such as sacrifices, mostly burned, but not all.  Beyond the ceremonial room was the "kitchen".  This was a curved portion of the cave which ended in a dead end.  When the residents of the cave were hunting, they would chase the enemy into the cave.  A contingent of the tribe would be hiding just beyond this curve.  When the enemy got to the dead end, the tribesmen who were hiding in the cave would set the enemy on fire, cooking them to death, at which time, they would be the feast. 

I tried taking pictures, but there was so little light in the interior of the cave, that all I got was blackness with white dots were the flashlights were on.  Even the flashlights didn't penetrate well enough to get good pictures.  I've been in some caves when they turn the lights out to let you get a good feeling for the darkness, but none of them compared to the absolute disorienting darkness that was in this cave.

I put my shoes back on upon leaving the cave, through the same obstacles we had to clear coming in.  I was pretty proud of making it through, though you can see in my face that I'm straining a bit.  Left shoulder still works, too!

Then came the trek back to the river, the ride across the river, and the walk back through the fields and to the village.  I was definitely not physically prepared for this tour, but I did make it.  We did make a handful of stops to rest and breathe.  Vanu insisted on carrying my water and "stuff" bag.  I only had to call for my inhaler once, though, and that was just before ascending that last steep hill from the very beginning.

We were supposed to have a traditional meal in the village after getting back from the cave.  While the fruit and sandwiches were good, I hardly think they were traditional, except the fruit and corn.  The ladies that prepared the meal did tell us that they don't have flour in the village and never have, so they could never make flour bread.  Their traditional bread they make is a variant of yucca bread.  We didn't get that.  They do grow cassava, which is either just another name for yucca or closely related to it, depending on what source you are reading and who you're talking to.  They also told us that they were only two generations removed from living in that cave and eating their enemies, which indicates they may have been practicing cannibalism on the sly even after the Reverend Thomas was eaten.

When I got back to the hostel, I got directly into the shower.  I was a muddy, filthy mess.  I had intended on having a massage and then dinner, but I laid down on the bed and fell asleep before I could even put clothes on.  Luckily, I did get in the shower before sitting or laying on the bed, so at least I was clean.