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walker : surfing in fiji, 1900 |
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After arriving in
Vanuatu, the capital of Fiji, Walker sailed to Taviuni where he stayed
with Ratu Lala in the village of Somo-soma.
The surfriding extract
was recorded on the island of Vuna, about twenty miles from Taviuni.
(at Vuna Island)
We came to fish,
and fish we did, just off the coral reef, but it would take space to describe
even one-half of the curious and beautiful fish we caught.
When I took the
lead in the number of fish caught, Ratu Lala seemed greatly annoyed, and
I was not sorry to let him get ahead, when he was soon in a good temper
again.
The Fijians generally
fished with nets and a many-pronged fish-spear, with which they are very
expert, and I saw them do wonderful work with them.
They also used
long wicker-work traps.
Ratu Lala, on
the contrary, being half-civilized, used an English rod and reel or line
like a white man. Ratu Lala told the women here to give an exhibition of
surf-board swimming for my benefit.
As they rode
into shore on the crest of a wave I many times expected to see them dashed
against ...
Page 29
... the rocks
which fringed the coast.
I had seen the
natives in Hawaii perform seventeen years before, but it was tame in comparison
to the wonderful performances of these Fijian women on this dangerous rock-girt
coast.
 |
Witherby and Company, 326 High Horborn, London, 1910. |
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