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From the Telegraph, London (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...15.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/10/15/ixnewstop.html):
Fiji villagers to say sorry for eating British missionary
By Nick Squires in Sydney
(Filed: 15/10/2003)
Villagers in Fiji whose ancestors killed and ate a British missionary 136 years ago are to offer a traditional apology to his descendants.
The Rev Thomas Baker, of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, was killed in the remote mountain community of Navatusila in 1867, possibly after he took a comb out of a chief's hair.
Touching the head of a chief was taboo in Fiji, once known as the Cannibal Isles.
Mr Baker, from Playden, East Sussex, is the only European to have been cooked and eaten in Fiji.
His death helped to foster an image of missionaries as blundering proselytisers who inevitably ended up in a simmering pot surrounded by dancing natives.
A contemporary account of the 35-year-old churchman's grisly death quoted villagers as saying: "We ate everything but his boots." One of those boots is on display in the national museum in the capital, Suva.
The people of Navatusila want to atone for the sins of their ancestors because they believe they have been cursed by Mr Baker's death, with their village suffering a string of misfortunes.
The chief of the village, on the island of Viti Levu, has invited the missionary's descendants in Britain to attend next month's ceremony, the Pacific Islands News Association reported yesterday.
Lance Martin, an archivist at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, which holds an account of the Rev Baker's death, said: "The story about the comb may be a bit of a myth.
"It seems Baker got caught up in some sort of inter-tribal feuding relating to his right to travel across the island.
"He was ambushed as he and his companions were leaving a village one morning. He was cut up on a flat rock at the base of a ravine.
"His body was anointed and then eaten."
Kenwyn Pierce, a spokesman for the London Missionary Society, which sent dozens of missionaries to the South Pacific and still has ties with countries such as Papua New Guinea, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, said: "Baker's fate is not an unusual story.
"One of our missionaries made a similar cultural error in Papua New Guinea at about the same time. He got on the wrong side of a tribe and ended up being beaten to death and cannibalised."
Fiji is now staunchly Christian and many Fijians regard their cannibal heritage as primitive and embarrassing.
Five years ago a pair of entrepreneurs caused an uproar on the islands with a plan to sell "cannibal chutney" based on a traditional dish which once accompanied human meat during feasts.
Fiji villagers to say sorry for eating British missionary
By Nick Squires in Sydney
(Filed: 15/10/2003)
Villagers in Fiji whose ancestors killed and ate a British missionary 136 years ago are to offer a traditional apology to his descendants.
The Rev Thomas Baker, of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, was killed in the remote mountain community of Navatusila in 1867, possibly after he took a comb out of a chief's hair.
Touching the head of a chief was taboo in Fiji, once known as the Cannibal Isles.
Mr Baker, from Playden, East Sussex, is the only European to have been cooked and eaten in Fiji.
His death helped to foster an image of missionaries as blundering proselytisers who inevitably ended up in a simmering pot surrounded by dancing natives.
A contemporary account of the 35-year-old churchman's grisly death quoted villagers as saying: "We ate everything but his boots." One of those boots is on display in the national museum in the capital, Suva.
The people of Navatusila want to atone for the sins of their ancestors because they believe they have been cursed by Mr Baker's death, with their village suffering a string of misfortunes.
The chief of the village, on the island of Viti Levu, has invited the missionary's descendants in Britain to attend next month's ceremony, the Pacific Islands News Association reported yesterday.
Lance Martin, an archivist at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, which holds an account of the Rev Baker's death, said: "The story about the comb may be a bit of a myth.
"It seems Baker got caught up in some sort of inter-tribal feuding relating to his right to travel across the island.
"He was ambushed as he and his companions were leaving a village one morning. He was cut up on a flat rock at the base of a ravine.
"His body was anointed and then eaten."
Kenwyn Pierce, a spokesman for the London Missionary Society, which sent dozens of missionaries to the South Pacific and still has ties with countries such as Papua New Guinea, Samoa and the Solomon Islands, said: "Baker's fate is not an unusual story.
"One of our missionaries made a similar cultural error in Papua New Guinea at about the same time. He got on the wrong side of a tribe and ended up being beaten to death and cannibalised."
Fiji is now staunchly Christian and many Fijians regard their cannibal heritage as primitive and embarrassing.
Five years ago a pair of entrepreneurs caused an uproar on the islands with a plan to sell "cannibal chutney" based on a traditional dish which once accompanied human meat during feasts.
