I
(in i Takei, a/k/a Fiji, circa 1840)
Drumming thrumming through thick forest trees
makes hearts race – the i Takei freeze,
listening to the lali, wooden drum
telling what has passed or what’s to come.
Do i uauas beat a celebration
sounding boisterous congratulations
to a mother nursing her newborn?
Is the lali’s resonance forlorn
tidings of an uncle who has died?
No, this lali warns that war betides,
time to follow our ferocious Rata,
seizing in our huts our favorite gata
clubs of vesi wood that make men moan
when the angled edges snap their bones,
clubs inlaid with teeth of enemies
killed and eaten in our victories.
Cowards scurry to a hiding place
hoping blood’s sweet copper scent’s not traced
by a hungry nose as gatas raise
raining blows and knocking foes sideways.
From old Korolevu comes the sound
heard in Dakudaku hills around:
Rata Udre Udre, greatest chief,
stealing life and joy from others’ grief.
Hear the lali’s gruesome lullaby?
Be a man, prepare yourself to die!
Rata Udre Udre’s lali beats!
Rata Udre Udre wants to eat!
II
After battle, we will have a snack –
noses sliced and roasted from the stack
of bodies piled that we will need to gut,
then in parts for packing off, we’ll cut
into segments at the joints, then braise
blocking rotting as we wend our way
back to Korolevu, on the hill
where we’ll feast, in sanctity, our fill.
Every man will eat from one he slayed
but the prisoner booty will be saved
for our Rata, his to eat alone,
marking each one with a massive stone
lined beside the others, giant beads
of an abacus recording deeds,
swallowed lives, an awe-inspiring sight,
monument to Rata’s appetite.
When we near the rock walls of our fort,
then begin the songs of our consorts
and excited children dance and cheer
father-warriors, who have twice killed fear;
once, the fear of foes that we have slaughtered;
twice, the harbored fears of sons and daughters
for whom we bring bokola for meat
so that relatives we need not eat.
Eat we must, but not ourselves to please –
we kill for the god we must appease
as directed by the bete priests;
if the god is happy, we can feast.
III
Scouting from our village hilltop, high,
no one comes to rescue, none will try.
Sea surrounding also we can view –
only waves, no saviors in canoes.
Joyous, we march booty from the raid,
beaten bloody, into the stockade.
Men and women with their children weep,
clutch in vain the life they cannot keep.
So much bokola we killed won’t fit
Korolevu’s lovo oven pits.
So, we make the prisoners dig another
where we’ll roast their fathers and their mothers.
When they finish digging and are tired,
they are made to gather for the fire
kindling sticks and branches that aren’t green
so the lovo oven pit burns clean.
We unpack our sacks of captured lives,
handing pieces out along with knives
dressing flesh while bete supervise
cutting up of bokola to size.
Prisoners watch as we prepare their kin,
elders, fathers, brothers, sons, and friends,
hang their virile parts in sacred trees,
balls and penis dangling in the breeze.
We scorch body pieces to prepare
for removal of the skin and hair
scraping with the kai, or bi-valve shells.
As we work, we feel our hunger swell.
IV
Bokola we wrap inside tudano,
malawaci, yudi or in dalo
leaves, like little sleeves for baking flesh,
rolled with garden vegetables dug fresh.
But before we start to cook the meat,
Rata Udre Udre takes his seat:
“Prisoners, you must honor me, the chief.
Make a cup from this banana leaf.”
With his bamboo knife he cuts their vein,
holds their cup below it as it drains,
vibrant redness pouring in a flood,
and they watch great Rata drink their blood.
Flesh must be baked slowly, so to render
chunks of tough and stringy meat to tender
morsels, but our hunger agitates;
doing useful work will help us wait.
We will smash the mouths of severed heads
of bokola to harvest from these dead
teeth to inlay in their killers’ gatas,
giving holy warrior power, mana,
or to string in necklaces to wear
with tobe, rings of our bokolas’ hair,
woven in a lanyard showing stature.
Long bones, split, we’ll carve into back-scratchers.
Sau-ni-laca, needles that can sew
sails for ships, we’ll make from their shin bones.
Even empty skulls will have a use –
bowls from which we’ll drink yaqona juice.
V
In the temple, by the lovo pits
where the roaring fire flames and spits,
bete intone prayers to make the meat
that we offer to the god taste sweet.
In a pot some fruit and flesh we toss,
stewing up a toothsome special sauce
stirred with spoons made of bokola bones,
smelling so piquant, i Takei moan.
Nose-delighting carnival, so carnal,
simmering in ovens of the charnel
lovo makes us hunger-maddened, weeping.
and the Rata Udre Udre, leaping
to his feet with wild eyes, lifts his hand,
points it jailward, shouts out his command:
“Bring that prisoner quickly to my seat!
Rata Udre Udre wants to eat!”
Warriors throw the man at Rata’s feet.
“Raise him up and hold him still to meet
fate I have conceived; pry wide his jaw,
take this hook, then reach inside his maw.
“Pierce his tongue and stretch it like a snake.
Take a knife and cut it off to slake
hunger till my feast is finally served
and I’ll give him honor he deserves.”
Turning to the prisoner, Rata said,
“If you stand tall, disregarding dread,
when I roast your tongue, I’ll cut in two;
your own roasted tongue I’ll share with you!”
VI
Savory smells surround us, flavory shroud.
Hungry, watery mouths begin to crowd
lovo oven pits, where women ferry
cooked bokola from the fire and carry
tender pieces to the chiefs and priests,
after which we all begin to feast!
Free or slave, all sitting in our places;
human grease runs down our happy faces!
Pig is good, but people taste the best –
such is what the gods eat. We are blessed
when bokola stuffs our bulging cheeks.
While we dine, our hero chieftain speaks:
“I am Udre Udre, highest Rata!
I have the most mana in my gata.
I mark all my meals with giant stones
counting all the spirits that I own.
With one more, I will become a god!”
Immortality? We all were awed.
That is why we did not hear or see
an Englishman approaching quietly.
But Rata saw him and said “Who are you
who comes to Korolevu to intrude
upon our sacred feasting? Pink-faced liar,
speak before we roast you in the fire!”
The man said, “I am here for Jesus, who
gave his blood and body up for you.”
Rata smiled and said, “That is good news.
Come to the killing stone, and you can, too!”
VII
(in i Takei, a/k/a Fiji, 2018)
I flew in from Wellington to Fiji.
This was recommended as a ‘must-see’ –
some stone tomb belonging to a cannibal.
A lady asked, “Was this guy like a ‘Hannibal’?”
The native guide smiled – he’d heard that before.
“Like Hannibal, but Udre kept a score.
See those stones? Eight-hundred-ninety-two.
And some are missing. Udre wasn’t through
till he ate nine-hundred-ninety-nine.
With just one more, he could have been divine.”
“You mean a god?” she asked. “Like Jesus, really?”
“That’s the legend,” he said. “Probably silly.”
Something stuck inside, like memory,
made this place seem like a rectory.
“How’d he die?” I asked. The guide’s smile froze.
“Some say he was shot, but no one knows.”
Others left, and underneath the tree
sheltering Udre’s tomb was only me.
I heard drumming from a distant shore;
my guide whispered, “Udre ate one more.
“Now he’s living in the astral plane
where he beats his lali, but in vain.
In that world there is no flesh to roast;
he will always be a hungry ghost.”
Soft, I heard a gruesome lullaby. . .
I’ve become a god that cannot die.
Rata Udre Udre’s lali beats!
Rata Udre Udre wants to eat!