DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

"We used to eat people"

Revelations of a Fiji Islands Traditional Village

RMW Dixon author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:McFarland & Co Inc

Published:27th Dec '17

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

"We used to eat people" cover

Living in a reed hut on Taveuni--the "garden isle" of Fiji--the author studied the native language and carefully observed their traditions until he was accepted as a (somewhat unusual) member of the village.

Despite five cyclones the summer of 1985, daily life was idyllic. Cannibalism has been abandoned, reluctantly, at the behest of the new Christian God. But the old religion survived beneath the facade and priests danced naked on the beach beneath the full moon. The village pulsated with factions and feuds, resolved by the stern but benevolent chief, whose word was law. Legends told of a princess born as a bird, who was killed and thus became a comely maiden--but the murderer had to be cooked and eaten.

ISBN: 9781476671819

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 11mm

Weight: 290g

218 pages