PART 2
The villagers of Nasau, Kadavu began to call William Churchill by the name Ratu Ritu. He was the man who was spared by their chief, Na Saqa Levu.
In Churchill’s book, ‘A Princess of Fiji’, he wrote that his life with them was nothing short of idleness as he was a ‘teacher of useful arts’.
With the help of the matai, who were gifted carpenters, the brig Janet, which was beyond repair, was broken apart because there was still value in her timbers.
The village men, who had never used the white men’s tools before were more than eager to learn and Churchill was pleased to see their quick understanding of how to saw and plane timber.
Churchill wrote of how the children were his first friends.
They would cling to his side as he worked, they would play with his tools and cut themselves on sharp chisels and be constantly in his way, but he did not mind their presence.
All during this time, the chief’s daughter, Finau, slowly grew into a fine woman. She received many requests for marriage from other village men which had been instigated by the priest Cikinovu.
But her heart had grown fond of Churchill with their many uninterrupted conversations, and he knew that she had loved him.
Their friendship had grown and it wasn’t long before he decided that he would ask chief Na Saqa Levu for his daughter’s hand.
“I passed on into the circle of light cast by the flaming strings of candlenuts, made my respects to Na Saqa Levu and sat down,” he said of how he approached the chief.
“I was desirous of asking him for Finau and having the matter over with, but I remembered how courteous the Fijians are and I feared to injure my plea by some clumsy fault of expression.”
Churchill sat in silence, finding it difficult to express himself.
The chief noticed this and pressed him with small talk. It was at that moment when Finau began to tell her father of the term princess, whom she had learnt from Churchill and explained how she was a ‘prinsesi’ because she was a daughter of a great chief.
Finau expressed that a princess could ask any man she loved and would like to have as her husband.
“For father dear, I love Ratu Ritu dearly, dearer than anything in life, ever dearer than you and he loves me, his eyes say so, but his tongue does not for he fears to ask you for me,” Finau told the chief.
“So, I must be a prinsesi that I may ask him as I do ask him now before you, my father.
“Ratu Ritu make me your wife, take me to your home that I may make the mats for you to lie on and chew the yaqona for you to drink.”
Churchill (Ratu Ritu) said that immediately after they embraced, he told the chief that it was true and asked for her hand in marriage.
The chief spoke that he was not surprised with this news as he had been carefully observing them from the start and promised his daughter to him, adding that he was be now a Fijian forever.
“It was arranged that in the morning I should call Finau from the house and in the presence of her father and the whole town should clip the taubes from before her ears and lead her across the green to my house,” Churchill wrote.
“The feast to all the townsfolk would follow at noon, but the chief desire to have a ceremony after the white man’s fashion as well and I too desired it for marriage in my mind was too holy an estate to be entered into lightly and with purely savage rites.”
To Churchill’s surprise, the chief was able to get Cikinovu the priest to learn the Christian marriage ritual and publicly marry them.
“That scene I have never forgotten, the village green crowded with wondering people, overheard the blue arch of the morning sky, the waving plumes of the coconuts.
“From the house in answer to my call, Na Saqa Levu led my little maid, garlanded with orange blossoms which hung in ropes about her neck and down her arms.
“My heart and my home were now in Nasau on the bay of the Black Duck (Galoa), there were differences in skin and in speech, but I was at one with the people who had befriended me, and I felt that they were entitled to my best efforts and to lead them to better things, for Finau was mine and I was hers.”
Churchill later participated in a battle with the village men on a neighbouring town, Vadratau, at the request of Na Saqa Levu.
His wife, Finau, had also pushed him to join the fight citing that Cikinovu told the villagers that he was a coward and afraid to battle.
“For several miles we travelled noiselessly and came at last to a descending slope from which we could look out upon the eastern sea.
“Long before the coming dawn had brought the unsuspecting people out of the homes for which they would have to fight that day, my party was posted at every point about the village where thick cover could be found.
“The story of that battle I do not care to write, my memory finds no pleasure in blood and wounds and dying groans.”
Later, in another chapter, he wrote of his days of constructing a schooner which was later used for an expedition with some of the village men and Finau in search of the island of Lakeba who Na Sa Levu stated were their friends from the ancient days.
“Steadily we stood out to sea for I was fearful of the peril of hidden coral along the fringing reefs,” Churchill wrote of the Lakeba expedition.
“We dipped the last landmark of Nasau behind the point and then for the first time in many months I felt that sense of freedom which comes to a man on a tight vessel when it rises to the long waves of the ocean and rolls and tosses though never to be shaken from its course.
“All day long we skirted the shore about five miles off and traced out the southern line of Kadavu.”
While sailing out, a canoe came out to them. The man who spoke was from Koro Island and he gave directions on the route to Lakeba.
The man questioned how Churchill could call himself a ‘kai Kadavu’ when he was white and told him of the rumours that went on his island of him, the white man who taught the people of Nasau many things that made them stronger.
“So, parting then with hope of meeting at some other time and wishing courteous thoughts to each, the schooner filled her sails and leaped onward, glad to know her destination for sure.”
This was a journey where he would come across the great chief who ruled Lakeba, Maafu.
• History being the subject it is, a group’s version of events may not be the same as that held by another group. When publishing one account, it is not our intention to cause division or to disrespect other oral traditions. Those with a different version can contact us so we can publish your account of history too — Editor.
