FROM COLONIAL POMP TO TOURISM REALITY: COMMODIFICATION AND CANNIBALIZATION OF THE FIJIAN FIREWALKING CEREMONY

Authors

Guido Carlo Pigliasco, University of Hawai‘i at MānoaFollow

Abstract

In 1935 the rite [firewalking] was performed before two members of the British Medical Association. The eminent doctors examined the men carefully before and after the ceremony. . . . The men of Mbengga [sic], not knowing of these learned disputations, unconcernedly carry on the strange custom of their ancestors (Luis Marden, National Geographic, October 1958: 560–61).

The Fijians had another way of disposing of the bodies. They ate them. . . . This was a culture devoted to killing, and when there wasn’t an enemy around to meet their needs, chiefs took to killing the commoners among them (J. Maarten Troost, Getting Stoned with Savages: A Trip through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu, 2006, 175).

Recommended Citation

Pigliasco, Guido Carlo (2015) "FROM COLONIAL POMP TO TOURISM REALITY: COMMODIFICATION AND CANNIBALIZATION OF THE FIJIAN FIREWALKING CEREMONY," Pacific Studies Journal: Vol. 38: No. 1, Article 6.
Available at: https://digitalcollections.byuh.edu/pacific-studies-journal/vol38/iss1/6