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Lunch with a Cannibal
By Richard Goodman
Lunch with a Cannibal (Just Like Chicken) I was deep in the center of Viti Levu, Fiji's largest island, when I had lunch with a cannibal. The village chief, Ratu E, had invited me to share the meal. His wife spread woven pandanus mats on the ground in the shade of a large lime tree. From our vantage point at the top of a steep hillside, we could see a tributary of the Rewa River winding through the valley before us. Here and there, distant patches of giant bamboo, some of it 100 feet or more tall, dotted the flood plain. The sun was very hot, and Ratu E. fanned himself with a woven fan as his wife set before us dishes of boiled chicken, fern fronds in coconut cream, sliced cucumber, slices of boiled taro, and a savory dish of freshwater prawns cooked with bits of onion and red, hot pepper in a savory sauce. "Do you see this lime tree ?" Ratu E asked me as we dug into our food. With a sweep of his hand he indicated the tree that shaded us. I had had the tiniest of breakfasts quite a few hours before -- some crackers and some jam -- and I felt famished. "Yes," replied. The chicken we were devouring had, an hour or two before, been strutting around in the village. It was proof of Darwin's theory of the survival of the fittest, for in a Fijian village the toughest, fastest-running, wary chickens live to see another day (and reproduce), while the less wary get caught when young and never live to reproduce. Our entree was very tough. "Many years ago," Ratu E told me, "I was a young man who just wanted to see the world. The British, who ruled Fiji then, were fighting rebels in Malaya. They announced that they were recruiting a certain number of young men to join their forces and fight their enemy. I was tired of living in the village, so I volunteered, "The morning of my departure from here, I made a vow. "I came to this lime tree, picked two fresh limes and put them in my pocket. "On the day of my first battle, I was able to fulfill my vow, We had a terrific fight. I got through it safely, and had killed one of the rebels -- shot him dead in the heart. I went over to the body and did what I had vowed to do. With my thumbs, I dug out each of his eyes. I squeezed the juice from my limes on these eyeballs, and then ate them. After all, he had been a true warrior." And this was the story I heard at lunchtime when I dined with a man who once had been a cannibal, but who had forsaken these ways long before I met him. And, yes, if lunch tasted like chicken, this is because it WAS.
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Contributor's Note
My lunch with Ratu E was just one of many interesting experiences I had during approximnately 50 trips to the South Pacific.
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The copyright for this content entitled "Lunch with a Cannibal" has been specified by the contributor as:
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If you use this content according to the license specified, you must link to the following URL:
http://goodmanster.qondio.com/
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