Baker Apology: Is It For Real Or What?

Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase and wife Leba...with descendants of Reverend Thomas Baker at Nabutautau.

A month-long ceremony in a remote village in Fiji recently by descendants of a tribe that clubbed and ate a British-born missionary 136 years ago was an attempt to appease the gods.

The atonement rituals of isoro tabu by the Navatusila tribe‹inland of Fiji's main island of Viti Levu‹drew international coverage with major news agencies like the Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, Australian Associated Press, even London's Daily Telegraph newspaper sending teams to cover the event. Whether the rituals did work in exorcising the curse the tribe felt had descended on them ever since, only time will tell. Most probably, reviving an age-old ritual of seeking forgiveness for a wrong done more than a century ago may have only succeeded in exposing a closet full of skeletons.

Like the seemingly cosy relationship between the church and state. Organiser of the highly choreographed and "staged managed apology" was a religious organisation calling itself the Assembly of Christian Churches of Fiji (ACCF).

A latecomer to the long-time established Fiji Council of Churches, the assembly comprises mainly Pentecostal churches although it has as its chair the president of Fiji's largest Christian denomination, the Methodist Church. Of late, the ACCF had frequently teamed up with the Fiji Government in the so-called reconciliation initiatives under the government's Ministry of National Reconciliation.

The Navatusila ceremony, convened after its chief and warriors killed and ate Wesleyan evangelist Reverend Thomas Baker and eight of his local followers on July 21 1867, was another joint government/ACCF project, with the former admitting footing F$19,000 (about US$9500) of the costs. The money helped in the construction of a dirt road into Navatusila's main village of Nubutautau, as well as the construction of two flushed toilets and a diesel generator for electricity, although descendants of Baker, now residing in Australia, paid their own way to attend the ceremony.

That the atonement ritual performed by the chief of Navatusila Ratu Filimoni Nawawabalavu to the Baker family was genuine no one would dispute that. Tears and sweat flowed freely as Nawawabalavu brave the hot sun to present gifts of tabua (tooth of sperm whale), mats and a slaughtered cow to appease the visitors, and in so doing, break the curse.

When Les Lesley, a great, great grandson of Baker left his seat under the shade of a tent to accept the tabua and embraced an emotional Nawawabalavu, a sigh of relief could be heard amongst the crowd. The poignant ceremony was however, marred by a rather insensitive and crude re-enactment of Baker's fateful evangelistic visit to the tribe by youth members of the ACCF.

Done in full view of the Baker family whose forgiveness they sought and obtained minutes earlier, the drama depicted the Methodist missionary as rude and unlearned in Fijian customs and traditions. Even though the script was in the Fijian language, the implications were obvious enough to move a member of the Baker family to advice that none in the group took photos of the re-enactment.

Not only did Baker was shown to have touched the head of the chief, as had been claimed by the villagers thus earning their wrath and basically signing his death warrant, he was portrayed as uncouth and ill-mannered who deserved what he got!

That drama could never be right given the fact that Baker was a Methodist clergyman who was into his sixth year as an evangelist in Fiji. Not only did he speak the language (although it took him more than a year to master), he was also well versed in local customs.

Indeed, one of the descendants of Bakers' local followers who was acting as the family's traditional herald that day, is a first year student at the Methodist Church's Theological College in Davuilevu, near Suva's Nausori Airport.

In organising the atonement ceremony and condoning the drama, the ACCF runs the risk of ridiculing and belittling the teachings of the church Baker was trying to preach and spread.

So many times the Methodist Church had found it necessary to remind newer and seemingly louder charismatic churches that it was due to the boldness and perseverance of its evangelists that Fiji abandoned its cannibalistic past and was Christianised, with at least one of them, the 35-year-old Baker, paying the ultimate price.

The absence from the atonement programme too of two churches that the people of Navatusila belong to‹Roman Catholic and Seventh Day Adventist‹raises questions as to the motive of the involvement of some members of ACCF in the event.

For instance, critics may very well wonder whether such ceremonies were done in the guise of penetrating into areas these charismatic churches would never had dreamt of venturing into in the first place, and with state-funding at that!

As ACCF leaders made their way home from the hills that day in their new and air-conditioned four-wheel drive vehicles, they may have been comforted by the thought that it was mission accomplished: they have placed the onus of breaking the curse fairly and squarely on the shoulders of Nawawabalavu and his people of Navatusila.

Once they cleanse themselves spiritually and "truly" accepted Christ, God's blessings will flow like a deluge and government services long denied them would arrive, even though first time travellers to Navatusila that day agreed that the want of public facilities like schools, health centres and telephone services had nothing to do with the killing of Baker but more to do with its remoteness and challenging terrain.