By: Marcia Abramson
It is becoming more popular than the French imports of Evian and Perrier because of the politics of France to some Americans.
Exploration of the Southwest Pacific began with the European navigators in the 16th and 17th century who were looking for the "Southern Land," terra australis incognita. They felt that this had to exist to balance the land masses of the northern hemisphere.
Spaniards from South America and Dutch sailors settled to the north west and east of the Tonga and Fiji islands. The Fiji Archipelago came about when Abel Tasman, a skipper for the Dutch East India Company discovered New Zealand in his search for the "Southern Land." He found a passage over the coral reefs and did actually touch the islands of Fiji.
But it was Captain James Cook who touched Fiji on his second voyage. He staked his claim to the island with a few nails, some medals and a knife on some rocky formations and named it Turtle Island.
Then Captain Bligh arrived in Fiji as a result of the famed mutiny on the Bounty, according to Bob Kay's "Lonely Planet" guide book. The crew mutinied when the Bounty was in Tongan waters. Bligh was put out to sea with 18 loyal officers and men with little provisions and no weapons.
The first island he landed on offered him no food or water.
He knew that he could not go back to Tahiti. Therefore, he set out with trepidation for the Cannibal Islands, as Fiji was known then. The Fijians had the reputation of being fierce fighters who practiced human sacrifice. The former director of the Fiji Museum, Fergus Clunie, said that cannibalism was a "perfectly normal part of religious life."
Victims were usually enemies taken during battles by the warrior gods.
This was a way of life in pre-Christian times. Today, extreme kindness and not extreme violence is the order of the day.
However, it was Commandant Charles Wilkes, an American, who did the most notable exploration and charting of the Fiji islands in just three months in the year 1840 and opened these islands for nature-loving Americans of this generation.
Now, some people consider friendliness to be Fiji's most abundant natural resource. Visitors often express amazement at the beauty, dignity and genuine warmth of the Fijians compared to money-motivated "hospitality" found in many tourist destinations. It is said that today's visitor to Fiji could be tomorrow's neighbor. This is known to be the story of population growth in Fiji.
Waves of immigration from every direction have made this country of more than 300 islands, the most cosmopolitan society in the mid-Pacific. Today's Fijians include descendants of Indonesian, Melanesian and Polynesian island people, European missionaries and merchants, imported Indian farm laborers, and more recent Chinese emigrants. The result is a handsome people, naturally dark with a reddish cinnamon cast. The men tend to be tall and muscular, the women hearty yet graceful. Once the fiercest island people of the Pacific, Fijians have become one of the gentlest.
The balmy climate and natural beauty of Fiji make for a more tranquil pace of life than most Westerners initially appreciate - until they too slow down.
In 1977, the late actor Raymond Burr confronted what his character Perry Mason might call the Case of the Sleeping Giant. Burr, an avid orchid collector and Fiji resident, was being pressed by friends and fans to open his Fiji orchid collection to outsiders. Housed just outside of Nadi, the largest city of Fiji, beneath an outcropping of rock that looked like a recumbent giant, the orchids had bloomed in peace and quiet. Burr at first was fearful that throngs of visitors might alter the fragile balance of nature. But he finally relented and opened the garden and closed the Case of the Sleeping Giant.
Nothing can compare to the peace and quiet of tropic days and nights afloat in Fiji, landing on undeveloped beaches and discovering unspoiled villages. In addition to enjoying the taste of Fiji water, a five-hour flight from warm Hawaii can land you in Fiji Paradise.© Copyright Marcia Abramson. E-mail: mascribe@aol.com
