The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-12-15
SALAMANDER
MYSTERIES
Papa Ita's Art Viewed
By Savants.
ISLAND FIRE WALKERS
Accounts Of Those Who Have Seer
and Studied the Secret
Marvels.
r HE publication in the Advertiser

f1E puUncdtlOn In the Advertiser
of the presence in Honolulu of
one OF the marvellous fire walk
ers OF Tahiti has aroused intense in.
terest. Students of mystic lore and
Polynesian antiquities and customs
nave been brushing up their reading
on the subject. Papa 1ta, the aged
Tahitian, who claims to be one of the
modern salamanders, is awaiting in
private home here the making ready
Of place for his curious exhibition.
The feat which Papa TIA will accom-
plish IL his gods and spirits do not fail
him, is not new one, for it is a GUS
tom descended from the ancients of his
own islands, and hundreds of years
ago very similar ceremonies were held
by the people of South India. Fire
walking was also a feature of old
Egyptian festivals and religious occa-
sions.
| How 1t is done, or what the secret
of its accomplishment. no one has
ever been able to say, but reliable au-
thorities state that there is nothing of
the fake element about the perform
ance. 1t is an undeniable fact that the
fire-walkers do walk on fire, and if
| by other means than the power given
them through the spirits which they
summon with their ti-leaf wands, peo-
pie who have witnessed the ceremony
have been unable. even by the keenest
observation and closest study, TO dis
cover what.
On the island of Maritius the fire
walking ceremony Is a part of the an
nuaf festival. and is performed every
year Fire walking has been referred
to by writer's on the subject as 1.-The
Maritius Miracle" and it is a matter
of record that at one time the COVER
nor of the Fiji Islands, hearing that
some of his guests were incredulous
caused the ceremony to be performed
for the vice-regal party, before about
five hundred native spectators.
The Polynesian Society have giveI
much attention to the question recent
ly in its quarterly journals, and lat
number contains an interesting arti
Gle on the subject written by Mis-
Teuira Henry. of Kukui street, Thu
city. Miss Henry was herself born il
Tahiti and lived there number 0
years, and her article aroused mucl
comment from able writers and peopl
who had been eye-witnesses of tn
ceremony Miss Henry gives a fu
account of the performance, with
translation of the incantations accom-
i panying the feat According to he
l account the fire-walking is a ceremon
that goes with the feast of ti-root, pei
formed when the huge oven is mad
: ready for the baking of the feast.
In an excavation some thirty fe'
across, both ways, logs and sticks al
piled, and the stones are placed on to
The logs are then set fire underneat
and within a period of twenty-fol
1t hours have burned low, leaving Il
81 stones at white heat, ready for Il
o baking of the ti-root feast. 1t is the
that the sorcerer calls upon his spirit
d summoning them with his tile
ID wand, and calling upon them in t
te chant of incantation:
,s 20, spirits who heated the oven, L
80 IL die out! Oh, dark earth-worms; O
light earth-worms, Freshswater a
= salt water. heat of the oven. and re
-. ness of the oven, hold up the footste
of the walkers, and fan the heat of I
-, bed: Oh, cold beings! Let us lie in t
~ midst of the oven, Oh, Great Woma
ts-fire-to-the-skies! Hold I
fan. and let us go into the oven for
-. little while,"
W Still chanting, the leader steps il
the oven and walks over the ston
" followed by the people who are to p
-, take of the feast, waving the wal
~ and circling about over the ston
without burn Or pain.
g, The Great t-Womanwho-sets-h fire
III the-skies' is the leading spirit of
r fire-walkers, and to her is attribu
u the possession of the dread lightn
and thunderbolt
~ Miss Henry does not attempt to
plain the miraculous performance,
III leaves the solution of the surpris
feat to scientists. Her statement
,n i merely the statement of an eye-y
ness.
A Mr.. Hastwell. in a San Franci
ln pamphlet, gives the following accou
nu "The natives of Raiatea have 81
W. % performances so entirely out of
leu ordinary course of events as to in
NE . tute inquiry as to proper solution.
e. an the 2Oth of September, 1885. with
ed the wonderful, and to me inexpl
,,,,,, BILE, performance of passing thro
- the Fiery Furnace" The furI
-. that / saw was an excavation of Il
- or four feet in the ground, of circ
hev form, sloping upward, and about th
49, feet across. The excavation was f
,ars with logs and wood, and then Gov
a. with large stones. A fire was
Goo underneath and kept burning for a
! ~ a day. When witnessed it, on
mas second day, the flames we're pou
,ood up through interstices of the re
which were heated to red and "