The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1901-01-22
HOW 4 NUMBER or FIJIANs DID
THE TRICK.
Some Euglishmcn Tried it And Felt
Some Strange Sensations I'm Their
Feet

Fire-walking is an ancient Oriental
custom the origin of which is apparent
~ unknown. 1t still survives in In
dia, Japan and some of the South Sea
Islands. The performance, sometimes
prefaccd with inCantatiOns conducted
by priests and followed by a feast, con-
sists i'm walking barefoot over a bed of
stones which have been made red or
White-hot by fire. DR.. II. NJ. HOCken
thus describes the ceremony as he
witnessed it on one of the Fiji Islands:
Through the cooperation of the civil
officers and a steamship company the
small clan ON the island was persuaded
to give an exhibition, ana several
whites, including Doctor HoCKen went
to witness it, one of them, a govern
ment metcOrlOgist, carried a thermu-
meter which would register up to four
hundred degrees Fahrenheit
When the guests arrived they found
hundreds of natives assembled. The
oven was twenty-five or thirty feet long
and eight feet broad, and was shaped
like saucer. The deepest part of the
depression was fifteen feet in length.
The preparations has been undertaken
long enough i'm advance to avert any
delay, and the visitors saw the stones
still covered with embers, which We're
removed in their presence by means Of
long poles bearing loops of green
WitheS
Walking beside the pit before this
was done, the man with thermometer
recorded temperature of one hundred
and fourteen degrees. After the stones
were uncovered he hung his instrument
out over the center of the oven, SIX
feet above the stones whereupOn the
mercury rose to two hundred and
eighty-tWO degrees. The solder was
melting, and the instrument was likely
to be ruined if left in that position
longer.
What the temperature was on the
stones themselves can only be cOnieC-
tured. Doctor HOcken says that they
We're "white-hot," and that low flames
from small Goals between the stones
could be seen leaping up around them.
Two Of the men who were to walk
across the oven were examined by Doc
tor HOcken before their daring act
They wore garlands about the neck and
waist Their feet and legs were entire
ly bare. The soles We're soft and flexi-
bic, showing that they had not been
rendered permanently CallOus in any
way.
IN order to detect the presence of che
meals which might have been applied
for the occasion Doctor Hocken did
not hesitate to lick the natives feet!
But his scientific zeal availed nothing.
Finally at a signal the seven or eight
natives who took part in the exhibition
70
and walked across the stones from one
end to the other of the pit. They spent
less than half a minute there.
Immediately after they emerged
Doctor HOcken again inspected their
feet, but could find no sign of burning
or blistering.
Several Englishmen have tried this
experiment, one of them British re-
sident on one of the Society islands, He
says, Il felt something resembling
slight electric shocks, and the tingling
sensations continued for hours after
ward, but that was all. The tender
skin of my feet was not even hardened
by fire"
Yet the stones We're so hot that an
hour afterward green branches thrown
on them caught fire and blazed up
1t is difficult to explain these pheno-
mena. No theory worthy of scientific
consideration has yet been proposed to
account for them.-Youths' Companion