ABSTRACT
The events of 1919 and 1920, the culmination of many years of growing Christian and government strength, seem to have thrown the communities of the East Kwara’ae bush into a state of political and religious crisis. The return of spirits of the dead may reflect both traditional Kwara’ae and Christian ideas, but in view of all the men from Kwai who worked in Fiji it could be significant that bulu is a Fijian word referring to “the unseen world of the dead”. Several of the original Queensland Christians belonged to Siale clans, including Sela’au and Kabulanga of Faim, whose ancestors came from Tolinga, and Fiuloa of the Ubasi clan, which derives from ’Aimomoko. By the time of the Second World War most of the people of Kwai had taken part in a massive social transformation. For many people this must have seemed like surrender to the European domination which they and their ancestors had been fighting for so long.
