Wands, skull confiscated, cops probe masons

July 21, 2009 01:51:03 PM

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Fiji Police continue to hold on to wands, compasses and a skull it confiscated from a Freemasons meeting in Denarau last Tuesday night.

Police spokesman Corporal Suliono Tevita said the 14 masons arrested in the raid have been released, but investigations into their activity continue.

He confirms that allegations against the masons, including witchcraft and sorcery, “are all being investigated”.

The masons spent a night in a Fiji prison cell after frightened residents and police raided their meeting.

A New Zealand man who was part of the meeting told the media that 14 members of the Freemasons Lodge of Lautoka were arrested by the Police.

He blamed superstitious villagers for reporting on their “sinister” activities to Police.

The masons were reportedly released on the intervention of Fiji’s Prime Minister.

Freemasonry, one of the world's oldest secular fraternal societies, has been established in Fiji since colonization in the 1800s.

Its listed members consist largely of men with European descent.
 
The oldest masonic organisation in Fiji, Lodge Polynesia, has been in existence since 1871 and is intertwined with the history of Fiji and of Levuka Town, Fiji’s first capital, in particular.

Another sect, Lodge of Fiji, received its warrant from the United Grand Lodge of England in 1881 and its history began with the founding of Suva as a city.

The organisation’s website describes the so-called secret society as a “society of men concerned with moral and spiritual values.

It said members are taught its precepts by a series of ritual dramas, which follow ancient forms, and use stonemason's customs and tools as allegorical guides.

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