SUVA (AFP) -- Fiji, once called the "Cannibal Islands", will next month confront its dark past when chiefs of a remote village perform a traditional ceremony of apology for killing and eating an English missionary.

The village, now known as Navatusila, is expected to present heaps of "tabua" or whale tooth and mats to descendants of Reverend Thomas Baker, killed in 1867.

"I can understand the interest -- I mean we used to eat each other and that must be interesting in this day and age," current Navosa paramount chief Kuini Vuikaba Speed told AFP. "We are fortunate we now live in an environment free of that practice."

Formerly known as Naqaqadelavatu, the village is located in a remote part of Navosa Province. It was the most beautiful part of the interior some 900 meters (3,000 feet) above sea level, dotted with ravines and streams.

Baker, an Englishman born in Playden, Sussex, who was sent in to the interior after working in Fiji since 1859, presented a whale's tooth to chief Nawawabalavu on arrival. Presenting a tooth usually guaranteed safe passage and protection from the ferocious hill tribes, known for their merciless killings. "I wish to do good by the people," the missionary wrote in his last letter to his wife two days before he and his group were surrounded and killed by 30 men. "If I do not go now, I shall never go."

Chief Nawawabalavu told Baker he did not like Christianity and vowed never to change. But he accepted the whale's tooth and agreed to guide the party toward the coast.

Baker's story is told in letters he dispatched before continuing into the hills and a diary, now bound and kept in trust by the Fiji Museum library.