A small bone, said to be the remains of an English missionary, Rev. Thomas Baker, who was killed and eaten at Navosa, Fiji, in 1867, has been discovered in a small concrete box found beneath a hall in Nausori, Fiji.

The casket was discovered on Monday by two construction workers who were renovating the hall known as the Baker Hall.

"This casket contains a bone of Thomas Baker who was killed at Navosa on July 21 1867", were the words engraved on the box.

Reverend Thomas Baker (1832-67) was an early English Methodist missionary to pre-Christian Fiji. He is revered as a martyr by Methodists in Tonga and is commended for spreading Christianity to Fiji. In 1867 He and seven Fijian converts were notoriously killed and eaten by cannibals in Nabutautau village, located in the highlands of Fiji’s main island, Viti Levu.

The burial of the bone in its concrete casket has been attributed to a later missionary Reverend Charles Lelean (1867-1942). According to the Fiji Times, the bone was originally given to a missionary Reverend Arthur Small by Nabutautau villagers in the 1900’s.

In 2003, a ceremony of apology was performed in Nabutautau for the visiting descendants of Thomas Baker.