The uncivilized races of men in all countries of the world; vol. 2 of 2 / Being a comprehensive account of their manners and customs, and of their physical, social, mental, moral and religious characteristics

by J. G. Wood

THE NICOBAR ISLANDS.

Immediately to the south of the Andaman Islands, and barely thirty miles distant, lie the Nicobar Islands. The group consists of nine tolerably large islands, and several of much smaller size. One of the large islands, called Great Nicobar, is twenty miles long by eight wide, while Little Nicobar is barely half these dimensions.

The islands are singularly fertile, and abound in various kinds of vegetation, especially in the cocoa-nut palm, not a specimen of which is to be found in the Andaman Islands. This curious fact is accounted for by the character of the Andamaners, who have an almost superstitious love for the cocoa-nut. If one of the nuts be washed ashore, it is always broken up and eaten; and if perchance one of the fruit happens to escape the sharp eyes of the natives and to germinate, its green feathery shoots are sure to attract the attention of the first Mincopie who passes in that direction. A similar barrier to the production of the cocoa-nut is found on the coast of Australia.

Although so close to the Andaman Islands, the inhabitants of Nicobar are very unlike the Mincopies, being a fine tall race, and of a copper rather than a black hue. Unlike the Mincopies, the men are very fat, especially about the breast, so that at a little distance they might easily be mistaken for women. Moreover, they wear the hair long, and parted in the middle, which to the eyes of a modern European, gives them a peculiar effeminate look. They wear neither beard nor moustache, their features are ugly, and their large mouths are stained a dark red from the juice of the betel-nut, which they are continually chewing.

There is one distinction, however, which is apparent at a considerable distance. In lieu of clothes, the men wear a strip of cloth, never more than two inches wide. This is passed round the waist, under the legs in front, and tucked through itself behind, the end being left as long as possible. The men place great value on the length of this tail, and he is the best dressed man who wears it the longest. Some of the wealthy among them have the tail dragging along the ground for several feet, like an European lady’s train. If possible, this tail is made of blue cloth, an article that is held in very high estimation by the natives.

The women are quite as ill-favored as the men, and increase their natural ugliness by shaving off all their hair. They do not wear tails like the men, but have a plaited grass girdle, from which depends a soft fibrous fringe about a foot in depth.

The character of the Nicobarians is far gentler than that of the Mincopies, the latter being proverbially fierce and cruel toward strangers, and the former soon learning to welcome foreigners when they have made up their minds that no harm is intended them. Captain Campbell, to whom I am indebted for most of the information respecting these natives, found them very agreeable and hospitable, ready to barter, and always welcoming him to their houses.

After a short time, even the women and children, who had at first been scrupulously concealed, after the manner of savages, came boldly forward, and were as hospitable as the men. On one occasion, while paying a visit to one of their huts, Captain Campbell tried to make friends with one of the children, all of whom were terribly frightened at the white face of their visitor. Finding that no response was made to his advances, he pulled the child from his hiding-place, and held him for a little time, in spite of his struggles. The mother made no opposition, but laughed heartily at the skirmish, evidently feeling that no harm was intended toward her little one.

The native weapons of the Nicobarians are very curious. As the people are not of a warlike character like the Mincopies, their weapons are used almost exclusively for killing game. The most formidable is a tolerably large spear headed with iron, which is used for killing hogs, and is thrown like the assagai of Southern Africa. They have also a smaller javelin for fish-killing, and a number of many-pointed hand-spears for the same purpose. The most remarkable of their weapons is a cross-bow, which is almost exactly like that of the Fan tribe of Africa. It is not very powerful, and only propels a small arrow. Its chief use is in killing birds.

Besides these weapons, every man carries a cutlass-blade from which the hilt has been removed, and a handle roughly made by wrapping some six inches of the butt with cocoa-nut fibre. It is intended not so much as a weapon as a tool, and with it the natives cut down trees, carve their canoes, and perform similar operations.

The architecture of the Nicobarians is infinitely superior to that of the Mincopies, and is precisely similar in character to that which is found among the inhabitants of New Guinea, the home of the Papuan race.

The native architect begins by fixing a number of posts in the ground, and erecting on them a platform of split bamboo. Over this platform he builds a roof shaped exactly like a beehive, and his house is then complete. The bamboo platform is the floor of the hut, and, being elastic as well as firm, serves also for a bed. To this hut the native ascends by a primitive sort of ladder, and passes into the chamber through a hole cut in the floor. The sides of the hut are adorned with the skulls of hogs, intermixed with spears, knives, bows, and arrows. The huts are kept peculiarly neat and clean.

A rather remarkable use is made of the hut. The open space between the floor and the ground is far too valuable not to be utilized, as it affords a cool and airy shelter from the sunbeams. Under this floor is suspended a primitive sort of hammock, which is a board about six feet in length, slung by ropes. In, or rather on, this very uncomfortable hammock the Nicobarian likes to lounge away his time, dozing throughout the hot hours of the day, sipping palm wine at intervals, and smoking without cessation. In fact, we seem to have got again among the inhabitants of Western Africa, so similar is the character of the Nicobarian to that of the negro. The “[Scene in the Nicobar Islands],” represented on the 903d page, shows the personal appearance of the Nicobarians and their style of architecture.

The canoes of the Nicobarians are not so beautifully formed as those of the Mincopies, but are constructed on the same principle, being hollowed out of the trunks of trees, and supported by a slight outrigger. They have a very high and ornamental prow, and are propelled by short paddles. They are very light, and, when properly manned, skim over the water at an astonishing pace. Some of them are nearly sixty feet in length, while others are barely six or seven feet long, and only intended for one person.

The mode of burial is not in the least like that which is employed among the Mincopies. When a man dies, the body is placed in a coffin, which is generally made from a canoe. The canoe is cut in half, the body being laid in one moiety, and covered with the other half. In order to supply the deceased with provisions for his journey to the spirit-land, a pig is killed and placed in the coffin, together with a supply of yams and cocoa-nuts. In case he should be attacked on his journey, a quantity of weapons, such as bows, spears, and cutlasses, are placed in the coffin.

The body is buried in the middle of the village, and the spot marked by a stick, to which is attached a small streamer. After some time, when the body has been consumed by the earth, the coffin is dug up again. The deceased being now supposed to have completed his journey to his spirit-home, his bones are thrown into the bush, and the cutlasses and other weapons distributed among his relatives.

CHAPTER XC.
NEW GUINEA.

THE HOME OF THE PAPUAN RACE — DISTINGUISHING MARKS OF THE RACE — DERIVATION OF THE NAME — GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE PAPUANS — THE SIGN OF PEACE — AN UNFORTUNATE MISUNDERSTANDING — DRESS AND ORNAMENTS OF THE TRIBES OF DOURGA STRAIT — THEIR AGILITY AMONG THE TREES — THE OUTANATA TRIBES — TATTOOING AND ORNAMENTS — ELABORATE ARCHITECTURE — WEAPONS — THE DUST SIGNALS AND THEIR MEANING — THEIR UNSUSPICIOUS NATURE — ABRAUW, THE CHIEF.

We now come to the very home and centre of the Papuan race.

New Guinea is a very large island, fourteen hundred miles in length, and, as far as has been ascertained, containing some two hundred thousand geographical square miles. It is separated from Australia only by Torres Strait, and, as we have seen, a certain amount of intercourse has taken place between the Papuans of the south of New Guinea and the natives who inhabit the north of Australia. Fertile in the vegetable kingdom, it possesses one or two animals which have the greatest interest for the naturalist, such as the tree-kangaroo, the crowned pigeon, and the bird of paradise. It is equally interesting to the ethnologist as being the home of the Papuan race.

Taken as a race, they are very fine examples of savage humanity, tall, well-shaped, and powerful. They are remarkable for two physical peculiarities. The one is a roughness of the skin, and the other is the growth of the hair. The reader may remember that some of the tribes of Southern Africa have the hair of the head growing in regular tufts or patches, each about the size of a pea.

It is a remarkable fact that, in the Papuan race, the hair grows in similar patches, but, instead of being short like that of the South African, it grows to a considerable length, sometimes measuring eighteen inches from root to tip. The Papuans are very proud of this natural ornament, and therefore will seldom cut it off; but as, if left untrained, it would fall over the eyes, they have various modes of dressing it, but in most cases manage to make it stand out at right angles from the head. Sometimes they take the hair of each patch separately and screw it up into a ringlet. Sometimes they tease out all the hairs with a wooden comb of four or five prongs, and, as the hair is very coarse and stiff, it is soon induced to assume a mop-like shape, and to increase the apparent size of the head to an enormous extent.

Indeed, the word Papua is derived from this peculiarity of the hair. In the Malay language, the word which signifies “crisped” is pua-pua, which is easily contracted into pa-pua. Even the hair of the face grows in similar patches, and so does that on the breast of the man, and in the latter case the tufts are much further apart than on the head or face.

The color of the Papuans is a very dark chocolate, sometimes inclining to black, but having nothing in common with the deep shining black of the negro. Their features are large and tolerably well made, though the nose is very broad at the wings, and the lips wide. The nose, however, is not flat like that of the negro, but is prominent, rather arched, and descends so low that when seen in front the tip nearly reaches the upper lip. The natives seem to be perfectly aware of this peculiarity, and perpetuate it in their carvings.

Although taken as a whole, they are a fine race, there are many diversities among the different tribes, and they may be divided into the large and small tribes. The former are powerfully built, but more remarkable for strength than symmetry—broad-breasted and deep-chested, but with legs not equal in strength to the upper parts of the body.

Their character has been variously given, some travellers describing them as gentle and hospitable, while others decry them as fierce and treacherous. Suspicious of strangers they certainly are, and with good reason, having suffered much from the ships that visited their coasts. A misunderstanding may soon arise between savage and civilized people, especially when neither understands the language of the other. An example of such a misunderstanding is given by Mr. Earle in his valuable work on the native races of the Indian Archipelago. Lieutenant Modera, an officer in the Dutch navy, embarked with several other gentlemen in the ship’s boat, for the purpose of landing on the shore of Dourga Strait, a passage between the mainland and Frederick Henry Island.

“When the boat had proceeded to within a musket-shot distance from them, the natives, who were armed with bows, arrows, and lances, commenced making singular gestures with their arms and legs. The native interpreter called out to them in a language partly composed of Ceramese, and partly of a dialect spoken by a Papuan tribe dwelling a little further to the north; but his words were evidently quite unintelligible to them, as they only answered with loud and wild yells. We endeavored, for a long time without success, to induce them to lay aside their weapons, but at length one of them was prevailed upon to do so, and the others followed his example, on which we also laid down our arms, keeping them, however, at hand.

“We now slowly approached each other, and the interpreter, dipping his hand into the sea, sprinkled some of the water over the crown of his head as a sign of peaceful intentions. This custom seems to be general among all the Papuan tribes, and in most cases their peaceful intentions may be depended upon after having entered into this silent compact.

“This they seemed to understand, for two of them immediately did the same, on which the interpreter jumped into the shallow water, and approached them with some looking-glasses and strings of beads, which were received with loud laughter and yells. They now began dancing in the water, making the interpreter join, and the party was soon increased by other natives from the woods, who were attracted by the presents. Mr. Hagenholtz also jumped into the shallow water and joined in the dance, and they soon became so friendly as to come close round the boat; indeed some of them were even induced to get in.”

Meanwhile their confidence increased, and they began to barter with their visitors, exchanging their ornaments, and even their weapons, for beads, mirrors, and cloth. They were very inquisitive about the strange objects which they saw in the boat, and, although they handled everything freely, did not attempt to steal. One of them took up a loaded pistol, but laid it down at once when the owner said it was tapu, or forbidden. Unfortunately, a misunderstanding then took place, which destroyed all the amicable feeling which had been established.

“While all this was going on, they kept drawing the boat—unperceived, as they thought—toward the beach, which determined us to return, as our stock of presents was exhausted, and there seemed no probability of our inducing any of them to go on board with us. Shortly before this, Mr. Boers had ornamented a Papuan with a string of beads, who, on receiving it, joined two of his countrymen that were standing a little distance off with the arms that had been laid aside, but which they had been gradually getting together again—a proceeding we had observed, but, trusting in the mutual confidence that had been established, we did not much heed it.

“At the moment in which we were setting off the boat to return on board, this man fixed an arrow in his bow, and took aim at Mr. Boers, who was sitting in the fore part of the boat, on which the latter turned aside to take up his gun, but before he could do so he received the arrow in his left thigh, which knocked him over, shouting, ‘Fire! fire! I am hit!’ as he fell. The order was scarcely given before every one had hold of his arms (which, as before stated, were kept at hand), and a general discharge put the natives to flight, swimming and diving like ducks.

“Before they took to flight, however, they discharged several more arrows at our people, one of which struck Mr. Hagenholtz in the right knee, another hit a sailor in the leg, while a third pierced a sailor’s hat and remained sticking in it; and lastly, a Javanese had the handkerchief shot off his head, but without receiving any personal injury.”

Three of the natives were severely wounded, if not killed, in this unfortunate affair, which evidently arose, as Mr. Earle points out, from misunderstanding, and not from deliberate treachery. Seeing the boats being pulled toward the ships while four of their companions were on board, they probably thought that they were being carried off as captives, as has so often been done along their coast by the slavers. They could not be expected to understand the difference between one white man and another, and evidently mistook the Dutch sailors for slavers, who had come for the purpose of inveigling them into the ships, where they could not be rescued.

The tribes of this part of the coast are not agreeable specimens of the Papuan race. They are barely of the middle size, and lightly built. Their skin is decidedly black, and they ornament their bodies with red ochre, paying especial attention to their faces, which are made as scarlet as ochre can make them. The hair is deep black, and is worn in various ways. Most of the men plait it in a number of tresses, which fall nearly on the shoulders, while others confine it all into two tails, and several were seen with a curious headdress of rushes, the ends of which were firmly plaited among the hair. They are a dirty set of people, and are subject to diseases of the skin, which give them a very repulsive appearance.

Dress is not used by the men, who, however, wear plenty of ornaments. They mostly have a belt made of plaited leaves or rushes, about five inches wide, and so long that, when tied together behind, the ends hang down for a foot or so. Some of them adorn this belt with a large white shell, placed exactly in the middle. Earrings of plaited rattan, necklaces, and bracelets, were worn by nearly all. Some of them had a very ingenious armlet, several inches in width. It was made of plaited rattan, and fitted so tightly to the limb that, when a native wished to take it off for sale, he was obliged to smear his arm with mud, and have the ornament drawn off by another person.

Their principal weapons are bows, arrows, and spears, the latter being sometimes tipped with the long and sharp claw of the tree-kangaroo.

The agility of these Papuans is really astonishing. Along the water’s edge there run wide belts of mangroves, which extend for many miles in length with scarcely a break in them. The ground is a thick, deep, and soft mud, from which the mangrove-roots spring in such numbers that no one could pass through them even at low water without the constant use of an axe, while at high water all passage is utterly impossible.

As the natives, who are essentially maritime in their mode of life, have to cross this belt several times daily in passing from their canoes to their houses, and vice versa, they prefer doing so by means of the upper branches, among which they run and leap, by constant practice from childhood, as easily as monkeys. (See [p. 909].) There is really nothing extraordinary in this mode of progress, which can be learned by Europeans in a short time, although they never can hope to attain the graceful ease with which the naked savages pass among the boughs. In some places the mangroves grow so closely together that to traverse them is a matter of perfect ease, and Mr. Earle remarks that he once saw a file of marines, with shouldered arms, making their way thus over a mangrove swamp.

The familiarity of these people with the trees causes them to look upon a tree as a natural fortress, and as soon as explorers succeeded in reaching the villages, the natives invariably made off, and climbed into the trees that surrounded the villages.

Wild and savage as they are, the Papuans of Dourga Strait display some acquaintance with the luxuries of civilized life and are inordinately fond of tobacco, the one luxury that is common to the highest and lowest races of mankind.

Some travellers have stated that these Papuans are cannibals, and it is certain that their gestures often favor such an opinion.

The Papuans of Dourga Strait are admirable canoe men, and paddle with singular skill and power. They always stand while paddling, a plan whereby they obtain a great increase of power, though perhaps at the expense of muscular exertion. They give as their chief reason for preferring the erect position, that it enables them to detect turtle better than if they were sitting, and to watch them as they dive under water after being wounded.

Skirting the coast of New Guinea and proceeding northward from Dourga Strait, we come to the Outanata River, at the embouchure of which is a tribe that differs much from those natives which have already been described. They are a finer and taller set of men than those of Dourga Strait, and seem to have preserved many of their customs intact since the time when Captain Cook visited them. Their skin is a very dark brown, and is described as having a bluish tinge, and they are said to rub themselves with some aromatic substance which causes them to diffuse an agreeable odor.

It is probable that the bluish gloss may be due to the same aromatic substance with which the body is perfumed. Mr. Earle thinks that the odoriferous material in question is the bark of the tree called the “rosamala.”

The blue tinge is never seen among Papuan slaves, and this circumstance adds force to Mr. Earle’s conjecture.

The features are rather large, especially the mouth, and the lips are thick. The custom of filing the teeth to a sharp point prevails among this tribe, but is not universal. The eyes are small, and the septum of the nose is always pierced so as to carry a piece of white bone, a boar’s tusk, or some similar ornament. The hair is thick, and, instead of being trained into long tails like that of the Dourga Strait natives, it is plaited from the forehead to the crown.

The men wear scarcely any real dress, many of them being entirely naked, and none of them wearing more than a small piece of bark or a strip of coarse cloth made either of cocoa-nut fibre or of split bamboo. They are, however, exceedingly fond of ornament, and have all the savage love of tattooing, or rather scarifying, the body, which is done in a way that reminds the observer of the same process among the Australians. The scarifications project above the skin to the thickness of a finger, and the natives say that this effect is produced by first cutting deeply into the flesh, and then applying heat to the wounds. Anklets, bracelets, and other articles of savage finery are common, and a man who does not wear an inch of clothing will pride himself on his boar’s teeth necklace, his bracelets of woven rattan, and his peaked rush cap.

The women always wear some amount of clothing, however small, the very fact of possessing apparel of any kind being conventionally accepted as constituting raiment. Their solitary garment consists of a small apron, about six inches square, made from the cocoa-nut fibre.

It is rather remarkable that these people have the same habit of placing their new-born children in hot sand, as has already been described when treating of the now extinct Tasmanians. When the mother goes about her work, she carries the child by means of a sort of sling made of leaves or the bark of a tree.

The architecture of the Outanatas is far superior to that of their brethren of Dourga Strait. One of these houses, described by Lieutenant Modera, was at least a hundred feet in length, though it was only five feet high and six wide, so that a man could not stand upright in it. There were nineteen doors to this curious building, which was at first mistaken for a row of separate huts. The floor is covered with white sand, and the inhabitants generally seat themselves on mats. Each of these doors seemed to be appropriated to a single family, and near the doors were placed the different fireplaces. Over the roof a fishing net had been spread to dry in the sun, while a number of weapons were hung under the roof.

This house was built in a few days by the women and girls, and was placed near a much larger building, which had been raised on piles.

The weapons of the Outanatas are spears, clubs, and the usual bow and arrows, which form the staple of Polynesian arms.

The bows are about five feet in length, and are furnished with a string sometimes made of bamboo and sometimes of rattan. The arrows are about four feet in length, and made of cane or reed, to the end of which is attached a piece of hard wood, generally that of the betel-tree. The tips are mostly simple, the wood being scraped to a sharp point and hardened in the fire, but the more ambitious weapons are armed with barbs, and furnished with a point made of bone. The teeth of the sawfish are often employed for this purpose, and a few of the arrows are tipped with the kangaroo claw, as already mentioned in the description of the Dourga Strait spear.

Beside these weapons, the natives carry a sort of axe made of stone lashed to a wooden handle, but this ought rather to be considered as a tool than a weapon, although it can be used in the latter capacity. With this simple instrument the Outanatas cut down the trees, shape them into canoes, and perform the various pieces of carpentering that are required in architecture.

The most remarkable part of an Outanata’s equipment is an instrument which greatly perplexed the earlier voyagers, and led them to believe that these natives were acquainted with fire-arms. Captain Cook, who visited New Guinea in 1770, mentions that as soon as he reached the shore and had left his boat, three natives, or “Indians,” as he calls them, rushed out of the wood, and that one of them threw out of his hand something which “flew on one side of him and burnt exactly like powder, but made no report.” The two others hurled their spears at the travellers, who were in self-defence obliged to use their fire-arms.

Not wishing to come to an engagement, they retired to the boat, and reached it just in time, the natives appearing in considerable force. “As soon as we were aboard, we rowed abreast of them, and their number then appeared to be between sixty and a hundred. We took a view of them at our leisure. They made much the same appearance as the New Hollanders, being nearly of the same stature, and having their hair short-cropped. Like them they also were all stark naked, but we thought the color of their skin was not quite so dark; this, however, might be merely the effect of their being not quite so dirty.

“All this time they were shouting defiance, and letting off their fires by four or five at a time. What those fires were, or for what purpose intended, we could not imagine. Those who discharged them had in their hands a short piece of stick—possibly a hollow cane—which they swung sideways from them, and we immediately saw fire and smoke, exactly resembling those of a musket, and of no longer duration. This wonderful phenomenon was observed from the ship, and the deception was so great that the people on board thought they had firearms; and in the boat, if we had not been so near that we must have heard the report, we should have thought they had been firing volleys.”

The reader will doubtless remark here that the travellers were so accustomed to associate fire with smoke that they believed themselves to have seen flashes of fire as well as wreaths of smoke issue from the strange weapon. Many years afterward, Lieutenant Modera contrived to see and handle some of these implements, and found that they were simply hollow bamboos, filled with a mixture of sand and wood-ashes, which could be flung like smoke-wreaths from the tubes. The Outanatas, their weapons, canoes and the remarkable instrument just described, are [illustrated] on the following page.

Some persons have thought that the natives used these tubes in imitation of firearms, but the interpreters gave it as their opinion that they were employed as signals, the direction of the dust cloud being indicative of the intention of the thrower. Others say that the tubes are really weapons, made for the purpose of blinding their adversaries by flinging sand in their eyes. I cannot agree with this last suggestion, because the other weapons of the Outanatas show that the natives do not fight hand to hand like the New Zealanders. I think that the interpreters were right in their statement that the tubes are used for signalling, and this supposition is strengthened by the fact that the natives of Australia do use smoke for the same purpose, as has already been described.

The canoes of the Outanatas are often of considerable size, measuring fifty or sixty feet, and, although narrow in proportion to their length from stem to stern, containing a great number of men. They are handsomely carved and adorned with paint, and both ends are flat and broad. The rowers stand up when they use their paddles, which are necessarily of considerable length, having long handles and oval blades slightly hollowed. The narrowness of these canoes strengthens the opinion of several travellers, that the Outanatas are really an inland tribe, descending the river in flotillas, and returning to their inland home when the object of their expedition is accomplished.

They seem to be less suspicious than their countrymen of Dourga Strait, and have no hesitation in meeting Europeans and exchanging their own manufactures for cloth, knives, and glass bottles, the last mentioned objects being always favorite articles of barter with Polynesian savages, who employ them when entire for holding liquids, and, if they should unfortunately be broken, use the fragments for knives, lancets, points of weapons, and similar purposes. Lieutenant Modera describes the appearance of one of their flotillas as representing a perfect fair, the boats being laid closely together, and their decks crowded with natives laden with articles for barter.

Unlike the Dourga Strait natives, those of the Outanata River had no objection to come on board the European ships, and visited the vessels in great numbers. Even their principal chief came on board frequently. On the first occasion he disguised his rank, and merely came as an ordinary native, but he afterward avowed himself, and came freely on board in his own character. For convenience’ sake he called himself Abrauw, i. e. Abraham, a name by which he was well known for a considerable distance. He offered no objection to going below and entering the Captain’s cabin, though his subjects were rather uneasy at his absence, and shouted his name so perseveringly that he was obliged every now and then to put his head out of the cabin window. He had all the regal power of concealing astonishment, and witnessed with utter imperturbability the discharge of firearms, the ticking of watches, and examples of similar marvels. He did, however, display a little interest in the musketry practice, which was directed at a succession of bottles, slung from the yard-arm, but whether he was struck with the accuracy of aim or with the needless destruction of valuable bottles is doubtful.

He seemed to be worthy of his position as chief, and was desirous of establishing an European settlement near the mouth of the Outanata. Unfortunately, the river, although a noble stream, has a sandbar across the mouth which effectually prevents vessels of even light draught from passing except at high water. The people in general were wonderfully honest, not displaying the thievish propensities which cause the visits of many savage tribes to be so troublesome. They even brought on board articles which had been accidentally left on shore. They probably owe much of their superiority to their connection with the Malay Mohammedans, many of whom visit New Guinea as traders.

(1.) A SCENE IN THE NICOBAR ISLANDS.
(See [page 897].)

(2.) THE OUTANATAS AND THEIR WEAPONS.
(See [page 902].)

CHAPTER XCI.
NEW GUINEA—Concluded.

THE ALFOËRS OR HARAFORAS — VARIOUS REPORTS RESPECTING THEM — THEIR MODE OF GOVERNMENT — AN ALFOËRIAN DIVORCE COURT — TREPANG COLLECTING — DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY — FUNERAL RITES — TRIBES OF THE SOUTH-EASTERN COAST — A QUAINT DRUMMER — DRESS AND ORNAMENT — THE TATTOO — THE FULL-DRESS PETTICOAT — HAIR-DRESSING — EXCELLENCE OF THEIR CANOES — AN INGENIOUS SAIL — HOW TO STOP A LEAK — THE PIG-PET — ARCHITECTURE — DEFENCE AGAINST VERMIN — HOUSES OF REDSCAR BAY — DREAD OF STEEL — TRIBES OF THE NORTH-WEST COAST — THEIR CANOES — MODES OF FISHING — AQUATIC HOUSES — MODE OF GOVERNMENT — APPOINTMENT OF A NEW CHIEF — NEW GUINEA WEDDINGS — THE KARWAR, OR HOUSEHOLD GOD — THE WAR-DANCE — CEREMONIES AT FUNERALS.

We must here give a short space to some tribes called by various names, such as Haraforas, Alfouras, and Alfoërs, and supposed by many ethnologists to be a separate family living in New Guinea and the neighboring islands, but as distinct from the generality of the inhabitants as the Bosjesman of Southern Africa are from the Kaffir.

This theory, however, has now been shown to be untenable, and it is now known that the word Alfoërs, or Alfouras, is applied by the tribes of the coast to those who live in the interior. The word has a Portuguese origin, and as Mr. Earle remarks, is applied to the mountaineers of the interior, just as the Spaniards called the aborigines of America “Indians,” and the Mohammedan inhabitants of Salee and Mindano “Moros,” or “Moors.”

Most of the accounts that have been received of the Alfoërs are not at all to be trusted. They have been described as peculiarly disgusting and repulsive, ferocious, gloomy, living in the depths of the forest, and murdering all strangers who came in their way. In fact, they have a worse reputation than the Andamaners. It has been ascertained, however, that these evil reports have originated from the coast tribes, who have a very strong objection to allow foreigners to penetrate inland.

The reason is obvious. The visits of the traders are exceedingly valuable, furnishing all kinds of tools, weapons and ornaments, which constitute the wealth of the savage. The natives, having purchased these with articles which to themselves are comparatively valueless, can sell their superabundance to the inland Alfoërs, and make an enormous profit on their bargain. If the white men were allowed to go inland and trade directly with the natives, their profitable traffic would be broken up.

As far as can be ascertained, the Alfoërs are in much the same state as were the Outanatas before they were visited by traders. Those who were seen were remarkable for a certain stupidity of aspect, a taciturnness of disposition, and a slowness of movement, which are not found among the Outanatas. As, however, they were slaves, it is more than likely that these characteristics were the result of servitude.

Subsequently some discoveries were made among the Alfoërs, which entirely contradicted the reports of the coast tribes. They are certainly rough in their manners, and if they take a dislike to a foreigner, or if he should perchance offend any of their prejudices, they eject him from the district with more speed than ceremony; taking care, however, not to inflict personal damage, and refraining from confiscating his property.

As far as can be ascertained from the slight intercourse which has been held with these tribes, there is no regular form of government, the elders deciding disputes, and their decisions being respected. They are an honest set of people, paying the greatest regard to the rights of property; and being so scrupulous in this respect, that if any one should even enter the house of an absent man he is called to account, and made to pay a fine to the owner of the house. A similar law exists with regard to the women. If a man should even touch, though accidentally, the wife of another, he makes himself liable to a fine.

A curious example of this regulation is mentioned by Lieutenant Kolff. A man set out in his canoe to fish, intending to return in a week; but being caught by contrary winds, he was driven away from his own part of the coast, and was detained two months. Unfortunately he had only left at home provisions for a week, and his wife, finding herself without food, asked a neighbor to provide it for her. This he did, and as, day after day, nothing was heard of the husband, the woman transferred her affections and herself to the neighbor who had assisted her, and the pair went off to another island.

After two months had elapsed the husband came back, and, not finding his wife, demanded her from her brothers, who were then bound to produce her. They set off in search of the guilty couple, discovered them, and brought them back, when the injured husband demanded an enormous sum by way of fine. The man said that he could not possibly pay such a sum if he were to work for the rest of his lifetime. The affair was eventually brought before the elders, who decided that the husband had done wrong in leaving his wife so ill provided for, and that if he had supplied her with a sufficiency of provisions the acquaintance between herself and her paramour would probably have been avoided. So they decreed that the man should pay a small fine, and advised the husband to leave plenty of provisions at home when he next went out fishing.

The principal object for which the natives make these expeditions is the trepang, or sea-slug (Holothuria), which is in great demand in China, and is purchased by traders from the natives for the Chinese market. It is chiefly by means of the trepang that a man procures a wife. As is the case among many savage tribes, a wife can only be obtained by purchase, so that daughters are quite as valuable to their parents as sons. With the Alfoërs, the marriage present must always consist of foreign valuables, such as elephants’ tusks, gongs, China dishes, cloth, and similar objects. These are obtained by exchanging trepang with the traders.

When, therefore, a young man wants a wife, and has settled the amount of the marriage portion with the father, he goes off for a year on a hunting expedition. He takes a canoe, and sails from island to island, catching as much trepang as possible, and begging from all those whom he visits. At the end of the year he returns home, knowing that by means of the protective law his house and property will be perfectly safe, and presents himself to the father of the girl with the goods which he has obtained. It is seldom that he is able to make up the entire amount at once, but he is allowed to pay by instalments.

Property cannot be inherited, owing to a peculiar custom. As soon as any one dies, his relations assemble, gather together all his valuables, break them to pieces, and throw the fragments away. Even the precious brass gongs are thus broken, the survivors thinking that no one may use anything belonging to the dead. Large heaps of broken china, ivory, and metal are found on the outskirts of villages that have existed for any long time, showing that many deaths must have occurred within its limits.

The rest of the funeral ceremonies are curious, and are worthy of a brief description.

When death is ascertained, notice is sent to all the relatives of the deceased, who often are scattered widely apart, so that several days usually elapse before they can all assemble. The body meanwhile is kept sprinkled with lime, in order to retard decay as much as possible, and aromatic resins are burned in the house to counteract any ill odor. As the relatives come, they take their places in the house, and begin drinking. Before the traders supplied them with arrack, they had a fermented liquor made by themselves from fruit. They always offer the deceased a share of everything, putting a little food into the mouth of the dead person, and pouring a little liquid between the senseless lips. Meanwhile the women utter loud lamentations, gongs are beaten, and a stunning uproar is kept up until the time of the funeral.

When the relatives have all assembled, a bier is provided, covered with cloth, the quantity and quality of which accord with the wealth of the deceased; and the body is then brought out in front of the house, and supported in a sitting position against a post. The villagers then assemble, and a general feast takes place, a share of which is offered to the deceased as before. Finding that he will neither eat nor drink, in spite of the solicitations of his friends and companions, the body is carried into the woods, where it is placed on a platform erected on four feet.

This being done, the concluding ceremony is left to the women. They remove all their clothing, and then plant by the side of the platform a young sapling; this ceremony being called the “casting away of the body,” and considered as a symbol that the deceased has done with his body, and thrown it from him.

Passing more to the eastward of New Guinea, we come to some interesting nations inhabiting Brumer’s Island, and the neighborhood. These islands are situate about lat. 10° 45´ S. and lon. 150° 23´ E.

Living as they do on a number of small islands, the largest being rather less than three miles in width, the natives are necessarily maritime, passing from one island to another in their admirably contrived vessels. They are accustomed to the visits of ships, and boldly put off to meet them, taking no weapons, except for sale, and displaying the greatest confidence in their visitors.

One of these natives caused great amusement by his imitation of the ship’s drummer. Some one gave him a large tin can, which he, being a musical genius, immediately converted into a drum. At first he merely pounded it with his hands, but when the ship’s drummer was sent into the chains, and began to play upon his instrument, the man watched him for a little time, and then began to imitate him in the most ludicrous manner, his antics and grimaces being especially provocative of laughter. The effect of his buffoonery was heightened by the manner in which he had adorned his face. He had blackened his naturally dark features with charcoal, and had drawn a streak of white paint over each eyebrow, and another under the chin to the cheekbones.

The mode of salutation is rather ludicrous to a stranger, as it consists of pinching. When they desire to salute any one, they pinch the tip of the nose with the finger and thumb of the right hand, while with the left they pinch the middle of their stomachs, accompanying this odd and complex gesture with the word “Magasûka.” These natives seem to be a hospitable people, for, after several of them had been received on board and treated kindly, they returned on the following day, and brought with them a great quantity of cooked yams, for which they refused payment.

The men wear nothing but a small strip of pandanus leaf, but the women have a dress which in principle is exactly similar to the thong-aprons of Southern Africa. It consists of a number of very narrow strips of pandanus leaf, reaching nearly to the knee. The girls wear only a single row of these strips, but the women wear several layers of them, one coming a little below the other, like flounces. In wet weather the uppermost petticoat is taken from the waist and tied round the neck, so as to protect the shoulders from the rain, which shoots off the leaf-strips as off a thatched roof.

On gala days a much handsomer petticoat is worn. This consists of much finer leaf strips than those which constitute the ordinary dress, and it is dyed of various colors. Some of them which were seen by Mr. M’Gillivray were red and green, with bands of pale yellow and pure white. The tufts of which they were composed were extremely light and soft, and looked like very fine-twisted grass blades. Several of the women, by way of finishing their toilet, had blackened their faces. This process, if it did not add to their beauty, certainly did not detract from it, as their faces were originally so plain that the black covering could not make them more ugly. The young men and lads formed a curious contrast to the women in this respect, many of them being remarkable for their good looks.

The women usually, though not invariably, divide their hair into a vast number of little tresses, and twist them up like the thrums of a mop, while the men tease out their stiff and wiry locks as much as possible, and fix in them a slender stick, some two feet in length, decorated with a little plume at the top, the base being cut into teeth and so used as a comb.

The inhabitants of Redscar Bay use a more elaborate system of tattooing than that which has been described above. The men generally restrict themselves to certain portions of the body, such as the breast, cheeks, forehead, and arms, and even on those spots the tattooing is comparatively slight. But the women are so covered with blue patterns, that there is hardly a portion of their bodies which has not been thus decorated. They have various patterns, but the usual type is formed by double parallel lines, the intervals between which are filled with smaller patterns, or with zigzag lines. As the dress of the women consists merely of the leaf-strip petticoat, the patterns of the tattooing are very fully displayed.

The hair of the men is dressed here after a rather singular fashion. It is shaved from the forehead for some three inches, and the remainder is combed backward to its full length. A string is then tied round it, so as to confine it as closely as possible to the head, leaving rather more than half its length to be frizzed into a mop-like bundle projecting from the crown.

Those who are especially careful of their personal appearance add an ornament which is not unlike the pigtail of the last century. A tolerably large bunch of hair is gathered together and tied into a long and straight tail, the end of which is decorated with some ornament. In one case, a man had attached to his pigtail a bunch of dogs’ teeth. The mouths, naturally wide, are disfigured with the universal custom of chewing the betel-leaf mixed with lime, which stains the lips of a dull brick-red, and makes the whole mouth look as if it had been bleeding.

The hair is usually black, but some diversities of color are often seen. Sometimes it is black except the tips of each tress, where the hue becomes yellow or reddish, and sometimes the whole of the hair is red. In all probability, this change of tint is produced by artificial means, such as lime-water, the use of which is known in various parts of New Guinea. Those who have the entire hair red have probably dyed it lately, while those who have only the tips red have passed several months without dyeing it. There is but little beard or moustache.

As far as can be judged from appearances, the women are treated better than is usually the case among savages, and seem to be considered as equal with the men. They are affectionate parents, as was proved by the fact that children were often brought by their fathers to look at the ships.

The average stature of these natives was rather small, few exceeding five feet four inches in height. They were very active, but not powerful, as was proved by testing their strength against that of the ship’s crew.

Allusion has already been made to their skill in boating. These natives possess various canoes, some so small as only to hold, and by no means to accommodate, one person, while others contain with ease fifty or sixty at once.

The commonest canoe is that which is popularly called a catamaran, and which is more of a raft than a boat. It is formed of three planks lashed together with rattan. The man sits, or rather kneels, a little behind the centre, and is able to propel this simple vessel with great speed. Some of these catamarans are large enough to carry ten or twelve persons, together with a cargo. Instead of being merely three planks, they consist of three great logs of wood laid side by side, and lashed firmly together with rattan at their ends, in the centre, and midway between the centre and each end. There is no particular bow or stern, but the central log is longer than the others, so as to project at each end, and is generally carved into rude patterns, and ornamented with red and white paint.

Of course the sea washes freely over this primitive vessel, so that the natives are obliged to erect a small platform in the middle, on which they can place any goods that might be damaged by wetting.

One of the smaller catamarans is shown in the foreground of [illustration, No. 2], on the next page, and just behind it is one of the large canoes with its sail struck. Such a canoe as this is about twenty-five feet in length. It consists of two parts, the canoe proper and the outrigger. The canoe proper is very curiously formed. It is cut from the trunk of a tree, and, in spite of its length, is not more than eighteen or nineteen inches in extreme width. The most curious part of its construction is, that the sides, after bulging out below, come together above, so that the space between the gunwale is barely eight inches, there is only just room for a man’s legs to pass into the interior of the boat. A section of the canoe would present an outline very much like that of the Greek Omega reversed, thus—℧. In order to preserve the gunwales from injury, a slight pole is lashed to them throughout their entire length.

As is the case with the catamaran, both ends of the canoe are alike. They are generally raised well above the water, and are carved into the semblance of a snake’s or turtle’s head, and decorated with paint, tufts of feathers, shells, and similar ornaments.

The outrigger is as long as the canoe, to which it is attached by a series of light poles to the gunwale of the canoe itself. The method by which the outer ends of the poles are fastened to the outrigger is very curious, and can be better understood by reference to the [illustration] than by a description. Like the ends of the canoe, those of the outrigger poles are fashioned into a snake-like form.

The natives can run along these poles to the outrigger with perfect safety, often sitting upon it when the wind is high, so as to preserve the balance of the vessel. In many canoes, however, a slight platform is laid upon these poles, so as greatly to increase the burthen-carrying space of the vessel; and a corresponding but smaller platform projects from the opposite side of the canoe. On this platform several paddlers are stationed, finding it easier to work their long-handled paddles from the platform than from the narrow space of the canoe itself.

The sail is made of strips of palm leaf, interlaced with each other. When it is not required, the sail is struck and rolled up, so as to occupy as little room as possible, and the mast can also be struck, like those of our sailing barges while passing under a bridge.

Two other kinds of New Guinea canoes are shown in the same [illustration]. These canoes are not found in the same part of New Guinea, but, as the natives travel in them for considerable distances, they have been brought together in the same illustration for the convenience of comparison.

Beyond the large canoe is a smaller one, with a sail that is set in rather a curious manner. There is no mast, but the two edges of the sail are fastened to slight spars, and when the native finds the wind to be favorable, he fixes the lower ends of these spars in the canoe, and supports the upper ends by stays or ropes that were fore and aft. The reader will notice the pointed end of the cylindrical outrigger. On the opposite side to the outrigger is a slight platform made of planks. The platform itself is out of sight, but the reader may see the heads and shoulders of the two men who are sitting on it.

(1.) THE MONKEY MEN OF DOURGA STRAIT.
(See [page 900].)

(2.) CANOES OF NEW GUINEA.
(See [page 908].)

This canoe is made near Redscar Point, and, except in the arrangement of the sail, is somewhat similar to the vessels which are built at Brumer Island. The paddles are between six and seven feet in length, and are rather clumsily formed, without any attempt at ornament.

The canoe to the right of the [illustration] is the most curious of these vessels. The body of the canoe is made out of the trunk of a tree, which is first shaped to a conical form at each end, and then hollowed. Over the ends is firmly fixed a piece of wood, several feet in length, so as to make the two ends into hollow cones into which the water cannot force its way. The gunwale is raised about two feet by planks which box in the opening of the canoe, and act as wash-boards, the seams being pitched and rendered water-tight.

These particulars are mentioned because in general the natives of New Guinea are singularly indifferent as to the amount of water which is taken in by their canoes, provided that they are not sunk. There is, for example, one kind of New Guinea canoe found in Coral Haven, in which the gunwales are not connected at the stern, which is left open. The water would of course rush in, were it not that one of the crew sits in the opening, forcing his body into it so as to render it temporarily water-tight. Even with this precaution it is impossible to prevent some water from making its way between the body of the man and the sides of the canoe, as it heels over by the force of the wind, and in squally weather another of the crew is obliged to keep perpetually baling with a large shell.

The most curious part of the canoe which we are now examining is the sail, which, clumsy as it looks, is a very great improvement on those which have been previously described, inasmuch as it can be shifted and trimmed to suit the wind.

The mast, instead of being merely stuck upright when wanted, is permanently fixed, but is so short that it causes no inconvenience when the sail is struck and the paddles alone are employed. It is fixed, or “stepped,” into a hole in a board at the bottom of the canoe, and is lashed to a transverse spar that extends across the canoe from one gunwale to the other. At the head of the mast is a stout projecting arm, through which is bored a hole.

The sail is made by matting stretched between two slight spars, and when not wanted it can be rolled up and laid up on the platform of the outrigger. The halyard, a rope by which the sail is hauled to its place, is fixed to the middle of the sail, and passes through the hole in the projecting arm of the mast-head. Hopes are fastened to each end, constituting the “tack” and the “sheet.” When the crew wish to put their canoe about, they do so in a very expeditious manner, merely letting go the ropes and hauling them in again, so as to turn the sail and convert the sheet into the tack, and vice versâ. As both ends of the canoe are alike, the vessel at once obeys the new impulse, and goes off in the required direction.

The canoe is steered with one special paddle some nine feet in length, of which the oblong, rounded blade occupies half.

The inhabitants of the New Guinea coasts are remarkable for their skill in swimming and diving. When H. M. S. Rattlesnake was off New Guinea, the anchor of one of the boats caught in the coral, and could not be dislodged. An old man who was standing on the beach saw that something was wrong, and swam off to the boat. He soon understood the case, and, after diving several times, succeeded in clearing the anchor, a feat for which he was rewarded by an axe. He always dived feet foremost, without an effort, and remained under water for about half a minute.

It is rather curious that the love of pigs which is found among the New Zealanders should be quite as strongly developed among the natives of New Guinea. The girls and women make great pets of them, and it is not at all an uncommon event to see a young girl tripping along in all the graceful freedom of the savage, holding a young pig in her arms, and caressing and talking to it as an European girl talks to her doll, or to her pet lapdog. These pigs are long-legged, black-skinned, stiff-haired animals, not at all agreeing with our ideas of a pig’s proper form.

The dress used by the women consists of slender leaf-strips, and forms a really graceful costume. Many of the women employ a kind of tattooing, though they do not carry it to such an extent as to disfigure themselves. The patterns, though elaborate, are very small and delicate, and extend over a considerable portion of the body. The arms and front of the body display a regular pattern, which is usually carried over the shoulder for a little way, but leaves the back untouched. The most delicate pattern is reserved for the arm and waist, where it looks like a delicate blue lace fitting tightly to the skin. The women are very proud of this ornament, and are always gratified when a stranger expresses admiration of it. The men occasionally use the tattoo, but in a comparatively scanty manner, confining the patterns to a star or two on the breast. Now and then a man will have a double series of stars and dots extending from the centre of the chest to the shoulders, but on an average a native of this part of the country is not so much tattooed as an ordinary English sailor.

The architecture of this part of New Guinea differs from that of Dourga Strait in being much more elaborate, but throughout New Guinea the style of house-building is so similar that we will take a few examples as representatives of the whole group of islands. All the houses are elevated on posts like those of the Nicobar Islands, but have several improvements in architecture.

The posts vary in number according to the size of the house, and about four feet from the ground each post passes through a wide circular wooden disc, which serves as an effectual barrier against the rats and snakes, which would otherwise take possession of the dwellings. The posts are connected together at about five feet from the ground by rafters, on which the floor is laid.

These rafters, or joists, support a row of poles laid horizontally side by side, and upon them are laid crosswise a great number of slighter spars, thus forming a framework, on which is fixed the floor itself, which consists of a number of thin planks taken from the cocoa-nut tree. The supporting posts are about ten feet in total length, and are connected at their tops by horizontal poles, on which a second or upper floor is fixed, precisely similar to the principal floor, though much smaller. On this upper floor are kept the weapons, implements, provisions, and similar articles, for which accommodation cannot be found on the principal floor. A supply of water, for example, is generally kept in the huts, a number of empty cocoa-nut shells being used in lieu of bottles, and closed at the orifice by a plug of grass. In fact, they are identical in principal with the ostrich-egg vessels of the South African savage, which have been already described upon a preceding page.

Entrance is gained to the house by a square hole in the flooring, and the primitive staircase by which the inhabitants ascend into their houses is equally simple and effectual. It is necessary that the stairs—if we may use the term—should be so constructed, that while human beings can easily obtain access to the house, the rats and other vermin shall be kept out. If an ordinary ladder or even a notched pole were fixed to the house, the rats and snakes would be sure to climb up it and take possession of the dwelling. The native architect, therefore, proceeds after a different fashion.

Immediately under the opening in the floor he fixes two stout posts in the ground, leaving them to project rather more than three feet. The posts have forked heads, and upon them is laid a transverse pole, which is firmly lashed to them. From this transverse pole another pole is laid to the ground, so as to form an inclined plane up which the inhabitants of the house can walk. It will now be seen, that if a man walk up the inclined pole, to the transverse one, he can pass along the latter in a stooping attitude until he comes to the opening in the floor. He can then pass his body through the opening and lift himself to the level of the floor, while the space which intervenes between the horizontal post and the floor affords an effectual barrier against the rats and other vermin.

The reader will better understand this description by comparing it with [illustration No. 1], on the 916th page, which represents three of these huts. That on the right is seen from the end, and is represented as half finished, in order to show the structure of the interior.

The sides and roof of the hut are formed of slight spars which are lashed together by a framework, so as to form a support for the thatching. This is made of coarse grass pulled up by the roots in large tufts, and covered with an outer layer of cocoa-nut leaves. If the house be a large one, there is an entrance at each end, and another in the middle, each being closed with neatly woven mats. Similar but coarser mats are fastened to the lower portion of the sides, in order to exclude the wind.

Up to this point the architecture is identical throughout the island, but a divergence takes place in the shape of the house itself, according to the locality. The usual form is that which is represented in the [illustration]. Such a house as is there drawn is on the average thirty feet in length, nine in width, and thirteen in total height, so that a space of about three feet intervenes between the upper floor and the roof. The central figure of the illustration shows the side view of a finished hut, and the left-hand figure shows the end view of a similar dwelling.

In some places, however, such for example as Redscar Bay, the form of the houses is different. Instead of having the slender poles which form the framework of the walls bent over in a curved form, they are arranged so as to make a lofty and sharply-pointed gable roof. A house of this description, which measures thirty feet in length, will reach, on an average, twenty-five feet in height. There is no distinction between the roof and walls of the huts, except that the lower portion of the roof is covered with sheets of a bark-like substance, which is supposed to be the base of the cocoa-nut leaf flattened by pressure. The entrance or door of these huts is at one end, and is covered with a mat as has already been mentioned. Access is obtained by a sloping pole resting on a short post. In some of these huts a number of spears were seen in the interior, lashed along the sides, together with several human skulls; but whether the latter were intended as ornaments, or whether they were preserved in memorial of the dead owners, is not certain.

The people who inhabit Redscar Bay and its vicinity exhibited a curious mixture of shyness and confidence. They came freely to the ships as they anchored in the bay, and were very anxious to be admitted on board, peeping into the ports in the most inquisitive manner, and holding up their weapons and implements for sale. They have in use a rather remarkable arrow, with a head in the form of a pointed gouge or scoop.

One of these arrows is in my collection. The shaft is made in the usual manner from a reed, and is weighted at one end with a piece of hard and heavy wood. Into this wooden tip is cut a deep groove, into which slips the butt of the head. This is about eight inches in length, and is made of bamboo, the reed being nearly cut away so as to leave a piece rather more than half an inch in width in the middle, and tapering gently to one end so as to form a point, and abruptly to the other end in order to form a butt which can be slipped, into the wooden tip of the arrow.

Bamboo scoops of a similar description, but of a larger size, are used as knives, and are sharpened by the simple process of biting off a piece of the edge. When Mr. M’Gillivray visited New Guinea, he asked a native the use of the bamboo scoop; and when he found that it was used as a knife, he produced his own knife, and, taking up a piece of wood, he showed the superiority of steel over bamboo by cutting a stick vigorously with it.

Strangely enough, instead of being gratified with the performance of the knife, the man was so frightened that he pushed off his canoe, called his friends around him, and explained to them the terrible deed that had been done. The knife was offered to him, but he looked upon the proffered gift as an aggravation of the original offence, and declined all overtures toward reconciliation. This aversion to steel was found to be prevalent among the inhabitants of this part of New Guinea.

The bow by which these arrows are propelled is a very effective though clumsily made weapon. My own specimen is about six feet in length, and is made from some hard and tough wood, apparently that of the cocoa-nut tree. It is very stiff, and requires a strong arm to draw it. The string is a strip of rattan, like that which has already been mentioned when treating of North Australia.

Passing to the north-west of the island, we find that their appearance and manners are not very dissimilar from those which belong to their brethren of the southern coast. Taking the Dory people as our type, we find that they often display good examples of the high and narrow forehead of the Papuan family, and many of them have narrow and arched noses, together with lips nearly as thin as those of an European. Indeed, some of these natives possess a cast of countenance which is so like that of an European that several travellers have thought that there must have been some admixture of foreign blood. Such, however, is not the case, these peculiarities belonging to the individual, and not implying any foreign mixture.

The canoes of this part of the country are rather different from those of the southern coast. The mast is made of three distinct spars, united at their tops. Two of them are fastened to the side by pins passing through them, on which they work backward and forward, as if on hinges. The third is not fastened to the vessel, but its butt fits into a cavity from which it can be removed at pleasure. If, therefore, the natives wish to use their paddles, all they have to do is to lift the foot of this spar out of its socket, when the whole of the triple mast can be lowered on deck. When the wind becomes favorable, and the sail is to be employed, the masts are raised again, the butt of the third spar is stepped into its socket, and the triple mast is thus kept firmly upright. A similar contrivance is now proposed for our ships of war, as these triple masts made of three slight iron bars cannot be so easily shot away as the single and solid mast.

The natives are very expert canoe-men, and are accustomed to the use of their vessels from childhood. Even the small boys have their little canoes, which are so light that they can be carried to and from the water without difficulty.

They excel as fishermen, being as expert in the water as on it. The trepang fishery is energetically conducted by them, as it is by the sale of trepang to the merchants that they obtain the greater part of the foreign luxuries on which they set so high a value. The hawksbill turtle is captured principally for the sake of the shell, which is also purchased by the traders, and, together with mother-of-pearl shell, is mostly sent to the Chinese markets.

The mode of fishing with a net is much the same as on all these coasts. The net is three or four feet in depth, and a hundred feet or more in length. The meshes are about an inch in width. One edge is furnished with a row of flat pieces of light wood, which act as floats, and along the other edge are fastened a number of perforated shells by way of weights.

When the natives wish to use this net, they place it in a canoe, and look out for a shoal of fish. As soon as a favorable opportunity is found, the canoe is taken to seaward of the shoal, and let carefully into the water. Each end is taken in charge by one or two men, who bring the net round the shoal in semi-circular form, so as to enclose the fish. These men gradually approach each other, while another man beats the water with a pole, or flings stones into it, so as to frighten the fish into the enclosure. As soon as the two ends of the net have been brought together, the canoe comes up, and the net, with the fish hanging in its meshes, is hauled on board. They also use fish-traps, like those which have been already described in the account of Australia, sinking them by means of a stone, and raising them by a cord, to the end of which a bamboo buoy is fastened.

They are tolerable smiths, and have a kind of bellows identical in principle with those of savage Africa, but worked in a different manner. Instead of having a couple of inflated skins, they have a pair of wide bamboo tubes, about four feet in length, the lower ends of which are buried in the earth, and connected by means of channels with the hole in which the fire is made. The pistons are formed of bunches of feathers tied to bamboos, and the blower works them alternately up and down, so as to produce a tolerably constant blast. It is remarkable that the bellows of the Chinese itinerant jeweller are fitted with feather pistons. It is most probable that these bellows have been borrowed from the more eastern islands.

As to the actual working of the metal, it bears a curious similitude to that which is employed in savage Africa. The anvil is generally a stone, unless the native smiths can procure an iron “pig” or a piece of a broken anchor. They can work in silver and copper as well as iron, melting the two former metals and running them into moulds, to be afterward beaten and worked into shape.

The architecture of these tribes is rather remarkable. Like the generality of houses in New Guinea, the huts are raised on stakes in order to preserve them from vermin; but those of the Dory people are similarly elevated in order to preserve them from water. These natives have a curious predilection for building their huts on the sea-shore, and place them below the level of low water. They begin this curious style of architecture by building a long pier, or rather jetty, which extends far into the sea, and which keeps open a communication between the house and the shore.

At the end of this jetty the hut itself is situated, and is made of boarded walls and a thatched roof. Great as is the labor that is bestowed upon it, the house does not come up to our ideas of comfort. In the first place, the floors are made of rough spars, placed parallel to each other, but still far enough apart to cause some uneasiness, not to say danger, to an unpractised walker.

A good specimen of a Dory house is about seventy feet long, twenty-five wide, and fifteen high. Along the centre runs a tolerably wide passage, and at either side are a number of rooms, separated from each other and from the passage by mats. At the end next the sea there are no walls, but only a roof, so that a sort of verandah is formed, under which the inhabitants spend much of their time when they are not actively employed. Such a house as this is usually occupied by some forty or fifty individuals, consisting of about twenty men, together with the wives and families of those who are married. All cooking is carried on by the different families in their own chambers, each of which is furnished with its own fireplace.

The dress of the Dory natives varies but little from that of other Papuans of New Guinea. The men, however, often ornament their bodies with raised scars like those of the Australians, and they are fond of tattooing their breasts and arms with figures of their weapons. They are fond of ornaments, such as shells, twisted wire, and armlets of plaited rattan. They ingeniously utilize the latter ornament by plaiting a very thick and strong bracelet, and wearing it on the left wrist and fore-arm, so as to protect the wearer from the recoil of the bowstring.

Though not a warlike people, they always go armed, carrying the invariable parang, or chopper, which, as its very name imparts, is procured from the Malay tribes. These parangs are chiefly made in Borneo, as we shall see when we come to treat of the Dyaks. The Dory Papuans do not seem to fight, as do some savage tribes, for the mere love of combat; the chief object of warfare being the capture of slaves, each of whom is valued at fifty shillings.

This value is, however, a conventional term; and when a bargain is made with the Dory people for so many slaves, in most cases the conventional money value is intended, and not the actual slaves. In fact, the word “slaves” is used much as we use the word “horses” in reckoning the power of a steam-engine, or “tons” in describing the capacity of a ship. Perhaps the words “pony” and “monkey,” of modern sporting slang, are better illustrations.

Still, slavery is rife among the Dory people, who sometimes make a raid into a district, capture a village, and carry off the inhabitants into servitude. They do not, however, treat their captives badly, but feed them well, and seem to consider them partly in the light of domestic servants, and partly as available capital, or as a means of exchange when any of their own friends are taken prisoners by hostile tribes.

The government of the Dory tribes is nominally a delegated chieftainship, but in reality a sort of oligarchy. There is a certain dignitary, called the Sultan of Tidore, under whose sway this part of the country is supposed to be, and from him the chief of the Dory tribes receives his rank. When the chief dies, one of his relatives goes to convey the news to the Sultan, taking with him a present of slaves and birds of paradise as tokens of allegiance. This man is almost always appointed to the vacant place, and is bound to pay a certain tribute of slaves, provisions, and war canoes, the latter being employed in collecting the Sultan’s taxes. Should he fail to comply with these conditions, his village would be attacked by the Sultan’s fleet, and the whole district ransacked; so that the position of chief has its anxieties as well as its privileges.

(1.) HUTS, NEW GUINEA.
(See [page 912].)

(2.) DANCE BY TORCHLIGHT, NEW GUINEA.
(See [page 917].)

His authority is more nominal than real, for he decides nothing but unimportant matters, leaving more weighty subjects to a council of elders, who, as a rule, administer justice with impartiality. Their laws are really good and sensible, and, though lenient, are based on the principle of the old Jewish law, the eye for the eye and the tooth for the tooth.

Marriages are managed in a very simple manner, the bride and bridegroom sitting opposite each other, in front of an idol, and the former giving the latter some betel-leaf and tobacco. His acceptance of the present, and taking the hand of the giver, constitute the whole of the ceremony.

The idol which has been mentioned is called the Karwar, and is found in every house except those which belong to Mohammedan natives. The Karwar is a wooden figure, about eighteen inches in height, large-headed, wide-mouthed, and long-nosed,—this peculiarity of the Papuan face being exaggerated. It is represented as holding a shield, and wearing a calico wrapper on the body and a handkerchief on the head.

The Karwar plays an important part in the life of a Dory native. It is present at his birth, takes part in his funeral, and, as we have seen, is witness to his marriage. In all cases of perplexity the Karwar is consulted, the devotee stating his intentions, and abandoning them if he should feel nervous, such a sensation being supposed to be the Karwar’s answer. There are plenty of fetishes, but these are only supplementary to the Karwar.

Without going into the details of the various tribes which inhabit this part of the earth, we will glance at a few of the most interesting customs.

These Papuans have a strong love for flowers, especially those which possess a powerful scent. They twine such flowers in their hair, weave them into garlands for their necks, and carry them in their bracelets and armlets.

They are fond of singing and music, and, as far as has been ascertained, are in the habit of composing extempore songs, as well as singing those ditties which they know by heart. As for their musical instruments, they consist chiefly of the cylindrical drum, a trumpet made of a triton shell, and a sort of Pandean pipe, composed of six or seven reeds of different lengths lashed firmly together. There is also a wind instrument, which is nothing but a bamboo tube some two feet in length.

Accompanied by these instruments, they perform their curious dances, one of which as been well described by Mr. M’Gillivray. “They advanced and retreated together by sudden jerks, beating to quick or short time as required, and chanting an accompanying song, the cadence rising and falling according to the action. The attitude was a singular one—the back straight, chin protruded, knees bent in a crouching position, and the arms advanced.

“On another occasion, one of the same men exhibited himself before us in a war dance. In one hand he held a large wooden shield, nearly three feet in length, and rather more than one in width, and in the other a formidable looking weapon, two feet in length—a portion of the snout of the sword-fish, with long, sharp teeth projecting on each side. Placing himself in a crouching attitude, with one hand covered by the shield, and holding his weapon in a position to strike, he advanced rapidly in a succession of short bounds, striking the inner side of his shield with his left knee at each jerk, causing the large cowries hung round his waist and ankles to rattle violently. At the same time, with fierce gestures, he loudly chanted a song of defiance. The remainder of the pantomime was expressive of attack and defence, and exultation after victory.

“But a still more curious dance was once performed a few nights ago by a party of natives who had left the ship after sunset, and landed abreast of the anchorage. On seeing a number of lights along the beach, we at first thought they proceeded from a fishing party, but on looking through a night-glass the group was seen to consist of above a dozen people, each carrying a blazing torch, and going through the movements of the dance. At one time they extended rapidly into line, at another closed, dividing into two parties, advancing and retreating, crossing and recrossing, and mixing up with each other. This continued for half an hour, and, it having apparently been got up for our amusement, a rocket was sent up for theirs, and a blue light burned, but the dancing had ceased, and the lights disappeared.”

An accompanying [illustration] represents this wild and curious scene. In the foreground are the dancers, each with his torch in his hand, and indulging in the grotesque movements of the dance. To the left are seen the musicians, one playing on the bamboo pipe, and the other beating the drum which has before been mentioned. One of these drums is lying in the foreground. It is a hollow cylinder of palm wood, about two feet in length and four inches in diameter. One end is covered with lizard-skin, and along the side there run longitudinal slits. The native name for this drum is “baiatú.”

The funeral ceremonies appear to differ according to the locality. Among the Dory people, when a man dies, the body is rolled in white calico, and laid on its side in a grave, its head resting on an earthenware dish. The weapons and ornaments of the dead man are laid in the grave, which is then filled up, and a thatched roof erected over it.

Should the deceased be a head of a family, the Karwar is brought to perform its last duties. When the man is buried, the Karwar is placed near the grave, and violently execrated by all the mourners for allowing its charge to die. The thatched roof being finished, the idol is laid upon it, and idol and roof are left to decay together. As is usual with savage tribes, funeral feasts are held at the time of burial and for some days afterward, those which celebrate the deaths of chiefs being kept up for a whole month.

CHAPTER XCII.
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
THE AJITAS, OR AHITAS.

POSITION AND DIMENSIONS OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS — THE MALAYS AND THE NEGRITOS, OR AJITAS — RESEMBLANCE TO THE BOSJESMAN — THE BOW AND POISONED ARROWS — SKILL IN ARCHERY — THE SAVAGE INSTINCT — MEETING A PARTY OF AJITAS — THEIR APPEARANCE, AND CHIRPING SOUND OF THEIR LANGUAGE — CONCILIATING THE ABORIGINES — GOVERNMENT OF THE AJITAS — THEIR ACTIVITY IN HUNTING — NOMADIC PROPENSITIES OF THE AJITAS — REVERENCE FOR THE DEAD — A QUARREL, AND ITS CAUSE.

To the north-west of New Guinea lie several islands, which are grouped together under the general name of Philippines. They consist of a considerable number of islands, of which the northern island, called Luza, and the southern island, called Magindano, are by far the largest.

The inhabitants of the Philippines are of two kinds; namely, the Malays and the Negritos. The former are evidently not the aboriginal inhabitants, but have voyaged to the islands in their canoes and formed a number of settlements. As in the course of the work we shall see much of the Malay race, we will pass them by for the present, and only notice the Negritos, or little negroes, so called by the Spanish on account of their dark skins and small size.

This strange little race is mostly known by a name which is given in different forms. By some writers it is spelt Ajitas, by some Ahitas, and by others Itas. Of these different forms I select the first, which, by the way, is pronounced as if it were spelled Aheetas.

The Ajitas are quite as small as the Bosjesmans of Southern Africa, their average height being four feet six inches. They are well shaped, and their skins, though of a very dark hue, are not so black as those of the negro tribes. The features are tolerably good, except that the nose is broad and rather flat, and that there is a marked deficiency of chin. The hair is woolly, like that of other Papuans, and, as they do not know how to dress it, they wear it in a sort of mop round the head. The eyes are remarkable for a decided yellow tinge.

In common with other savages who lead an uncertain kind of life, fasting sometimes for two days together, and then gorging themselves like wolves, they are apt to have their limbs and projecting stomachs with a recurved back such as is the case with the Bosjesman, the back being bent like the letter S. Their shape is in no way concealed by their dress, which is nothing more than a wide belt of plaited bark fastened round the waist.

In many respects there is a great similarity between the Bosjesman and the Ajita. The latter live by the chase and by plunder, having no idea of agriculture. They always go armed, their weapons being bamboo lances and bows and arrows, the latter being poisoned. The effect of the poison with which they are tipped is to produce an unextinguishable thirst in the animal, which seeks the nearest water, drinks, and dies. As soon as it is dead, the hunter cuts away the flesh from around the wound, as the poison would otherwise communicate so bitter a taste to the whole carcass that the flesh could not be eaten.

Their bows are but slight, as are their arrows, the poison doing the work of death, and the depth of the wound being of no consequence. They are skilful archers, having the bow and arrow in their hands from infancy, and practising at any object that may take their attention. Both sexes use the bow, and the little boys and girls are fond of wading along the banks of streams and shooting the fish.

Like the Bosjesman, the Ajita is always at feud with the other races that inhabit the same country, and, small as he is, makes himself dreaded by reason of his poisoned weapons. Sometimes Ajitas are taken prisoners, and are generally enslaved. As they are light, active, and not bad-looking, they are often employed as servants by the dignitaries of Manilla.

One of these people was in the household of an Archbishop of Manilla, and was educated by him with great care. To all appearance he was thoroughly civilized, and at last was ordained priest. But the instincts of his savage nature were too strong for him, and the man escaped from his position and civilized society, threw off his garments, and rejoined his savage relatives. Such instances are continually occurring, and it is almost impossible to retain an Ajita in civilized society, no matter how well he may be treated, or how young he may be when captured.

The habits of the Ajitas are essentially of a savage character, and, as a rule, travellers in the Philippines are obliged to be very careful lest they should suddenly be set upon by these dangerous little creatures. Sometimes, however, they can be gentle, and even hospitable, and an instance of such conduct is related by M. de la Gironière, part of whose narrative has been translated and quoted by Mr. Earle: “We directed our course toward the north, among mountains always covered with thick forests, and which, like those we had just quitted, presented no traced route, excepting a few narrow pathways beaten by wild beasts. We advanced with caution, for we were now in the parts inhabited by the Ajitas. At night we concealed our fires, and one of us always acted as sentinel, for what we feared most was a surprise.

“One morning, while pursuing our way in silence, we heard before us a chorus of squeaking tones, which had more resemblance to the cries of birds than to the human voice. We kept on our ground, concealing our approach as much as possible with the aid of the trees and brambles. All at once we perceived at a little distance about forty savages, of all sexes and ages, who had absolutely the air of animals. They were on the banks of a rivulet, surrounding a great fire. We made several steps in advance, and presented the butt-end of our guns toward them. As soon as they perceived us, they set up shrill cries and prepared to take to flight; but I made signs to them, by showing them some packets of cigars, that we wished to offer them for their acceptance.

“I had fortunately received at Binangonan all the instructions necessary for knowing how to open a communication with them. As soon as they comprehended us, they ranged themselves into a line, like men preparing for a review; this was the signal that we might approach. We went up to them with our cigars in our hands, and I commenced distributing them from one extremity of the line. It was very important that we should make friends with them, and give each an equal share, according to their custom. The distribution being over, an alliance was cemented, and peace concluded, when they commenced smoking.

“A deer was hanging to a tree, from which the chief cut three large slices with a knife of bamboo, and threw them upon the fire, and, drawing them out an instant afterward, presented a piece to each of us. The exterior was slightly burned and sprinkled with ashes, but the interior was perfectly raw and bloody. It would not do, however, to show the repugnance I felt at making a repast scarcely better than that of a cannibal, for my hosts would have been scandalized, and I wished to live in good correspondence with them for some days. I therefore ate my piece of venison, which, after all, was not ill flavored, and my Indian having followed my example, our good repute was established, and treason on their part no longer possible.”

M. de la Gironière showed his wisdom in accommodating himself to circumstances, and in sacrificing his own predilections in favor of expediency; and if all travellers had acted in a similar manner, we should have known much more of savage manners and customs than we do at the present time. After propitiating his little black hosts by tact and kindness, he remained among them for some time, and by means of an interpreter, whom he was fortunate enough to obtain, continued to procure a considerable amount of information concerning a people of whom scarcely anything had been previously known since their existence.

The Ajitas live in small tribes, consisting of some fifty or sixty individuals. They have no fixed residence, but wander about the country according to the amount of game which they find. They have not the least notion of house-building, and in this respect are even below the aborigines of Australia, and at night they crowd round the fire and lie as close to it as possible. This fire is the central point of the tribe, the old people and children assembling round it during the day while the adults are hunting for game; and if the hunters should be able to bring in enough food to last for some days, they remain round the fire until it is all consumed.

There seems to be no particular form of government among the Ajitas, who always choose one of the oldest men to be the chief of each little tribe, and do not acknowledge any principal chief or king. Age is respected among them, and in this point the Ajitas show their superiority over many savage tribes. The language of the Ajitas is said to resemble the chirping of birds rather than the voice of mankind, but it must be remembered that the same was said of the Bosjesmen’s language when European travellers first came among them. Any language which is heard for the first time affects the ear unpleasantly, and even those of Europe are generally stigmatized by foreigners as gabbling or grunting, according to the pitch of the voice. Of the structure of the Ajitas’ language nothing is yet known.

In one point they are superior to many savage people. A man has but one wife, and both are faithful in the married state. When a young man wishes to marry, he asks the consent of her parents, who, on a fixed day, send her into the woods alone before sunrise, and after an hour the young man goes after her. If he can find her, and bring her back before sunset, the marriage is acknowledged; but if he cannot succeed in his search, he must yield all claims to her. It will be seen that the real choice lies with the girl, who can always conceal herself if she dislikes the intended bridegroom, or, even if he did find her, could refuse to come back with him until the stipulated time has passed.

The religion of the Ajitas seems to be, as far as can be ascertained on a subject from which a savage always shrinks, a mere fetishism; any object, such as an oddly-shaped tree trunk or stone, being worshipped for a day, and then forsaken in favor of some other idol.

Any real reverence in the nature of the Ajitas seems to be given to the dead, whom they hold in veneration. Year after year they will resort to the burial-places of their friends for the purpose of laying betel-nut and tobacco upon the grave. Over each spot where a warrior is buried his bow and arrows are hung, the Ajitas having an idea that at night the man leaves his grave, and hunts until the morning. Owing to this reverence for the dead, M. de la Gironière’s expedition nearly came to a fatal termination. They had succeeded in procuring a skeleton from the burial-place, when the theft was discovered by the Ajitas, who at once set upon them, and fairly chased them out of their country, the poisoned arrows proving to be weapons too formidable to be resisted, especially when used by foes as active as monkeys, who could pour their arrows on their foes, while they scarcely exposed an inch of their little dark bodies to the enemy.

It is owing to another form of this veneration for the dead that travellers have so often come in collision with the Ajitas. When a warrior dies, his companions are bound to take their weapons and roam through the country, for the purpose of killing the first living thing that they meet, whether man or beast. As they pass along, they break the boughs in a peculiar manner as warnings to others, for even one of their own tribe would be sacrificed if he fell in their way. Travellers from other countries would either fail to see, or, if they saw, to understand, the meaning of these little broken twigs, and in consequence have been attacked by the Ajitas, not from any unfriendly feelings, but in fulfilment of a national custom.

CHAPTER XCIII.
FIJI.
APPEARANCE AND DRESS OF THE FIJIANS.

POSITION OF THE FIJI ISLANDS — GENERAL APPEARANCE OF THE NATIVES — THEIR PECULIAR HAIR, AND VARIOUS MODES OF DRESSING IT — HAIR-DYES — THE FIJIAN MIRROR — WIG-MAKING — THE AMBASSADOR AND HIS MESSAGE — THE FIJIAN TURBAN — WATER-PROOF HEADDRESSES — DRESS OF THE FIJIANS — THE “MASI,” AND METHOD OF WEARING IT — EAR-ORNAMENTS — NECKLACES AND FLOWERS — TATTOOING AND PAINT — PATTERNS USED FOR THE FACE — DRESS OF THE WOMEN — THE ROUGHNESS OF THE SKIN AND USE OF PAINT — HAIR-DRESSING — MAKING MASI AND MODE OF PRODUCING PATTERNS — INGENIOUS MODE OF STENCILLING — THE WOMAN’S APRON, OR “LIKU,” AND MODE OF WEARING IT.

To describe the inhabitants of all the multitudinous islands of Polynesia would be an agreeable, but impossible task, our space confining us within limits which may not be transgressed. We will therefore pass at once to the large and important group of islands which is popularly known by the name of Fiji.

This group of islands lies due north of New Zealand, and to the eastward of New Guinea, so that they are just below the Equator. The collective name of the islands has been variously given, such as Fiji, Beetee, Feegee, Fidge, Fidschi, Vihi, and Viti. Of all these names, the first and the last are correct, the northern portion of the islands being known as Fiji, and the southern as Viti. The reader must remember that these names are pronounced as if written Feegee and Veetee.

The inhabitants of Fiji are a fine race of savages, tolerably well formed, and with dark, though not black skin. Like other Papuans, they are remarkable for their thick, bushy hair, which they dress in a singular variety of patterns. As the appearance and costume of savage races are the first points which strike a stranger, we will at once proceed to describe them.

The most conspicuous part of a Fijian’s general appearance is his headdress, in the arrangement of which he gives the reins to his fancy, and invents the most extraordinary variations of form and color. Examples of the Fijian headdress will be seen in most of the illustrations. But as it would be tedious to describe them as they occur, I will mention a few of the most prominent varieties.

The hair of the Papuan race is always stiff, wiry, and plentiful, and grows to a considerable length; so that it necessarily assumes a bushy form if suffered to grow according to its own will. The Fijian, however, thinks that nature is to be improved by art, and accordingly lavishes all the resources of a somewhat artistic character on his hair. To train the hair into any of the graceful and flowing methods which distinguish those soft-haired races would be utterly impossible for a Fijian. He goes on quite the opposite principle, and, true to real artistic feeling, tries to develop to the utmost those characteristics which rightly belong to him, instead of endeavoring to produce effects which would not be consonant with their surroundings.

The principle on which a Fijian coiffure is arranged is, that every hair is presumed to grow naturally at right angles to the skin, and to stand out stiffly and boldly. Supposing, then, that each hair could be induced to follow its own course, without being entangled by others, it is evident that the whole head of hair would form a large globular mass, surrounding the face. It is, therefore, the business of the Fijian hair-dresser to accept this as the normal form of the hair, and to change or modify it as he thinks best.

It is impossible to describe the various modes of Fijian hair-dressing better than has been done by Mr. Williams, who resided in Fiji for thirteen years. “Most of the chiefs have a hair-dresser, to whose care his master’s hair is intrusted, often demanding daily attention, and at certain stages of progress requiring several hours’ labor each day. During all this time, the operator’s hands are tapu from touching his food, but not from working in his garden.

(1.) THE AMBASSADOR’S MESSAGE.
(See [page 925].)

(2.) FIJIAN CANOE IN A BREEZE.
(See [page 932].)

“The hair is strong, and often quite wiry, and so dressed that it will retain the position in which it is placed, even when projecting from the head a distance of six or eight inches. One stranger, on seeing their performance in this department, exclaims, ‘What astonishing wigs!’ another thinks, ‘Surely the beau idéal of hair-dressing must exist in Fiji;’ a third, ‘Their heads surpass imagination.’” No wonder, then, that they defy description.

“Whatever may be said about the appearance being unnatural, the best coiffures have a surprising and almost geometrical accuracy of outline, combined with a round softness of surface and uniformity of dye which display extraordinary care, and merit some praise. They seem to be carved out of some solid substance, and are variously colored. Jet-black, blue-black, ashy white, and several shades of red prevail. Among young people, bright red and flaxen are in favor. Sometimes two or more colors meet on the same head. Some heads are finished, both as to shape and color, nearly like an English counsellor’s wig.

“In some, the hair is a spherical mass of jet black hair, with a white roll in front, as broad as the hand; or, in lieu of this, a white, oblong braid occupies the length of the forehead, the black passing down on either side. In each case the black projects further than the white hair. Some heads have all the ornamentation behind, consisting of a cord of twisted coils, ending in tassels. In others, the cords give place to a large red roll or a sandy projection falling on the neck. On one head, all the hair is of one uniform length, but one-third in front is ashy or sandy, and the rest black, a sharply defined separation dividing the two colors.

“Not a few are so ingeniously grotesque as to appear as if done purposely to excite laughter. One has a large knot of fiery hair on his crown, all the rest of the head being bald. Another has the most of his hair cut away, leaving three or four rows of small clusters, as if his head were planted with small paint brushes. A third has his head bare, except where a black patch projects over each temple. One, two, or three cords of twisted hair often fall from the right temple, a foot or eighteen inches long. Some men wear a number of these braids so as to form a curtain at the back of the neck, reaching from one ear to the other.

“A mode that requires great care has the hair wrought into distinct locks, radiating from the head. Each lock is a perfect cone, about seven inches in length, having the base outward, so that the surface of the hair is marked out into a great number of small circles, the ends being turned in, in each lock, toward the centre of the cone. In another kindred style, the locks are pyramidal, the sides and angles of each being as regular as though formed of wood. All round the head they look like square black blocks, the upper tier projecting horizontally from the crown, and a flat space being left at the top of the head. When the hair, however, is not more than four inches long, this flat does not exist, but the surface consists of a regular succession of squares or circles. The violent motions of the dance do not disturb these elaborate preparations, but great care is taken to preserve them from the effects of the dew or rain.”

Whenever the Fijian desires to know whether his headdress is in proper order, he has recourse to his mirror. This is not a portable, but a fixed article of manufacture, and is necessarily situated in the open air. When the native sees a large tree with a sloping trunk, he cuts in the upper part of the trunk several deep hollows, and arranges the leaves of the tree so that the water from the foliage drips into them, and keeps them full. These are his mirrors, and by their aid he examines his hair, sees if the outline be quite correct, and, if he be dissatisfied, arranges it with his long-handled comb, and then replaces the comb in his mop of a head, carefully sticking it over one ear as a soldier does his forage cap.

Not content with having the hair plaited and frizzed out as has already been described, many of the Fijians wear great wigs over their own hair, thus increasing the size of their heads to the most inordinate dimensions. The natives are excellent wig-makers and, as their object is not to imitate nature, but to produce as fantastic an effect as possible, it is evident that the result of their labor is often very ludicrous. As is the case with their own hair, they dye these wigs of various colors, red and white being the favorite hues.

Three examples of these curious headdresses are shown in [illustration No. 1], on preceding page, which represents an ambassador delivering a message from his chief to some man of consequence. Savages such as these have no idea of writing, but, lest they should forget the various terms of their message, they have recourse to a simple memoria technica, consisting of a bundle of sticks, no two being of the same length.

Each of these sticks answers to one of the terms of the message, which is repeated once or twice to the ambassador, who reckons them over on his sticks. When he delivers his message, he unties the bundle, selects the sticks in their order, and, laying them down in succession, delivers the message without a mistake.

In the [illustration], the principal figure represents the ambassador, the others being his attendants. He has laid down several of the sticks, and is delivering the message belonging to one of them, while he is holding the rest in his left hand. His headdress is of that remarkable kind which consists of a number of conical locks of hair—a fashion which denotes a man of rank, as no other could afford to have such a coiffure kept in order. The man seated next to the ambassador has his hair in two colors, the greater part being dark and frizzed out from the head, while a couple of rolls of a lighter hue pass over the forehead. The central figure exhibits a favorite mode of hair-dressing, in which the hair is clipped very short, except in certain spots, in which it is allowed to grow, so as to form a series of brush-like tufts.

Men of consequence mostly protect their enormous mops of hair by a sort of thin turban, which is wrapped round them. The turban is made of a piece of very delicate bark cloth, or masi, nearly as thin as gauze, and perfectly white. It is sometimes six feet in length, but varies according to the quantity of hair. It is twisted round the head in different fashions, but is mostly fastened by a bow on the forehead, or on the top of the head. Several examples of the turban will be seen in the course of the following pages. Men of rank often wear the masi of such length that the ends fall down behind like a scarf.

In order to preserve their hair from being displaced by rain, they use a waterproof covering of their own invention. This is a young banana leaf, which is heated over a fire, and then becomes as thin, transparent, and impervious to water as oiled silk. The light turban offers no protection whatever, being soaked as easily as tissue paper, which it somewhat resembles.

Material similar to that which is worn on the head is used for the dress. The masi which is employed for this purpose is mostly from twenty to thirty feet in length, though a wealthy man will sometimes wear a masi of nearly three hundred feet long. In this case, it is made of very delicate material. It is put on in a very simple manner, part being wound round the loins, and the rest passed under the legs and tucked into the belt, so as to hang as low as the knees in front, and to fall as low as possible behind. A wealthy man will often have his masi trailing far behind him like a train. This is all the dress which a Fiji man needs. Clothing as a protection from the weather is needless, owing to the geniality of the climate, and the masi is worn simply as a matter of fashion.

Ornaments are worn in great profusion, and are of the kinds which seem dear to all savage races. Ear ornaments of portentous size are worn by the inhabitants of Fiji, some of them stretching the lobe to such an extent that a man’s two fists could be placed in the opening. The Fijians also wear breast ornaments, very similar in shape and appearance to the large dibbi-dibbi which is worn by the Northern Australians, and has evidently been borrowed from the Papuan race. Any glittering objects can be made into necklaces, which often combine the most incongruous objects, such as European beads, bits of tortoise-shell, dogs’ teeth, bats’ jaws, and the like.

Flowers are plentifully worn by the Fijian, who keeps up a constant supply of these natural ornaments, weaving them into strings and chaplets, and passing them, like belts, over one shoulder and under the other. In the [illustration] on page 937th, which represents the payment of taxes, several girls are seen adorned with these garlands.

Tattooing is almost entirely confined to the women, and even in them is but little seen, the greater part of the patterns being covered by the liku or fringe apron. When young, the women usually tattoo their fingers with lines and stars in order to make them look ornamental as they present food to the chief, and, after they become mothers, they add a blue patch at each corner of the mouth. The operation is a painful one, though not so torturing as that which is employed in New Zealand, the pattern being made by the punctures of a sharp-toothed instrument, and not by the edge of a chisel driven completely through the skin.

Paint is used very largely, the three principal colors being black, white, and red. With these three tints they contrive to produce a variety of effect on their faces, that is only to be rivalled by the fancy displayed in their hair-dressing. Sometimes the face is all scarlet with the exception of the nose, which is black, and sometimes the face is divided like a quartered heraldic shield, and painted red and black, or white, red, and black in the different quarterings. Some men will have one side of the face black and the other white, while others paint their countenances black as far as the nose, and finish them off with white.

Reversing the first-mentioned pattern, the Fijian dandy will occasionally paint his face black and his nose red, or will have a black face, a white nose, a scarlet ring round each eye, and a white crescent on the forehead. Sometimes he will wear a white face covered with round scarlet spots like those on a toy horse; or will substitute for the round spots a large patch on each cheek and another round the mouth, just like the face of a theatrical clown.

Some very curious effects are produced by lines. A white face with a single broad black stripe from the forehead to the chin has a very remarkable appearance, and so has a face of which one side is painted longitudinally with black stripes on a white ground, and the other half with transverse stripes of the same colors. A similar pattern is sometimes produced with black upon red. Perhaps the oddest of all the patterns is formed by painting the face white, and upon the white drawing a number of undulating lines from the forehead downward, the lines crossing each other so as to form a sort of rippling network over the face.

So much for the dress of the men. That of the women is different in every way. Though possessing the same kind of stiff, wiry, profuse hair as the men, they do not trouble themselves to weave it into such fantastic designs, but mostly content themselves with combing it out so as to project as far as possible on every side. Sometimes they twist it into a series of locks, which are allowed to fall on the head merely at random, like the thrums of a mop.

Paint is employed by them as by the men, though not with such profusion. Scarlet seems to be their favorite color in paint, and to this predilection Mr. Pickering was indebted for opportunities of ascertaining by touch the peculiar roughness of the Papuan skin. The Fijians, an essentially ceremonious and punctilious people, will not allow themselves to be handled, and Mr. Pickering was rather perplexed as to the means of ascertaining whether this roughness belonged to the race, or whether it were only a peculiarity belonging to individuals. The love of scarlet paint here came to his assistance. The vermilion prepared by European art was so much superior to the pigments of Fiji, that the natives were only too glad to have so brilliant a color put on their faces and bodies. Accordingly men and women, old and young, pressed forward to have a little vermilion rubbed on them, and the mothers, after having their own faces painted, held out their infants to participate in the same benefit.

The native cloth, or masi, which has already been mentioned, is made from the inner bark of the malo tree, and is manufactured in a simple and ingenious manner.

As at the present day English fabrics are largely imported into Fiji, and are rapidly supplanting the delicate and becoming native manufactures, the art of making the masi will soon become extinct in Fiji, as has been the case in other islands where Europeans have gained a footing. I shall therefore devote a few lines to the description of its manufacture.

The natives cut off the bark in long strips, and soak them in water for some time, until the inner bark can be separated from the outer, an operation which is performed with the edge of a shell. After it has been removed from the coarse outer bark, it is kept in water so as to preserve it in the necessary state of moisture; and when a sufficient quantity is collected, the operation of beating it begins.

Masi is beaten upon a log of wood flattened on the upper surface, and so arranged as to spring a little with the blows of the mallet. This tool does not resemble our mallet with a handle and a head, but is simply a piece of wood about fourteen inches in length and two in thickness, rounded at one end so as to form a handle, and squared for the remainder of its length. Three sides of this mallet, or iki, as it is called, are covered with longitudinal grooves, while the fourth side is left plain. Those specimens that I have seen have the sides not quite flat, but very slightly convex, perhaps by use, perhaps rounded intentionally. A masi maker has several of these mallets, sometimes as many as six or seven, each having some difference in the fluting, and with them she contrives to produce a fabric that has all the effect of woven linens among ourselves, the pattern being incorporated with the material.

There are in my collection several specimens of masi, one of which is singularly beautiful. It is thin, snowy white, and soft as silk, and, even at a distance, must have looked very graceful when wrapped round the dark body of a Fijian warrior. But it is only on a closer examination that the real beauty of the fabric is displayed. Instead of merely beating the masi after the usual fashion, so as to impress upon it the longitudinal grooves of the mallet, the native manufacturer has contrived to change the position of her mallet at every blow, so as to produce a zigzag pattern on the fabric, very much like the well-known Greek pattern of European decorators. It is beautifully regular, and, when the fabric is held up to the light, looks like the water mark in paper.

The plasticity of the malo bark is really wonderful. A strip of two inches in length can be beaten to the width of eighteen inches, its length being slightly reduced as the width increases. As the material is very thin and flimsy, a single piece being, when beaten out, no thicker than tissue paper, two or more pieces are usually laid on each other and beaten so as to form a single thickness, the natural gluten which this material contains being sufficient to unite them as if they had been one piece. Some specimens of their larger mantles, now in my collection, are as thick as stout brown paper, and very much tougher, appearing both to the eye and the touch as if made of leather.

When a large masi has to be made, many lengths of the bark are united to each other, the ends being soaked in arrowroot starch, laid carefully over each other, and then subjected to the mallet, which forces the two pieces of bark to unite as if they were one substance, and does not exhibit the least trace of the junction. As I have already mentioned, some of these masis are of very great length. Mr. Williams measured one which was for the use of the king on festival days, and found its length to be five hundred and forty feet. Many of the large, and at the same time thin masis, are used as mosquito curtains, and in that case are decorated with patterns of dusky red and black. The patterns generally commence at the centre, and are gradually extended toward the edges. The mode of making these patterns is well described by Mr. Williams:—

“Upon a convex board, several feet long, are arranged parallel, at about a finger’s width apart, thin straight strips of bamboo, a quarter of an inch wide; and by the side of these, curved pieces, formed of the mid-rib of cocoa-nut leaflets, are arranged. Over the board thus prepared the cloth is laid, and rubbed over with a dye obtained from the lauci (Aleurites triloba). The cloth, of course, takes the dye upon those parts which receive pressure, being supported by the strips beneath, and thus shows the same pattern in the color employed. A stronger preparation of the same dye, laid on with a sort of brush, is used to divide the squares into oblong compartments, with large round or radiated dots in the centre. The kesa, or dye, when good, dries bright.

“Blank borders, two or three feet wide, are still left on each side of the square, and to elaborate the ornamentation of these so as to excite applause is the pride of every Fijian lady. There is now an entire change of apparatus. The operator works on a plain board; the red dye gives place to a jet black; her pattern is now formed by a strip of banana leaf placed on the upper surface of the cloth. Out of the leaf is cut the pattern, not more than an inch long, which she wishes to print upon the border, and holds by her first and middle finger, pressing it down with the thumb. Then, taking in her right hand a soft pad of cloth steeped in dye, she rubs it firmly over the stencil, and a fair, sharp figure is made.

“The practised fingers of the women move quickly, but it is after all a tedious process. In the work above described, the Lakemba women excel. On the island of Matuku very pretty curtains are made, but the pattern is large, and covers the entire square, while the spaces between the black lines are filled in with red and yellow.”

We now pass to the liku, or fringed girdle of the women. This is made of various materials, and much trouble is usually expended in its manufacture. The ordinary likus are little more than a number of slight thongs fixed to a belt, and allowed to hang down for several inches. When worn, it is passed round the waist and tied, not behind, but on one side, and on festivals the bark cord by which it is fastened is allowed to hang so low that it often trails on the ground as the wearer walks along.

The thongs are made of the bark of a species of hibiscus, called by the natives vau, and used for many purposes, of long flexible roots like that of the cascus grass, and of different grasses. One kind of liku which is rather fashionable, is made of a vegetable parasite, called by the natives waloa. The thongs of this liku are not thicker than, packthread, and when fresh, are as flexible as silk. In process of time, however, they become brittle, and are apt to break. The color of this material is deep glossy black.

There are in my collection two specimens of the liku, one of them being made of the fashionable waloa. The other is the common liku. It is made of split grass, the blades of which are more than three feet in length. In order to make them into the garment they have been doubled, and the loops woven into a narrow plaited belt of the same material. The better kind of likus are, however, made with far greater care than is bestowed on this article. There is but little difference in the thongs, the chief labor being bestowed on the belt. In some cases the belt of the liku is four inches in width, and is plaited into elegant patterns, plaiting being an art in which the natives excel.

In general shape the liku never varies, being worn by girls and women alike. As long as a girl is unmarried, she wears a liku the fringe of which is not more than three inches in depth, and the whole article is so scanty that when tied round the waist the ends do not meet at the hips by several inches. As soon as the girl is married, she changes her liku in token of her new rank, and wears a garment with a fringe that reaches half-way to her knees, and which entirely surrounds the body. After she has become a mother, she wears an apron which quite reaches to the knees, and sometimes falls below them.

CHAPTER XCIV.
FIJI—Continued.
MANUFACTURES.

MAT MAKING — SAILS FOR THE CANOES — FLOOR MATS AND BEDDING — ROPE AND STRING — SINNET AND ITS VARIOUS USES — THE NETTING NEEDLE AND MESH — FANS AND SUNSHADES — THE ORATOR’S FLAPPER — BASKET WORK — FIJIAN POTTERY, AND NATIVE ART — POTTERY RESTRICTED TO THE WOMEN — THEIR SIMPLE TOOLS AND IMPERFECT MATERIALS — MODE OF “FIRING” THE VESSELS — GLAZING THE WATER VESSELS — FIJIAN FISHERMEN — VARIOUS KINDS OF NETS, AND MODES OF USING THEM — THE TURTLE FISHERY — A BOLD DIVER — CONTRACTORS FOR TURTLE — MODES OF CATCHING THE REPTILE — A “HEAD” OF TURTLE AND ITS VALUE — DANGERS OF THE FISHERY — FIJIAN CANOES, AND MODE OF MANAGING THEM — BUILDING CANOES — INGENIOUS METHOD OF JOINING THE PLANKS — TONGA CARPENTERS — THE FIJIANS INFERIOR SAILORS TO THE TONGANS — FIJIAN TRADERS.

Mats of various kinds are made by the women, and they display as much ingenuity in mat-making as in the manufacture of masi. Mats are employed for many purposes. The sails of the Fijian canoes are always made of matting, which is woven in lengths and then sewed together afterward, just as is the case with our own canvas sails. The width of the strips varies from two to four feet, and their length from three to a hundred yards. On an average, however, the usual length of these strips is twenty feet, that being the ordinary length of a sail. Sail mats are necessarily rather coarse, and are made from the leaf of the cocoa-nut palm.

Then there are floor-mats, which are used as carpets in the houses. These vary in size according to the dimensions of the house, but twenty feet by sixteen is a very ordinary measurement. They are generally adorned with a border or pattern round the edges, this border being about six inches wide, and often decorated with feathers and scraps of any colored material that can be procured. Mats of a similar character, but much finer texture, are used as bedding; the best kind, which is called ono, being of a very fine texture.

The native love of ornament is in no way better displayed than in their rope and string making. The best rope is formed from several strands of sinnet. This is a sort of plait made from the fibre of the cocoa-nut. The fibre is carefully removed from the nut, baked, and combed out like wool. Cordage is made by twisting sinnet together, and some of the Fijian cords are nearly as thick as a cable, and possessed of extraordinary elasticity and strength. The sinnet is used in a great variety of offices, houses being built and the planks of the canoes tied together with this most useful material.

When made, the sinnet is made into great rolls, some of them being of gigantic dimensions. Mr. Williams saw one which was twelve feet long, and nearly seven feet in diameter. These rolls are differently shaped, and each shape is known by its own name, such as the double cone, the plain hank, the oval ball, the honeycomb ball, and the variegated roll. These rolls are given as presents, and offered to the chiefs as tribute, together with other property. In the large [illustration] on page 937, which represents a tax-paying scene, one or two of these rolls are shown.

Sinnet is the favorite material for net making, but as it is costly, nets are often constructed of the hibiscus bark. Another material is a sort of creeper named yaka, which is steeped in water to dissolve the green matter, then scraped to clean the fibres, and, lastly, twisted into strings. It is remarkable that the netting needle and mesh are exactly similar to those which are employed by ourselves, and the same may be said of the mesh and needle of the Esquimaux.

The same ingenuity in plaiting which is expended in the making and rolling of sinnet asserts itself in various other manufactures, such as basket and fan making. In the latter art the Fijian excels, and, as the fan is almost as important to the Fijian as to the Japanese, much play of fancy is exhibited in fan making. Dissimilar as are these fans in shape, there is always a sort of character about them which denotes their origin to a practised eye.

I have a specimen in my collection, which is a very good type of the Fijian fan. It is two feet in length, and rather more than a foot broad in the widest part. The handle is made of cocoa-nut wood, and extends nearly to the end of the fan, so as to form a support through its entire length. It is fastened to the fan by double bands of the finest and most beautifully plaited sinnet. The material of which the fan is composed is cocoa-nut leaf, divided into doubled strips about the third of an inch in width near the base of the fan, and gradually decreasing toward its tip. A strong band of the same material runs round the edges of the fan, and the two ends of this band are secured to the handle by the same sinnet as has been just mentioned.

Such a fan as this is employed rather as a sunshade or parasol than a fan, and is held over the head when the owner happens to be seated in the sunshine. It is very light, and is really a much more efficient implement than its appearance intimates.

The form of the fan is exceedingly variable. Sometimes they are triangular, with the handle projecting from one of the angles, and sometimes they are square, but with the handle passing diagonally across them. Various modifications of the battledoor are in much favor, and there is one form which almost exactly resembles that of the Japanese handscreen.

It is rather remarkable that the aborigines of tropical America, such as the Caribs, the Accowais, and the like, make fans of precisely similar material and structure, except that the handle is not separately made of wood, but is formed from the ends of the leaf-strips of which the implement is made.

There is another curious article of manufacture which is properly Fijian, but extends through several of the Polynesian group. It is the orator’s flapper, which the native holds in his hand while he speaks in council. An [engraving] showing its form is given on the 949th page. The handle is carved into various patterns, and mostly, though not invariably, is terminated by a rude representation of a couple of human figures seated back to back. Sometimes the entire handle is covered with sinnet, plaited in the most delicate patterns, as none but a Fijian can plait. The tuft at the end is formed of cocoa-nut fibre, which has first been soaked in water, next rolled round a small twig, and then dried. When it is unwound from the stick, it has a crisp, wrinkled appearance, very like that of the Fijian’s hair, and is probably intended to imitate it. In the specimens of my collection, some have sinnet-covered handles, and some carved handles, while some have the tuft black, and others sandy red, just as is the case with the hair of the natives.

In their basket making, the Fijians are equally lavish of their artistic powers, weaving them in patterns of such elaborate intricacy as to put the best European makers to shame, and then, as if not satisfied with the amount of work bestowed upon them, covering all the edges with sinnet, braided into really artistic patterns.

Indeed, the Fijians are born artists. Their work, although sometimes grotesque, is always artistic, because always appropriate. They carry this feeling of art into the material whose plasticity allows the greatest freedom of manipulation; namely, earthenware. Some of the vessels which are intended for cooking are quite plain, while others which are made for other purposes are of elegant shape, and covered with ornaments. Mr. Williams suggests, with much probability, that the cooking pots are made in imitation of the cells of a species of black bee which inhabits the Fiji group of islands.

Several specimens of Fijian pottery are in the British Museum. As examples of intuitive art they are far superior in outline and ornament to the generality of decorated earthenware in civilized countries. A conventional imitation of nature is the principle which is employed by the Fijian potters, who find their chief patterns in flowers, leaves, and fruits, thus obtaining the most graceful curves, joined to great certainty and precision of outline.

Rude as is the manipulation of the potter, and coarse as is the material, the design of the vessel is sure to be bold and vigorous, putting to shame the feeble prettiness with which we are too familiar in this country. Going to nature for their models, the Fijian potters display a wonderful power, fertility, and originality of design. In any country, an artist who really studies nature is sure to produce works that are fresh and original; and in a country like Fiji, which is within the tropics, and in which the magnificent vegetation of the tropics springs up in luxuriant profusion, it is likely that an artist, however rude he may be, who studies in such a school, will produce works of genuine merit.

The art of pottery is confined to the women, and is practically restricted to the wives and daughters of fishermen. The material employed by them is a red or blue clay mixed with sand, and their implements are merely an annular cushion, a flat stone, one or two wooden scrapers, a round stone to hold against the inside of the vessel, and a sharp stick. They have no wheel: and yet, in spite of such disadvantages, they contrive to produce vessels so true in outline, that few persons, unless they are practically acquainted with pottery, could believe that they were merely rounded by the eye.

The shapes of nearly all the vessels are very elegant, as is likely to be the case from the models employed by the maker. They are often wonderfully elaborate specimens of workmanship. Permanently covered vessels, with a hole in the lid, are very common, and Mr. Williams saw one jar as large as a hogshead, that was furnished with four openings for the purpose of filling and emptying it rapidly. The most remarkable examples are the compound vessels, several being united together at the point where they touch, and further connected by arched handles. In some cases, even the handles are hollow, and have an opening at the top, so that the vessels can be filled or emptied through them. This compound form has lately been copied by Europeans.

Considering the amount of labor and artistic skill which is given to pottery, it is a pity that the natives are not better off for material and firing. The material is very coarse, and the very imperfect mode of baking fails to give to the vessels the hard and almost imperishable quality which distinguishes properly prepared earthenware.

After the vessels have been shaped, and the decorative patterns traced on them with a sharp stick, they are placed on the ground close together, but not touching each other, and covered with a quantity of dried leaves, grass, reeds, and similar materials. The pile is then lighted, and when it has burned itself out the baking is supposed to be finished. Those pots that are to be glazed are rubbed, while still hot, with kawri, the same resin which has already been mentioned in the account of New Zealand.

As may be expected in an island population, the Fijians are expert fishermen, and employ various means of securing their prey. Nets, weighted at one edge with shells and floated at the other with pieces of light wood, are much used; and so are the hook, the creel, and the weir. In some places a very remarkable net, or rather an imitation of a net, called the rau, is used. To the long, flexible stems of creepers are fastened a quantity of split cocoa-nut leaves, so as to make a fringe of considerable depth and very great length, one of these raus sometimes measuring nearly ten thousand feet from one end to the other.

When completed, the rau is taken out to sea and thrown into the water, the ends being attached to canoes, which stretch it to a straight line. They then make for a small bay, across which the rau can be drawn, and then capture all the fish by smaller nets or spears. Sometimes they do not trouble themselves to return to the shore, but bring the net round in a circle, the fish being so afraid of the leafy fringe that they avoid it, and keep themselves in the middle of the toils.

The principal use of the net is, however, in turtle fishing, a sport which may be almost called an art. The turtle fishers supply themselves with sinnet nets, some ten feet in width, and one or two hundred yards in length. While the turtle are feeding upon the shore, the fishermen carry out the net and shoot it to seaward, so that when the turtle returns to the sea after feeding, it is sure to be intercepted by the net, which has large meshes, in order to entangle the flippers of the reptile.

When the fishermen feel that the turtle is fairly caught, they proceed to get it on board, a task of very great difficulty and some danger, inasmuch as the turtle is in its own element, and the men are obliged to dive and conduct their operations under water. The most active diver tries to seize the end of one of the fore-flippers, and pulls it violently downward, knowing that the instinctive desire to rid itself of the inconvenience will cause the reptile to rise. Of course the diver can only retain his hold for a limited time, but as soon as he rises to the surface for breath another takes his place. Should the turtle be a vicious one, as is often the case, one of the divers grasps it across the head, fixing his finger and thumb in the sockets of the eyes, so as to prevent the creature from doing mischief.

Finding itself thus hampered, the turtle rises to the surface, when it is seized by the other fishermen who are in the canoe, hauled on board, and laid on its back, in which position it is utterly helpless. The successful fishermen then blow loud blasts of triumph on their conch-shell trumpets, and bring their prize to land.

In consequence of the number of men who are employed in this pursuit, the men almost invariably fish in parties, who are engaged by some individual. Sometimes they are the servants of a chief, and fish on his account, all the captured turtles belonging to him, but the fishermen always receive a present of some kind when they have been successful. Should the fishers be free men, they hire themselves, their nets, and canoe to some one who will pay the regular price, for which they are bound to make ten expeditions. Should they be entirely unsuccessful, they get nothing, but each time that they bring a turtle ashore they receive a present from the hirer, who is obliged, after the completion of the fishing, to give the men a handsome present. Sometimes several turtles are taken in a single day; but the business is a very precarious one, even the best fishermen returning day after day without catching a single turtle.

Some of the modes of catching the turtle are very ingenious. When the men have no net, they chase the reptile as they best can, keeping the shadow of the sail just behind it so as to frighten it, and keep it continually on the move. They will pursue it in this way for a long time, until the creature is so exhausted that it can be captured by a few divers without the aid of a net. When brought home, the turtles are kept in pens and killed as wanted.

Although the flesh of the turtle is highly esteemed, and the green fat is appreciated nearly as much as in England, the chief value of the turtle lies in its shell, the thirteen plates of which are called a “head,” and sold to the traders by weight. A “head” weighing three pounds is a fair one, a head that weighs four pounds is exceptionally good, while one that exceeds five pounds is hardly ever seen.

The dangers that beset the turtle fishery are many. Chief among them is the shark, which is very plentiful on these coasts, and which is equally fond of men and turtle, so that when it sees a turtle entangled in the net it makes an attack, and is as likely to take off the limb of one of the divers as to seize the reptile. Another fertile source of danger lies in the structure of the coral reefs, which form the principal shores of these islands. They are full of hollows and crannies, and it sometimes happens that a diver becomes entangled in them, and is not able to extricate himself in time to save his life.

As the canoes return home after turtle fishing, the women come down to the shore and meet them. Should the expedition be successful, the men return with songs and shouts of triumph, as if they were bringing home the bodies of slain foes, on which occasion, as we shall presently see, a scene of horrid rejoicing takes place. Should they be unsuccessful, they return in sad silence.

In the former case, the women welcome the successful fishermen with songs and dances, and sometimes become rather rough in the exuberance of their delight. Mr. Williams once witnessed an amusing scene, in which the women brought a quantity of bitter oranges down to the shore, and when the fishermen were about to land, pelted them so mercilessly that the men were in self-defence obliged to drive their aggressors off the beach.

As the canoe has so often been mentioned in connection with fishing, it will be now described. In principle it resembles the form which prevails among the great Polynesian group, though in detail it differs from many of the ordinary vessels. All the canoes possess modifications of the outrigger, but the best example is the double canoe, where two boats are placed side by side in such a manner that one of them acts as the outrigger and the other as the canoe.

If the reader will refer to [illustration No. 2], on the 924th page, he will be able to understand the general appearance of this curious vessel. The two canoes are covered over, so as to keep out the water, and are connected by a platform which projects over the outer edges of both boats. Hatchways are cut through the platform, so as to enable the sailors to pass into the interior of the canoes. In the illustration a man is seen emerging from the hatch of the outer canoe. Upon this platform is erected a sort of deck-house for the principal person on board, and on the top of the deck-house is a platform, on which stands the captain of the vessel, so that he may give his orders from this elevated position, like the captain of a steamboat on the paddle-box or bridge. This position also enables him to trace the course of the turtle, if they should be engaged in the profitable chase of that reptile.

The mode of managing the vessel is extremely ingenious. The short mast works on a pivot at the foot, and can be slacked over to either end of the vessel. When the canoe is about to get under way, the long yard is drawn up to the head of the mast, and the latter inclined, so that the mast, the yard, and the deck form a triangle. The halyards are then made fast, and act as stays. When the vessel is wanted to go about, the mast is slacked off to the other end, so that the stern becomes the bow, the tack and the sheet change places, and away goes the vessel on the other course.

It will be seen that such a canoe sails equally well in either direction, and, therefore, that it can be steered from either end. The rudder is a very large oar, some twenty feet in length, of which the blade occupies eight, and is sixteen inches wide. The leverage of such an oar is tremendous, and, in a stiff gale, several men are required to work it. In order to relieve them in some degree, rudder-bands are used; but even with this assistance the men have great difficulty in keeping the canoe to her course, and are nearly sure to receive some very sharp blows in the side from the handle of the steering oar. Sometimes a sudden gust of wind, or a large wave, will bring round the rudder with such violence that the handle strikes a man in the side and kills him. With all these drawbacks, canoe sailing is a favorite occupation with the Fijians, who are as merry as possible while on board, singing songs to encourage the steersman, watching the waves and giving notice of them, and adding to the joyous tumult by beating any drum that they may happen to have on board. Even when the wind fails, and the canoe has to be propelled by poling if she should be in shoal water, or by sculling if she should be too far out at sea for the poles, the crew do their work in gangs, which are relieved at regular intervals, those who are resting singing songs and encouraging those who are at work.

Sculling one of these large canoes is rather heavy work, the great paddles being worked from side to side in perfect unison, the men moving their feet in accordance with the rhythm of their comrades’ song. As many as eight sculls are sometimes employed at the same time, should the canoe be a large one and the crew tolerably numerous. The sculling oars pass through holes in the deck, an equal number being out fore and aft.

The mode of building these canoes is so ingenious that I will try to describe it, though without a plentiful use of diagrams description is very difficult. Canoes of moderate size are cut out of single logs; and in these there is nothing particularly worthy of remark. But when the native ship-builder wishes to construct one of the great war canoes, he has to exercise all the skill of his craft.

Here it must be mentioned that the canoe makers form a sort of clan of their own, and have their own chief, who is always a man eminent for skill in his profession. The experienced Fijians know the workmanship of these men as well as our artists know the touch and style of a celebrated sculptor or painter, and contemplate both the man and his workmanship with respectful admiration.

The first process in canoe building is to lay the keel, which is made of several pieces of wood carefully “scarfed” together; and upon it the planking is fixed, without requiring ribs, as in our boats. The most ingenious part of boat building is the way that the planks are fastened, or rather tied together, without a vestige of the sinnet appearing on the outside. Along the inside edge of each plank runs a bold flange, through which a number of holes are bored downward at regular distances, so that when two planks are placed together, the holes in the flanges exactly coincide, and a cord can be run through them.

When a plank has been made, and all the flange holes bored, the edges are smeared with a sort of white pitch, upon which is laid a strip of fine masi. This of course covers the holes, which are reopened by means of a small fire-stick. The planks thus prepared are called “vonos.” When the vono is ready, it is lifted to its place, and very carefully adjusted, so that all the holes exactly coincide. The best and strongest sinnet is next passed eight or ten times through the hole, drawn as tight as possible, and then tied. It will be seen, therefore, that all the tying is done inside the vessel. In order to tighten the sinnet still more, a number of little wedges are inserted under it in different directions, and are driven home with the mallet.

By this process the planks are brought so tightly together that, when the carpenter comes to smooth off the outside of the vessel with his adze, he often has to look very closely before he can see the line of junction. Caulking is therefore needless, the white pitch and masi rendering the junction of the planks completely waterproof. The vonos are by no means equal in size, some being twenty feet in length, while others are barely thirty inches, but all are connected in exactly the same manner.

The gunwales, and other parts above the water mark, do not require so much care, and are fastened without flanges, a strip of wood or “bead” being laid upon the junction, and the sinnet bands passing over and over it and drawn tight with wedges, and the holes carefully caulked with fibre and pitch. When the canoe is completed, it is beautifully finished off, the whole of the outside being first carefully trimmed with the adze, and then polished with pumice stone, so that it looks as if it were made of one piece of wood.

Ornament is freely used in the best canoes, especially in the two projecting ends, which are carved in patterns, and frequently inlaid with white shells belonging to the genus Ovulum or egg shells. This form of canoe has gradually superseded the more clumsy forms that were once in use in Tonga and the neighboring islands. The Tongans often made voyages to Fiji, being better and bolder sailors, though their canoes were inferior; and, having been struck with the superiority of Fijian boat-building, have by degrees built their own vessels after Fijian models. Being also remarkably good carpenters, they have taken to boat building even in Fiji itself, and have in a great measure ousted the native builders, being able to work better and quicker, and for less pay.

In spite of their excellent canoes, and their skill in managing their vessels, the Fijians are not bold sailors, and, according to Mr. Williams, “none have yet taken their canoes beyond the boundaries of their own group.” He knew one old man named Toalevu (Great Fowl) who had a fancy that he could make a profitable trading expedition westward, and who accordingly loaded his canoe with pottery and masi, and started off. After two or three days, however, he became frightened, and made the best of his way back again, only to become a standing warning to rash voyagers. Yet in waters which they know the Fijians are excellent sailors, and the women appear to be as bold and skilful as the men, assisting in steering, managing the sail, and even in the laborious task of sculling or poling.

Owing to their excellence in canoe building, the Fijians carry on a brisk trade with other islands, supplying them not only with the canoes, but with the masts, sails, sinnet, and other nautical appliances, receiving in exchange the whales’ teeth, shells, weapons, and other valued commodities.

CHAPTER XCV.
FIJI—Continued.
GOVERNMENT AND SOCIAL LIFE.

A NATIVE LEGEND — THE RAT GOD, AND HIS MISHAPS ON A JOURNEY — EVASION OF A HUMILIATING CUSTOM — MODERN CHANGES OF GOVERNMENT — THE VARIOUS RANKS OF CHIEFS AND PEOPLE — THE SYSTEM OF VASU, OR NEPOTISM EXTRAORDINARY — SINGULAR POWER OF THE VASU — THE SYSTEM A HINDRANCE TO INDUSTRY — THE VASU AS AN AMBASSADOR — PAYMENT OF TAXES — PRESENTATION OF THE CANOE — TRIBUTE PAID IN KIND AND IN LABOR — THE TENURE OF LAND — A SINGULAR CUSTOM — ATTACHMENT TO THE SOIL — THE DISAPPOINTED PURCHASER — THE FAMILY THE TYPE OF FIJIAN GOVERNMENT — CODE OF ETIQUETTE AMONG THE FIJIANS — THE COURT LANGUAGE — THE “TAMA,” AND ITS MODIFICATIONS — MEETING A SUPERIOR — THE “BALEMURI” CUSTOM — THE POLITE NATIVE WHO DID NOT GET A MUSKET — HOW GREAT CHIEFS VISIT EACH OTHER — ORATORY, AND MODES OF GREETING — STRICTNESS OF THE CODE OF ETIQUETTE — THE YOUNG CHIEF AND THE GUANA’S TAIL — A FIJIAN FEAST — THE VAST OVENS, AND MODE OF MAKING THEM — PREPARATIONS FOR THE FEAST — ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE BANQUET — VARIETY OF DISHES — MODE OF DRINKING — HOW TO OPEN A COCOA-NUT — CANNIBALISM — THE KING THAKOMBAU — PRESUMED ORIGIN OF CANNIBALISM — NATIVE LEGEND — THE CANNIBAL FORKS — OPPORTUNITIES FOR HUMAN SACRIFICES — “TAKING DOWN THE MAST” — AN UNFORTUNATE MISTAKE.

Owing to the geographical nature of the Fiji group, which consists of seven groups of islands, some of them very large and some very small, the mode of government has never been monarchical, the country being ruled by a number of chiefs of greater or less importance, according to the amount of territory over which their sway extended. The various islands had in former days but little connection with each other. At the present time, more intercourse takes place, and in one instance the visit involves a singular and ludicrous ceremonial.

One of the gods belonging to Somo-somo, named Ng-gurai, went to visit Mbau a spot on the eastern coast of Viti Lemi, one of the greater islands, and to pay his respects to the god of that place. He was accompanied by a Vuna god named Vatu-Mundre, who gave him a bamboo by way of a vessel, and undertook to guide him on his journey. Ng-gurai then entered into the body of a rat, seated himself on the bamboo, and set off on his journey. After they had sailed for some time, Ng-gurai lost his way on account of wanting to call at every island which he passed, and at last, just as he arrived on the Mbau shore, he was washed off the bamboo and nearly drowned in the surf.

From this fate he was rescued by a Mbau woman, who took him into the chiefs house, and put him among the cooks on the hearth, where he sat shivering for four days. Meanwhile, Vatu-Mundre arrived at his destination, and was received in royal manner by the Mbau god, who tried in vain to induce him to become tributary to him.

After a proper interval, the Mbau god returned the visit of Vatu-Mundre, who had craftily greased the path, so that when his visitor became animated, his feet slipped, and he fell on his back. Vatu-Mundre then took advantage of his situation, and forced his visitor to become his tributary.

In consequence of this affair, the Mbau people pay a homage to the natives of Vuna, but indemnify themselves by exacting a most humiliating homage from the men of Somo-somo, though in fact Somo-somo is the acknowledged superior of Vuna.

Whenever a Somo-somo canoe goes to Mbau, the sail must be lowered at a certain distance from shore, and the crew must paddle in a sitting position. To keep up the sail or to paddle in the usual standing position would cost them their lives. As soon as they come within hearing of the shore they have to shout the Tama, i. e. the reverential salutation of an inferior to a superior, and to reiterate it at short intervals.

Arrived on shore, they are not allowed to enter a house, but are kept in the open air for four days, during which time they are obliged to wear their worst dresses, move about in a stooping attitude, and to say the Tama in a low and trembling voice, in imitation of the shivering rat-god. After the four days have expired, they may enter houses and dress in better clothes, but are still obliged to walk in a half-bent attitude. When a Mbau man meets one of these crouching visitors, he cries out, “Ho! Ho!” in a jeering manner, and asks the Somo-somo man whether his god is yet at liberty. The unfortunate visitor is then obliged to place his hand on his heart, stoop half-way to the ground, and say humbly that Ng-gurai is allowed his liberty.

Naturally disliking this oppressive and humiliating custom, the people of Somo-somo have of late years managed to evade it by means of foreign vessels. The custom of lowering the sail and paddling while seated was not binding on people of other countries, and so they contrived to visit Mbau on board of Tongan canoes, or, better still, English ship-boats.

Of late years the government has assumed a feudal aspect, the chiefs of large districts being considered as kings, and having under them a number of inferior chiefs who are tributary to them, and bound to furnish men and arms when the king declares war. According to Mr. Williams, the Fijians may be ranked under six distinct orders. First come the kings, and next to them the chiefs of separate large islands or districts. Then come the chiefs of towns, the priests, and the Mata-ni-vanuas, or aides-de-camp of the great chiefs. Next to them come the chiefs of professions, such as canoe building and turtle fishing, and with them are ranked any distinguished warriors of low birth. The fifth rank includes all the commonalty, and the sixth consists of the slaves, who are always captives.

As is often the case in countries where polygamy is practised, the law of descent passes through the female line, the successor of the king or chief being always the son of a woman of high rank.

The oddest part of Fijian political economy is the system of Vasu, or nephew—a system which may be described as nepotism carried to the greatest possible extreme. Mr. Williams’s description of the Vasu is very curious. “The word means a nephew, or niece, but becomes a title of office in the case of the male, who in some localities has the extraordinary privilege of appropriating whatever he chooses belonging to his uncle, or those under his uncle’s power.

“Vasus are of three kinds: the Vasu-taukei, the Vasu-levu and the Vasu;—the last is a common name, belonging to any nephew whatever. Vasu-taukei is a term applied to any Vasu whose mother is a lady of the land in which he was born. The fact of Mbau being at the head of Fijian rank gives the Queen of Mbau a pre-eminence over all Fijian ladies, and her son a place nominally over all Vasus.

“No material difference exists between the power of a Vasu-taukei and a Vasu-levu, which latter title is given to every Vasu born of a woman of rank, and having a first-class chief for his father. A Vasu-taukei can claim anything belonging to a native of his mother’s land, excepting the wives, home, and land of a chief. Vasus cannot be considered apart from the civil polity of the group, forming, as they do, one of its integral parts, and supplying the high-pressure power of Fijian despotism.

“In grasping at dominant influence, the chiefs have created a power, which ever and anon turns round and grips them with no gentle hand. However high a chief may rank, however powerful a king may be, if he has a nephew, he has a master, one who will not be content with the name, but who will exercise his prerogative to the full seizing whatever will take his fancy, regardless of its value or the owner’s inconvenience in its loss. Resistance is not to be thought of, and objection is only offered in extreme cases. A striking instance of the power of the Vasu occurred in the case of Thokonauto, a Rewa chief, who, during a quarrel with an uncle, used the right of Vasu, and actually supplied himself with ammunition from his enemy’s stores....

“Descending in the social scale, the Vasu is a hindrance to industry, few being willing to labor unrewarded for another’s benefit. One illustration will suffice. An industrious uncle builds a canoe in which he has not made half-a-dozen trips, when an idle nephew mounts the deck, sounds his trumpet-shell, and the blast announces to all within hearing that the canoe has that instant changed masters.”

The Vasu of a king is necessarily a personage of very great importance; and when he acts as delegate for the king, he is invested for the time with royal dignity. He is sent, for example, to other places to collect property, which is handed over to his king as tribute; and were it not for a check which the king has over him, he might be tempted to enrich himself by exacting more from the people than they ought to give. In this case, however, the Vasu is held amenable to the king, and should he exceed his proper powers, is heavily fined.

Taxes, to which reference is here made, are paid in a manner differing materially from the mode adopted in more civilized countries. In Europe, for example, no one pays a tax if he can possibly escape from it, and the visits of the tax-gatherer are looked upon as periodical vexations. In Fiji the case is different. People take a pride in paying taxes, and the days of payment are days of high festival.

On the appointed day the king prepares a great feast, and the people assemble in vast multitudes with their goods, such as rolls of sinnet, masi, whales’ teeth, reeds, women’s dresses—and often accompanied by their wearers—ornaments, weapons, and the like, and present themselves in turn before the king. Each man is clad in his very best raiment, is painted in the highest style of art, and displays the latest fashion in hair-dressing. With songs and dances the people approach their monarch, and lay their presents before him, returning to the banquet which he has prepared for them.

It is hardly possible to imagine a more animated scene than that which occurs when the tribute from a distant place is taken to the king, especially if, as is often the case, a valuable article, such as a large war canoe, is presented as part of the tribute. A fleet of canoes, containing several hundred people and great quantities of property, makes its appearance off the coast, and is received with great hospitality, as well may be the case. The king having seated himself on a large masi carpet, the principal chief of the tribute bearers comes before him, accompanied by his men bringing the presents with them in proper ceremonial, the chief himself carrying, in the folds of his robe, a whale’s tooth, which is considered as the symbol of the canoe which is about to be presented, and which is called by the same name as the canoe which it represents.

Approaching the king with the prescribed gestures, the chief kneels before him, and first offers to his master all the property which has been deposited on the ground. He then takes from the folds of his voluminous dress, which, as the reader may remember, is often several hundred feet in length, the whale’s tooth, and makes an appropriate speech. He compliments the king on the prosperity which is enjoyed by all districts under his sway, acknowledging their entire submission, and hoping that they may be allowed to live in order to build canoes for him. As an earnest of this wish, he presents the king with a new canoe, and, so saying, he gives the king the symbolical whale’s tooth, calling it by the name of the vessel. On receiving the tooth, the king graciously gives them his permission to live, whereupon all present clap their hands and shout, the cry of the receivers being different from that which is employed by the givers.

In the following [illustration] one of these animated scenes is represented.

Nearly in the centre is the king seated on the masi carpet, having his back to the spectator in order to show the mode in which the flowing robes of a great man are arranged. In front of him kneels the chief of the tax-paying expedition, who is in the act of offering to the king the symbolical whale’s tooth. One or two similar teeth lie by his side, and form a part of the present. In the distance is the flotilla of canoes, in which the tax-paying party have come; and near the shore is the new war canoe, which forms the chief part of the offering.

In the foreground are seen the various articles of property which constitute taxes, such as yams, rolls of cloth and sinnet, baskets, articles of dress, and young women, the last being dressed in the finest of likus, and being decorated, not only with their ordinary ornaments, but with wreaths and garlands of flowers. Behind the offering chief are his followers, also kneeling as a mark of respect for the king; and on the left hand are the spectators of the ceremony, in front of whom sit their chiefs and leading men.

Tribute is not only paid in property, but in labor, those who accompany the tax-paying chief being required to give their labor for several weeks. They work in the fields, they thatch houses, they help in canoe building, they go on fishing expeditions, and at the end of the stipulated time they receive a present, and return to their homes.

Should the king take it into his head to go and fetch the taxes himself, his visit becomes terribly burdensome to those whom he honors with his presence. He will be accompanied by some twenty or thirty canoes, manned by a thousand men or so, and all those people have to be entertained by the chief whom he visits. It is true that he always makes a present when he concludes his visit, but the present is entirely inadequate to the cost of his entertainment.

The tenure of land is nearly as difficult a question in Fiji as in New Zealand. It is difficult enough when discussed between natives, but when the matter is complicated by a quarrel between natives and colonists, it becomes a very apple of discord. Neither party can quite understand the other. The European colonist who buys land from a native chief purchases, according to his ideas, a complete property in the land, and control over it. The native who sells it has never conceived such an idea as the total alienation of land, and, in consequence, if the purchaser should happen to leave any part of the land unoccupied, the natives will build their houses upon it, and till it as before. Then as in process of time the proprietor wants to use his ground for his own purposes, the natives refuse to be ejected, and there is a quarrel.

The state of the case is very well put by Dr. Pritchard: “Every inch of land in Fiji has its owner. Every parcel or tract of ground has a name, and the boundaries are defined and well-known. The proprietorship rests in families, the heads of families being the representatives of the title. Every member of the family can use the lands attaching to the family. Thus the heads of families are the nominal owners, the whole family are the actual occupiers. The family land maintains the whole family, and the members maintain the head of the family.

PRESENTATION OF THE CANOE.
(See [page 936].)

“A chief holds his lands under precisely the same tenure, as head of his family, and his personal rights attain only to the land pertaining to his family, in which right every member of his family shares so far as on any portion of the land. But the chief is also head of his tribe, and, as such, certain rights to the whole lands of the tribe appertain to him. The tribe is a family, and the chief is the head of the family.

“The families of a tribe maintain the chief. In war they give him their services, and follow him to the fight. In peace they supply him with food. In this way, the whole tribe attains a certain collective interest in all the lands held by each family; and every parcel of land alienated contracts the source whence the collective tribal support of the chief is drawn. From this complicated tenure it is clear that the alienation of land, however large or small the tract, can be made valid only by the collective act of the whole tribe, in the persons of the ruling chief and the heads of families. Random and reckless land transactions under these circumstances would be simply another seizure of Naboth’s vineyard, for which the price of blood would inevitably have to be paid.”

Another cause of misunderstanding lies in a peculiar attachment which the Fijian has to the soil. When he sells a piece of land, it is an understood thing between the buyer and seller that the latter shall have the exclusive right of working on the ground, that none but he shall be employed to till the ground, or build houses upon it. The white settlers who understand the customs of the natives have accepted the condition, and find that it answers tolerably well. Those who are unacquainted with native ideas have often suffered severely for their ignorance, and, when they have brought a gang of their own workmen to put up a house on the newly purchased land, have been fairly driven out by armed parties of natives.

Mr. Pritchard narrates an amusing anecdote, which illustrates the working of this principle. A missionary had purchased some land according to the code of laws which had been agreed upon by the native chiefs and the colonists; all the natives who belonged to the family having been consulted, and agreed to the purchase. As a matter of course, they expected that the work of clearing the ground and building the house would be given to them. Being ignorant of this custom, the purchaser took some of his own people, but was immediately surrounded by a body of armed savages, who flourished their clubs and spears, and frightened him so much that he retreated to his boat, and made off. When he was well out of range, all those who had muskets fired them in the direction of the boat, as if to show that their intention was not to kill but merely to intimidate.

It will be seen from the foregoing passages, that the whole government of Fiji is a repetition of one principle, namely, that of the family. The head of a family is the nominal possessor of the land. All the members of the family use the land, and support their head, as a return for the use of the land. Districts again are considered as families, the chief being the head, and being supported by the district. The king, again, is considered as the father of all the chiefs, and the nominal owner of all the land in his dominions, and he is therefore entitled to be supported by the taxation which has been described. Practically, however, he has no more right to land than any other head of a family.

From the preceding observations the reader may see that a definite code of etiquette prevails among the Fiji islands. Indeed, there is no part of the world where etiquette is carried to a greater extent, or where it is more intimately interwoven with every action of ordinary life. If, for example, one man meets another on a path, both having, as usual, their clubs on their shoulders, as they approach each other they lower their clubs to their knees, as a token that they are at peace, and pass on. Retaining the club on the shoulder would be equivalent to a challenge to fight.

The leading characteristic of this code of etiquette is the reverence for the chief, a reverence which is carried to such a pitch, that in battle a chief sometimes comes out unhurt simply because his opponents were so much awe-stricken by his rank that they did not dare to strike him. Each superior therefore partakes of the chiefly character as far as his inferiors are concerned, and expects the appropriate acknowledgments of rank.

This extraordinary reverence is carried so far that it has invented a language of etiquette, no one with any pretensions to good breeding speaking in ordinary language of a chief, of a chiefs head or limbs, of a chiefs dress, or indeed of any action performed by a chief, but supplying a paraphrastic and hyperbolical phraseology, of which our own court language is but a faint shadow. The Tama, which has before been mentioned, is the right of a chief, and is therefore uttered by men of inferior rank, not only when they meet the chief himself, but when they come within a certain distance of his village. So elaborate is this code of ceremony that, discourteous as it might be to omit the Tama when due, it would be thought doubly so to utter it on occasions when it was not due. For example, the Tama is not used toward the close of the day, or when the chief is either making a sail or watching a sail maker at work; and if the Tama were uttered on any such occasion, it would be resented as an insult.

Passing a superior on the wrong side, and sailing by his canoe on the outrigger side, are considered as solecisms in manners, while passing behind a chief is so deadly an insult that the man who dared do such a deed would run the risk of getting his brains knocked out on the spot, or, if he were a rich man, would have to pay a very heavy fine, or “soro,” by way of compensation. The reason of this rule is evident enough. The Fijian is apt to be treacherous, and when he attacks another always tries to take him unawares, and steals on him, if possible, from behind. It is therefore a rule, that any one passing behind a superior is looked upon as contemplating assassination, and makes himself liable to the appropriate penalty.

If a man should meet a chief, the inferior withdraws from the path, lays his club on the ground, and crouches in a bent position until the great man has passed by. If, however, the two men should be of tolerably equal rank, the inferior merely stands aside, bends his body slightly, and rubs the left arm with the right hand, or grasps his beard and keeps his eyes fixed on the ground.

The act of giving anything to the chief, touching him or his dress, or anything above his head, or receiving anything from him, or hearing a gracious message from him, is accompanied by a gentle clapping of the hands. Standing in the presence of a chief is not permitted. Any one who addresses him must kneel; and if they move about, must either do so on their knees, or at least in a crouching attitude.

In some cases the code of etiquette is carried to an extreme which appears to us exceedingly ludicrous. If a superior fall, or in any other way makes himself look awkward, all his inferiors who are present immediately do the same thing, and expect a fee as recognition of their politeness.

Mr. Williams narrates an amusing anecdote of this branch of etiquette, which is called bale-muri (pronounced bahleh-moo-ree), i. e. follow in falling. “One day I came to a long bridge formed of a single cocoa-nut tree, which was thrown across a rapid stream, the opposite bank of which was two or three feet lower, so that the declivity was too steep to be comfortable. The pole was also wet and slippery: and thus my crossing safely was very doubtful.

“Just as I commenced the experiment, a heathen said with much animation, ‘to-day I shall have a musket.’ I had, however, just then to heed my steps more than his words, and so succeeded in reaching the other side safely. When I asked him why he spoke of a musket, the man replied, ‘I felt certain you would fall in attempting to go over, and I should have fallen after you (that is, appeared to be equally clumsy); and as the bridge is high, the water rapid, and you a gentleman, you would not have thought of giving me less than a musket.’” Ludicrous as this custom appears, it is based upon a true sense of courtesy, a desire to spare the feelings of others.

When one person of rank visits another, a number of ceremonies are performed in regular order. Should the visit be paid in a canoe, as is mostly the case, a herald is sent a few days previously to give notice of his coming, so as to avoid taking the intended host by surprise. As soon as the canoe comes in sight, a herald is sent out to inquire the name and rank of the visitor, who is met on the shore by a deputation of petty chiefs, headed by one of the Matas, or aides-de-camp. If the visitor be a personage of very high rank, the Matas will go ten miles to meet him.

As soon as the visitor and his retinue have reached the house of their entertainer, they seat themselves, and the host, after clapping his hands gently in token of salutation, welcomes them in a set form of words, such as “Come with peace the chief from Mbau,” or “Somo-somo,” as the case may be.

A series of similar remarks is made by both parties, the main point being that Fijian oratory is the driest and dullest of performances, always broken up into short sentences, without any apparent connection between them, and further hindered by the attitude of courtesy which the speaker has to adopt. It is impossible for the finest orator in the world to make an effective speech if he has to deliver it in a kneeling position, with his body bent forward, his hands holding his beard, and his eyes directed to the ground. In some parts of Fiji etiquette requires that the orator’s back should be toward the chief whom he is addressing. Nobody takes the trouble to listen to these speeches, or is expected to do so, the chiefs often talking over indifferent matters while the proper number of speeches are rehearsed.

The ceremonies on leave-taking are quite as long, as intricate, and as tedious; and, when the speeches are over, the two great men salute each other after the fashion of their country, by pressing their faces together, and drawing in the breath with a loud noise, as if smelling each other. A chief of inferior rank salutes his superior’s hand, and not his face.

When the visitors start upon their return journey, the host accompanies them for a part of the way, the distance being regulated by their relative rank. If they should have come by sea, the proper etiquette is for the host to go on board, together with some of his chief men, and to accompany his visitors to a certain distance from land, when they all jump into the sea and swim ashore.

As is the case in all countries, whether savage or civilized, the code of etiquette is rigidly enforced at meal-times. Even the greatest chief, if present at a banquet, behaves in as deferential a manner as the commonest man present. Though he may be in his own dominions, and though he may hold absolute sway over every man and woman within sight, he will not venture to taste a morsel of food until it has first been offered to him. Many years ago one chief did so, and, in consequence, the Fijians have hated his very name ever since.

So great would be the breach of manners by such a proceeding, that the life of the offender would be endangered by it. On one occasion it did cost the chief his life. He inadvertently ate a piece of cocoa-nut which had not been offered to him; and this insult so rankled in the mind of one of his officers, who was in attendance, that he ran away from his own chief, and joined another who was at war with him. A battle took place, the offending chief was worsted, and was running for his life, when he met the insulted officer, and asked for his assistance. The man was inclined to give it, but the insult could not be forgotten, and so, with an apology for the duty which he was called on to perform, he knocked out his former master’s brains with his club.

A still more astonishing instance of this feeling is mentioned by Mr. Williams. A young chief and his father-in-law were about to dine together, and a baked guana was provided for each. The guana is a lizard which has a long and slender tail. In passing by his relative’s guana, the young man accidentally broke off the end of its tail, which would necessarily be rendered brittle by cooking. This was held to be so gross an insult, that the offender paid for it with his life.

Etiquette is shown to its fullest extent when a king or principal chief gives a great banquet. As with the New Zealanders, such a feast is contemplated for many months previously; vegetables are planted expressly for it, and no one is allowed to kill pigs or gather fruit, lest there should not be a sufficient quantity of provisions.

Just before the day of festival, the final preparations are made. Messages are sent to all the neighboring tribes, or rather to the chiefs, who communicate them to the people. The turtle fishers bestir themselves to get their nets and canoes in order, and, as soon as they are ready, start off to sea. Yams and other root crops are dug up, the ovens made, and the fuel chopped and brought ready for use.

These ovens are of enormous size, as each is capable of cooking a number of pigs, turtles, and vast quantities of vegetables. With all our skill in cooking, it is to be doubted whether we are not excelled by the Fijians in the art of cooking large quantities of meat at a time. The ovens are simply holes dug in the ground, some ten feet in depth and fifteen feet or so in diameter.

The mode of cooking is very simple. A small fire is made at the bottom of the pit, which is then filled with firewood, and as soon as the wood is thoroughly on fire, large stones are placed on it. When the wood has all burned away, the pigs, turtles, and vegetables are laid on the hot stones, some of which are introduced into the interior of each animal, so that it may be the more thoroughly cooked. The oven is then filled up with boughs and green leaves, and upon the leaves is placed a thick covering of earth. The oven regulates its own time of cooking, for as soon as steam rises through the earthy covering, the contents of the oven are known to be properly cooked.

For the two or three days preceding the feast, all the people are full of activity. They take a pride in the liberality of their chief, and each man brings as many pigs, yams, turtles, and other kinds of food as he can manage to put together. The king himself takes the direction of affairs, his orders being communicated to the people by his Matas, or aides-de-camp. Day and night go on the preparations, the pigs squealing as they are chased before being killed, the men hard at work digging the ovens, some loosening the earth with long pointed sticks, others carrying off the loosened soil in baskets, while the flames that blaze from the completed ovens enable the workmen to continue their labors throughout the night.

On these occasions the Fijians dispense with their ordinary feelings respecting cooking. In Fiji, as in New Zealand, cooking is despised, and the word “cook” is used as a term of reproach and derision. In consequence of this feeling, all cooking is performed by the slaves. But on the eve of a great feast this feeling is laid aside, and every man helps to cook the food. Even the king himself assists in feeding the ovens with fuel, arranging the pigs, stirring the contents of the cooking pots, and performing offices which, on the following day, none but a slave will perform.

By the time that the cooking is completed, the various tribes have assembled, and the ovens are then opened and the food taken out. It is then arranged in separate heaps, a layer of cocoa-nut leaves being placed on the ground by way of dish. On the leaves is placed a layer of cocoa-nuts, then come the yams and potatoes, then puddings, and at the top of all several pigs. The quantity of provisions thus brought together is enormous. Mr. Williams mentions that at one feast, at which he was present, two hundred men were employed for nearly six hours in piling up the food. There were six heaps of food, and among their contents were about fifty tons of cooked yams and potatoes, fifteen tons of pudding, seventy turtles, and about two hundred tons of uncooked yams. There was one pudding which measured twenty-one feet in circumference.

Profusion is the rule upon these occasions, and the more food that a chief produces, the more honor he receives. One chief gained the honorable name of High Pork, because he once provided such vast quantities of food that before it could be finished decomposition had begun in the pork.

All being arranged, the distribution now begins, and is carried out with that precision of etiquette which pervades all society in Fiji. The various tribes and their chiefs being seated, the Tui-rara, or master of the ceremonies, orders the food to be divided into as many portions as there are tribes, regulating the amount by the importance of the tribe. He then takes the tribes in succession, and calls their names. As he calls each tribe, the people return their thanks, and a number of young men are sent to fetch the food. This goes on until the whole of the food has been given away, when a further distribution takes place among the tribes, each village first taking a share and then each family receiving its proper portion, which is handed to its head.

It is evident that the Tui-rara has no sinecure. He must possess the most intimate knowledge of all the tribes, and the ranks of their respective chiefs, and must at the same time be on the alert to distinguish any stranger that may make his appearance. Should he be a foreigner, he is considered a chief, and a chief’s portion, i. e. a quantity sufficient for twenty Fijians or sixty Englishmen, is sent to him. Of course he gives the greater part away, but in so doing he acts the part of a chief. It is, in fact, the old story of Benjamin’s mess translated into Fijian.

The men always eat their food in the open air, but send the women’s portion to the houses to be eaten within doors.

The [first illustration] on the next page will give an idea of a Fijian feast. On the left hand is seen the master of the ceremonies, calling the name of a tribe, and in the centre are seen the young men running to fetch the food. In the foreground is the portion of their tribe, consisting of pigs, yams, turtles, and so forth. In front of them are some of the curious drums, which will be presently described, and in the distance are seen the members of the different tribes, some eating, and others waiting for their portion. The curious building in the background is one of the Burés, or temples, which will be presently described.

From the preceding description it will be seen that the Fijians are not bad cooks, and that the number of dishes which they produce is by no means small. The variety of the dishes is, however, much greater than has been mentioned. They eat many kinds of fish, together with almost every living creature that they find in the coral reefs. Some of their preparations very much resemble those to which we are accustomed in England. For example, a sort of shrimp sandwich is made by putting a layer of shrimps between two taro leaves. Several kinds of bread are known, and nearly thirty kinds of puddings. Turtle soup is in great favor, and so are various other soups.

The Fijians even make sauces to be eaten with various kinds of food, the sweet juice of the sugar-cane being much used for this purpose. They also have a sort of an imitation of tea, infusing sundry leaves and grasses in boiling water, and drinking it when it becomes sufficiently cool. Most of their food is cooked; but, like ourselves, they prefer some food in an uncooked state. Small fish, for example, are eaten alive, just as we eat oysters.

They mostly drink water, or the milk of the cocoa-nut. To drink water in native fashion is not very easy. They keep it in long bamboo tubes, so that when it is raised to the lips the greatest care is required lest it should suddenly deluge the face and body.

Cocoa-nuts are opened in rather a curious manner. A stout stick is sharpened at both ends, and one end driven firmly into the ground. Taking the nut in both hands, the native dashes it on the stick, which splits open the thick husk, and allows the nut to be extracted. With a stone, or even with another cocoa-nut in case a stone should not be at hand, the native hammers away round the pointed end, and contrives to knock off a small round lid, which is then removed, leaving a natural drinking-cup in his hand.

We now come to the terrible subject of cannibalism, on which no more will be said than is necessary to illustrate the character of the people.

The Fijians are even more devoted to cannibalism than the New Zealanders, and their records are still more appalling. A New Zealander has sometimes the grace to feel ashamed of mentioning the subject in the hearing of an European, whereas it is impossible to make a Fijian really feel that in eating human flesh he has committed an unworthy act. He sees, indeed, that the white men exhibit great disgust at cannibalism, but in his heart he despises them for wasting such luxurious food as human flesh.

(1.) A FIJIAN FEAST.
(See [page 942].)

(2.) THE FATE OF THE BOASTER.
(See [page 952].)

Even the Christianized natives have to be watched carefully lest they should be tempted by old habits, and revert to the custom which they had promised to abjure. For example, Thakombau, the King of Mbau, became a Christian, or at least pretended to do so. He was not a particularly creditable convert. Some time after he had announced himself to be a Christian, he went in his war canoe to one of the districts under his sway. He was received with the horribly barbarous ceremonial by which a very great chief is honored, conch-shell trumpets blowing before him, and the people shouting their songs of welcome. Thus accompanied, he walked through a double row of living victims—men, women, and children of all ages—suspended by their feet, and placed there to give the king his choice. The hopeful convert was pleased to accept the offering, touching with his club as he passed along those victims which seemed most to his taste.

The natives are clever enough at concealing the existence of cannibalism when they find that it shocks the white men. An European cotton-grower, who had tried unsuccessfully to introduce the culture of cotton into Fiji, found, after a tolerably long residence, that four or five human beings were killed and eaten weekly. There was plenty of food in the place, pigs were numerous, and fish, fruit, and vegetables abundant. But the people ate human bodies as often as they could get them, not from any superstitious motive, but simply because they preferred human flesh to pork.

Many of the people actually take a pride in the number of human bodies which they have eaten. One chief was looked upon with great respect on account of his feats of cannibalism, and the people gave him a title of honor. They called him the Turtle-pond, comparing his insatiable stomach to the pond in which turtles are kept; and so proud were they of his deeds, that they even gave a name of honor to the bodies brought for his consumption, calling them the “Contents of the Turtle-pond.” This man was accustomed to eat a human body himself, suffering no one to share it with him. After his family were grown up, he bethought himself of registering his unholy meals by placing a stone on the ground as soon as he had finished the body. His son showed these stones to an English clergyman, who counted them, and found that there were very nearly nine hundred.

One man gained a great name among his people by an act of peculiar atrocity. He told his wife to build an oven, to fetch firewood for heating it, and to prepare a bamboo knife. As soon as she had concluded her labors her husband killed her, and baked her in the oven which her own hands had prepared, and afterward ate her. Sometimes a man has been known to take a victim, bind him hand and foot, cut slices from his arms and legs, and eat them before his eyes. Indeed, the Fijians are so inordinately vain, that they will do anything, no matter how horrible, in order to gain a name among their people; and Dr. Pritchard, who knows them thoroughly, expresses his wonder that some chief did not eat slices from his own limbs.

Cannibalism is ingrained in the very nature of a Fijian, and extends through all classes of society. It is true that there are some persons who have never eaten flesh, but there is always a reason for it. Women, for example, are seldom permitted to eat “bakolo,” as human flesh is termed, and there are a few men who have refrained from cannibalism through superstition. Every Fijian has his special god, who is supposed to have his residence in some animal. One god, for example, lives in a rat, as we have already seen; another in a shark; and so on. The worshipper of that god never eats the animal in which his divinity resides; and as some gods are supposed to reside in human bodies, their worshippers never eat the flesh of man.

According to the accounts of some of the older chiefs, whom we may believe or not, as we like, there was once a time when cannibalism did not exist. Many years ago, some strangers from a distant land were blown upon the shores of Fiji, and received hospitably by the islanders, who incorporated them into their own tribes, and made much of them. But, in process of time, these people became too powerful, killed the Fijian chiefs, took their wives and property, and usurped their office.

In this emergency the people consulted the priests, who said that the Fijians had brought their misfortunes upon themselves. They had allowed strangers to live, whereas “Fiji for the Fijians” was the golden rule, and from that time every male stranger was to be killed and eaten, and every woman taken as a wife.

Only one people was free from this law. The Tongans, instead of being killed and eaten, were always welcomed, and their visits encouraged, as they passed backward and forward in their canoes, and brought with them fine mats and other articles for barter. So much have these people intermingled, that in the eastern islands, which are nearest to those of Tonga, there is a decided mixture of Tongan blood. With this exception, however, the Fijians went on the same principle as the Ephesians of Shakespeare—

“If any Syracusan born

Come to the bay of Ephesus, he dies;”

save that, instead of merely putting to death those who came from one country, they only excepted one country from the universal law.

The reader may remember that a sort of respect is paid to a human body used for food. Educated people speak of it in the court language, and, instead of using any vulgar term, such as a human body, they employ the metaphorical language, and call it the “long pig.” As a general rule, the vessels in which human flesh is cooked are reserved expressly for that purpose, and both the vessel in which it is cooked and the dish from which it is eaten are held as tapu.

So highly is “bakolo” honored, that it is eaten, not with fingers, but with a fork, and the implement in question is handed down from father to son, like the merais and tikis of the New Zealander. These forks are quite unlike those which are used in England. They mostly have four prongs, but these prongs, instead of being set in a line, are generally arranged in a circle or triangle as the case may be. They are carved out of some very hard wood, and, when they have become venerable by reason of age or of the rank of their proprietor, they receive names of honor. For example, the cannibal chief who ate nearly nine hundred human bodies had a fork which was named “Undro-undro,” the title signifying a small person carrying a great burden. The fork was a small object, but it had carried to the lips of its master the bodies of nearly nine hundred human beings.

As the Fijians set such a value on human flesh, it is to be expected that they will invent a variety of excuses for obtaining it. For example when a chief builds a house, he kills at least one human victim to celebrate the event. If he builds a large war canoe, a series of sacrifices takes place. A man is killed, for example, when the keel is laid, and, if the chief be a very powerful one, he will kill a victim as each plank is fixed in its place. Even when it is finished the slaughter is not over, as, in the first place, the planks of the new vessel have to be washed with human blood, and, in the next, the launch must be commemorated in the same way as the building. One chief gained some notoriety by binding a number of men, and laying them side by side along the shore to act as rollers over which the canoe was taken from the land into the sea. The weight of the canoe killed the men, who were afterward baked and eaten.

Even after the canoe is launched, excuses are found for carrying on the system of human butchery. Whenever it touches at a place for the first time, a man must be sacrificed in honor of taking down the mast, this being done to show that the vessel means to make some stay at the place. If a chief should arrive in a new canoe, and keep up his mast, the people understand the signal, and bring on board a newly-slain victim, so that the mast may be taken down.

On one occasion, when a war canoe had been built at Somo-somo, the missionaries exerted themselves so successfully that the canoe was launched without the sacrifice of a single life. Eventually, however, their well-intentioned interference rather increased than diminished the number of victims. When the canoe arrived at Mbau, the chiefs were so vexed that it had reached them unhonored by human blood that they straightway attacked a village, killed some fourteen or fifteen men, and ate them in order to do honor to the ceremony of taking down the mast.

Sometimes, in order to secure a victim whenever one is wanted, the chiefs pick out secretly a certain number of men, and put them, so to speak, on the black list. Whenever a sacrifice is needed, all the executioners have to do is to find out how many victims are wanted, and then to go and kill the requisite number of the black-list men.

Whole towns are sometimes put on the black list, a curious example of which custom is given by Mr. Williams. “Vakambua, chief of Mbau, thus doomed Tavua, and gave a whale’s tooth to a Nggara chief, that he might at a fitting time punish that place. Years passed away, and a reconciliation took place between Mbau and Tavua, but, unhappily, the Mbau chief failed to neutralize the engagement made with the Nggara. A day came when human bodies were wanted, and the thoughts of those who held the tooth were turned toward Tavua. They invited the people of that place to a friendly exchange of food, and slew twenty-three of their unsuspecting victims.

“When the treacherous Nggarans had gratified their own appetites by pieces of the flesh cut off and roasted on the spot, the bodies were taken to Vakambua, who was greatly astonished, expressed much regret that such a slaughter should have grown out of his carelessness, and then shared the bodies to be eaten.”

The Fijian can seldom resist meat, and that he should resist “bakolo” could not be expected of him. In Mrs. Smythe’s “Ten Months in the Fiji Islands,” an amusing instance of this predilection is recorded. “A white man had shot and carried off a pig belonging to a Fijian, who, being a convert, went to a native teacher named Obadiah, and asked him to go to the delinquent and remonstrate with him. The teacher put on his black coat, went to the man’s house, and with much earnestness pointed out to him the iniquity of the deed, asking him how he would have liked it had a Fijian killed one of his own pigs. The man listened very respectfully, and allowed the error of his ways, acknowledging that the teacher had put the matter in a new light. ‘But,’ said he ‘the pig is now dead, and we cannot bring it to life again. Shall we throw it out and let it go to waste, or, as it is just baked, and you have not breakfasted, shall we not sit down, and you will ask a blessing?’

“Obadiah, taken by surprise by Q——’s penitence, and the compliment paid to his own clerical functions, and swayed perhaps a little by the irresistible love of all Fijians for roast pork, bowed his head, and reverentially said a long prayer, after which the two set heartily to work on the pig.” When the teacher went to the missionary to report his successful labors, he was quite astonished at being charged with complicity with the thief.

CHAPTER XCVI.
FIJI—Continued.
WAR AND AMUSEMENTS.

WEAPONS OF THE FIJIANS — THE SLING, AND MODE OF USING IT — THE CLUB, AND ITS VARIOUS MODIFICATIONS — GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE CLUB INTO THE PADDLE — MODE OF MAKING THE CLUBS, AND PREPARATION OF THE TREES — ORNAMENTS OF THE CLUBS, AND THEIR NAMES — FIJIAN SPEARS — THEIR TERRIBLE BARBS — OBJECTS OF WAR — THE REVIEW — THE FATE OF THE BOASTER — INGENIOUS ENGINEERING — CRUELTY TOWARD PRISONERS — “CONSECRATION” OF A WARRIOR, AND HIS NEW NAME — DOMESTIC LIFE — CEREMONIES AT BIRTH — TRAINING IN REVENGE — AMUSEMENTS — VARIOUS GAMES — RIRIKI — WOMEN AGAINST MEN — DANCES AND SONGS — MARRIAGE FESTIVITIES — WEDDING OF A CHIEF’S DAUGHTER — DOMESTIC DISCIPLINE — THE KING’S STAFF — FESTIVITIES AT HOUSE BUILDING — MODE OF THATCHING AND DECORATING THE HOUSES — A PRACTICAL JOKE.

In accordance with the plan on which this work has been arranged, Fijian warfare will be described as it was before fire-arms were introduced, and had changed the ancient style of warfare.

The original weapons of the Fijian are the club, the axe (which, by the way, is little more than a modification of the club), the bow, the sling, and the spear. In most of these weapons is exhibited the fancifully artistic nature of the manufacturers. The sling is perhaps the only weapon from which ornament is almost wholly absent. Like the corresponding weapon of the New Caledonians, it carries stones of tolerable weight and great hardness, and, when wielded by a skilful hand, becomes no inefficient weapon even against fire-arms themselves. A stone hurled from a Fijian sling has been known to render a musket useless, the stone having struck the barrel, and bent and indented it as much as would have been done by a bullet.

The chief weapon of the Fijian is the club, and upon this he lavishes all the artistic power at his command, covering nearly the whole of it with the most intricate and delicately executed carvings. Some clubs are straight, like thick cudgels, others are curved. Those which are knobbed at the end have an infinite variety in the knob, as we shall presently see. Some are more or less flattened, while there are some which are so flat and so broad that it is not easy at first sight to determine whether they are clubs or paddles. Some are so large that they require the whole exertion of a muscular man to wield them, while others are so short that they are kept stuck in the girdle, and used as missiles, precisely as the short knob-kerries are used by the South Africans. A Fijian will often carry two or more of these clubs in his girdle.

Some of the most characteristic forms of Fijian clubs are given on the following page, all being drawn from specimens in my collection. [Fig. 1] represents a club, and is evidently modified from a gnarled and knotted branch, and by comparing a number of specimens together it is easy to trace the progress of manufacture. This form of club is also to be found among the Papuans of New Guinea, the natives of the Outanata district carrying it. With the exception of the deep transverse cuts, there is no attempt at ornament. It is tolerably heavy, though not very large, and requires two hands to be wielded properly.

[Figure 2] represents one of the paddle-like clubs which have just been mentioned. The blade is not an inch in thickness in the middle, and it gradually slopes off to either side, so as to form a tolerably sharp edge. With the exception of the handle, it is entirely covered with carving; the dentated pattern, which seems common to nearly all savage art, being very conspicuous. It is extremely weighty, and, to an European, appears a very awkward instrument, except perhaps that the broad blade might be utilized as a shield.

(1.) ORATOR’S FLAPPER.
(See [page 930].)

(2.) IDOL OF SOLOMON ISLANDS.
(See [page 970].)

(3.) SPEAR.
(See [page 952].)

(4.) FIJIAN CLUBS.
(See [page 948].)

[Fig. 3] is a club, which may be considered as a sort of intermediate form between the two already mentioned. Like the last, it has a broad blade, but is evidently a club and not a paddle. The blade is strengthened by a bold ridge running along the centre. In order to show the mode in which it is flattened, a side view of the lower part is shown at [fig. a], and a cross section of the blade is given at [fig. b]. This kind of club is modified in various ways, but is always made on the same principle, i. e. a round handle and a flattened paddle-like end, sometimes nearly plain, as in the above mentioned specimens, and sometimes furnished with knobs, teeth, and spikes projecting from the sides. In some cases it assumes the shape of a crescent, and looks, indeed, much like a cheese knife very much magnified.

Another very characteristic shape is given in [fig. 4]. As may be imagined from the illustration, it is very weighty, so that even to carry it about must be rather troublesome. It is covered with carvings in the most lavish manner, and such value has been set by the manufacturer upon the weapon, that he has even taken the trouble to invent different patterns for the opposite sides.

The peculiar form of this club is evidently due to the structure of the branch from which it was cut, the projecting portion being the base of another branch. Although in many specimens—my own among the number—the club has been carved from a great log of solid wood, the form has evidently been borrowed from the junction of two branches. The edge of the club is cut into slight teeth, and just within the edge are a number of round holes, set in a line. A tolerably bold ridge runs along the head of the club and follows its curve, and through this ridge are also bored a number of holes, apparently for the purpose of attaching bunches of feathers, or other ornaments, to the weapon.

The most characteristic club of Fiji is, however, that of which an example is given in [fig. 5]. It is made from the stem and part of the root of a young tree. In this part of the world there are certain trees which grow in a manner which to us seems very peculiar. As is the case with many trees, it sends a tap-root deeply into the earth, and is further supported by a number of smaller roots which diverge from it on all sides, and retain it in its upright position, just as a mast is upheld by the standing rigging.

While the tree is very young, it is drawn down nearly horizontally, and fixed in that position, so as to be bent nearly at right angles close to the earth. When it has grown to the thickness of a man’s wrist, the top is cut off and the roots dug out of the ground. The tap-root is then scraped down to a point, and all the smaller roots are cut off to within an inch and a half of the tap-root, so as to form a radiating mass of spikes, which are sharpened, and thus present the appearance shown in the [illustration].

Such a club as this is an exceedingly valuable weapon, and the greatest care is taken in its manufacture. The spike at the end is scraped and rounded until it assumes a perfectly regular shape, and is then polished until it shines like a well-rubbed piece of mahogany. The radiating spikelets are each trimmed with the greatest nicety, so that, in whatever direction the weapon is viewed, they all radiate with exact regularity.

The handle is polished as carefully as the lower spike, and in most cases is adorned with elaborately carved patterns. In many clubs it is completely covered with black and white sinnet made expressly for this purpose, and plaited in patterns as elaborate as those which are carved. Some of the best clubs are further ornamented by having scarlet feathers worked in with sinnet. There are, indeed, scarcely any bounds to the decoration of clubs, many of which are inlaid with shell, or hogs’ tusks, or whales’ teeth, or even the teeth of men. These latter ornaments are chiefly reserved for the knobs of the small missile club.

Beside these, there is an infinite variety of forms, some of the clubs exactly resembling the steel maces of the days of chivalry, others being first squared and then cut into pyramidal form, while others look just like enormous mushrooms. Some of them have the handles completely covered with wickerwork; but, as a rule, these highly ornamental weapons are not for use but for show, like the court sword of the present day.

Some of the names given to these clubs are highly suggestive. For example, one was called “Weeping urges me to action,” others “Disperser,” “Smasher,” and so forth. Those which belong to well-known chiefs or distinguished warriors are used much as cards among ourselves. If, for example, a great chief desires to pay a visit, he will send his club as an intimation that the owner will follow. Or, if one chief asks another for aid in war, the ordinary mode of showing that the application is favorably received is for the latter to send his club by the ambassador who brought the message.

There is as great variety of spears as of clubs. Spears are almost invariably of great length, some measuring fourteen or fifteen feet in length. They are made from hard wood and are almost invariably armed with a series of barbs. In the manufacture and arrangement of the barbs, the Fijians show wonderful ingenuity. Mostly, they are not from the same piece of wood as the spear itself, but in many weapons they are made of other materials. The sharp tail-bone of the sting-ray is a favorite material, both for the points and barbs of spears, probably because it is very hard, and so brittle that it is nearly sure to break off in the wound. Other barbs are made of a wood which has the property of swelling up when moistened, and bursting in the wound, so that it can hardly be extracted. Such spears as this are called by a very ominous title, “The priest is too late.” Some of the spears are not only carved in various patterns, but have the heads cut into a kind of bold open work pattern, which has a very elegant appearance, though it must detract greatly from the strength of the weapon. One of the ordinary Fijian [spears] is shown on page 949, and is taken from specimens in my collection, in which there are several others, but all of a similar character.

Many of the weapons have more than one point. In the specimens which I have, the points are rather more than a yard in length, and are made of separate pieces of wood, ingeniously dovetailed into the shaft of the spear, and held in their place by lashings of sinnet. In my specimen, the manufacturer has been so lavish of his labor, that he has not only woven the sinnet into elegant patterns, but has continued them along the whole of the shaft, covering it with a sort of mixture of the zigzag and the dentated patterns. There are also spears with several points, each point being barbed or deeply serrated on the inside cap. These are not for war, but for fishing purposes. As for the war in which these weapons are used, it is hardly deserving of the name.

When two chiefs have decided on going to war, messengers pass between them, and both sides beat up recruits for their armies and offer gifts to the gods. Whales’ teeth and food form the chief part of these offerings, and the latter is often given in vast quantities. Independent chiefs often take advantage of war to increase their property. Such a chief, for example, though urged by both sides to join them, trims and hesitates, and bides his time. One party will then send him a bribe, and as soon as the other party hear of it, they send a larger bribe, in order to “press down” the former gift. The result usually is, that the recipient keeps both bribes, and eventually declines to fight on either side.

The forces are gathered by a series of reviews, held as the army marches. These reviews form the great charm of war, as any amount of boasting may be done without the slightest risk. Each warrior rushes up to the commanding chief, brandishes his weapons, and boasts of the great deeds which he is going to do; all the warriors being in their very best, with bodies covered with black powder, so as to contrast with the snow-white masi, and their faces painted as none but a Fijian can paint them, in order to look as martial as possible.

The chief often ridicules the pretensions of these men, insinuating that they will be more ready to run away than to fight; but this is only for the purpose of inciting them to display their courage, and, by way of inducing them to fight well, large gifts are promised to those who distinguish themselves in battle.

Sometimes a warrior, carried away by the excitement of the moment, boasts that he will kill the enemy’s chief, eat his flesh, and make a drinking-cup of his skull. This is generally a very foolish proceeding. The menaced chief is sure to hear of it, and to promise a large reward if the boaster be taken alive.

Should he be captured, his fate is certain. His hands are bound behind him, and a large bundle of dried cocoa-nut leaves is fastened tightly across his shoulders, projecting for several feet on either side. The ends of the leaves are then lighted, and the poor wretch is left to die, the spectators laughing and jeering at him as he runs about, maddened by the torment. This punishment is called by a name which signifies carrying fuel. The artist has represented in the [lower engraving], on the 943d page, this frightful fate of the boaster.

The party that are attacked usually retire into a native fort, the structure of which often shows great engineering skill. The Fijians are very apt at selecting a spot which is difficult of access, and fortifying it in such a manner that two or three men could hold it against a thousand. Mr. Williams visited one of these forts, and found that the approach to it was not without danger, even in time of peace. The only path to the fort led through thick and tangled vegetation, and terminated on the edge of a precipice. The entrance to the fort was on the face of the precipice, several yards from the end of the path, and there was no mode of getting to it except by crawling along the perpendicular rock by means of little holes in which the toes and fingers could be inserted.

When the natives cannot find a place of such natural strength, they have a way of defending the entrance by a series of gates with traverses between them, so that any enemies who forced the first gate were obliged to go for some distance through a narrow passage which was pierced with loopholes, through which spears could be thrust and arrows shot. Even if they succeeded in passing the second gate, a similar gauntlet had to be run before they could reach the third. Thorny trees are in great request for the outer defences of these forts, the bare-skinned natives greatly dreading the prickly walls, which every year grow more dense and less penetrable.

Knowing the strength of the forts, the natives do not care about assaulting them, and, as they advance to the walls, avail themselves of every cover. They then yell and shout derisive taunts at the enemy, challenging them to come out and fight. Sometimes the challenge is answered, a number of warriors issuing from the fort and each selecting an adversary; often, however, as soon as the besiegers see their challenge answered, they run away as fast as they can, the Fijian liking to come behind his enemy and knock him on the head stealthily better than to oppose him in open fight.

Should a fort be taken, the slaughter is dreadful, and is nothing but a massacre, the greater number being killed, and the rest reserved to be put to death by torture. One favorite mode of torture is to stun the unhappy captive with a club, and to throw him into a heated oven by way of bringing him back to his senses. The struggles of the unfortunate man as the fierce heat restores him to consciousness are greeted with laughter and jeers by the delighted spectators. Others are bound hand and foot and given to the sons of chiefs as subjects on which they can try their skill at torturing.

As these expeditions are nearly always made in canoes, the return of the war party is seen from a great distance, and all the population assemble on the beach to welcome the victorious warriors, the women dancing and singing songs of triumph in honor of the conquerors. A horrible scene then takes place, too horrible indeed to be described; the bodies of the dead are offered in the temples, the ovens are prepared, and for some days unbridled license reigns supreme.

In connexion with warfare must be mentioned a curious custom of giving a new name to men who have killed any of the enemy during the campaign. Whether the enemy be an armed warrior slain in fair fight, an unarmed man knocked down by stealth, a woman, or even a little child, signifies nothing. The warrior has clubbed an enemy, and has a right to his new name of honor. Should he have killed a chief, he takes the name of his victim, and sometimes his own chief honors him by calling the man his flag, his canoe, his comb, &c. Of the consecration ceremony, wherein the new name is given, Mr. Williams once saw a very excellent example at Somo-somo, the subject of consecration being a young chief.

“The king and leading men having taken their seats in the public square, fourteen mats were brought and spread out, and upon these were placed a bale of cloth and two whale’s teeth. Near by was laid a sail mat, and on it several men’s dresses. The young chief now made his appearance, bearing in one hand a large pine-apple club, and in, the other a common reed, while his long train of masi dragged on the ground behind him.

“On his reaching the mats, an old man took the reed out of the hero’s hand, and despatched a youth to deposit it carefully in the temple of the war god. The king then ordered the young chief to stand upon the bale of cloth; and while he obeyed, a number of women came into the square, bringing small dishes of turmeric mixed with oil, which they placed before the youth, and retired with a song. The masi was now removed by the chief himself, an attendant substituting one much larger in its stead. The king’s Mata (aide-de-camp) next selected several dishes of the colored oil, and anointed the warrior from the roots of the hair to his heels.

“At this stage of the proceedings one of the spectators stepped forward and exchanged clubs with the anointed, and soon another did the same. Then one left him a gun in place of the club, and many similar changes were effected, under a belief that the weapons thus passing through his hands derived some virtue.

“The mats were now removed, and a portion of them sent to the temple, some of the turmeric being sent after them. The king and old men, followed by the young man and two men sounding conchs, now proceeded to the seaside, where the anointed one passed through the ancients to the water’s edge, returned, while the king and those with him counted one, two, three, four, five, and each then threw a stone into the sea. The whole company now went back to the town with blasts of the trumpet shells, and a peculiar hooting of the men.

“Custom requires that a hut should be built, in which the anointed man and his companions may pass the next three nights, during which time the newly named hero must not lie down, but sleep as he sits; he must not change his masi, or remove the turmeric, or enter a house in which there is a woman, until that period has elapsed. In the case now described, the hut had not been built, and the young chief was permitted to use the temple of the god of war instead.

“During the three days he was on an incessant march, followed by half a score lads reddened like himself. After three weeks he paid me a visit, on the first day of his being permitted to enter a house in which there was a female. He informed me his new name was Kuila, or Flag.”

When a name of honor has thus been given to a man, the complimentary title of Koroi, or consecrated, is prefixed to it.

The battles of the Fijians are not, as a rule, remarkable for the slaughter that takes place. They are, in fact, little but a series of single combats. When a man falls, his friends try to get him off the ground to save his life, if possible, or to be able to bury the body if he should die; while the enemy use their best endeavors to secure the wounded man in order to bake and eat him. No dishonor is attached to the fact of a slain man being eaten. On the contrary, it is a proof of his courage, for none but those who die bravely in battle are eaten in the feast which follows upon the victory, the bodies of slain cowards being contemptuously thrown into the bush.

We now come to a more pleasing part of Fijian character, namely, the various incidents of domestic life.

As soon as the Fijian child comes into the world, it is taken from the mother, and given to another woman for three days, during which time she lies at her ease. The first clothing which the child receives is a thick coating of turmeric oil, and the first food which it knows is either the juice of sugar-cane or of cocoa-nut. A name is given to the child as soon as possible after its birth, and these names are generally significant of some event that has happened either to the child itself or to some member of its family.

Though the Fijian children spend the great part of their time in the open air, and are untrammelled by clothing, they are liable to a very unpleasant disease called the “thoko,” which somewhat resembles the “yaws” of the negro tribes. The parents are rather glad than sorry to see their children afflicted with this disease, as they believe that it forms a necessary adjunct to infantile health, and that a child who escapes the thoko is sure to be sickly and feeble when it grows up.

The Fijian child receives no training, unless encouragement of every bad passion may be called by that name. Revenge is impressed upon the child’s mind from its earliest infancy, and most horrible are the means which are sometimes employed for this purpose. In riper years the duty of revenge is kept always before his eyes. Should one man insult another, the offended individual keeps himself constantly reminded of the offence by placing some object in his sight, and not removing it until he has avenged himself.

Sometimes he will effect the same purpose by depriving himself of some luxury until he has had his revenge. One man, for example, will plait his hair in a particular manner, another will hang some article of dress in his house, while another will refuse to dance, or to eat of some particular kind of food. One chief, for example, hung a roll of tobacco on the roof of his house, with the intention of refusing to smoke until he had killed his enemy and could smoke that tobacco over the dead body. Another refrained from speaking, and would only answer by whistling.

The knowledge of this custom makes the Fijians a most nervous race. Should a strange canoe appear off the coast, the inhabitants of the villages are all in a stir, some escaping to the woods, and others concealing their food and other valuables in secret storehouses. They do not like to walk alone in the evening. Mr. Williams mentions that he has seen a whole company disperse at the lifting of a telescope, and, more than once, when he was visited by natives and the door suddenly slammed with the wind, the whole of his visitors rushed tumultuously out of the windows. On one occasion, a number of men were dragging a large canoe into the sea, when one of them espied a slight crack on one side. He whispered his discovery to the man next him, he to the next, and so on, and in a few minutes every man had run away from the boat, fearing lest the owner should charge him with having done the damage.

The amusements of the Fijians are rather more varied than is usually the case among savages. Some of them are identical with many of our own children’s games, such as “hide and seek,” “blind man’s buff,” and a sort of “hop, skip, and jump.” A sort of “pitch and toss,” is also in vogue, the substitute for pence being the flat, circular fruit of a species of mimosa.

They have one game which bears some resemblance to that of the “kangaroo-rat” of Australia, which has been described on page 730. The players have a reed about four feet in length, at one end of which is an oval piece of hard and heavy wood some six inches in length. This instrument is held between the thumb and middle finger, the end of the forefinger being applied to its extremity. With a peculiar underhand jerk the player drives it horizontally, so that it glides over the ground for a considerable distance, the player who sends the missile farthest being the winner. In order that this favorite game maybe constantly played, each village has attached to it a long strip of smooth sward, which is kept sedulously trimmed, so that the missile may skim along with as little resistance as possible.

Then there is the swing. This is made much like the New Zealand swing, but is used in a different manner. Instead of being held by the hands alone, the rope has a loop at the end, into which the swinger inserts his foot. Sometimes, it has a large knot, on which both feet can be supported. Drawing the rope to the top of a convenient bank, the swinger grasps it with his hands, leaps in the air, places his foot in the loop, and goes sweeping through an enormous arc, the radius of which often exceeds fifty feet. In some cases the swing is fixed by the water side, and the more daring of the performers loosen their grasp at the proper moment, and are hurled through the air into the water.

One favorite game, called Ririki, is played after the following fashion:—Close to the water’s edge is fixed a stout post, and on this is laid the trunk of a tall cocoa-nut tree, so that its base rests on the ground, and the tip projects over the water. The game consists in running at full speed up this inclined tree, and jumping into the water one after the other, swimming ashore and repeating the process. This is a very lively game, the natives shouting and laughing the whole time, and plunging so rapidly in succession that the water beneath the end of the inclined tree is white with foam. The people are admirable swimmers, and, having been accustomed to swim as soon as they could walk, disport themselves in the water with as much ease as on land. They are fond of swimming out to sea in parties, and join in various aquatic games, such as trying to push each other under water, diving, racing, and so forth.

Some of their sports are rather rough. They have one game which bears a certain resemblance to snow-balling, except that the missiles are bitter oranges instead of snow-balls. In some places they jerk stones at each other by means of elastic bamboos, and do so with such force that considerable pain is caused when the missile strikes the bare skin.

Sometimes a sort of mock battle takes place. When food is brought to the men, the women suddenly rush upon them, try to drive them away, and to seize the food. Rough as the women may be, the men seldom retaliate, except by taking their assailants round the waists and throwing them on the ground. Mr. Williams mentions one instance when a woman actually shot a man dead with an arrow, turning the mock fight into a sad reality. Several cases are known where the men have been so severely handled that they have afterward died of their wounds.

On certain occasions an amusing game is played by the young men. A thin earthenware vessel is filled with water and suspended from a bough, and a number of young men with their eyes blindfolded, try to break the vessel by striking at it with long sticks.

Music and dancing are greatly studied among the Fijians, and any one who knows a new dance is sure to earn plenty of goods by teaching it. Their musical instruments are very poor, consisting of drums, pipes, and trumpets. The first-mentioned instruments are nothing more than wooden cylinders, through one side of which a groove is cut about an inch or so in width. The pipes are of two kinds; namely, a sort of pandean pipe made of several strips of bamboo fastened together, and the flute. This latter instrument is played by placing the aperture close to one nostril, and breathing through it while the other is stopped with the thumb of the left hand. The trumpets are merely conch-shells blown through a hole in the side.

The dances are very carefully got up, and more resemble military movements than dances, the similitude being increased by the martial array of the dancers, who are all dressed as if for war, their faces painted with scarlet, their bodies powdered with black, and their best clubs or spears in their hands. They execute intricate manœuvres, marching in various figures, wheeling, halting, and stamping their feet in exact time to the rhythm of the song and the beat of the drum. Sometimes several hundred men are engaged in the dance, while the musicians are twenty or thirty in number.

The scene at one of these dances is very picturesque, but it wants the furious energy which gives such fiery animation to the war dance of the New Zealanders, the movements, though correct in point of time, being comparatively dull and heavy. In order to enliven it a little more, a professional buffoon is usually introduced upon the scene, who performs sundry grotesque movements, and is usually applauded for his exertions.

Music and dancing are always used at the celebration of a marriage, and, as may be imagined from the punctilious nature of the Fijian, there is no lack of ceremony on the occasion.

Mostly, girls are betrothed when they are quite infants, no regard being paid to disparity of age between themselves and their intended husbands. The form of betrothal is rather curious, and consists in the mother of the child taking a small liku, or woman’s girdle, and presenting it to the man, who from that moment takes her daughter under his protection until she is old enough to be married.

In those cases where a young man takes a liking to a young woman, he asks her of her father, making at the same time a small present as a matter of form. Should the application be successful, an interchange of presents then takes place between the friends of both parties, and in a few days follows the ceremony called “warming,” which consists in conveying to the house of the bride some food prepared by the intended husband. In most parts of Fiji, the bride has a complete holiday for four days, sitting quietly at home, dressed in her finest apparel, and painted with turmeric and oil. At the expiration of the four days, she is taken by a number of married women to the sea, where they all join in fishing, and afterward cook the fish that they have taken. The cooking being completed, the bridegroom is sent for, and the betrothed couple eat together, each giving the other a portion of food.

After this ceremony comes a period during which the bridegroom is employed in building a house for his intended wife, and the girl undergoes the painful tattooing which marks her as having taken her place among women. During this time, she remains within the house so as to shield her complexion from the sun. The house being completed, all the friends of both families are gathered together, and a great feast takes place, at which the givers make it a point of honor to be as lavish as possible. At the end of this feast, the girl is formally handed over to her husband, and exchanges her narrow liku for the broader garment befitting her new condition.

When the daughter of an important chief is married, her father always gives her a number of female attendants, sometimes as many as twelve or fifteen accompanying the bride to her home. They are placed under the charge of an elderly woman who acts as their superintendent, and are called by a name which signifies a pet servant. There is always a great scene at the departure of a bride to her home, all her relations and friends crowding round her, and kissing her until she is nearly smothered by their caresses.

An interesting description of the presentation of a bride is given by Mr. Williams, and the artist has reproduced the scene in the [engraving No. 1], on the next page. “She was brought in at the principal entrance by the king’s aunt and a few matrons, and then, led only by the old lady, approached the king. She was an interesting girl of fifteen, glistening with oil, wearing a new liku, and a necklace of curved ivory points, radiating from her neck, and turning upward. The king then received from his aunt the girl, with two whale’s teeth, which she carried in her hand. When she was seated at his feet, his majesty repeated a list of their gods, and finished by praying that the girl might live, and bring forth male children.

“To her friends, two men who had come in at the back door, he gave a musket, begging them not to think hardly of his having taken their child, as the step was connected with the good of the land, in which their interests, as well as his own, were involved. The musket, which was about equivalent to the necklace, the men received with bent heads, muttering a short prayer, the close of which was exactly the same as they had offered for years, ‘Death to Natawa.’ Tuikilakila then took off the girl’s necklace and kissed her. The gayest moment of her life, as far as dress was concerned, was past; and I felt that the untying of that polished ornament from her neck was the first downward step to a dreary future. Perhaps her forebodings were like mine, for she wept, and the tears which glanced off her bosom and rested in distinct drops on her oily legs were seen by the king, who said, ‘Do not weep. Are you going to leave your own land? You are but going a voyage, soon to return. Do not think it a hardship to go to Mbau. Here you have to work hard; there you will rest. Here you fare indifferently; there you will eat the best of food. Only do not weep to spoil yourself.’ As he thus spoke, he played with her curly locks, complimenting her on her face and figure. She reminded him of a sister of hers, who had been taken to Mbau in years past.”

She had certainly reason for her tears, as the condition of Fijian wives is not a very enviable one. As is the case with most countries in which polygamy is practised, the wives are apt to be very jealous of each other, and to quarrel among themselves. Generally, their squabbles are treated with contemptuous indifference by the husband as long as they do not annoy him personally; but if he should feel himself angered, he speedily checks the tumult by belaboring all parties alike with a very sufficient stick which he keeps for the purpose. One chief had a cudgel as thick as a broomstick, in which he seemed to take no little pride, having carved and inlaid it with ivory.

Women are not held in any great estimation, whether they be single or married. A rather ludicrous example of the value set by Fijians upon women occurred in the course of traffic between Europeans and natives. A chief had bargained with the captain of a ship for a musket, the price of which was to be two pigs. The chief went off with his musket, but could only find one pig. So he honorably kept his bargain by sending the one pig and a young woman instead of the other.

In the description of the ceremonies attendant upon a wedding, mention was made of the custom of building a house for the bride. The form of Fijian houses varies according to locality. In some places they are sharp-ridged and gabled, like those which have already been described when treating of New Guinea. In others they are round, and in others conical. Some are built on posts, and others simply on the ground. As is the case throughout all Polynesia, the houses are made of a wooden framework lashed together, and covered with a thatch of reeds. Many of these houses are of great size, more than a hundred feet in length and about forty in width. A house that is meant to endure for any length of time is made of a wood called by the natives vesi, which is exactly similar to the greenheart of India, and a sort of sandal wood is also used for the same purpose.

The walls are generally made of reeds arranged in three layers, the middle layer being horizontal and the outer and inner layers perpendicular. They are tied or sewed together with sinnet, and it is the Fijian architect’s pride to weave the sinnet into elegant patterns. Some men are celebrated for their skill in inserting and executing these patterns, and go about from place to place as they are wanted. Even the posts that support the edifice are often covered with reeds, bound together in the same ingenious manner. The door is always a small one, probably for the same reason that induces a Kaffir to make so low an entrance to his hut; namely, fear of enemies.

(1.) A FIJIAN WEDDING.
(See [page 956].)

(2.) HOUSE THATCHING.
(See [page 959].)

The thatch is sometimes of cocoa-nut or sugar-cane leaves, and sometimes of grass, while in a few of the best houses both are used. The leaves are doubled over reeds and sewed together, so as to form lengths of about five or six feet. Grass thatch is fixed almost exactly as straw is used in England being laid on the roof in bundles, and held down by long mangrove branches, and tied firmly with rattan.

House thatching is one of the most animated scenes that can be imagined. As soon as the roof is finished, notice is given that the thatchers are wanted, and then straightway assemble a gang of merry laborers, varying in number according to the size of the house, as many as three hundred sometimes uniting to thatch a very large house. Some bring the leaves and grass, others bind and sew them into the proper form, and others take them to the thatchers. Those who actually apply the reeds always arrange themselves in pairs on the roof, one outside and the other inside the building, so that one can take the end of the lashing as it is pushed through the thatch by his comrade, draw it tight, and return it to him. The reader may find house thatching represented in a spirited [engraving], on the 957th page.

The noise that arises from a large house during the process of thatching is almost deafening. Naturally, the Fijian has a great genius for shouting, and on such occasions he fairly outdoes himself. Some call for more grass, leaves, mangrove rods and rattans; others from below shout in reply to them. Those who bring the materials must needs shout as they clamber to the roof, and every one throws in a few yells occasionally by way of encouragement to his companions.

The most characteristic part of a Fijian house is the ridge pole which runs along the top of the roof. It projects at either end for a considerable distance, and in first-class buildings is worked into a trumpet-like shape at the extremities. These projecting ends are mostly blackened, and decorated with large white cowrie shells. A sort of cable made of grass and bound with vine-stalks is generally laid on the ridge pole, and in many cases is finished off with a row of tassels, and nearly covered with patterns worked in sinnet.

Some, though not all, the houses have openings by way of windows, which can be closed by means of mats fastened over them like curtains. Within the house, and nearly in the centre, is the fireplace, which is sunk in the ground to a foot or so in depth, and surrounded by a sort of fender made of hard wood. In very large houses, the fireplace is ten or twelve feet square, and is covered by a wooden framework of several tiers, on which cooking pots and similar utensils can be kept. There is no chimney, nor even a hole in the roof, so that all the smoke from the fireplace ascends to the roof, and finds its way out through the thatch as it best can. In nearly every case the doorway is furnished with a projecting roof.

In connection with roof thatching, a characteristic joke is recorded of the Mbau people. The short missile club is called ula, and the act of hurling it is called ulaula. The latter word, however, also signifies house thatching. By way of a practical joke, the people of Mbau sent to those of Tailevu, asking them to come and ulaula. The latter, taking the word in its ordinary sense, accepted the invitation, and came, expecting the usual scene of merriment, when to their surprise, they were saluted by a volley of ulas hurled at them by their entertainers.

The furniture of a Fijian house is simple. At one end is a raised dais, on which the master of the house sleeps by night and reclines by day. It is covered with mats, and over it are hung the sheets of thin masi which are used as mosquito curtains. On this dais are generally one or two pillows. These implements are not unlike those of the Kaffirs, being nothing more than cylindrical bars of wood supported on legs at either end. Some of them are from four to five feet in length. This form of pillow is used on account of the mop-like headdress of the natives, which would be pressed out of all shape were it laid on an ordinary pillow.

On the hearth are several large earthenware cooking pots, oval in shape, and each set on three stones. As the quantity of food in them diminishes, they are gradually tilted, so that when they contain but very little food they lie quite on their sides. Near the hearth lies the thick concave board on which bread is kneaded, and close to the board are the smooth round stones by which the operation of kneading is conducted. The small hand nets used for fishing are kept near the fire, together with the knives and other implements used in preparing food. Several earthen water jars are always placed near the fire. They may be distinguished by their glazed surfaces, and are placed carefully on a thick bed of grass. A few bamboo vessels containing salt and fresh water, are generally placed near the larger jars. Round the foot of the wall are ranged a series of bowls and jars, which contain the arrowroot and similar articles of food.

CHAPTER XCVII.
FIJI—Continued.
RELIGION AND FUNERAL RITES.

THE GODS AND THEIR ABODES — VISIT OF THE LAND CRAB — FIJIAN PRIESTS AND THEIR INSIGNIA — CONSULTING THE DEITY — VARIOUS MODES OF DIVINATION — THE DIFFICULT PASSAGE TO HEAVEN — NATIVE TEMPLES, THEIR STRUCTURE AND USES — FEASTS GIVEN TO THE GODS — SACRED STONES — MURDER OF THE AGED AND SICK — A STRANGE MARK OF AFFECTION — PROVIDING THE DEAD WITH ATTENDANTS — BURIAL OF A LIVING KING — A TERRIBLE SCENE — VOYAGE TO THE CEMETERY, AND THE FUNERAL — SIMILARITY BETWEEN THE CUSTOMS OF FIJI AND INDIA — MODE OF MOURNING — THE SUCCESSIVE RITES AFTER A FUNERAL — THE CUSTOM OF LOLOKU — TOMB OF A CHIEF’S WIFE.

The religion, or rather the superstition, of the Fijians is much like that of other polytheists. The people acknowledge vast numbers of gods of greater or lesser power; most, if not all, of which are symbolized under some natural form, such as a hawk, a tree, or the like. Every Fijian considers himself under the protection of some especial god, and, as has been stated, will not eat the animal which is his symbol.

An amusing instance of the reverence paid to the symbols of the gods occurred at Tilioa. A very powerful god, who is worshipped at that place, resides in a land crab, but, as that crustacean is scarcely ever seen in the locality, there are but few opportunities of paying the proper worship. Whenever any one saw a land crab, he immediately ran to the priest, and forthwith the whole place was in a commotion. The people assembled to pay their respects to their deity, and a number of cocoa-nuts were gathered, strung together, and humbly presented to the crab deity in order to propitiate him, and to induce him to give them fair weather and a healthy season.

As to the particular doctrines of the Fijian religion, it is scarcely possible to learn much about them. In the first place, the people know nothing, and the priests, who know but little, dislike communicating their knowledge. Even the Christian converts can seldom be induced to speak on the subject with any degree of truth.

The priests are known by their official insignia, which consists of an oval frontlet of scarlet feathers, and a long-toothed comb made of separate pieces of wood ingeniously fastened together. Several of these combs are in my collection, and are excellent examples of the artistic capabilities of the makers. No two of them are alike, the delicate thread which fastens them together being woven in a singular variety of patterns. The threads are nearly as fine as hairs, and an additional beauty is given to the pattern by using alternately a deep black and a glittering yellow thread.

The priests communicate with their deities by throwing themselves into a sort of ecstatic state, technically called “shaking,” in which the whole body is convulsed, and the utterances which come from the foaming lips are held to be the responses of the god. A vivid idea of this mode of consulting a deity is given by Mr. Williams in the valuable work to which reference has often been made.

“Nothing like regular worship or habitual reverence is found, and a principle of fear seems the only motive for religious observances; and this is fully practised on by the priests, through whom alone the people have access to the gods, when they wish to present petitions affecting their social or individual interest. When matters of importance are involved, the soro or offering consists of large quantities of food, together with whales’ teeth. In smaller affairs a tooth, club, mat, or spear, is enough. Young nuts covered with turmeric powder formed the meanest offering I have known. On one occasion, when Tuikilakila asked the help of the Somo-somo gods in war, he built the war god a large new temple, and presented a quantity of cooked food, with sixty turtles, beside whales’ teeth.

“Part of the offering—the sigana—is set apart for the deity, the rest forming a feast of which all may partake. The portion devoted to the god is eaten by his priest and by old men, but to youths and women it is tapu.

“Strangers wishing to consult a god cut a quantity of fire wood for the temple. Sometimes only a dish of yams or a whale’s tooth is presented. It is not absolutely necessary for the transaction to take place at a temple. I have known priests to become inspired in a private house or in the open air; indeed, in some parts of Fiji, the latter is usually the case.

“One who intends to consult the oracle dresses and oils himself, and, accompanied by a few others, goes to the priest, who, we will suppose, has been previously informed of the intended visit, and is lying near the sacred corner getting ready his response. When the party arrives, he rises and sits so that his back is near to the white cloth by which the god visits him, while the others occupy the opposite side of the Buré. The principal person presents a whale’s tooth, states the purpose of his visit, and expresses a hope that the god will regard him with favor. Sometimes there is placed before the priest a dish of scented oil with which he anoints himself, and then receives the tooth, regarding it with deep and serious attention.

“Unbroken silence follows. The priest becomes absorbed in thought, and all eyes watch him with unblinking steadiness. In a few minutes he trembles; slight distortions are seen in his face, and twitching movements in his limbs. These increase to a violent muscular action, which spreads until the whole frame is strongly convulsed, and the man shivers as with a strong ague fit. In some islands this is accompanied with murmurs and sobs, the veins are greatly enlarged, and the circulation of the blood quickened.

“The priest is now possessed by his god, and all his words and actions are considered as no longer his own, but those of the deity who has entered into him. Shrill cries of ‘Koi au! Koi au!’ (‘It is I! It is I!’) fill the air, and the god is supposed thus to notify his approach. While giving the answer, the priest’s eyes stand out and roll as if in a frenzy; his voice is unnatural, his face pale, his lips livid, his breathing depressed, and his entire appearance like that of a furious madman. The sweat runs from every pore, and tears start from his strained eyes; after which the symptoms gradually disappear. The priest looks round with a vacant stare, and as the god says ‘I depart,’ announces his actual departure by violently flinging himself down on the mat, or by suddenly striking the ground with a club, when those at a distance are informed by blasts on the conch, or the firing of a musket, that the deity has returned into the world of spirits.”

In many cases it is evident that the priests enact deliberate impositions, but it is also certain that in many others they are completely under the dominion of frenzy, and that they do not recollect afterward the words which they uttered while in their delirious state. “My own mind,” said one of them, “departs from me, and then, when it is truly gone, my god speaks by me.”

Various modes of divination are employed by the Fijian priests. They have, for example, divination by the leaf, by the reed, by the nut, and by water. The leaf is tested by taking it between the front teeth and biting it. If it be completely severed, the omen is good; if it hang together, even by a single fibre, the omen is unfavorable. One priest had a very strange mode of divination by the leaf. He had two magic leaves, which he placed on the sides of the applicant, and then left them. If the leaf on the right side stung the skin, the omen was good; but if any plots or treacheries were hatched, the leaf stung the man on the left side, and so warned him of the danger. Another mode of divination by the leaf is to bite it, and judge by the flavor whether the omen be adverse or the contrary.

The reed test is managed as follows. A number of short reeds are cut, and laid in a row on the ground, a name being given to each. The priest then holds his right foot over each, and the response is given by the trembling of the foot.

The water test is performed by holding the straightened arm slightly upward, and pouring a few drops of water on the wrist. If the water should run to the shoulder, the response is favorable; should it fall off at the elbow, the answer is adverse.

The next test is performed by laying a cocoa-nut on a small surface and spinning it. When it stops, the response is given by the direction in which the eye points.

According to Fijian notions, the passage to Buruto or heaven is a very difficult one, except for great chiefs, and the only plan by which a man of inferior rank can hope to obtain admission is by telling the god a lie, and proclaiming himself a chief with so much apparent truthfulness that he is believed, and allowed to pass. Taking on his shoulder his war club and a whale’s tooth, the Fijian spirit goes to the end of the world, where grows a sacred pine, and throws the tooth at it. Should he miss it, he can go no further; but if he hit it, he travels on to a spot where he awaits the arrival of the women who were murdered at his death.

Escorted by them, he proceeds until he is met and opposed by a god called Ravuyalo, whom he fights with his club. Should he fail, he is killed and eaten by the god, and there is an end of him. Should he conquer, he proceeds until he finds a canoe, into which he gets, and is conveyed to the lofty spot where the chief god, Ndengei, lives. Over the precipice extends the long steering oar of the god’s canoe. He is then asked his name and rank, when he replies with a circumstantial account of his grandeur and magnificence, of the countries over which he has ruled, of the deeds which he did in war, and of the devastation which he caused. He is then told to take his seat on the blade of the oar. Should his story have been believed, he is conveyed to Buruto; but should Ndengei disbelieve his story, the oar is tilted up, and he is hurled down the precipice into the water below whence he never emerges.

It has been mentioned that the spirit has to wait for the escort of his wives. This is in order to prove that he is a married man, bachelors having no hope of admission into Buruto. Should a wifeless man start on his journey, he is confronted by a goddess, called the Great Woman, who has a special hatred of bachelors, and, as soon as she sees one, flies at him and tries to tear him in pieces. Sometimes she misses him in her eagerness; but, even in such a case, he has to deal with another god, who hides himself in the spirit path, and, as the soul of the bachelor passes by, he springs on the wretched being, and dashes him to atoms against a stone.

The Burés or temples of the gods abound in Fiji, at least one Buré being found in every village, and some of the villages having many of these buildings. They are made of the same material as the houses, but with much more care. Instead of being merely set on the ground, they are placed on the top of a mound of earth, sometimes only slightly elevated, and sometimes twenty feet or more in height.

The natives think no labor too great for the decoration of a Buré, and it is in those buildings that their marvellous skill in plaiting sinnet is best shown. Every beam, post, and pillar is entirely covered with sinnet plaited into the most beautiful patterns, black and red being the favorite colors; and even the reeds which line the window frames, and fill up the interstices between the pillars, are hidden in the plaited sinnet with which they are covered. So lavish are the natives of their work, that they are not content with covering the pillars and reeds with sinnet work, but they make large plaited cords of the same material, and hang them in festoons from the eaves.

It has already been mentioned that the best houses have the ends of the ridge-poles decorated with cowries, but those of the Buré are adorned with long strings of cowries that sometimes reach the ground. Ordinary laths are thought too common to be used in thatching temples, and the beautifully carved spears of warriors are employed instead of simple wood. When the Buré is erected on a high mound, entrance is gained to it by means of a very thick plank cut into notched steps.

Although the Burés are considered as temples, and dedicated to the god, they are mostly used for secular purposes. Visitors from a distance are generally quartered in them, and in many instances the principal men of the village make the Buré their sleeping-place. Councils are held in the Burés, and entertainments are given in them, of which the offerings to the god form a large part. Sometimes, as has been mentioned, a chief who wishes to propitiate some deity offers a great quantity of food in his temple, and this food is consumed in a general feast. A certain portion is dedicated to the god, and may only be eaten by the priests and the old men, but the remainder may be eaten by any one.

None of the food is left to perish, the Fijians having a convenient belief which combines piety with self-indulgence. The god is supposed to be a great eater, but only to consume the soul of the provisions, so that when food is cooked and offered, the god eats the soul and the people the body. The chief god, Ndengei, used to be both greedy and dainty in his demands for food. He sometimes ate two hundred hogs and a hundred turtles at a single feast, and was continually insisting on human sacrifices. In order to procure these, no respect was paid to persons, and so infatuated were the people that, to keep up Ndengei’s supplies of human food, chiefs were known to kill their own wives.

No regular worship is ever offered in the Burés, which, indeed, are often left to fall into decay until some one desires to consult or propitiate the god, when the building is repaired and cleaned for the occasion. As may be expected, during the building of the Buré several human sacrifices are offered.

If the reader will refer to the drawing of [the Buré] on the following page, he will see that in front of it are two oddly-shaped objects. These are examples of the sacred stones, several of which are to be found in various parts of Fiji. They are considered as the dwelling-place of certain gods, and are held to be either male or female, according to the sex of the deity who inhabits them. Should the god be of the female sex, the fact is known by a woman’s apron or liku being tied round the stone. One such god is a very useful one, because he hates mosquitoes, and keeps them away from the spot in which he dwells. Food is prepared and offered to those sacred stones, the god as usual, eating the spirit of the food, and the priest and officers consuming its outward form.

(1.) A BURÉ, OR TEMPLE.
(See [page 962].)

(2.) CANOE HOUSE AT MAKIRA BAY.
(See [page 970].)

We now come to the funeral ceremonies of Fiji, taking those of the chiefs as types of the whole.

Among the Fijians a very singular superstition reigns. When men or women become infirm with age, they are considered to have lived their full time on earth, and preparations are made for their burial. So ingrained is this belief, that if a man finds himself becoming feeble with age or disease, he requests his sons to strangle him, and with this request they think themselves bound to comply. Indeed, if they think that he is too slow in making the request, they suggest to him that he has lived long enough, and ought to rest in the grave. Such conduct seems to imply that they are destitute of affection, but in reality it is their way of showing their love for their parent.

They are really a most affectionate race of people. A young chief has been seen to sob with overpowering emotion at parting from his father for a short time, and yet, were his parents to become ill or infirm, he would think it his duty to apply the fatal rope with his own hands. To be strangled by one’s children, or to be buried alive by them, is considered the most honorable mode of death. The reason for this strange custom seems to be that the Fijians believe the condition of the spirit in the next world to be exactly the same as that of the individual when in life. Consequently, affectionate children are unwilling to allow their parents to pass into the next world in an infirm state of body, and therefore strangle them out of sheer kindness.

From a similar notion of kindness, they also strangle the favorite wives and attendants of the dead chief, so as to provide him with the followers to whom he has been accustomed. They also kill a powerful warrior, in order that he may go before his chief through the passage into the spirit land, and drive away the evil spirits who oppose the progress of a new comer. These victims go by the name of “grass,” and are laid at the bottom of the grave; the warrior painted and dressed for battle, with his favorite club by his side, the women arranged in folds of the finest masi, and the servants with their implements in their hands; so that the inhabitants of the spirit world may see how great a chief has come among them.

All their preparations are carried on in a quiet and orderly manner, the victims never attempting to escape from their fate, but vying with each other for the honor of accompanying their chief. In some cases, when a chief has died young, his mother has insisted on sharing his grave. So deeply do the Fijians feel the necessity for this sacrifice that the custom has been a greater barrier against Christianity even than cannibalism or polygamy, and even those natives who have been converted to Christianity are always uneasy on the subject. On one occasion a Christian chief was shot, and by the same volley a young man was killed. The Christian natives were delighted with the latter catastrophe, inasmuch as it provided an attendant for their slain chief.

The scene which takes place when a great chief is expected to die has been described by Mr. Williams with great power. The King of Somo-somo, a magnificent specimen of the savage, was becoming infirm through age, and toward the middle of August 1845 was unable to do more than walk about a little:—

“I visited him on the 21st, and was surprised to find him much better than he had been two days before. On being told, therefore, on the 24th that the king was dead, and that preparations were being made for his interment, I could scarcely credit the report. The ominous word preparing urged me to hasten without delay to the scene of action, but my utmost speed failed to bring me to Nasima—the king’s house—in time. The moment I entered it was evident that, as far as concerned two of the women, I was too late to save their lives. The effect of that scene was overwhelming. Scores of deliberate murderers in the very act surrounded me: yet there was no confusion, and, except a word from him who presided, no noise, only an unearthly, horrid stillness. Nature seemed to lend her aid and to deepen the dread effect; there was not a breath stirring in the air, and the half-subdued light in that hall of death showed every object with unusual distinctness.

“All was motionless as sculpture, and a strange feeling came upon me, as though I was myself becoming a statue. To speak was impossible; I was unconscious that I breathed; and involuntarily, or rather against my will, I sunk to the floor, assuming the cowering posture of those who were actually engaged in murder. My arrival was during a hush, just at the crisis of death, and to that strange silence must be attributed my emotions; and I was but too familiar with murders of this kind, neither was there anything novel in the apparatus employed. Occupying the centre of that large room were two groups, the business of whom could not be mistaken.

“All sat on the floor; the middle figure of each group being held in a sitting posture by several females, and hidden by a large veil. On either side of each veiled figure was a company of eight or ten strong men, one company hauling against the other on a white cord which was passed twice round the neck of the doomed one, who thus in a few minutes ceased to live. As my self-command was returning to me the group furthest from me began to move; the men slackened their hold, and the attendant women removed the large covering, making it into a couch for the victim.

“As that veil was lifted some of the men beheld the distorted features of a mother whom they had helped to murder, and smiled with satisfaction as the corpse was laid out for decoration. Convulsion strongly on the part of the poor creature near me showed that she still lived. She was a stout woman, and some of the executioners jocosely invited those who sat near to have pity and help them. At length a woman said, ‘she is cold.’ The fatal cord fell, and as the covering was raised I saw dead the oldest wife and unwearied attendant of the old king.”

Leaving the house of murder, Mr. Williams went to the hut of the deceased king, determining to see his successor, and beg him to spare the lives of the intended victims.

To his horror and astonishment, he found that the king was still alive. He was lying on his couch, very feeble, but perfectly conscious, every now and then placing his hand to his side as he was racked by cough. The young king was full of grief. He embraced his visitor with much emotion, saying, “See, the father of us two is dead.” It was useless to dispute the point. The poor old king certainly did move and speak and eat; but, according to the son’s ideas, the movements were only mechanical, the spirit having left the body.

So the preparations for his funeral went on. His chief wife and an assistant employed themselves in covering his body with black powder, as if dressing him for the war dance, and fastening upon his arms and legs a number of long strips of white masi, tied in rosettes, with the ends streaming on the ground. They had already clad him in a new masi of immense size, the white folds of which were wrapped round his feet. In place of the usual masi turban, a scarlet handkerchief was bound on his hair with a circlet of white cowrie-shells, and strings of the same shells decorated his arms, while round his neck was an ivory necklace, made of long curved claw-like pieces of whale’s teeth.

The reader may perhaps wonder that the chief wife of the king was suffered to live. The fact was that the young king would not allow her to be killed, because no executioner of sufficient rank could be found. She lamented her hard lot in being forbidden to accompany her husband to the spirit land, and begged to be strangled, but without success.

Presently the sound of two conch-shell trumpets was heard outside the house, this being the official intimation that the old king was dead, and the new king was then formally acknowledged by the chiefs who were present. He seemed overcome with grief, and, gazing on the body of his father’s attendant, he exclaimed, “Alas, Moalevu! There lies a woman truly wearied, not only in the day but in the night also; the fire consumed the fuel gathered by her hands. If we awoke in the still night, the sound of our feet reached her ears, and, if spoken to harshly, she continued to labor only. Moalevu! Alas, Moalevu!”

The bodies of the murdered women were then rolled up in mats, placed on a bier, and carried out of the door, but the old king was taken through a breach made in the wall of the house. The bodies were carried down to the seaside and placed in a canoe, the king being on the deck, attended by his wife and the Mata, who fanned him and kept off the insects.

When they arrived at Weilangi, the place of sepulture, they found the grave already dug, and lined with mats. The bodies of the women were laid side by side in the grave, and on them the dying king. The shell ornaments were then taken from him, and he was entirely enveloped in mats, after which the earth was filled in, and thus he was buried alive. The poor old man was even heard to cough after a quantity of earth had been heaped on him.

This [final scene] is represented in an illustration on the 980th page. In the foreground is seen the open grave, with the bodies of the murdered women lying in it as “grass.” The still living king is being borne to the grave by the attendants, while his successor sits mournfully surveying a scene which he knows will be re-enacted in his own case, should he live to be old and infirm. Just above the grave are the rolls of fine mats with which the body of the king is to be covered before the earth is filled in; and in the background appears the mast of the canoe which brought the party to the burial-ground.

The reader cannot but notice the resemblance between this Fijian custom of strangling the wives and the well-known suttee of India. In both cases the women are the foremost to demand death, and for the same reason. Just as the Hindoo women arrange their own funeral pile, and light it with their own hands, the Fijian woman helps to dig her own grave, lines it with mats and then seats herself in it.

The fact is, that the woman has positively no choice in the matter; a wife who survives her husband is condemned to a life of neglect, suffering, and insult, so that the short agony of immediate death is preferable to such a fate, especially as by yielding to the national custom she believes that she shall secure a happy and honored life in the spirit land. Moreover, her relatives are bound by custom to insist upon her death, as, if they did not follow this custom, they would be accused of disrespect toward her husband and his family, and would run the risk of being clubbed in revenge.

In consequence of this horrid custom, the population of Fiji has been greatly checked, for not only is there the direct sacrifice of life, but much indirect loss is occasioned. Many of the murdered women are mothers, whose children die for want of maternal care, so that, what with the perpetual feuds and continual murders, the custom of cannibalism, the sacrifice of wives with their husbands, the strangling of the old or sick, and the death of children by neglect, very few Fijians die from natural causes. Mr. Williams mentions that in a class of nine children under his charge, the parents had all been murdered with the exception of two, and these had been condemned to death, and only saved through the exertions of the missionaries.

After a king is buried, sundry ceremonies are observed. For twenty days or so, no one eats until the evening, the people shave their heads either partially or entirely, and the women cut off their fingers, which are inserted in split reeds, and stuck along the eaves of the royal house. Those who are nearly related to the dead king show their grief by refusing to wear their usual dress, and substituting rude garments of leaves. They often deny themselves the luxury of a mat to lie upon, and pass their nights on the grave of their friend. The coast is rendered tapu for a certain distance, no one being allowed to fish until the proper time has elapsed, and the cocoa-nut trees are placed under a similar restriction.

Various strange rites take place on certain days after the funeral. On the fourth day the friends assemble, and celebrate the melancholy ceremony called the “jumping of maggots,” in which they symbolize the progress of corruption. Next evening is one of a directly opposite character, called the “causing to laugh,” in which the immediate friends and relatives of the dead are entertained with comic games. On the tenth day the women have an amusing ceremony of their own. Arming themselves with whips, switches, or cords, they fall upon every man whom they meet, without respect to age or rank, the greatest chiefs only being exempt from this persecution. The men are not allowed to retaliate, except by flinging mud at their assailants, and those who have witnessed the scene say that nothing more ludicrous can be imagined than to see grave, elderly men running in all directions, pursued by the women with their whips and switches.

The last ceremony is the completion of some special work begun in honor of the dead. It may be the erection of a house, the making of a huge ball of sinnet, a great bale of cloth, and, in any case, it bears the name of the person in whose honor it was undertaken. Building large canoes is a favorite form of this custom, and, during the whole time that the work is in progress, the canoe is put to sleep at night by the beating of drums, and awakened every morning in a similar manner, when the carpenters come to their work.

A curious ceremony takes place in Fiji when one of the principal chiefs has died. It is called the loloku of the sail, and is a sort of a signal of honor. Whenever a canoe approaches the coast for the first time since the death of the chief, the vessel is obliged to show the loloku. This is generally a long strip of masi tied to the head of the mast, and as soon as the canoe touches the land, both the sail and masi are thrown into the water. Sometimes, when the owner of the canoe is tolerably rich, he adds to the simple loloku a whale’s tooth, which is flung from the mast-head into the water, when the people dive and scramble for it.

Should the chief perish at sea, or be killed in a warlike expedition, and be eaten by his enemies, the loloku is shown as carefully as if he had been buried on shore, and his relatives try to compensate him for his adverse fate, by killing an unusual number of women as his attendants. Nearly twenty women have thus been sacrificed on the death of a young chief who was drowned at sea.

The graves of chiefs and their wives are marked by tombs. These are sometimes nothing but stones at the head and foot of the grave, or large cairns of stones piled on the deceased. Sometimes they are roofs from three to six feet in height, decorated, after Fijian custom, with patterns worked in sinnet.

One tomb, that of a chief’s wife, was a very remarkable one. Her husband had a large mound of earth thrown up, and faced with stones. On the top of the mound was a double canoe, forty feet in length, held firmly in its place by being imbedded in earth. Fine shingle was strewn on the deck, and mats were spread on the shingle for the reception of the body. Sand was then heaped over the canoe, and on the sand was laid the body of a little child of whom the deceased woman had been very fond. Over all was then built a large roof, made of mahogany, and adorned with white cowrie-shells.

CHAPTER XCVIII.
THE SOLOMON ISLANDS AND NEW HEBRIDES.
CHARACTER, DRESS, CUSTOMS.

POSITION OF THE SOLOMON ISLANDS — REASON FOR THE NAME OF THE GROUP — CHARACTER OF THE NATIVES — CANNIBALISM — DRESS AND ORNAMENTS — NEW IRELAND AND NEW BRITAIN — NOMAD CHARACTER OF THE NATIVES — CAVE HOUSES — THE ADMIRALTY ISLANDS — DISTINGUISHING MARKS OF THE CHIEFS, AND THEIR DOMINION OVER THE PEOPLE — THE BOUKA ISLAND — THE NEW HEBRIDES — MODE OF GOVERNMENT, AND DIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE — THE INHABITANTS OF VATÉ — CURIOUS DRESS OF THE WOMEN — ORNAMENTS OF THE HOUSES — TAUNA AND ERRUMANGA — TRADE IN SANDAL WOOD — ANEITEUM AND VANIKORO.

Between New Guinea and the Fiji group lie the Solomon (or Salomon) Islands. They were discovered, as far as we know, by Alvero de Mendana, who touched upon them in the year 1567. Being desirous of inducing his countrymen, who held in those days the chief place among sailors, to visit and colonize so fertile a land, he concocted a pious fraud, and called the group by the name of Solomon Islands, as being the Ophir from which Solomon’s ships brought the vast quantities of gold with which he adorned the Temple and his own palace.

His scheme failed, inasmuch as, when he again went in search of the islands, he could not find them, the imperfect astronomical instruments of that day being far inferior to those of the present time, by means of which a competent observer can tell within a few yards his exact place on the earth.

The natives of the Solomon Islands are so fierce and treacherous, that comparatively little has as yet been learned about them. They have displayed a great genius for lulling voyagers into a fancied security, and then murdering and eating them; so that the Spaniards lost nothing by Mendana’s inability to find the islands again. They contrived lately to entrap a gentleman who visited their islands in his yacht, and murdered him while he was on shore, shooting pigeons. They have committed so many murders on seamen, and even captured so many vessels, that the greatest precautions are now taken by those who visit their shores.

Perhaps the reader may wonder that any one should take the trouble of visiting so inhospitable a place; but the fact is that the hawk’s-bill turtle, so valued as supplying the tortoise-shell of commerce, is plentiful on the coasts, and captured by the natives, who reserve the shell for barter with European ships.

When ships anchor off the coast, the natives put off in canoes; but only a certain number are allowed to approach, the hammock nettings being triced up so as to prevent the natives from boarding the vessel. Only the principal chief is allowed to come on board, and through him the bargains are made. These are very tedious, as the natives will insist on haggling separately over each piece of tortoise-shell, instead of selling the whole “head” at once, as is done at other places. The usual articles of merchandise are employed in the trade, such as glass bottles, beads, axes, cloth, knives, and similar objects.

The natives are very dark, and may even be called black, with thick and crisp hair. That they are cannibals has already been mentioned. They are such inordinate lovers of human flesh that, according to the accounts of some travellers, which may however have been exaggerated, they make it their customary diet. It is evident, however, that this statement must be somewhat overdrawn, as no people inhabiting a limited country could make human flesh the chief article of diet without gradual extermination. That they prefer it to all other food is likely enough, and in this they only follow the example of the Papuans. Mendana mentions that the chief of one of the islands sent him a handsome present of a quarter of a boy, and that he gave great offence to the natives by burying instead of eating it.

They do certainly use great quantities of this horrible diet, and one traveller mentions that, in visiting their houses, he has seen human heads, legs, and arms hung from the rafters, just as joints of meat are hung in a larder. The houses bear token in other ways of the cannibalistic habits of the natives, being ornamented with skulls and similar relics of bygone feasts, together with other ornaments.

The Solomon Islanders are not handsome people, and do not add to their beauty by their modes of adornment. Their inveterate use of the betel-nut blackens their teeth, and their faces are disfigured with streaks and patches of white paint, which has a horribly ghastly appearance against the black skin. They are fond of wearing numerous ornaments in their ears, the lobes of which are perforated, and so distended that they can wear in them circular blocks of wood nine inches in circumference. Their chief ornament is, however, an armlet made from a large shell found on the reefs. Shells of sufficient size for this purpose are extremely rare, and are prized even more than whales’ teeth among the Fijians and neighboring people. Wars are often caused by a struggle for the possession of a single armlet; while, in comparison with so valuable an article, human life is looked upon as utterly worthless. Very great chiefs and warriors wear several of these rings on their arms; but they do so with the full knowledge that their finery is as perilous as it is valuable, and that they are likely to be murdered merely for the sake of their ornaments.

The Solomon Islanders care little for clothing, their whole dress being simply a piece of matting tied round the waist; and it is rather a remarkable fact that they pursue the same art of staining the hair yellow, white, or red, or discharging all color out of it, that is practised by the Fijians.

Warlike as well as fierce, they possess a variety of weapons; such as clubs of different kinds, spears, bows and arrows. In order to guard themselves against the missile weapons, they carry shields made of rushes, woven so thickly and tightly together that they are able to resist the arrows and to render the spears almost harmless.

That they possess canoes may be inferred from the fact that they inhabit islands of such diminutive size. These canoes are made in a most ingenious manner, and are constructed in a mode that gives a clue to the peculiar shape which is so often seen among the islands of Polynesia. Both at the stem and stern the ends of the canoe are very much raised. This structure is not only for ornament, though decoration is freely used in it, but is principally intended for defence. When the crew attack an enemy, or are attacked, they always take care to present the bow or stern of the canoe to the foe, and thus are in a great measure protected by the raised ends.

As is the case with most of these oceanic peoples, the inhabitants of the Solomon Islands profusely adorn the sides of their canoes with carvings, feathers, and inlayings. For the last-mentioned purpose white shells are liberally used, and tortoise-shell is also employed. Sometimes these portions of the canoe are carved so as to resemble the human face, the eyes being made of mother-of-pearl, the ears of tortoise-shell, and the chin furnished with a long beard.

In one of these canoes Captain Bouganville found a great quantity of weapons and implements, such as spears, bows and arrows, shields, and fishing nets. The shape of the shields was nearly oval, and the arrows were tipped with sharp fish bones. Various articles of food were also found in the boat, such as cocoa-nuts and other fruits, among which was the somewhat startling object of a human jaw-bone partially cooked.

Among the same group of islands are New Ireland and New Britain, both of which, by the way, seemed to have been named on the lucus a non lucendo principle, inasmuch as it is scarcely possible to find any part of the world less like Ireland or Britain in general than these little islands.

In their dress and ornaments the inhabitants differ but little from the Solomon Islanders, except that the chiefs wear circular ornaments of pearl almost exactly like the dibbi-dibbi of North Australia. Tortoise-shell is also used for the purpose.

These tribes seem to be continually on the move, the warriors being ordered by the chiefs from stations much like our own regiments at home, and being accompanied by their wives and families. In their various migrations the men are bound to look to the interests of their families; and if they neglect to do so, the case is brought before a council of chiefs, who investigate the matter. Should the accusation be proved, the delinquent is condemned to run the gauntlet, a punishment which is inflicted in exactly the same mode as has been employed in Europe.

All the inhabitants of the village, men, women, and children, are drawn up in a double line, and each is furnished with a bundle of twigs bound together like the birches of schools. The culprit is placed at one end of this line, and at a signal from the chief he is obliged to run through it a certain number of times, receiving a blow from every one as he passes. Sharp and severe as is this law, it shows no small amount of political wisdom, and lifts the people in a degree from mere savage life. Among ordinary savages the man is everything and the women and children nothing, and that in these remote islands they should be placed under the protection of the government shows a considerable advance toward civilization. There is, moreover, an ingenious retributive justice in the mode of punishment. By deserting his family, the man throws the burden of their maintenance on the community, and it is, therefore, thought only fair that the punishment should also be left to the community.

The architecture of these people is good, and we shall presently see an example of it. When a new village is to be built a large space is cleared, in the middle of which is the council house, a large circular edifice, supported on red pillars, and distinguished by having on the roof a number of tall poles, each bearing on its point a human skull. The floor is carpeted with fine mats, colored with turmeric, and adorned with birds’ feathers woven into it.

The dwelling-houses are made in a very different manner. The native architect begins by digging a large square hole in the ground some five feet deep, and over this pit he erects the house, which is rather low, in consequence of the depth gained in the basement. The thatch is of weeds, and is covered with a thick coating of clay, which serves the double purpose of rendering the hut fire-proof and of keeping the interior cool.

The weapons of the warriors are much the same as those of the other islands, but slings are also employed, and the spears are generally tipped with sharp flint. Like most of the Papuans, the victorious party eat the enemies whom they kill in battle.

Owing to the character of these islanders, little is known of their religion. That they have some form of worship is evident from the fact that they make great wooden idols, sometimes ten or more feet in height, and plant them in different parts of the country. The [illustration No. 2], on the 949th page, represents one of these idols. To these idols offerings of food are constantly made; and, as such offerings are never taken away, the odor of decomposing figs, fowls, and fruit betrays the presence of the idol at a great distance. In one of the islands, called Ysabel, the natives are said to worship snakes, toads, and various reptiles.

The most eastward of this group, San Christoval, is about seventy miles long and twenty wide. In [No. 2], on page 963, is given a view taken in Makira harbor, in order to show the ingenious houses which the natives build for the protection of their canoes. As may be seen, the house is capable of accumulating a considerable number of the beautifully carved vessels, and is elaborately adorned, after the native fashion, with idols in images, human skulls, tufts of feathers, and similar ornaments.

The extremest of the group are those which are known by the name of the Admiralty Islands.

The natives of these islands make use of a sort of obsidian, which they split into fragments and use as we use steel. For example, they make razors of it, with which they shave every part of their bodies excepting the head, on which the hair is allowed to grow, and is tied up in a knot on the top of the head. The hair is often colored with red ochre and oil. They use the same material as heads to their spears, tying the head to the shaft with plaited string coated with gum. The clothing of the Admiralty Islanders is very simple, the women wearing a piece of matting tied round the waist, and the men nothing but a large white shell. They have bracelets and armlets made of plaited fibre, and a belt of similar material round the waist. Some of them make their bracelets of large sea-ear shells, grinding out the middle and rounding the edges; and ornaments of a similar character are hung in the ears, which are often dragged down to such an extent that the lower tips of the lobes almost rest on the shoulders. This enormous size is attained at the cost of much trouble, an elastic hoop being constantly kept in the aperture so as to keep it gradually distended. A few of the natives also have the septum of the nose pierced, and hang upon it a string, to the end of which are fastened teeth. The chiefs are distinguished by a double row of little shells on the forehead, and seem to exercise considerable authority over their inferiors.

When Captain D’Entrecasteaux visited the place, his boats approached the shore, whereon a number of natives were collected, and the captain made signs of peace. A chief, distinguished by the insignia of rank on his forehead, ordered one of the natives to swim to the boats with some cocoa-nuts. “The fear of approaching persons of whose intentions he was ignorant, made the islander, swimming and defenceless, hesitate a moment. But the chief, who doubtless was little accustomed to have his will disobeyed, did not allow him to reflect. Blows from a cudgel, which he held in his hand, immediately succeeded his order, and enforced instant obedience....

“By way of comforting the poor fellow, our people gave him some bits of red stuff, a few nails, and a knife, with which he was greatly pleased. No sooner had he returned to the island, than curiosity collected all the rest around him, every one wishing to see our presents. Canoes were immediately launched, many natives took to the water and swam, and in a short time there was a great concourse round our boats. We were surprised to see that neither the force of the surf nor of the breakers discouraged them from the attempt.

“There was another chief distinguished by the same ornaments as he who has been already mentioned, and also by the blows which he inflicted with his cudgel upon those to whom he gave his orders.”

The canoes of these people are furnished with a double outrigger, only one touching the water, and the other projecting at an equal distance on the opposite side. They are connected by a platform, on which the commander stands when the sail is lowered and laid on the second outrigger. When the sail is hoisted, he stands on the place where it had been laid. Each outrigger projects about eight feet from the gunwale. The paddles are about six feet in length, and are furnished with a broad blade, which is made separately from the handle, and firmly lashed to it with cord.

The sail is made of matting, and about thirteen feet square. The mast is twenty feet in height, and when the canoe is to be pushed to its full speed, the sail is hoisted diagonally, with one angle projecting a yard above the top of the mast. When the natives desire to go slowly, they only hoist a few feet of the sail, the rest of it lying in the canoe; and by thus hoisting or lowering the sail they can regulate their speed much as they like. When the sail is hoisted to its fullest extent, the canoe can beat the swiftest sailing ships. The ordinary length of a canoe is about thirty-two feet, and the extreme breadth is only twenty-six inches.

The Admiralty Islanders chew the pepper leaf, with the addition of lime, which they keep in a little calabash, but do not seem to add the cocoa-nut. Only the chiefs appear to practise this habit, probably on account of the difficulty of obtaining the proper materials.

One of these islands, named Bouka, was visited by Captain D’Entrecasteaux in 1792. The natives are black, tall, powerful, and quite naked. The face is rather broad and flat, the nose projects but little, the mouth is large, and the lips peculiarly thin. They pluck all the hair off the body, and only allow that of the head to grow, sometimes powdering it with red chalk. Red and white paint are freely used on their bodies, and their ears are pierced and loaded with large shells, which drag them nearly to the shoulders. Round the waist they wear a cord which passes round the body several times, and some of them have a custom of binding the upper arm in a similar manner, placing some flat pieces of wood between the arm and the ligature.

These people are good canoe men, and, when they man their large war canoes, exhibit a discipline which is hardly to be expected among savages. Between every two paddlers on each side stands a warrior armed with bow and arrows, while intermediate parties of warriors stand with their faces toward the stern, so as to observe the enemy and fight during a retreat. Two of the crew are told off to bale out the water, which beats continually over the side of the canoe when the wind blows freshly.

The bow is remarkable for having the string coated with a sort of resinous substance in order to preserve it, the middle of the cord being skilfully wrapped with bark to guard it against injury from the nock of the arrow. The arrows are made of two pieces, the head being shaped from a hard and heavy wood, and the shaft being a reed. The place where they are joined is strengthened by a ligature of bark. The butt of the arrow is wrapped in the same manner to prevent it from being split by the string. They use these weapons with much skill, and, as was proved by Captain D’Entrecasteaux, are able to kill birds with them.

The natives were ready to part with their weapons in exchange for red stuff, biscuits, bottles, and other commodities, but were rather prone to cheat, agreeing to deliver a bow for a handkerchief, and, when they had got the handkerchief, pretending that the bargain was not made for a bow but for an arrow. The natives of Bouka Island, naked and savage as they are, have some sort of civilization among themselves, as is evident from the fact that they cultivate the cocoa-nut palm, large plantations of which useful tree extend to the water-side along a great portion of the coast.

Following the line of the Solomon Islands in a south-easterly direction, we come upon another group of islands called the New Hebrides, extending for some four hundred miles, and containing a considerable number of islands of various sizes. They are perhaps best known from the fact that one of them, called Errumanga, was the place in which the celebrated missionary, John Williams, met with his death. These islands attained importance in a secular point of view from the fact that several of them produce sandal-wood, and therefore attract to them a great number of trading vessels of different countries, with whom a considerable commerce has been carried on.

The islands are mostly of a volcanic nature, and present the usual variations of such localities, some parts being rough, craggy, and bare, while others are fertile and prolific to a degree that can scarcely be conceived by those who have never seen tropical vegetation. As is often the case with islands of no great size and divided from each other by moderately wide channels, the tribes which inhabit them differ considerably in their language and manners, and are in a chronic state of feud with each other. They are just far enough apart to have but rare and infrequent intercourse with each other, and so gradually diverge into different customs, and they are not far enough apart to isolate them, and confer upon them a nationality.

We find this feeling in every one of the innumerable groups of islands which stud the Pacific, and, as we shall soon see, it prevails even among those groups which preserve the same language and customs. In fact, among the Polynesians there is that very feeling of local jealousy which prevails even in civilized countries, and which is, though necessarily more limited, far more rancorous than the feelings of enmity which prevail between mighty nations.

One of the largest of these islands is Vaté, sometimes called Sandwich Island. This latter term should not be used, as it tends to cause confusion between a single island of the New Hebrides and the great group of the Sandwich Islands, which are inhabited by a totally different race of men. To strangers Vaté is very unhealthy, but the causes which produce malaria also produce a wonderful fertility of vegetation. This island is about seventy miles in circumference, and is remarkable for the thick growth of forests upon its lower limits, and of verdure upon the higher portions which are not so well fitted for trees. The natives seem to give some time and trouble to agriculture.

The inhabitants are black of skin, but tall and well-formed, and their dress in many points reminds the observer of the costume of several African tribes. That of the men consists of a broad belt or wrapper of matting wrought in patterns colored with red, white, and black. The hair is generally gathered up into a bunch at the top of the head, stained yellow, and adorned with a plume of feathers.

As to ornaments, they are much like those which have already been mentioned as belonging to the Solomon Islanders. The lobes of the ears are always much distended, from the habit of wearing in them heavy ornaments cut from white shells, or similar materials. The septum of the nose is mostly pierced, and the aperture filled with a white stone. Raised scars are made in the arms and chest, and arranged in definite patterns. Armlets made of shells are used by these islanders. Their figure and costume are well represented in the [engraving No. 1], on the 973d page.

The women are equally well made with the men, and the general fashion of the dress is much the same. They wear, however, a curious addition to the dress, which is very much like that of the Ovambo women of Africa. Passing round the waist is a belt some seven inches wide, made of plaited fibre woven into neat patterns. From this belt depends in front a square apron of no great size, and behind is attached a broad strip of the same plaited matting as that which faces the belt. It descends half-way down the leg, and is finished off with a fan-like fringe of plaited grass, some eighteen inches long, and of proportionate width. The women, as well as the men, practise the custom of making raised scars on their bodies. They differ from the men in the mode of dressing the hair, keeping it cut closely to the head instead of allowing it to grow to its full length and tying it up in a bunch.

The weapons of these islanders are remarkable for the beauty of their finish, the barbs of the arrows being neatly carved, and the junction of the head and shaft being neatly ornamented with plaited grass and feathers. Indeed, the arrows have a curious resemblance to those made by some of the tribes of tropical America.

Like the Solomon Islanders, the inhabitants of the New Hebrides have large council chambers in their villages. Instead, however, of being circular, they are generally made of considerable length, sometimes measuring as much as a hundred feet from one end to the other. They are entirely open on one side. For some reason which seems rather obscure, they are adorned with bones of various animals, the particular species from which they are taken not seeming to be of any consequence. For example, in one of these houses may be seen bunches of bones taken indiscriminately from pigs, fowls, and fishes, while the shells of lobsters and other crustacea are mixed with them. It is believed that human bones are not used for this purpose.

A curious contrast to these tribes is presented by the inhabitants of another island called Tanna, who are certainly inferior to those of Vaté in stature and general appearance, and are thought to be so in point of intellect. They have a bad reputation, being said to be treacherous and cruel. That they are also reputed to be cannibals is no matter of wonder, inasmuch as they belong to the Papuan race. They are said to rival the Fans of Africa in one respect, and to dig up the bodies of the buried dead, in order to eat them.

The island is volcanic, and the subterranean fires seem to aid the already exuberant vegetation of the tropics, which in Tanna attains a development that is almost incredible.

The inhabitants of Tanna are as black as those of Vaté, but seem to have no other points of resemblance. The men appear to think that they are not black enough by nature, for they have a way of daubing their sable countenances with black lead, and painting upon the black groundwork sundry patterns in red ochre. The hair is frizzed out after the ordinary Papuan type which is dyed a reddish dun color by means of lime.

(1.) MAN AND WOMAN OF NEW HEBRIDES.
(See [page 972].)

(2.) WOMAN AND CHILD OF VANIKORO.
(See [page 975].)

(3.) DAUGHTER OF TONGAN CHIEF.
(See [page 977].)

We come now to Errumanga. It has kept up its traditional ferocity. Not content with killing the first missionary who set his foot on their shores, the people many years afterward murdered another missionary and his wife. This second murder was owing to the priests, who persuaded the people that an epidemic which had done much damage among the natives was caused by the missionaries from a strange land. The ignorant people readily believed this statement, and, wild with the uncontrolled fury of the savage, they murdered both the accused persons. The deed was scarcely done before the people repented of it, and only the day after the murder, when the bodies were buried, the natives stood round the grave overwhelmed with grief, the most sincere mourner being the chief of the district.

The murder of these people, unfortunate as it may seem, really paved the way for others to follow in their footsteps; and, as is generally the case with persecution, the cause only gained additional strength by the attempts made to repress it by main force.

At one time the inhabitants were held in such dread that the natives were not allowed to come on board the ships, nor were the men permitted to land. A small trade was carried on in sandal-wood, which the natives carried to the boats by swimming through the surf, and being necessarily unarmed, could be allowed to make their bargains without suspicion of treachery. Although, therefore, the savage nature of the inhabitants has occasionally broken out and showed itself in bloodshed, the very fact that Europeans have been allowed to reside for any time on the island shows a great improvement in the character of the natives.

The northernmost island of the group is Aneiteum, one of the islands which produce sandal-wood in great plenty. The natural ferocity and suspicion of the natives has been overcome by the judicious establishment and introduction of a factory, to which the sandal-wood is taken by the natives, and from which it is sold to the ships, which find here a store of this valuable wood always ready for them. The chief market for the wood is found in China, where it is cut into various articles of luxury with the customary patience which characterizes the artists of that country. The success of this factory shows that the best way of dealing with savages is to treat them precisely as children are treated, and to employ in all dealings with them an equal mixture of kindness and firmness, making allowances for the different constitution of their minds and the influence of savage habits upon their conduct; but at the same time to be firm almost to severity, and never to permit an encroachment. The safest maxim in dealing with savages is never to deceive and never to trust.

The inhabitants of Malicolo differ considerably from those of the islands which have been mentioned. While the natives of Vaté are tall and finely made, those of Errumanga scarcely inferior to them, and those of Tanna stout and powerful, though comparatively short of stature, the inhabitants of Malicolo are small, ill-proportioned people, ugly of face, and disfiguring themselves by wearing a belt round the waist, drawn so tight that it gives them an hour-glass or waspish aspect.

The reader may perhaps be aware that, in the year 1788, the vessels Boussole and Astrolabe, commanded by the celebrated voyager La Pérouse, disappeared, and nothing more was heard of them. He was last seen at Botany Bay, where he had arrived from Tonga.

In 1791 an expedition, consisting of two vessels, the Recherche and the Espérance, was fitted out under the command of Captain D’Entrecasteaux, and sent out in search of the missing vessels. The expedition failed in its immediate object, though in the course of the explorations some valuable discoveries were made.

In 1792 D’Entrecasteaux’s vessels got among the New Hebrides, and found themselves in the midst of coral reefs and shoals of which they knew nothing, and which caused no small alarm. In consequence of the danger of these reefs, the captain did not touch at all the islands which were seen, but contented himself with naming them, and marking their places on a chart. As it turned out, one of these islands, Vanikoro, or Recherche Island, as D’Entrecasteaux named it, was the place on which La Pérouse was wrecked, so that the expedition actually passed within sight of the very spot which was the object of their voyage. Indeed, D’Entrecasteaux practically completed the voyage which La Pérouse began, and his narrative furnishes a necessary supplement to that of the voyager in search of whom he sailed. It was not until some forty years afterward that the relics were discovered which proved beyond a doubt that Vanikoro was the place in which La Pérouse and his companions perished. Vanikoro is sometimes called Pitt’s Island. An [illustration] is given on the 973d page, which represents a woman of Vanikoro, and her child, and is a type of the expression and features of these islanders.

CHAPTER XCIX.
TONGA.
GOVERNMENT AND GRADATIONS OF RANK.

FRIENDLY RELATIONS BETWEEN TONGA AND FIJI — THE ARMY OF OCCUPATION — GENERAL APPEARANCE OF THE TONGANS — THEIR DRESS — THE GNATOO, AND MODE OF WEARING IT — MAKING THE GNATOO — BEATING, JOINING, AND PRINTING THE PIECES — THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN GNATOO AND TAPPA — ORNAMENTS WORN BY THE TONGANS — WHALE’S TEETH, AND THE VALUE SET ON THEM — FINOW AND THE TEETH — DISTINCTIONS OF RANK — SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS RANK — THE TOOI-TONGA, HIS ORIGIN AND PRIVILEGES — THE VEACHI — THE HOW, OR KING, OFTEN INFERIOR IN RANK TO MANY OF HIS CHIEFS — THE EGI, OR NOBLES — THE MATABOOLES, THEIR RANK AND DUTIES — THE MOOAS, OR GENTRY; AND THE TOOAS, OR COMMON PEOPLE — MATRIMONIAL ARRANGEMENTS BETWEEN PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT RANKS — TREATMENT OF WOMEN.

Our readers may remember that, in the account of the Fiji Islands, it was mentioned that there was one nation which was held by the Fijians as free from their usual custom of killing and eating all visitors to their coast. These people are the inhabitants of the Tongan group, popularly known as the Friendly Islands. Owing to their courage in war and superior intellect, they have performed toward the Fijians the same part that has so often been played by more civilized people. On one or two occasions they found the Fijian chiefs hard pressed by rebellion, took the part of their hosts, crushed the rebel forces, and restored the chiefs to power.

A remarkable instance of this timely aid occurred as late as 1855. Thakombau, of whom we have already heard, was in danger of losing his life and throne together through a rebellion led by a chief named Mara. Fortunately, he had previously given a magnificent canoe to the Tongan king, who sailed over, according to custom, accompanied with a large fleet, in order to receive the royal present with due honor. He instantly led his forces against the rebels, stormed a fort called Kamba which was held by them, took it, and utterly dispersed the enemy, Mara himself only escaping by running over the sharp shells of the reef, thereby nearly cutting his feet to pieces, and swimming to a neighboring town on the coast.

After this exploit, the Tongan chief followed up his blow by sailing to the island of Taviuni, where another rebellion was raging in consequence of the murder of the chief by his sons. He put an end to this rebellion also, inquired which of the murdered chief’s other sons had the best claim to his father’s rank, and installed him formally. The vanquished rebels, finding that the Tongan leader was too strong for them, tried to entrap him in an ambuscade, but only succeeded in murdering one of his chiefs. The Tongans immediately landed on the island, and avenged the death of their friends in a most terrible manner. A large party of Tongan warriors was afterward left under the command of a chief named Maafu, a relation of the king, and by means of this force the rebels were effectually suppressed.

As might be expected, the Tongans took advantage of their situation, and enacted over again the fable of the deer, the horse, and the man. Some four hundred of them generally remain in Fiji, and domineer over the natives much like armies of occupation in other countries. A Tongan warrior has not the least scruple in going to a strange village, entering the house that pleases him best, and installing himself in the best place with the simple words: “This part of the house is mine.” He takes the best of the food, and, if he builds a canoe, merely acts as foreman, making the Fijians do all the hard work. There is nothing that the Tongans do, however, which so much incenses the natives as their careless habit of shaking the bread-fruit trees in order to procure the fruit, which ought always to be gathered by hand.

It is said, and perhaps with reason, that the Tongans contemplate the complete conquest of the Fijian group; and from their experience, courage, and discipline, and the fear which they have contrived to instil into the Fijians, there is little doubt that the attempt, if it were to be made, would be a successful one. The Fijian warrior fights on his own account, each man separately, while the Tongans act in unison; so that the Fijians who have fought against them compare them to the gods, against whom it is useless to struggle.

As may be gathered from these particulars, the Tongans are a superior race to the Fijian. They are, indeed, a different people altogether; the Fijians belonging to the Papuan race, whereas the Tongans belong to the Polynesian race, which does not possess the very crisp hair and rough skin of the Papuans; and, as a rule, is much lighter in skin, the complexions being often as white as that of many Europeans. They are, on the whole a singularly handsome set of people, the beauty not being limited to the men, as is the case with so many savage tribes, but possessed equally, if not to a superior extent, by the women. The [portrait] of a daughter of a Tongan chief, on the 973d page, will verify this statement.

The dress of both sexes is made of similar materials, but is differently arranged. The fabric is called in the Tongan language “gnatoo,” and is almost identical with the Fijian masi. It is made from the bark of the same tree, and is beaten out in very similar fashion, except perhaps that the Tongan women are more particular than those of Fiji in the care and delicacy with which they beat out the bark with their grooved mallets. The gnatoo varies somewhat in quality according to the island in which it is made, that of Vavau being considered as the finest.

In putting on the gnatoo, there is nearly as much diversity as in the arrangement of a Scotch plaid, and the mode in which it is arranged serves to denote difference of rank. The most fashionable mode, which is practised by the chiefs, is to wrap a portion of it round the loins in such a manner that the folds allow fair play to the limbs, and then to pass the remainder round the waist like a broad belt, and tuck the ends under the belt in front of the body. The portion which forms the belt is so arranged that it can be loosened at any moment and thrown over the head and shoulder. This is always done when the wearer is obliged to be abroad in the night time.

The gnatoo of the men measures about eight feet in length, by six in width. Under the gnatoo is a belt made of the same material. Women have a larger piece of gnatoo than the men, and arrange it in folds which are as graceful as those of antique art, and seem as likely to fall off the person. This, however, is never the case, and, even if the gnatoo were by any accident to slip, the women wear under it a small mat or petticoat about a foot in depth.

As this gnatoo plays so important a part in the clothing of the Polynesians, its manufacture will now be described, the account being taken from Mariner’s valuable history of the Tongans:—“A circular incision being made round the tree near the root with a shell, deep enough to penetrate the bark, the tree is broken off at that point, which its slenderness readily admits of. When a number of them are thus laid on the ground, they are left in the sun a couple of days to become partially dry, so that the inner and outer bark may be stripped off together, without danger of leaving any of the fibres behind.

“The bark is then soaked in water for a day and a night, and scraped carefully with shells for the purpose of removing the outer bark or epidermis, which is thrown away. The inner bark is then rolled up lengthwise, and soaked in water for another day. It now swells, becomes tougher, and more capable of being beaten out into a fine texture.

“Being thus far prepared, the operation of too-too, or beating commences. This part of the work is performed by means of a mallet a foot long and two inches thick, in the form of a parallelopipedon, two opposite sides being grooved horizontally to the depth and breadth of about a line, with intervals of a quarter of an inch.

“The bark, which is from two to three feet long, and one to three inches broad, is then laid on a beam of wood about six feet long and nine inches in breadth and thickness, which is supported about an inch from the ground by pieces of wood at each end, so as to allow of a certain degree of vibration. Two or three women generally sit at the same beam; each places her bark transversely upon the beam immediately before her, and while she beats with her right hand, with her left she moves it slowly to and fro, so that every part becomes beaten alike. The grooved side of the mallet is used first, and the smooth side afterward.

“They generally beat alternately, and early in the morning, when the air is calm and still, the beating of gnatoo in all the plantations has a very pleasing effect. Some sounds being near at hand, and others almost lost by the distance,—some a little more acute, and others more grave,—and all with remarkable regularity, produce a remarkable effect that is very agreeable, and not a little heightened by the singing of the birds and the cheerful influence of the scene. When one hand is fatigued, the mallet is dexterously transferred to the other, without occasioning the smallest sensible delay.

“In the course of about half an hour, it is brought to a sufficient degree of thinness, being so much spread laterally as to be now nearly square when unfolded; for it must be observed that they double it several times during the process, by which means it spreads more equally and is prevented from breaking. The bark thus prepared is called fetagi, and is mostly put aside till they have a sufficient quantity to go on at a future time with the second part of the operation, which is called cocanga, or printing with coca.

“When this is to be done, a number employ themselves in gathering the berries of the toe, the pulp of which serves for paste (but the mucilaginous substance of the mahoá root is sometimes substituted for it); at the same time others are busy scraping off the soft bark of the cocoa tree and the toodi-tooi tree, either of which, when wrung out without water yields a reddish-brown juice, to be used as a dye.

“The stamp is made of the dried leaves of the paoongo sewed together so as to be of a sufficient size, and afterward embroidered, according to various devices, with the wiry fibre of the cocoa-nut husk. Making these stamps is another employment of the women, and mostly women of rank. They are generally about two feet long, and a foot and a half broad. They are tied on to the convex side of half cylinders of wood, usually about six or eight feet long, to admit two or three similar operations to go on at the same time.

“The stamp being thus fixed, with the embroidered side uppermost, a piece of the prepared bark is laid on it, and smeared over with a folded piece of gnatoo dipped in one of the reddish-brown liquids before mentioned, so that the whole surface of the prepared bark becomes stained, but particularly those parts raised by the design in the stamp. Another piece of gnatoo is now laid upon it, but not quite so broad, which adheres by virtue of the mucilaginous quality in the dye, and this in like manner is smeared over; then a third in the same way.

“The substance is now three layers in thickness. Others are then added to increase it in length and breadth by pasting the edges of these over the first, but not so as there shall be in any place more than three folds, which is easily managed, as the margin of one layer falls short of the margin of the one under it.

“During the whole process each layer is stamped separately, so that the pattern may be said to exist in the very substance of the gnatoo; and when one portion is thus printed to the size of the stamp, the material being moved farther on, the next portion, either in length or breadth, becomes stamped, the pattern beginning close to the spot where the other ended. Thus they go on printing and enlarging it to about six feet in breadth, and generally about forty or fifty yards in length. It is then carefully folded up and baked under ground, which causes the dye to become rather dark, and more firmly fixed in the fibre; beside which it deprives it of a peculiar smoky smell which belongs to the coca.

“When it has been thus exposed to heat for a few hours, it is spread out on a grass plat, or on the sand of the seashore, and the finishing operation of toogi-hea commences, i. e. staining it in certain places with the juice of the hea, which constitutes a brilliant red varnish. This is done in straight lines along those places where the edges of the printed portions join each other, and serves to conceal the little irregularities there; also in sundry other places, in the form of round spots, about an inch and a quarter in diameter. After this the gnatoo is exposed one night to the dew, and the next day, being dried in the sun, it is packed up in bales to be used when required. When gnatoo is not printed or stained, it is called tappa.”

Various ornaments are worn by both sexes among the Tongans, among which may be enumerated a kind of creeper, with flowers at intervals along the stem. This is passed round the neck or the waist, and has a singularly graceful and becoming appearance. The most valued ornament is, however, that which is made of the ivory of the whale’s teeth, so cut as to resemble in miniature the tooth itself. They are of different sizes, varying from one inch to four inches in length, and strung together by a cord passing through a hole bored in their thick ends.

These teeth are even more valued in Tonga than in Fiji, and a common man would not dare to have one in his possession, knowing well that he would assuredly lose his life on the very first occasion that offered the slightest opportunity of an accusation. Once Finow, the King of Tonga, was told of a whale which had been stranded on a little island inhabited only by a man and his wife. When Finow reached the place he found that the teeth had been removed, and ordered the man and woman into custody on the charge of stealing them. Both denied that they had more than two teeth, which they gave up, whereupon the man was immediately killed with a club, and the woman threatened with a similar fate. Under fear of this threat she produced two more teeth which she had hidden, but, refusing to acknowledge that she knew of any others, met with the same fate as her husband. Many years afterward the missing teeth were discovered, the woman having buried them in the ground. This anecdote shows the value in which whales’ teeth are held, the king taking the trouble to go in person to claim them, and the woman allowing herself to be killed rather than part with her treasures.

(1.) INTERIOR OF A TONGAN HOUSE.
(See [page 981].)

(2.) BURIAL OF A LIVING KING.
(See [page 966].)

A good idea of the appearance of a Tongan woman of rank may be obtained from the [illustration No. 1], on the preceding page, which represents the interior of a chief’s house, and part of his family.

In the foreground is one of the odd wooden pillows which are so much in vogue throughout Polynesia; while one of the most conspicuous objects is a roll of narrow matting, which is used for the purpose of surrounding men and women of high rank as they sit on the floor. Within it is seated the chief’s wife, in the graceful attitude adopted by the Tongans, exhibiting the simple and really elegant folds of the gnatoo dress. The reader will observe the apparent looseness with which the dress is put on, the folds lying so loosely that they seem ready to slip every moment. They are, however, perfectly tight, and there is not the least danger of their slipping.

Within doors the children never wear any clothing until they are two years old; but when they go out, their parents always wrap round them a piece of gnatoo or tappa. The natives are exceedingly fastidious about their dress, criticising every fold with minute care, and spending a considerable time in arranging them. Even when bathing, they always array themselves in a slight dress made for such occasions, going aside for the purpose of exchanging the usual gnatoo for an apron of leaves or matting. So disrespectful is utter nudity reckoned among the Tongans, that if a man be obliged to undress near the spot where a chief is buried, the leaf apron is worn while the dress is changed.

We now come to the various divisions of rank in Tonga, and the mode of government. Ranks may be divided into two distinct orders, namely, the religious and the civil. We must take them in this order, because among the Tongans religious takes the precedence of civil rank.

By far the greatest man in point of rank is the Tooi-tonga. This word literally signifies Chief of Tonga, and is given because the man who bears it is the greatest man in Tonga, which is the chief of the whole group of islands. The word does not represent a name, but a rank, the family name being Fatagehi, and the rank passes downward by legitimate descent. So great a man is the Tooi-tonga, that in his presence no man may stand, but is obliged to sit down in the attitude of respect. Even the king is not exempt from this law; and if he should happen to meet the Tooi-tonga, he would have to squat down humbly until the great man had passed by.

The Tooi-tonga stands alone in many particulars, and, according to our ideas, he has plenty of dignity, but very little comfort, leading a life somewhat like that of the spiritual Emperor of Japan. He has certainly one advantage over his fellows: he does not undergo the operation of tattooing, because there is no one of sufficiently high rank to draw the blood of so sacred a personage. He is married after a manner peculiar to himself, is buried in a peculiar manner, and is mourned in a peculiar manner. He is so sacred, that in speaking of him another language is used, many phrases being reserved expressly for the Tooi-tonga. These are probably relics of an ancient and nearly lost language, as is the case with the incantations of the New Zealand priests.

The reason for this extraordinary veneration is, that the Tooi-tonga is supposed to be a direct descendant of a chief god who was accustomed to visit the islands; but whether his female ancestor was a goddess or a native of earth is an open question with the Tongans. In spite of all the veneration which is shown to him, the Tooi-tonga has very little real power, and in this respect is far surpassed by the king, and equalled by many of the nobles.

There is another chief, the Veachi, who is also supposed to have a divine origin, and is therefore held in higher veneration than any of the chiefs, but is inferior to the Tooi-tonga. It is true that in his presence the king has to sit on the ground in the attitude of humility, and that he is considered a being next in rank to the great Tooi-tonga himself; but the other marks of veneration, such as a separate language, and different modes of marriage, burial, and mourning, are not paid to him; and in power he is equalled by many of the chiefs.

Next in rank, but at a very great distance, come the priests. These men receive their name from their capability of being inspired by certain gods, and, except when actually inspired, have no special rank, and are paid no honor except such as may belong to them as private individuals. Mariner remarks that he never knew a case in which a priest was a chief. The king occasionally becomes inspired, because there is one god who cannot speak except by the royal mouth; but the king is not, in consequence, considered as a priest. Neither are the Tooi-tonga and Veachi considered as priests, nor is there any connexion between them and the priesthood.

Should, in an assembly, a priest become inspired, he is immediately held in the highest veneration as long as the inspiration lasts, because a god is supposed to be speaking through his lips. If, on such an occasion, the king should be present, he immediately leaves his place, and sits humbly among the spectators. Even the great Tooi-tonga himself acts in the same manner, and, though the descendant of a god, he retires before the actual presence of a divinity.

So much for the spiritual rank, and we now pass to the temporal rank.

The highest man in a secular point of view is the How, or king, who is the most powerful of all the chiefs, and yet may be in point of rank inferior to the poorest of his nobles, or Egis. Rank is measured in Tonga by relationship to the Tooi-tonga or Veachi, the relatives of the former being held superior to those of the latter. The consequence is, that the king may meet a poor man who has scarcely any power, and yet who is so high in rank above the king that the latter must sit down till his superior has passed. Should he not do so, or should he by any accident touch anything that belonged to his superior, the tapu would assume its sway, and he would not be permitted to feed himself with his own hands until he had gone to his superior, and saluted him by touching his feet.

In consequence of these customs, the king avoids associating with nobles who are his superior in rank, and they in their turn keep out of his way as far as possible, so as not to humiliate him by making him sit while they stand. Originally, the king was a descendant of the Tooi-tonga, and thus was equally high in spiritual and temporal rank. But when the throne was usurped by other families, the king still retained the temporal power, though he yielded in spiritual rank to others.

Next to the king come the Egis, or nobles. These are all relations of the Tooi-tonga, the Veachi, or the king, kinship to the king being held as conferring rank because he holds the reins of power. Rank descends in Tonga, as in other Polynesian islands, through the female line, so that all the children of an Egi woman possess the rank of Egi, no matter who may be the father.

After the nobles come the Matabooles, or councillors, who are the companions and advisers of the chiefs, and take their rank from that of the chief to whom they are attached. They are always the heads of families, and are mostly men of mature age and experience, so that their advice is highly valued. The eldest son of a Mataboole is carefully trained to take his father’s place when he dies, and is thoroughly versed in all the rites and ceremonies, the administration of laws, and the many points of etiquette about which the Tongans are so fastidious. He also learns all the traditionary records of his people, and by the time that he is thirty years old or so is perfectly acquainted with his profession. But until his father dies he has no rank, and is merely one of the ordinary gentry, who will now be described.

Last of all those who possess any rank are the gentry, or Mooas. All the sons of Matabooles are Mooas, and act as assistants of the Matabooles, aiding on great ceremonies in managing the dances, distributing food, and so forth. Like their superiors, they attach themselves to the service of some chief, and derive their relative consequence from his rank. As a rule, the Mooas all profess some art, such as canoe building, ivory carving, and superintending funeral rites, in which three occupations the Matabooles also take part. They also preside over the makers of stone coffins, the makers of nets, the fishermen, and the architects, and all these employments are hereditary.

Just as the children and brothers of Matabooles take the next lowest rank, that of Mooa, so do those of Mooas take the next lowest rank, and are considered as Tooas, or plebeians. In this case, however, the eldest son of a Mooa assumes the rank of his father after his death, and is therefore more respected than his brothers, who are regarded like younger sons among ourselves. The Tooas do all the menial work, and act as cooks, barbers, tattooers, club-carvers, and so forth. The two latter occupations, however, as requiring artistic skill, are also practised by Mooas.

It will be seen from this brief sketch how elaborate, and yet how intelligible, is this system of the Tongans, even when complicated with the double grades of spiritual and temporal rank. This respect for rank is carried even into the privacy of home. If, for example, an Egi woman marries a Mataboole, or a Mooa, she retains her original rank, which is shared by all her children, so that both she and her children are superior to the husband and father. He, on his part, has to play a double rôle. He is master in his own house, and his wife submits to him as implicitly as if he were of the same rank as herself. Yet he acknowledges the superior rank both of his wife and children, and, before he even ventures to feed himself with his own hands, he goes through the ceremony of touching the feet of his wife or either of his children, in order to free himself from the tapu.

When the case is reversed, and a man of high rank marries a woman of an inferior station, she does not rise to the rank of her husband, but retains her original station, which is inherited by her children, who, together with herself, have to touch the feet of the husband whenever they eat. They imagine that if they did not do so a terrible sickness would consume them. When Mariner lived among the Tongans, he did not trouble himself about the tapu, much to the horror of the natives, who expected that the offended gods would wreak their vengeance on him. Finding that he suffered no harm, they accounted for the phenomenon by the fact that he was a white man, and therefore had nothing to do with the gods of the Tongans.

In consequence of the strictness of this system, Finow, who was king when Mariner lived among the Tongan islands, used to feel annoyed if even a child of superior rank were brought near him, and used angrily to order it to be taken away. Such conduct, however, would not be thought right unless both parties were nearly equal in rank; and if, for example, the Tooi-tonga’s child had been brought near the king, he would at once have done homage after the customary fashion.

Some very curious modifications of this custom prevail throughout Tongan society. For example, any one may choose a foster-mother, even though his own mother be alive, and he may choose her from any rank. Generally her rank is inferior to that of her adopted son, but even this connection between them does not earn for her any particular respect. She would be much more honored as an attendant of a young chief than as his foster-mother.

So elaborate and yet simple a system implies a degree of refinement which we could hardly expect among savages. In consonance with this refinement is the treatment of women, who are by no means oppressed and hard-worked slaves, as is the case with most savage nations. Consequently the women possess a gentle freedom of demeanor and grace of form which are never found among those people where women are merely the drudges of the men. So long ago as 1777, Captain Cook noticed that the women were much more delicately formed than the men, that they were beautifully proportioned, and that the hands were so small and soft that they would compare favorably with the finest examples in Europe and America. Hard and constant labor, such as is usually the lot of savage women, deteriorates the form greatly, as indeed we can see among ourselves, by comparing together a high-bred lady and a field laborer. The two hardly seem to belong to the same race, or scarcely to the same sex.

The Tongan women certainly do work, but they are not condemned to do it all, the men taking the hard labor on themselves, and leaving the women the lighter tasks, such as beating gnatoo, plaiting baskets, making crockery, and the like. At the great dances, the women are not only allowed to be present, but assist in them, taking as important a share as the men, and infusing into the dance a really cultivated grace which would not exist without them.

The light-colored hue of the skin, which has already been mentioned, is much more common among the women than the men, for the reason that the better class of women take more care of themselves than the men; and, though all classes live for the most part in the open air, the wives and daughters of powerful and wealthy men are careful not to expose themselves to the sun more than is absolutely necessary, so that many of them, instead of being brown, are of a clear olive tint, the effect of which is singularly beautiful when contrasted with their dark clustering hair, their gnatoo garments, and the leaves and flowers with which they adorn themselves, changing them several times daily. Altogether, a Tongan chief looks, and is, a gentleman, and his wife a lady.

CHAPTER C.
TONGA—Continued.
WAR AND CEREMONIES.

NATURAL MILDNESS OF THE TONGANS — BOASTING DISCOURAGED — WAR APPARENTLY LEARNED FROM THE FIJIANS — FINOW’S SPEECH TO HIS SOLDIERS, AND A NEW DISCIPLINE — FATE OF THE VANQUISHED — THE DROWNED CHIEFS — CEREMONIES — KAVA-DRINKING — STRICT CODE OF ETIQUETTE — PREPARATION OF THE KAVA — A GRACEFUL PERFORMANCE — DISTRIBUTION OF THE KAVA — POINTS OF CEREMONY — A TONGAN PLANTATION — SETTING THE YAMS — CEREMONY OF INACHI — THE POLE BEARERS AND THEIR BURDEN — THE YAM PILLARS — LIFTING THE PIGS — DISTRIBUTION OF PROVISIONS, AND CONCLUSION OF THE CEREMONY — TOW-TOW, AND ITS OBJECT — PRESENTATION OF THE OFFERING — A GRAND SCRAMBLE — BOXING AND WRESTLING MATCHES — GOOD-HUMORED COMBATANTS — FIGHTS WITH CLUBS — THE SAMOAN AND TONGAN RULES.

By nature the Tongans are gentle and kind-hearted, and present a most curious mixture of mildness and courage. To judge by many traits of character, they might be stigmatized as effeminate, while by others they are shown to possess real courage, not merely the dashing and boastful bravery which is, when analyzed, merely bravado, and which is only maintained by the hope of gaining applause. The Tongan never boasts of his own courage, nor applauds that of another. When he has performed a deed of arms which would set a Fijian boasting for the rest of his life, he retires quietly into the background and says nothing about it. His king or chief may acknowledge it if they like, but he will be silent on the subject, and never refer to it.

For the same reason, he will not openly applaud a deed of arms done by one of his fellows. He will regard the man with great respect, and show by his demeanor the honor in which he holds him, but he will not speak openly on the subject. Mariner relates an instance in which a young warrior named Hali Api Api, who seems to have been the very model of a gentleman, performed a notable deed of arms, equally remarkable for courage and high-minded generosity. During a council, the king called him out, and publicly thanked him for his conduct. The man blushed deeply, as if ashamed at this public recognition of his services, saluted the king, and retired to his place without saying a word. Neither did he afterward refer either to his exploit or to the public recognition of it.

One warrior actually declared that he would go up to a loaded cannon and throw his spear into it. He fulfilled his promise to the letter. He ran up within ten or twelve yards of the gun, and, as the match was applied, threw himself on the ground, so that the shot passed over him. He then sprang up, and, in spite of the enemy’s weapons, hurled his spear at the cannon, and struck it in the muzzle. Having performed this feat, he quietly retired, and was never heard to refer to so distinguished an act of courage, though he was greatly respected for it by his countrymen.

We need not wonder that such men should establish a moral influence over the boastful but not warlike Fijians, and that the small colony established in the Fiji group should virtually be its masters. Two hundred years ago, the Tongan appears to have been ignorant of weapons and warfare, and to have borrowed his first knowledge of both from Fiji. Consequently, the Tongan weapons are practically those of Fiji, modified somewhat according to the taste of the makers but evidently derived from the same source. Captain Cook, who visited the islands in 1777, remarks that the few clubs and spears which he saw among the Tongans were of Fiji manufacture, or at least made after the Fiji pattern. Yet by a sort of poetical justice, the Tongan has turned the Fijian’s weapons against himself, and, by his superior intellect and adventurous courage, has overcome the ferocious people of whom he was formerly in dread.

Since the introduction of fire-arms, the superiority of the Tongans has made itself even more manifest, the Fijians having no idea of fighting against men who did not run away when fired at, but rushed on in spite of the weapons opposed to them.

It is possible that the Tongans may have learned this mode of fighting from Mariner and his companions. When the king Finow was about to make war upon a neighboring island, he assembled the warriors and made them an address, telling them that the system of warfare which had been previously employed was a false one. He told them no longer to advance or retreat according as they met with success or repulse, but to press forward at all risks; and, even if a man saw the point of a spear at his breast, he was not to flinch like a coward, but to press forward, and at risk of his own life to kill his foe. He also instructed them in the art of receiving the onset of the enemy with calmness, instead of indulging in cries and gesticulations, telling them to seat themselves on the ground as the enemy approached, as if perfectly unconcerned, and not to stir until ordered, even if they threw spears or shot arrows. But as soon as they got the word to advance they were to leap to their feet, and charge without regard to consequences. The reader may remember that this is exactly the strategy which was employed in Africa by the great Kaffir chief Tchaka.

It may easily be imagined how such a course of conduct would disconcert their opponents, and the Fijians in particular, with whom boasting and challenging took the place of valor. Emboldened by the apparent weakness of the enemy, they would come on in great glee, expecting to make an easy conquest, and then, just when they raised the shout of victory, they found themselves suddenly attacked with a disciplined fury which they had never been accustomed to meet, and were consequently dispersed and almost annihilated before they could well realize their position.

Though tolerably mild toward their captives, the Tongans sometimes display an unexpected ferocity. On one occasion, some of Finow’s men surprised and captured four of the enemy, whom they imagined to belong to a party who had annoyed them greatly by hanging on their track and cutting off the stragglers.

At first they wished to take the prisoners home and make an example of them, but the chief of the party suggested that they would have all the trouble of guarding them, and proposed to decapitate them, and take their heads home. One of them objected to the proposal on the ground that they had no knives, but another man, fertile in expedients, picked up some oyster-shells that were lying about, and suggested that they would answer the purpose.

It was in vain that the victims protested their innocence, and begged that at least they might be clubbed before their heads were cut off. The conquerors coolly took off their dresses to prevent them being stained with blood, and deliberately sawed off the heads of the captives with their oyster-shells; beginning at the back of the neck, and working their way gradually round. The reason for this course of action seemed to be twofold—first, that they thought they might spoil the heads by the club; and secondly, that as the heads must be cut off at all events, clubbing the captives beforehand was taking needless trouble.

Indeed, the character of the Tongan presents a curious mixture of mildness and cruelty, the latter being probably as much due to thoughtlessness as to ferocity. Once when eighteen rebels had been captured, Finow ordered them to be drowned. This punishment is inflicted by taking the prisoners out to sea, bound hand and foot, and towing some worthless canoes. When they are far enough from land, the culprits are transferred to the canoes, which are then scuttled, and left to sink. Care is taken that the holes made in the canoes are small, so that they shall be as long as possible in sinking.

On that occasion twelve of the prisoners begged to be clubbed instead of drowned, and their request was granted. The young men divided the prisoners among themselves, being anxious to take a lesson in clubbing a human being, which would serve them when they came to make use of the club against an enemy. The twelve were, accordingly, despatched with the club, but the others, being tried warriors, scorned to ask a favor, and were drowned. The leading chief among them employed the short time which was left him in uttering maledictions against Finow and his chiefs, and even when the water came up to his mouth, he threw back his head for the purpose of uttering another curse.

We will now pass to a more pleasant subject, namely, the various ceremonies in which the Tongan delights. Chief among these is the drinking of kava, which forms an important part of every public religious rite, and is often practised in private. Kava drinking is known throughout the greater part of Polynesia; but as the best and fullest account of it has been obtained from Mariner’s residence in Tonga, a description of it has been reserved for the present occasion. It must first be premised that the kava is made from the root of a tree belonging to the pepper tribe, and known by the name of Piper methysticum, i. e. the intoxicating pepper-tree. Disgusting as the preparation of the kava may be to Europeans, it is held in such high estimation by the Polynesians that it is never made or drunk without a complicated ceremony, which is the same whether the party be a large or a small one.

The people being assembled, the man of highest rank takes his place under the eaves of the house, sitting with his back to the house and his face toward the marly, or open space in front, and having a Mataboole on either side of him. Next to these Matabooles, who undertake the arrangement of the festival, sit the nobles or chiefs of highest rank, and next to them the lower chiefs, and so forth. They are not, however, very particular about the precise order in which they sit, distinctions of rank being marked by the order in which they are served.

This is the business of the presiding Matabooles, and as the distinctions of rank are most tenaciously observed, it is evident that the duties of a Mataboole are of a most difficult nature, and can only be learned by long and constant practice. If the men sat according to their rank, nothing would be easier than the task of serving them in order. But it often happens that a man of high rank happens to come late, and, as he is too polite to disturb those of lower rank who have already taken their places, he sits below them, knowing that his rank will be recognized at the proper time.

It mostly happens, however, that when one of the presiding Matabooles sees a man occupying a place much below that to which his rank entitles him, he makes some one surrender his place to him, or even turns out altogether a man who is seated in a high place, and puts the chief into it. The people thus gradually extend themselves into a ring, sometimes single, but often several ranks deep when the party is a large one, every one of the members being a man of some recognized rank. Behind those who form the bottom of the ring opposite the presiding chief, sit the general public, who may be several thousand in number. It is a remarkable fact, illustrating the rigid code of etiquette which prevails among the Tongans, that no one can sit in the inner ring if a superior relative be also in it; and, no matter how high may be his rank, he must leave his place, and sit in the outer circle, if his father or any superior relative enters the inner ring.

This ring, which constitutes the essential kava party, is formed mostly of the sons of chiefs and Matabooles, and it often happens that their fathers, even if they be chiefs of the highest rank, will sit in the outer ring, rather than disturb its arrangements. Even the son of the king often adopts this plan, and assists in preparing the kava like any of the other young men.

Exactly opposite to the king is placed the kava bowl, and behind it sits the man who is to prepare the drink. On either side of him sits an assistant, one of whom carries a fan wherewith to drive away the flies, and another takes charge of the water, which is kept in cocoa-nut shells. The rank of the preparer is of no consequence. Sometimes he is a Mooa or gentleman, and sometimes a mere cook; but, whoever he may be, he is known to be able to perform his difficult task with sufficient strength and elegance.

All being ready, one of the presiding Matabooles sends for the kava root, which is then scraped quite clean and cut up into small pieces. These are handed to the young men or even to the young women present, who masticate the root, contriving in some ingenious way to keep it quite dry during the process. It is then wrapped in a leaf, and passed to the preparer, who places it in the bowl, carefully lining the interior with the balls of chewed root, so that the exact quantity can be seen.

When all the kava has been chewed and deposited, the preparer tilts the bowl toward the presiding chief, who consults with his Matabooles, and if he thinks there is not enough, orders the bowl to be covered over, and sends for more kava, which is treated as before. Should he be satisfied, the preparer kneads all the kava together, and the Mataboole then calls for water, which is poured into the bowl until he orders the man to stop. Next comes the order to put in the fow. This is a bundle of very narrow strips of bark of a tree belonging to the genus hibiscus, and it has been compared to the willow shavings that are used in England to decorate fire-places in the summer time. The assistant takes a quantity of this material, and lays it on the water, spreading it carefully, so that it lies equally on the surface of the liquid. Now begins the important part of the proceeding which tests the power of the preparer.

“In the first place, he extends his left hand to the farther side of the bowl, with his fingers pointing downward and the palm toward himself; he sinks that hand carefully down the side of the bowl, carrying with it the edge of the fow; at the same time his right hand is performing a similar operation at the side next to him, the fingers pointing downward and the palm presenting outward. He does this slowly from side to side, gradually descending deeper and deeper till his fingers meet each other at the bottom, so that nearly the whole of the fibres of the root are by these means enclosed in the fow, forming as it were a roll of above two feet in length lying along the bottom from side to side, the edges of the fow meeting each other underneath.

THE KAVA PARTY.
(See [page 989].)

“He now carefully rolls it over, so that the edges overlapping each other, or rather intermingling, come uppermost. He next doubles in the two ends and rolls it carefully over again, endeavoring to reduce it to a narrower and firmer compass. He now brings it cautiously out of the fluid, taking firm hold of it by the two ends, one in each hand (the back of his hands being upward), and raising it breast high with his arms considerably extended, he brings his right hand toward his breast, moving it gradually onward; and whilst his left hand is coming round toward his right shoulder, his right hand partially twisting the fow, lays the end which it holds upon the left elbow, so that the fow lies thus extended upon that arm, one end being still grasped by the left hand.

“The right hand being at liberty is brought under the left fore-arm (which still remains in the same situation), and carried outwardly toward the left elbow, that it may again seize in that situation the end of the fow. The right hand then describes a bold curve outwardly from the chest, whilst the left comes across the chest, describing a curve nearer to him and in the opposite direction, till at length the left hand is extended from him and the right hand approaches to the left shoulder, gradually twisting the fow by the turn and flexures principally of that wrist: this double motion is then retraced, but in such a way (the left wrist now principally acting) that the fow, instead of being untwisted, is still more twisted, and is at length again placed on the left arm, while he takes a new and less constrained hold.

“Thus the hands and arms perform a variety of curves of the most graceful description: the muscles both of the arms and chest are seen rising as they are called into action, displaying what would be a fine and uncommon subject of study for the painter: for no combinations of animal action can develop the swell and play of the muscles with more grace and better effect.

“The degree of strength which he exerts when there is a large quantity is very great, and the dexterity with which he accomplishes the whole never fails to excite the attention and admiration of all present. Every tongue is mute, and every eye is upon him, watching each motion of his arms as they describe the various curvilinear lines essential to the success of the operation. Sometimes the fibres of the fow are heard to crack with the increasing tension, yet the mass is seen whole and entire, becoming more thin as it becomes more twisted, while the infusion drains from it in a regularly decreasing quantity till at length it denies a single drop.”

The [illustration] on the preceding page represents this portion of the ceremony. On the right hand is seen the presiding chief seated under the eaves of the house, with a Mataboole on either side of him, and just beyond him extends a portion of the inner ring. In front of the chief sits the performer, who is wringing out the kava, and is just about to change the grasp of his right hand, according to Mariner’s description. On either side sit his assistants, both of whom are engaged in fanning away the flies.

Near them lie the cocoa-nut shells from which the water has been poured. Beyond the inner ring are seen the outer rings and the general population, who have come to witness the ceremony and get their chance of a stray cup of kava or some food.

When the fow ceases to give out any more fluid, a second and third are used in the same manner, so that not a particle of the root remains in the liquid. Should more fow or water be wanted, an order is given, and twenty or thirty men rush off for it, going and returning at full speed, as if running for their lives; and anything else that may be wanted is fetched in the same manner.

While the operator is going through his task, those who are in the outer circle and cannot properly see him occupy themselves in making cups from which the kava can be drunk. These cups are made of the unexpanded leaves of the banana tree, cut up into squares of about nine inches across. The cups are made in a most ingenious manner by plaiting up the two ends and tying them with a fibre drawn from the stem of the leaf. The Mataboole then orders provisions to be served out, which is done in an orderly manner. To the general assembly this is the most interesting part of the ceremony, for they have but little chance of getting any kava, and it is very likely that they will have a share of food, as the regular kava drinkers never eat more than a morsel or two at these entertainments.

The operator having done his part, now comes the test of the Mataboole’s efficiency. The kava is to be distributed in precisely the proper order, a slip in this respect being sure to give deep offence. Should a visitor of rank be present, he gets the first cup, the presiding Mataboole the second, and the presiding chief the third. If, however, the kava be given by one of the guests, the donor always has the first cup, unless there should be a visitor of superior rank to himself, in which case the donor is ignored altogether, only having the kava according to his rank. No person is allowed to have two cups from the same bowl, but after all the inner circle and their relatives are served, the remainder is given out to the people as far as it will go, and a second bowl is prepared. It will be seen that, if the preparer be a man of low rank, he stands a chance of never tasting the liquid which he has so skilfully prepared.

The second bowl is prepared in precisely the same way as the first, except that the second presiding Mataboole gives the orders; and, if a third or fourth bowl be ordered, they take the direction alternately. When the second bowl is prepared, the cups are filled and handed round in exactly the same order as before, so that those of high rank get three or four cups, and those of lower rank only one, or perhaps none at all.

It is a point of etiquette that no chief ever visits the kava party of an inferior chief, as in that case the latter would be obliged to retire from the presidency and sit in the outer ring. When the Tooi-tonga presides, no one presumes to sit within six feet of him; and if perchance an inspired priest be present, he takes the presidency, and the greatest chief, or even the king himself, is obliged to retire into the outer ring on such occasions. A priest always presides at religious ceremonies, and the kava party is held in front of the temple dedicated to the particular god which they are about to consult. But in some cases a god has no priest, and in those cases he is supposed to preside in person, though invisibly, the president’s place being left vacant for him.

The reader will see from the foregoing account that kava is a luxury practically confined to the higher classes. The great chiefs and Matabooles drink it every day, either as presidents or members of the inner ring. Those of lower rank obtain it occasionally; while the Tooas seldom taste this luxury, except by taking the kava after it has been wrung by the operator, and preparing it afresh.

As the reader will see, it is impossible to separate the secular and religious life of the Tongans. They are inextricably woven together, and therefore must be described together. There are a vast number of ceremonies in which these two elements are united, one or two of which will be described, by way of sample of the rest. The first is the festival of Ináchi, a feast of firstfruits, a ceremony which in principle is found throughout the whole earth, though the details necessarily differ. In the present case, the offering is made to the Tooi-tonga, as being at once the descendant and representative of the gods.

About the latter end of July the ordinary yams are planted in the ground; but those which are intended for the feast of Ináchi are of a different kind, coming to maturity earlier, and are planted about a month sooner. In an [illustration] on the next page we may see how the yams are set in the ground, and may get a good idea of a Tongan plantation. In the centre of the foreground is the chief to whom the plantation belongs, accompanied by his little boy. As is usual with men of rank in Tonga, he bears in his hand a short, many-barbed spear, which may either be used as a walking staff or as a weapon. The former is its normal use, but the chiefs sometimes find the advantage of having with them a serviceable weapon. The point of the spear is frequently armed with the barbed tail-bone of the sting-ray. When Finow captured by craft the rebel chief whose death by drowning has already been described, his chief difficulty was the bone-tipped spear which the chief always carried with him, and of which he was temporarily deprived by a stratagem.

One of his laborers is talking to him, having in his hand the hoe with which he has been making holes in the ground for the reception of the yams. Behind him are more laborers, employed in cutting the yams in pieces, and planting them in the holes. Just beyond the yam plantation is a piece of ground stocked with sugar-canes; and beyond the sugar-canes is the house of the chief, known by the superiority of its architecture. The house is built near the sea-shore, and close to the beach a canoe is seen hauled up on its support.

The greater part of the [illustration] is occupied with the ingenious spiked fence within which the storehouses and dwellings for the Tooas, or peasants, are placed. As may be seen, it has no doors, but at intervals the fence is only half the usual height and without spikes, and is crossed by means of stiles, two of which are given in the illustration, one to show the exterior and the other the interior of the fence. Close to the further stile is a young tree, surrounded with a fencing to the height of several feet, in order to guard it, while growing, from the attacks of pigs and children.

The open shed is one of the peasants’ houses, under which are seated a number of women, employed in making mats; while some children are playing and fowls feeding by them. Toward the further end of the enclosure is shown one of the storehouses.

As soon as the yams are ripe, the king sends a message to the Tooi-tonga, asking him to fix a day for the ceremony, which is generally settled to be on the tenth day after the request is made, so that time may be given for notice to be sent to all the islands. The day before the ceremony of Ináchi, the yams are dug up and ornamented with scarlet streamers made of the inner membrane of the pandanus leaf. These are in long and narrow strips, and are woven spirally over the yams, first in one direction and then the other, so as to produce a neat checkered pattern, and having the ends hanging loose.

All through the night is heard the sound of the conch shell, and until midnight the men and women answered each other in a song, the men singing, “Rest, doing no work,” and the women responding, “Thou shalt not work.” About midnight the song ceases; but it is resumed at daybreak, and continues until about eight A. M., accompanied with plenty of conch blowing. The prohibition of work is so imperative, that the people are not even allowed to leave their houses, except for the purpose of assisting in the ceremony.

(1.) TONGAN PLANTATION.
(See [page 990].)

(2.) CEREMONY OF INACHI.
(See [page 993].)

At eight A. M. the ceremony of Ináchi really begins, the people crowding from different parts of the Tooi-tonga’s island toward the capital town, and canoes approaching in all directions from other islands. All are in their very best, with new clothes and ribbons; while the men carry their most beautiful spears and clubs. Each party carries the yams in baskets, which are taken to the marly, or large central space of the village, and there laid down with great ceremony. In the marly are ready laid a number of poles, eight or nine feet in length, and four inches in diameter, and upon them the men sling the yams, only one yam being hung to the middle of each pole.

Meanwhile the great chiefs and Matabooles have gone to the grave of the last Tooi-tonga, should it happen to be on the island, or, should he have been buried on another island, the grave of any of his family answers the purpose. They sit there in a semicircle before the grave, their heads bowed and their hands clasped, waiting for the procession, which presently arrives.

First come two boys blowing conch shells, and advancing with a slow and solemn step; and behind them come a vast number of men with the yams. Each pole is carried by two men, one at each end, and, as they walk, they sink at every step, as if overcome with the weight of their burden. This is to signify that the yams are of such a size that the bearers can hardly carry them, and is a sort of symbolized thanksgiving to the gods for so fine a prospect of harvest. As the men come to the grave, they lay the poles and yams on it, and seat themselves in order before the grave, so that they form a line between the chiefs and the yams.

This part of the ceremony is shown in the [lower illustration], on the 991st page. In the foreground are seated the chiefs and Matabooles, with their clubs and spears, while the procession of pole bearers is seen winding along from the far distance. Two of them have already laid their yams and poles before the grave, and have seated themselves between the grave and the circle of chiefs, while others are just depositing their burdens on the same sacred spot. Standing by them are the two boys who headed the procession, still blowing busily at their conch-shell trumpets. In the distance, and on the left hand of the illustration, may be seen the people seated in numbers on the ground.

One of the Tooi-tonga’s Matabooles then sits between the pole bearers and the grave and makes an oration, in which he gives thanks to the gods for their bounty, and asks for a continuance of it to their offspring, the Tooi-tonga. He then retires to his former place, the men take up their poles, and after marching several times round the grave, they return to the marly and again deposit their loads, this time untying the yams from the poles, but leaving the colored streamers upon them.

Here the whole of the people seat themselves in a large circle, at which the Tooi-tonga presides, even the king himself retiring, and sitting in the back ranks. Next the remainder of the offerings are brought forward, consisting of mats, gnatoo, dried fish, and various kinds of food. These are divided by one of the Tooi-tonga’s Matabooles into four equal parts. One of these goes to the gods, and is at once taken away by the servants of the different priests, and the remainder is shared by the Tooi-tonga and the king, the latter, although of inferior rank, getting the larger portion, because he has four times as many dependents to feed. The proceedings are wound up with the kava drinking, which always accompanies such ceremonies. While the infusion is being prepared, the presiding Mataboole makes a speech to the people, explaining the right that has just been concluded, and advising them to pay due honor to the gods and their representative the Tooi-tonga.

When this great potentate dies, there is a most extravagant feast, which often reduces the people to a state of semi-starvation for a long time, and sometimes threatens an actual famine. In such a case, the tapu is laid upon hogs, cocoa-nuts, and fowls for seven or eight months, or even longer, during which time none but the great chiefs are allowed to touch them. Two or three plantations are always exempted, so that there may be a supply for the great chiefs and for the various religious ceremonies. At the expiration of the stated period, if the crops look well, and the pigs and fowls have increased in due proportion, the tapu is taken off with very great ceremony.

One of these ceremonies was seen by Mariner at the Hapai Islands, and a very strange rite it turned out to be. It was held on two marlies, one belonging to the Tooi-tonga and the other to the king. As if to compensate for the limited diet of the previous month, food was piled in abundance. On the Tooi-tonga’s marly were erected four square hollow pillars, about four feet in diameter, and made of four poles connected with matting. These were about fifty or sixty feet in height, and each of them was crowned with a baked hog.

The king’s marly, which was about a quarter of a mile from the other, was equally well supplied with food, only in this case the yams were placed in wooden cars or sledges, and nearly four hundred half-baked hogs were laid on the ground. The king having arrived, and the signal given for beginning the proceedings, the young chiefs and warriors tried successively to lift the largest hog, and at last, when all had failed, it was lifted by two men and taken to the other marly. “In the meantime the trial was going on with the second hog, which, being also found too heavy for one man, was carried away by two in like manner, and so on with the third, fourth, &c., the largest being carried away first, and the least last.

“The second, third, fourth, &c., afforded more sport than the others, as being a nearer counterbalance with a man’s strength. Sometimes he had got it neatly upon his shoulder, when his greasy burden slipped through his arms, and, in his endeavor to save it, brought him down after it. It is an honor to attempt these things, and even the king sometimes puts his hand to it.”

The next part of the proceedings was the carrying twenty of the largest hogs to the late Tooi-tonga’s grave, and leaving them there, while the rest, together with the other provisions, were shared among the chiefs, who in their turn distributed them to their followers, until every man in the island gets a piece of pork and yam. The four great columns of yams were given, one to the king, another to the Tooi-tonga, the third to the Veachi and one or two of the very great chiefs, and the fourth to the gods. The Tooi-tonga also took the cars of yams as a matter of tacit though unacknowledged right. Kava drinking, dancing, and wrestling concluded the ceremony; and as soon as the circle broke up, the tapu was considered as annulled.

The twenty large hogs which were laid on the grave were left there for several days; but as soon as they showed signs of putridity, they were cut up, and divided among all who chose to apply for a share of the meat. By right they belonged to the chiefs, but as they were able to procure fresh pork for themselves, they preferred to forego their right, and divide the tainted meat among the people.

The ceremony of Mo’ee-mo’ee, or taking off the tapu contracted by touching a chief, has already been mentioned. The tapu is even contracted by eating in the presence of a superior relation; but there is a conventional way of getting rid of this tapu by simply turning the back upon the superior, who is then considered as not being ceremonially in the presence of the inferior. Should a man think that he may have contracted the tapu unwittingly, he will not dare to feed himself until he has gone to some chief, whose foot he takes and presses it against his stomach. This rite is called the Fota, or pressing. Any chief can take away the tapu contracted by touching an equal or inferior, but has no power over that of a superior. Consequently, no one but himself can take away the Tooi-tonga’s tapu; and this proved so inconvenient that whenever the potentate went from his house, he left behind him a consecrated bowl as his representative, and this was held to be equally powerful in removing the tapu. The Veachi adopted a similar plan. It is a remarkable fact that kava is exempt from all tapu, so that if even the Tooi-tonga has touched a piece of kava root, the lowest cook may chew it.

There is a ceremony which in principle somewhat resembles that of Ináchi, though it is conducted after a very different manner. Just as the Ináchi is an offering to the gods in general through the Tooi-tonga, so is this ceremony, which is called the Tow-tow, a special thanksgiving to Alo-Alo, the god of weather. It is begun in the early part of November, when the yams are ripe, and is continued for some three months, at intervals of eight or ten days.

All the islands of Tonga are divided into three distinct portions, namely, the northern division, or Hahagi, the southern division, or Hihifo, and the middle division, or Mooa. Each of these divisions has orders to prepare a certain amount of food, such as yams, cocoa-nuts, and the like, and to bring them to the marly. The correct mode of doing so is to bring them on sticks, so that each stick has upon it seven or eight yams, or a bunch of plantains, or a quantity of bananas. If sugar-canes form part of the offering, they are tied in bundles of three or four in each: and all the offerings, no matter what they may be, are piled up in three great heaps, one being erected by the people of each district.

This being done, and a few preliminary matches of boxing and wrestling played, after about three hours a small procession appears, composed of eight or ten men sent by the priest of Alo-Alo, and accompanied by a young girl about eight or nine years old, who represents the god’s wife. She is always the daughter of a chief, and generally of one of the highest chiefs, and, during the eighty days of the ceremony, she resides at the temple of Alo-Alo. She has nothing particular to do, except presiding at one or two feasts and kava parties.

The men are all dressed in mats, and have green leaves tied round their necks. This is the dress of humility and sorrow, and is employed in times of mourning for the dead and supplication for mercy. When they have arrived, they seat themselves in a line, having in front of them a great drum, which is kept for this special purpose. They then offer their prayers to Alo-Alo, begging for propitious weather and good crops, and after these prayers are concluded two of the piles of provisions are carried off by the chiefs, and the third is set aside for the gods. Suddenly the great drum is beaten, on which a general dash is made at the pile of food, every one scrambling for the provisions, and getting as much as he can. There is not the least order in the scramble, and the scene is a most exciting one, the yams being torn from the sticks, and the sticks smashed to pieces, while the sugar-canes are broken up into fragments. Thus the gods are fed vicariously.

The women keep prudently out of the way during this struggle, and stand aside to watch the chief and concluding ceremony. This is nothing more than a general fight. The inhabitants of the island arrange themselves in two divisions, one half fighting against the other. All engage in this battle, the highest chiefs as well as the lowest cooks taking part in it. There is no respect of persons, the king, or even the Tooi-tonga himself, being assaulted without compunction, and handled as roughly as any of the common people.

Severe as is the fighting, it is all conducted with the greatest good humor, and no one displays a sign of ill-temper at the injury which he receives. If a man is knocked down, he gets up with a smile; if his arm is broken, he retires from the battle and has it set, but he never thinks of complaining. The same system is observed in the boxing and wrestling matches of which the Tongans are so fond.

In wrestling matches, for example, it is not thought polite for any one man to challenge another; he ought to give a general challenge, by striking with the right hand the bent elbow of the opposite arm. If the challenge be accepted, the antagonists meet very leisurely, and take care to fasten tightly the gnatoo belt that surrounds the waist. They grasp the belt with a hand on each side, and endeavor to throw their antagonist by lifting him from the ground and flinging him on his back. The vanquished man rises and retires to his place among the spectators without showing any displeasure. Only in one case did Mariner know a man display ill-feeling at being beaten, and in that instance the man, although a chief, was looked upon as an ill-bred fellow.

The victor seats himself on the ground for a few seconds, and then retires to his place, his friends belonging to his own side singing, or rather chanting, a song of victory. After a short time he again rises and offers another challenge, and if it be accepted by several antagonists, he may select one from them. If they find that they are equally matched, they leave off by mutual consent; and sometimes, if a man encounters a chief much superior to him, he will generally yield out of respect to the other’s rank. This only takes place in single combat, not in the general fight of the Tow-tow festival.

Boxing is conducted on similar principles of fair play. The challenger proceeds into the middle of the ring, holding one arm stretched out in front and the other behind, and advances sideways, changing sides at every step. When the challenge is accepted, both combatants wrap a piece of cord round their hands and proceed to blows, which are given with great force and rapidity. When one is vanquished, he retires with apparent unconcern to the ring, and sits to watch the combats of others, knowing that to be vanquished is not considered a disgrace. When the victor returns to his people, they welcome him, but do not sing the chant of victory unless he has knocked his antagonist down. Falling is on these occasions considered as equivalent to being killed in real battle, and, in consequence, the song of victory is not sung unless the antagonist has fallen to the ground. If a man be beaten in wrestling, he may not wrestle a second time in the same day, though he may box, and vice versâ.

In the ceremony of Tow-tow, these scrambling, boxing, and wrestling matches are carried on every tenth day, and are repeated eight times, so as to make up the eighty days of the festival. After each battle, those who have touched a superior chief come to be relieved of the tapu which they have contracted by touching him. Even the Tooi-tonga, whose nose has been flattened, his teeth knocked out, and his face pounded to a jelly by a mere peasant, over whom he has supreme command of life and death, performs the needful ceremony with perfect good humor.

The [illustration No. 1], on the 999th page, represents the concluding scene of this ceremony. In the foreground are seen the two contending parties, one of which is beginning to get the victory over the other. In the centre of the illustration, and on the left, are the fragments of the food-piles, with a few men still scrambling for them, and in the distance the women are seated under the trees, watching the progress of the fight.

Fighting is not confined to the men, but is practised also by the women, who on this occasion lay aside the ordinary gentleness and mildness for which they are remarkable. When Captain Cook visited Tonga, he was much surprised to see the girls step into the ring and box with as much spirit and determination as had been shown by the men. They do not, however, carry the combat to such extremes, and if one of them does not speedily yield, the combatants are parted by the elder women. Even the merest children box after a similar fashion, the little girls knocking each other about with hearty good-will as long as they are allowed to fight.

On one occasion, Finow ordered that all the women who were seated as spectators should engage in a general fight, after the manner of the men. They seemed nothing loth, and all the women who lived on the north of the island fought against those who lived on the south side. Nearly fifteen hundred women engaged on each side, and fought with the greatest courage for more than an hour, both parties contending with such determination that neither could gain a foot of ground; and at last Finow ordered them to desist, seeing that several ankles had been sprained and limbs broken.

Besides boxing and wrestling matches, the Tongans have club fights on great occasions. As with the other matches, the combatants are divided into two parties, one being seated opposite to the other, with a considerable space of ground between them.

When all is ready, a man jumps up, runs to the people of the opposite side, and sits down in front of them, asking if any of them will fight him. As in the boxing and wrestling matches, to challenge a particular opponent is bad manners. If the challenge be accepted, the combatants walk to the middle of the ring, each attended by his second, and then settle whether they shall fight after the Tongan or Samoan manner. The former mode does not allow a man to strike an antagonist after he is knocked down, but only to flourish his club over him in token of victory. By the latter mode he is allowed to beat the fallen man as long as he shows signs of life. When the fight is over, the men on the side of the victor chant their song of triumph, and the conqueror advances to the king, sits down before him in token of respect, and then rises and returns to his own party. On one of these occasions, the young prince fought no less than fourteen battles, and was victorious in every one of them.

CHAPTER CI.
TONGA—Concluded.
SICKNESS—BURIAL—GAMES.

SACRIFICE OF THE FINGER, AND MODE OF OPERATING — SACRIFICE OF CHILDREN — CONSULTING THE GODS — MODES OF INSPIRATION — SACRIFICE OF WIVES — FINOW’S GOOD SENSE — SUPPOSED CAUSES OF DEATH — FINOW’S FUNERAL — CUTTING THE HEAD — OPENING AND CLOSING THE VAULT — DRESSING THE GRAVE — APPOINTMENT OF A SUCCESSOR — CONCLUDING CEREMONIES — IDEAS OF RELIGION — VARIOUS SPORTS AND GAMES — RAT SHOOTING AND BIRD CATCHING — FINOW AND THE DECOY BIRD — BALL PLAY — A DANGEROUS STAKE, AND HONORABLE PAYMENT — THE LOVER’S CAVE, AND A NATIVE LEGEND.

As might be expected, various ceremonies take place with regard to sickness and burial.

If any one is ill, the inferior relations cut off a joint of the little finger as an offering to the gods. Sometimes a whole joint is taken off at once, but those who have many superior relations remove only a portion, so that they may be able to offer the sacrifice several times. In consequence of this superstition, there is scarcely a person in Tonga who has not lost a considerable portion of the little finger of one or both hands.

The mode of amputating the finger is simple enough. It is laid upon a flat block of wood, and the edge of a knife or axe, or even a sharp stone, placed on it. A smart blow is given with a mallet, and the stump, which bleeds but little in consequence of the nature of the operation, is held over the smoke of fresh grass, so as to check any after bleeding. No application is made to it, and in a week or two it heals without trouble. The Tongans do not seem to fear this operation, and even little children may be seen quarrelling with each other for the honor of having it performed upon them.

Should the illness take an unfavorable turn, instead of a mere finger, a child is offered to the gods by being strangled. For example, when Finow fell ill of the malady from which he died, and was apparently sinking, his eldest son took a young child of the king’s from its mother’s lap, strangled it, and offered it to the gods at various consecrated houses. The people look with the greatest compassion on the poor little victim, but think that it is right to sacrifice a little child who at present is useless to the community, and may not live to be of service, so that they may obtain in exchange the life of a chief who is needed by his people.

Such a sacrifice is sometimes made on other occasions, when the anger of some god is to be averted. In Tonga there are several sacred places, in which to spill blood is a sacrilege, so that they serve the purpose of cities of refuge. Once a chief named Palavali was pursuing some men, who ran for refuge to the nearest sacred spot. One of them was just getting over the fence, when Palavali, in the heat of the moment, struck him on the head, so that he fell dead within the enclosure. As soon as he had done the deed he was filled with fear, and reported what he had done to Finow, who consulted a priest. The priest, becoming inspired, said that a child must be sacrificed to the gods, and the chiefs, after holding a consultation, agreed that they should sacrifice a child of one of their own number by a female attendant. Such children are always selected, for two reasons; firstly, because the child of a chief is held to be a worthy sacrifice, and secondly, because, as its mother is of inferior rank, it could never live to be a chief.

The mother, knowing the custom, took alarm, and hid the child, but it was at last found by the men who were sent to search for it. The rest must be told in Mariner’s words. “Its poor mother wanted to follow, but was held back by those about her. On hearing its mother’s voice it began to cry, but when it arrived at the fatal place of execution, it was pleased and delighted with the band of gnatoo that was put round its neck, and, looking up in the face of the man who was about to destroy it, displayed in its beautiful countenance a smile of ineffable pleasure.

“Such a sight inspired pity in the heart of every one; but adoration and fear of the gods was a sentiment superior to any other, and its destroyer could not help exclaiming, as he put on the fatal bandage, ‘O yaooé chi vale!’ (‘Poor little innocent!’) Two men then tightened the cord by pulling at each end, and the guiltless and unsuspecting victim was soon relieved of its painful struggles. The body was then placed upon a sort of hand-barrow, supported upon the shoulders of four men, and carried in a procession of priests, chiefs, and Matabooles clothed in mats, with wreaths of green leaves round their necks.

“In this manner it was conveyed to various houses consecrated to different gods, before each of which it was placed on the ground, all the company sitting behind it, except one priest, who sat beside it, and prayed aloud to the god that he would be pleased to accept of this sacrifice as an atonement for the heinous sacrilege committed, and that punishment might accordingly be withheld from the people. After this was done before all the consecrated houses in the fortress, the body was given up to its relations, to be buried in the usual manner.”

This particular case had a strange termination. Four or five days after the sacrifice, Palavali went on a foraging excursion at the head of a body of men who were not tried soldiers, and met with a smaller body of real warriors. In a very short time Palavali’s men began to run, and it was in vain that he tried to rally them. At last, in boldly facing the enemy to set his men an example, he received four spears in his body, and fell. This sight angered his men so much that they charged the enemy, drove them back, and rescued their dying chief. They were proceeding to draw out the spears, but he told them that it would be useless, as the gods had doomed him for his sacrilege, and he must die. His prognostication was correct, for he died half an hour after the battle.

When a priest is consulted on any subject—say, on the sickness of any one—a carefully regulated ceremony is performed. On the previous night a hog is killed and prepared, and taken to the place where the priest lives, together with plantains, yams, and kava root. Next day they all go to the patient’s house, and there seat themselves in order, the priest taking his place just within the eaves, if the appointed spot be a house. Opposite to the priest is the kava bowl, and around him sit the Matabooles as usual; but on this occasion the chiefs always mix with the people, or even sit behind them, thinking that such retiring and humble behavior is pleasing to the gods.

From the moment that all are seated, the god is supposed to take possession of the priest, who sits silently with his hands clasped in front of him, his head bowed, and his eyes bent on the ground. The kava being prepared, the required questions are put to him. Sometimes he answers them at once, but very often he remains in silence until all the provisions are eaten and the kava drunk. When he does speak, it is in a low, constrained voice, generally above its natural pitch, the words being supposed to be the utterances of the god through him without his volition. In some cases he is quite calm and quiet while delivering his answers, but at others his face becomes inflamed, his eyes seem ready to start from their sockets, tears pour from his eyes, and his words issue in broken sobs and gasps.

This paroxysm lasts for some time, and then gradually subsides. As it is passing away, he takes up a club which is placed near him for the purpose, gazes at it attentively, and then looks round, apparently without seeing the object at which he looks—“his eyes are open, but their sense is shut.” Suddenly he raises the club, and dashes it violently on the ground, at which instant the god is supposed to leave his votary, who immediately rises and leaves the place of honor, retiring to the back of the ring among the people. The man of highest rank present then takes the place of honor, and more kava is served.

When a priest is consulted on behalf of a sick person, the inspiration retains its hold as long as the patient is in his presence, and in some cases the inspiration lasts for several days. If one priest cannot find a cure, the patient is taken to another, and so on, until he either recovers or dies.

The [illustration No. 2], on the next page, represents a consultation of the priest respecting a sick child. In the foreground are the provisions and the presents brought to the priest, and in the centre is the kava bowl. On the right is the priest, seated in a state of inspiration, with crossed hands and bowed head, listening to the questions which are being put by the Mataboole. The mother of the child is seen with the infant in her arms, and around are members of her family, all wearing coarse mats instead of fine gnatoo, and having round their necks the leaves which denote humility.

Other persons beside chiefs become inspired, generally by the spirits of those whom they had known in life. The eldest son of Finow, who afterward succeeded to the throne, used to be inspired by a great chief who had been murdered by his father and another chief. Mariner asked him what were his feelings on such occasions, and he replied that he felt restless and uncomfortable, and all over in a glow of heat, and that his mind did not seem to be his own. When asked how he knew the name of the spirit who then visited him, he answered that he could not tell—he knew it intuitively, but could give no explanation.

(1.) THE TOW-TOW.
(See [page 995].)

(2.) CONSULTING A PRIEST.
(See [page 998].)

While Mariner was in the Tonga Islands, a young chief, remarkable for his beauty, became inspired to such a degree that he fainted, and was taken to the house of a priest, who told him that the spirit was that of a young woman who had died two years before, and was now in Bolotoo the Tonga heaven. She inspired him because she wished for him as a husband in Bolotoo, and would soon take him there. The young chief acknowledged the truth of the exposition, saying that for several nights he had been visited in his sleep by a young woman, and had suspected that she was the person who inspired him. Two days after he was taken ill and died. Mariner was present when the priest gave his explanation of the illness.

Shortly before Mariner was at the Tonga Islands, a still graver form of human sacrifice was practised than that of a child.

When the Tooi-tonga died, his chief widow was strangled on the day of the funeral, and buried in the same grave with him, just as is the case in Fiji, whence in all probability, the Tongans borrowed the practice. Comparatively short as was Mariner’s stay two Tooi-tongas died; but in neither case was this terrible rite observed. In the one case there happened to be no chief wife, all his wives being so equal in rank that neither of them ruled the household; and, in consequence a selection of a victim became impossible. In the second case the chief wife was the daughter of Finow, who said openly, that if the husband were to die first, his daughter should not be strangled, for that to destroy a young and beautiful woman because her husband had died was inflicting a double loss upon the community. As it happened, the Tooi-tonga did not die until after the elder Finow was dead and had been succeeded by his son, who not only carried out his father’s wishes on that subject, but would not allow another Tooi-tonga to succeed; thus abolishing the source of the only rank that was superior to him.

The Tooi-tonga being abolished, it necessarily follows that the ceremony of Ináchi was abolished too, and but for the fact of Mariner’s enforced residence in Tonga, this curious and interesting ceremony would have passed away without being known to European civilization.

Mariner was present at the wedding of Finow’s daughter to the Tooi-tonga, and describes it with some minuteness. It much resembled a Fijian wedding, except in the costume of the bride, who was first copiously anointed with cocoa-nut oil scented with sandal-wood, and then arrayed in a vast number of the finest Samoan mats, which were wrapped round her in such quantities that her arms were stuck out almost horizontally from her body, and her legs were so much trammelled that she could not sit down, but had to rest in a bent attitude upon her attendants.

She was eighteen at the time. Had it not been for the good sense of Finow, Mariner would have seen within a very short time her wedding, her murder, and her burial. The technical name for the ceremony of strangling is Nawgía.

We now come naturally to the subject of funerals, and will take as a typical example the funeral of the elder Finow.

Almost immediately after the death and burial of his favorite daughter, a child about seven years of age, Finow fell ill, his malady having been increased by the exertions which he made during the long ceremony of the funeral. It was on this occasion that he ordered the women to box in general combat. On the evening of that day Finow retired to a small house that had just been built for him, and was seized with a violent illness, which almost deprived him of the power of speech, though not of intellect. He evidently knew that his end was at hand, and continually muttered “My country! my country!” evidently feeling that calamities might come on his land if he were suddenly taken away.

A child was offered on behalf of him, which had already been selected, but, by the time that the sacrificing party had come back to the house where the king lay, he had lost both his speech and his consciousness, and in a few minutes the great and wise Finow had departed this life. When his death was ascertained, a curious ceremony was performed. The body was carried to the Tooi-tonga’s house, and placed on the hole in which the cooks were accustomed to light their fires. This was a symbolical expression of humility and submission to the gods, the cooking place being so degraded a spot that only the lowest Tooas would condescend to touch it.

Not only the king himself, but all those in his confidence, fully believed that his death was caused by a god named Toobo Totai, to whom he had prayed in vain for his daughter’s recovery. In revenge for the negligence of the god, Finow had made arrangements for killing his priest, and had been heard to say that if Toobo Totai did not change his conduct, and exert himself a little more, his priest should not live long. Finow’s sudden death put a stop to this project, which was only known to one or two of his immediate friends. It is not unlikely that the threatened priest may have heard of his intended assassination, and saved himself by getting a dose of poison administered to Finow at the funeral banquet.

Finow was right in his prognostications of trouble, for no sooner was his death known than a number of the principal chiefs of different islands began to assemble their forces, with the intention of seizing on the throne. His successor, however, inherited his father’s wisdom, and took such precautions that the attempt of the conspirators was quietly foiled.

After the royal corpse was brought back from the Tooi-tonga’s dwelling, it was laid on bales of gnatoo in the large conical house, which was nearly filled with women, who kept up a continual lamentation, led by his daughter, a beautiful girl of fifteen. Even by night the lamentations went on, the house being lighted up with lamps made of cocoa-nut shells half filled with cocoa-nut oil, which is only used on such occasions; and on the following morning the people assembled on the marly to take part in the obsequies of their late king, whom they both loved and feared. Indeed, among savage nations, there is no love toward a chief who is not thoroughly feared.

By this time the faces of the principal mourners were scarcely recognizable, being swollen and disfigured by the repeated blows which they had inflicted on themselves as signs of sorrow. The chiefs and Matabooles who were especially attached to the person or household of the deceased king proceeded to inflict even severer injuries upon themselves, using the club, or shell, or a sharp stone; and running two or three at a time into the open space, while they cut their heads with the clubs and shells so that the blood poured down their bodies in streams; as they did so, they uttered a sort of dirge, some specimens of which have been given by Mariner. The following is his translation of the death chant and accompanying proceedings.

“‘Finow, I know well your mind; you have departed to Bolotoo, and left your people, under suspicion that I or some of those about you are unfaithful; but where is the proof of infidelity? where is a single instance of disrespect?’ Then inflicting violent blows and deep cuts in the head with a club, stone, or knife, would again exclaim at intervals, ‘Is not this a proof of my fidelity? does this not evince loyalty and attachment to the memory of the departed warrior?’ Then perhaps two or three would run on and endeavor to seize the same club, saying with a furious tone of voice, ‘Behold, the land is torn with strife, it is smitten to pieces, it is split by revolts; how my blood boils; let us haste and die! I no longer wish to live: your death, Finow, shall be mine. But why did I wish hitherto to live? it was for you alone; it was in your service and defence only that I wish to breathe; but now, alas! the country is ruined. Peace and happiness are at an end; your death has insured ours: henceforth war and destruction alone can prosper.’

“These speeches were accompanied with a wild and frantic agitation of the body, whilst the parties cut and bruised their heads every two or three words with the knife or club they held in their hands. Others, somewhat more calm and moderate in their grief, would parade up and down with rather a wild and agitated step, spinning and whirling the club about, striking themselves with the edge of it two or three times violently upon the top or back of the head, and then suddenly stopping and looking steadfastly at the instrument spattered with blood, exclaim, ‘Alas! my club, who could have said that you would have done this kind office for me, and have enabled me thus to evince a testimony of my respect to Finow? Never, no, never, can you again tear open the brains of his enemies. Alas! what a great and mighty warrior has fallen! Oh, Finow, cease to suspect my loyalty; be convinced of my fidelity! But what absurdity am I talking! if I had appeared treacherous in thy sight, I should have met the fate of those numerous warriors who have fallen victims to your just revenge. But do not think, Finow, that I reproach you; no, I wish only to convince you of my innocence, for who that has thoughts of harming his chiefs shall grow white-headed like me (an expression used by some of the old men)? O cruel gods, to deprive us of our father, of our only hope, for whom alone we wished to live. We have indeed other chiefs, but they are only chiefs in rank, and not like you, alas! great and mighty in war.’”

Such were their sentiments and conduct on this mournful occasion. Some, more violent than others, cut their heads to the skull with such strong and frequent blows, that they caused themselves to reel, producing afterward a temporary loss of reason. It is difficult to say to what length this extravagance would have been carried, particularly by one old man, if the prince had not ordered Mr. Mariner to go up and take away the club from him, as well as two others that were engaged at the same time. It is customary on such occasions, when a man takes a club from another, to use it himself in the same way about his own head; but Mr. Mariner, being a foreigner, was not expected to do this: he therefore went up, and, after some hesitation and struggle, secured the clubs one after another, and returned with them to his seat, when, after a while, they were taken by others, who used them in like manner.

The next proceeding was to place the body of the dead king in the grave, which was at some distance from the place where those wild laments had been made. Having arrived at the spot, a small house was speedily put together, the body was laid in it, and the whole house was covered with coarse black gnatoo, the sign of mourning, which passed over the top of the house, and hung from the eaves to the ground, so as entirely to conceal it.

Here another set of lamentations took place, while a number of men were employed in opening the grave. All great families bury their dead, not merely in the ground, but in a solid vault, about eight feet long by six wide, and eight deep. It is made of six enormous stones, the upper one, which forms the cover, being necessarily larger than the others. For the convenience of raising it when required, the upper stone does not fit quite closely upon the lower, some smaller stones being placed between them at one end.

After digging some ten feet deep, the men came to the vault, and, having cleared away the earth, they passed a rope under the end of the stone cover, and by the united force of nearly two hundred men raised it on end. Several bodies were already in the grave. Two of them, which had been buried for full forty years, were dried and nearly perfect; while others, which had not been buried nearly so long, were reduced to a few bones. In some cases the vault is lined with the gnatoo on which the body rested, while in others it becomes the property of the presiding Mataboole.

All being ready, the body of Finow was handed down into the vault, still lying on the gnatoo, and the body of his daughter, at whose funeral he was seized with illness, was buried by his side. The stone was then let down with a great shout, and the head-cutting and maiming began afresh. The next ceremony was that of collecting sand for the decoration of the grave.

The whole company formed themselves in single line, the women going first, and proceeded to the back of the island, singing loudly to warn stragglers of their presence. For any one not actually engaged in a funeral to be seen on the road is held as so great an insult that any ordinary man would lose his life. Even if the king himself saw a similar procession advancing, he would hide himself until it had passed. Remaining on his feet, though it might not actually cost him his life, would probably be so bitterly remembered that he might lose his throne. As soon as the funeral party arrived at the place where the sand was found, they all set to work at making baskets out of leaves, which they suspended from sticks and carried on their shoulders. By the time that they reached the grave, it was nearly filled up with earth, and the remainder was filled with sand, which was carefully and neatly smoothed.

Next came a very curious custom, that of burning the cheeks. The mourners, clothed in mats and green leaves, set fire to little rolls of bark, and pressed them against each cheek-bone, so as to raise a circular blister. This is then rubbed with the juice of an astringent berry, which causes the wound to bleed, and the blood is smeared over the cheeks. The friction is repeated daily for twenty days, so that an indelible scar is the natural result.

The day after the burial a ceremony took place by which the young prince was installed in his father’s place, and invested with his father’s name. Finow was the name of the reigning family; but, according to custom, no one but the actual king was allowed to bear it. Sometimes, as a mark of especial favor, he allowed it to be borne by a relation, but always in conjunction with some other name. The name by which the young prince had previously been called was Moegnagnongo.

The ceremony was begun by a kava party, at which the young prince presided. The two first cups having been filled and drunk, the third was due to the president. The Mataboole who directed the proceedings said, while all eyes were fixed on the prince, “Give it to Finow,” thus acknowledging him as the king of Tonga. The young king displayed not the least emotion on being called by the new name, as that would have been thought beneath his dignity, but took the cup as quietly as if he had been called by the name of Finow all his life.

Rites similar to those which have been described went on for nineteen days, and on the twentieth the concluding ceremony was performed. All the relations of the deceased king, together with those who had taken part in the funeral, went to the back of the island, and procured a great quantity of flat pebbles, mostly white, but having a few black among them. These they carried to the grave, and strewed completely over the grave in the form of an oval, each pebble being laid by the side of the other. The black pebbles were laid upon the white ones.

Dances, wrestling matches, and head-cutting then took place, in which latter rite the fishermen of the late king distinguished themselves in a very curious manner. Into each cheek they thrust three arrows, the points of which passed into the mouth. The shafts of the arrows were brought over the shoulders, and to each pair was tied another arrow across the shoulders, so as to make a triangle. Equipped in this extraordinary manner, they walked round the grave, and, not satisfied with this proof of their devotion to their late master, they cut their heads with their paddles, and pinched up the skin of their breasts, thrusting a spear through the fold. A grand wrestling match ended this complicated series of ceremonies.

At the burial of one great chief, who was assassinated while walking with the king (apparently with his connivance), a very curious variation of the ceremony took place. As soon as the body had been lowered into the vault, one of the assassins, a man of exceptional strength and stature, advanced toward the grave, and, brandishing his club, avowed himself as the murderer, and challenged any friend of the deceased chief to fight him.

The challenge was not accepted, and, although one of the wives of the murdered man did her best to arouse the family to vengeance, she could only succeed in inducing them to erect a strong fortress, in which they hoped to bid defiance to Finow. The king, however, was too wise to allow such a standing menace to remain, started off with four thousand warriors, and reduced the disaffected chiefs to obedience. In storming the fort, the challenging chief distinguished himself by his deeds of arms. Though wounded in the breast with a five-barbed spear, he broke off the shaft, scaled alone the enemy’s fortress, knocked out a man’s brains with his club, and made good his escape. As he retreated, however, he received another spear in his back, and died on the following day. It is remarkable that in this battle nearly all the assassins perished.

The religious system of the Tongans is tolerably simple. They believe that there are several orders of gods, just as there are several ranks of men. The principal gods are self-existent and eternal; but the second order of gods are the souls of deceased chiefs and Matabooles. All of noble blood have souls, and take rank in Bolotoo, or Paradise, not according to their moral merit, but according to the rank which they held in the world. Matabooles become ministers to the gods, just as they were ministers to the chiefs; but they are not powerful enough to inspire priests. There is also a class of mischievous gods, who are, fortunately, much less powerful than the benevolent deities.

As to the Mooas, or middle class, the learned are rather doubtful whether they go to Bolotoo, or whether they have souls. But that the Tooas, or peasantry, have no souls, there is not the slightest doubt, and that they can go to Bolotoo is therefore impossible.

With regard to Bolotoo, or Paradise, the Tongans believe it to be an island somewhere to the north-west of Tonga. It is a most beautiful place, full of the choicest fruits and the most lovely flowers. Pigs are plentiful, and never die unless they are killed to supply food for the gods, in which case another hog comes into existence to supply the place of the one that was killed. So, when a fruit or a flower is plucked, another immediately takes its place. These particulars are learned from some Tongan voyagers, who were returning from Fiji, but were driven out of their reckoning by a storm. At last they were blown to a lovely island, on which they succeeded in landing. There was abundance of fruit, but their hands could not grasp it. They walked through the trunks of trees, and through the walls of houses as if they were mere shadows; while some of the inhabitants walked through their own bodies in a similar manner. Then they found they were at Bolotoo. The gods told them to go home at once, and promised them a favorable wind. They reached Tonga in safety, but all died soon afterward, the air of Bolotoo not suiting mere mortals.

It has already been mentioned that the religious and secular lives of the Tongans are so blended together that it is very difficult to separate them, and that even their amusements partake somewhat of the religious character. There are, however, one or two of their games which partake but slightly of this element, and which are yet characteristic of the natives. One of these sports is called Fanna-kalai, and is a very ingenious mode of bird catching by means of decoys.

In order to practise this amusement, the sportsman furnishes himself with a bow and arrows, goes into the woods, and there ensconces himself within a large wicker cage covered with green leaves, so that the inmate may not be seen, but having plenty of openings through which the arrows can be aimed. By his side he has a small cage, in which is kept a hen bird, and on the top of the large cage the cock bird is tied by the leg. When properly trained, these birds continue calling to each other, and thus attract numbers of their own species, which fall victims to the arrows.

Well-trained birds are exceedingly valuable, and one chief has been known to make war upon another for the sake of procuring an especially fine bird. Indeed, the Tongans look on these birds much as sportsmen of the olden times looked on their falcons. To each pair of birds there is a keeper, whose whole business it is to attend to and train them. He is careful to teach the cock bird to flap its wings as it calls to its mate, and to utter its notes loudly, so that they may be taken as a challenge to other birds to come and fight him. The bird keepers have almost unlimited powers, as nothing is allowed to interfere with the welfare of their charge. Even when a famine visits a district, the birds must not starve. The keeper forages for the birds, and if he sees a fine bunch of plantains, he is allowed to put the tapu on it by sticking a reed in the tree, after which the proprietor dares not touch the fruit which he has saved for himself and his family. He may starve, but the birds must be fed.

As may be imagined, the keepers attend to their own interests as well as those of the birds, and are great pests to the neighborhood, fleecing the people without mercy. Now and then they go a little too far in their insolence, and a complaint is laid against them, in which case the man seldom escapes without a severe beating.

In order to show the enormous value of these birds, Mariner tells a story respecting the elder Finow. The chief of Hihifo possessed a bird which he had himself trained, and which was the best that ever was known. Finow heard of this bird, and sent a commissioner to Hihifo in order to treat with the chief for the purchase of it. This the owner declined to do, saying that not only had he an affection for the bird, which he had himself trained, but he had sustained many wars made on him by neighboring chiefs who wanted to get the bird—many lives had been lost, and he felt his honor involved in keeping it. However, he intrusted the ambassador with another pair of birds, very nearly as good, and asked him to present them to Finow.

The king tried the birds next day, and was so delighted with their performance that he was the more anxious to obtain the bird which was even superior to them. He therefore prepared a present, which according to the Tongan ideas of that day was of almost incalculable value, comprising, beside whales’ teeth, gnatoo, kava, and other native productions, several iron bolts, a quantity of beads, a looking-glass, a grindstone, and some axes, all of which had been procured from Europe, and most of them from the vessel in which Mariner had been wrecked. Seeing that Finow was determined to have the bird, and that he would probably make war if again refused, the chief wisely accepted the present, and sent the desired prize with a polite message.

As this sport is necessarily a very expensive one, it can only be practised by the king and very great chiefs, even the lesser chiefs being unable to bear the cost. There is another sport which is limited to chiefs and Matabooles. This is Fanna-gooma, or rat shooting, and is conducted as follows. Two chiefs take the command of two parties who intend to shoot rats, and arrange the preliminaries, i. e. settling the course which they mean to take, the number of shooters on each side, and so forth. On the appointed day, they go to some place which has been previously fixed upon, each being provided with his bow and two arrows.

These arrows are six feet in length, and made of a reed headed with hard wood. They are most beautifully made, the heads being smooth and polished with the greatest care, and the junction of the head and shaft guarded with plaited sinnet. In some of these weapons in my collection, the sinnet is scarcely broader than sewing silk, and is laid on with a perfection that is scarcely credible. After the sinnet is finished off, a slight coating of transparent varnish is laid over it, so as to bind the plait more firmly together, and to give it an uniform polish. In some arrows there are several similar belts of plaited sinnet. No feather is needed, as they are never aimed at any distance, and their great length is requisite to allow them to go straight through the bushes among which the rats lurk.

The bow is about the same length as the arrows, and not very powerful, so that the aim may not be disturbed by the effect of drawing it.

When they are ready to start, a couple of attendants are sent forward, who take in their mouths some roasted cocoa-nut, which they chew, and spit the fragments on either side of the path. If they come to a cross-road, they plant in it an upright reed, by means of which a tapu is laid on the path, in order to prevent any one from passing along and disturbing the rats. No one ever disregards this tapu. Even if one of the greatest chiefs come toward it, he will stop at a distance and sit down until the sportsmen have passed, while an inferior chief would to a certainty be clubbed for his insolence if he were to break the tapu.

When the party start, they arrange themselves in the following manner. They walk in Indian file along the path, the leading chief of one party going first, followed by the leading chief of the other side. Then come the men of next rank on either side, and so on alternately. Except the leading man, no one may shoot at a rat that is in front of him, though he may do so if it be on either side, or behind him. As soon as any one has shot his arrow, he changes places with the man behind him, no matter whether the shot be successful or not, so that each in turn has his chance of becoming the leading man, and so getting a double chance of a rat. Every sportsman has an attendant who follows the party, and, as soon as his master has discharged an arrow, picks it up and returns it to him.

In order to attract their game, the sportsmen imitate the squeaking of a rat, which often has the effect of bringing them out of their holes, and if a rat should run away instead of waiting to be shot, one or two of them, with a sharp percussion of the tongue, utter another sound, which has the effect of making the rat stop and sit up to listen. The party that shoots ten rats first wins the game. Birds of any kind are counted as rats.

These two sports are necessarily restricted to chiefs, on account of the expense in one case and the power of the tapu in the other, but there is another which is played only by chiefs and Matabooles, being restricted to them by etiquette and not by necessity.

The two players sit opposite each other, and one of them makes one of three movements with his right hand, i. e. presenting the open palm, the closed fist or the extended forefinger. His antagonist endeavors to imitate the movements, but if he can succeed in making five without being imitated, he wins a point, and marks it by laying down a little piece of stick. Should the antagonist be successful, he asks of the other player what were the preceding movements, their order and the reason for each of them. If his opponent should fail to give the correct answer, he loses a point, but if he succeeds, the game is continued.

The skill lies not in seeing and imitating the various movements, which are made so rapidly that an inexperienced eye cannot detect one of them, but in remembering the movements made by the antagonist, and in giving a feigned explanation of each. This explanation must be made according to the laws of the game, and alters with every variation in the order of the movements, so that considerable readiness and ingenuity are needed in order to invent on the spur of the moment an explanation according to the laws of the game. The chiefs are exceedingly fond of this game, and, while playing it, work themselves up to a wonderful pitch of excitement. The lower orders play a game somewhat similar to this, except that no discussion about the moves is allowable, and the intellectual element is therefore wanting.

There are many other games that are common to all ranks. One of these is called Tolo. A piece of soft wood, nine inches in diameter, is fastened to the top of a post of harder wood about five or six feet high, and the game consists in throwing a heavy spear so that it shall stick in the soft wood. Six or eight persons play on each side, every player being allowed three throws. Another game with spears somewhat resembles the djerid, and consists in hurling blunted spears at each other.

The Tongans are singularly dexterous of hand. They excel in ball play, and have a game which consists in playing with five balls, which are thrown from one hand to the other, so as to keep four balls always in the air. They sing a song at the same time, each cadence coinciding with the transfer of the balls from one hand to the other, and for every verse that they can finish without a mistake they score one point. They have also a game very much resembling our cup and ball.

Another game in which dexterity of hand is needed is called Lafo. A mat is laid on the ground, and the players throw beans on it, each trying to knock off those of his antagonist. This game has a sort of celebrity from having been connected with one of the few acts of cannibalism attributed to the Tongans. During a severe famine, two daughters of a chief played a game of lafo with two young warriors. If the men won, they were to have half the yam, but if they lost, they were still to have half the yam, but were obliged to go out, kill an enemy, and divide his body with the girls. They lost the game, ate their yam, and waited until night for the fulfilment of their promise. After dark they stole out, and hid themselves near the fortress of the enemy. As they had anticipated, in the early morning one of the men came out to fetch salt water, and passed near the spot where they lay in ambush. They struck him down with their clubs, and at the risk of their lives brought his body off to the spot where the girls lived. If in any of these games there should be a dispute, the men settle it by an extemporized wrestling match, and the women by spinning a cocoa-nut.

Being islanders, they are very familiar with the water, and practise the well-known sport of surf swimming. This sport will be described when we come to treat of the Sandwich Islands. They have another aquatic sport peculiar to themselves. Two posts are driven into the bed of the sea, about seventy yards apart, a spot being chosen where the water is about ten feet deep. Each player takes in his hands a large stone, jumps into the water by one post, and tries to carry it to the other post by running along the bottom. The chief difficulty is to pursue a straight course, as at such a distance the winning post is not visible through the water.

While Mr. Mariner was at the Tonga Islands, he took part in an amusement which derived its origin from a love legend. He accompanied Finow to a small island called Hoonga, and, on walking down to the sea-shore, he saw his companions bathing near a great rock, and was startled to find that they one after the other dived into the water and did not come up again. Just as the last was preparing to dive, he asked the meaning of this astonishing proceeding, and was told to follow, and he would be taken to a place where he had never been before, and where Finow and his Matabooles were then assembled.

He then dived into the water, and Mr. Mariner followed him, guided by the light reflected from his heels. Passing through an aperture in the base of the rock which has just been mentioned, he rose to the surface of the water and found himself in a cavern. At first he could see nothing, but he could distinguish the voices of Finow and his other friends; and after a while became so accustomed to the dim light that he could just manage to see that he was in a vast stalactitic cavern.

As the only light which entered it was reflected from the bottom of the water, and exceedingly dim, he dived out again, wrapped up his loaded pistol in a quantity of gnatoo, directed a servant to prepare a torch in the same manner, and dived back again By means of the pistol he lighted the torch, and probably for the first time since it was formed, the cavern was illuminated. It was about forty feet wide and as many high, and ran off at one side into two galleries. Its roof was covered with stalactites hanging in the fantastic patterns which they are apt to assume. The story which was told him respecting the discovery of this cavern is quite a romance of savage life.

Many years ago a young chief of Vavaoo discovered the cavern by accident, while diving after turtles, but took care to keep the discovery to himself, as he thought he should find it useful in case he was detected in a plot against the principal chief of the island, a man of cruel and tyrannous disposition. Another chief had the same intentions, and was organizing a revolt, when he was betrayed by one of his own followers, and condemned to be drowned, together with the whole of his family. It so happened that he had a very beautiful daughter whom the young chief had long loved, but to whom he dared not speak, knowing her to be betrothed to a man of higher rank than himself.

When, however, he found that her life was to be sacrificed, he contrived to make his way to her in the evening, told her of the fate which was in reserve for her, and offered to save her. The girl at once consented, and the two stole gently to the seaside, where a little canoe was drawn up. On their way to Hoonga the young chief told the girl of this place of retreat, and as soon as the day broke took her into the cavern. He was not long in finding out that the affection was mutual, but that the fact of her being betrothed to another had caused her to avoid him.

She remained in this cavern for two months, during which her young husband brought her the finest mats and gnatoo, the best food, and everything which constitutes Tongan luxury. He was, however, forced to spend a considerable part of his time at Vavaoo, lest the tyrannical chief should suspect him, and he was naturally anxious to take his wife to some place where they could live together in safety.

Accordingly, he called together his subordinate chiefs and Matabooles, and told them to prepare for a voyage to the Fiji Islands, accompanied with their wives and families. This expedition was kept secret lest the tyrant should put a stop to it. Just as they started, one of the chiefs advised him to take a Tongan wife with him, but he declined to do so, saying that he should find one by the way. They took his reply for a joke, and set sail toward Hoonga. When they neared the shores of the island, he told his men to wait while he went into the sea to fetch a wife, and, leaping into the sea from the side of the canoe which was farthest from the shore, he dived and disappeared.

After waiting for a while the people began to be seriously alarmed, thinking that he must have met with some accident, or that a shark had caught him. Suddenly, while they were debating as to the best course to be pursued, he appeared on the surface of the water, accompanied by a beautiful young female, whom he took into the canoe. At first his people were terribly frightened, thinking that she was a goddess; but, when they recognized her features, they took her for an apparition, believing that she had been drowned together with the rest of her family. The young chief arrived safely at the Fiji Islands, where he lived for two years; and at the expiration of that time, hearing that the tyrant of Vavaoo was dead, he returned to his native island, bringing with him his strangely rescued wife.

The facts of this story show that the cave must have some opening which admits the outer air, as otherwise no one could have lived in it so long. Even granting that the time of the girl’s residence was exaggerated, Mr. Mariner found that the air was perfectly fresh and sweet after Finow and his friends had remained in it for several hours, and a torch had been burned in it besides.

The island in which this extraordinary cavern is found is rather venerated by the Tongans as being the origin of their group of islands. Tongaloa, the god of arts and inventions, let down a fishing-line from the sky into the sea, when he suddenly felt his hook caught. He hauled up his line, thinking that from the resistance he had caught a very large fish. It turned out, however, that the hook had got itself fixed in the bed of the sea, and as the god continued to haul he drew up the Tonga islands. They would have been much larger, only the line broke, and the islands were left imperfect.

Mr. Mariner learned that the hook by which the Tonga islands had been drawn from the bed of the sea was kept in the custody of the Tooi-tonga, but had been burned, together with the house, about thirty years before. It was about six inches long, and from the description was one of the ordinary fishhooks of the country. Mariner asked why it did not break when hauling up so enormous a weight, and was told that it was a god’s hook, and therefore could not break. Being asked how it happened that the line, which was also the property of a god, broke, his interlocutor declined to pursue the subject any further, saying that so he had been told, and that there was no necessity for further inquiries.

CHAPTER CII.
SAMOA, OR THE NAVIGATORS’ ISLANDS.
APPEARANCE—CHARACTER—DRESS—MANUFACTURES.

POSITION OF THE GROUP, AND DERIVATION OF THE NAME — GENERAL APPEARANCE OF THE PEOPLE — THEIR CHARACTER FOR GENTLENESS, HOSPITALITY, HONESTY, AND COURTESY — CARRYING A MISSIONARY AND HIS FAMILY — AFFECTION FOR CHILDREN — DRESS OF THE SAMOANS — THE TATTOO A PARTIAL SUBSTITUTE FOR DRESS — MODE OF TATTOOING — TIME OCCUPIED IN COMPLETING THE OPERATION — THE FINE MATS OF SAMOA — WIG MAKING — FEATHER HEADDRESSES — DRESS OF THE WOMEN — DANCING COSTUME — ADVICE TO FAA-SAMOA — MODE OF DRESSING THE HAIR — TREATMENT OF WOMEN — MODE OF MAKING CLOTH — THE PROFESSIONAL AND HEREDITARY MANUFACTURER.

North of the Tongan group, and a little to the eastward, lie the Navigators’ Islands, more property called by their native name of Samoa, or Hamoa. The former of these names was given to them by Bougainville, in consequence of the skilful seamanship of the natives. There are eight islands comprehended in this group, the largest of which is Savaii.

As is often the case among these island groups, no single king or head chief is recognized, each island having its own ruler; under whom are subordinate chiefs of different ranks. This mode of government is so similar to that of the Tongans that we need not expend any time upon it.

The Samoans are a fine race of people, much exceeding the English in average stature, and peculiarly well made. Their skin is smooth, soft, and a warm reddish-brown in color, and the hair, though copious, possesses none of that woolliness which distinguishes the hair of the Papuan races, but is long, straight, and, in a few cases, possesses a slight wave. Naturally there is but little beard, and the Samoan takes a pride in extirpating every sign of a hair upon his chin. He is quiet, composed, and stately in manner, so that in all things he presents a bold contrast to the black, harsh-skinned Fijian, with his frizzed and woolly hair, his copious beard, and his quick, restless, suspicious manner.

Being savages, the Samoans have many of the imperfections which necessarily accompany savage life, but at the same time they approach nearer to the “noble savage” of the poet than most races of men. They are hospitable, affectionate, honest, and courteous, and have well been described as a nation of gentlemen. Toward strangers they display a liberality which contrasts greatly with the cruel and bloodthirsty customs of the Papuan tribes. The Fijians, for example, do all in their power to repel strangers from their shores, either driving them off, or killing and eating them. The Samoans, on the contrary, welcome strangers, allot to them their best houses, give them the best food, and make them feel that they are honored guests.

They are singularly affectionate in their disposition, and as parents are rather too fond of their children. As a rule, a Samoan parent cannot bear to thwart a child, and allows it to do what it likes. In consequence of this absence of discipline, many a child dies through the mistaken kindness of its parents, who have allowed it to eat food that was unsuitable to it, or to engage in games for which it had not sufficient strength.

The honesty of the Samoans is really wonderful. When a number of them were on board of an English vessel, they scrupulously refrained from stealing. Property which to them was equivalent to unbounded wealth lay within reach of their hands, but not even a nail or a needle was touched. In one instance, an European vessel went ashore on the rocks. The whole of its cargo was at the mercy of the Samoans, but not a man went on board of the vessel, and the whole of the property was reserved for the rightful owners. There are many civilized countries where the vessel would have been ransacked within an hour of her striking on the rocks.

Once when a great chief, named Malietoa, went on board an English vessel, accompanied by a younger brother, he examined everything with great attention, but asked for nothing, only requesting the white men to come on shore and visit him. This they did, bringing with them a present of axes, mirrors, beads, knives, scissors, needles, and similar articles. When the present was offered, Malietoa took up each article separately, laid it on his head, and returned thanks for it, and after he had gone through the whole of the present in detail, he made a complimentary speech, in which he thanked the donors for the entire gift. His brother, to whom a similar present had been offered, at first refused to take the basket, priceless as were its contents, but passed it on to his elder brother, saying that he would take whatever his brother did not happen to want.

“At the close of this important and interesting interview, Malietoa informed his people, who had been gazing with wonder upon the novel proceedings, that a large quantity of valuable property had been given to him, and that the English chiefs, to whom he was indebted for it, would want something to eat on their return. ‘For,’ said he, ‘there are no pigs running about upon the sea, neither is there any bread-fruit growing there.’ Upon hearing this, the whole company instantly rose and scampered away; and in about an hour they returned, bringing with them fifteen pigs of various sizes, with a large quantity of bread-fruit, yams, and other vegetables, the whole of which the chief presented to us.” This extract, from the journal of Mr. Williams, the well-known missionary, gives a good idea of the hospitable nature of the people.

Courtesy is, among the Samoans, reckoned as one of the duties of life. They address each other by titles of honor, and it is considered as an essential point of etiquette that, when one man addresses another, he should use a title rather higher than that to which his interlocutor has any claim. Should he be ignorant of the rank of the person whom he addresses, he uses the term chief, as a safe one.

The earlier voyagers have all been struck with the Samoans, whose gentle demeanor, perfect honesty, scrupulous cleanliness, graceful costume, gigantic stature, and polished manners, made a strong impression upon them. When Messrs. Williams and Barth visited these islands, they were received in the most hospitable manner. As they went on shore, the former happened to mention that he was tired, when a young chief addressed a few words to the people, and in a moment the visitor was lifted off the ground by a number of gigantic young men, who seized him, “some by the legs, and others by the arms, one placing his hand under my body, another, unable to obtain so large a space, poking a finger against me; and thus, sprawling at full length upon their extended arms and hands, I was carried a distance of half a mile, and deposited safely in the presence of the chief and his principal wife.”

Several children were on board, and were carried off by the natives in great glee. One or two of them were missing for several hours, causing their parents great anxiety. However, they were all brought back in safety, their absence being due merely to the exuberant hospitality of the Samoans. The natives were so delighted at their good fortune in having the charge of a white child that they could not make up their minds to restore it to its parents, but took it home, killed and baked a pig and other food, feasted the child to the fullest extent, and then, having kept it as long as they dared, restored it to its parents. This anecdote carries out the statement already made, that the Samoans are exceedingly fond of children. Mr. Pritchard mentions that on one occasion, when he was witnessing a native dance, which is a performance requiring the greatest exertion, the chief’s wife sat as a spectator, with two fine twin children in her lap. The chief, engaged as he was in the absorbing amusement of the dance, could not keep himself away from his children, but every now and then left the dance to caress them. The mothers nurse their children for several years, and a child of five or six years old may often be seen to pull away its younger brother or sister and take its place.

The dress of the Samoans varies considerably, according to the rank of the individual and the occasion on which it is assumed. The usual dress of the men is a sort of small apron, about a foot square, made of the green leaves of the Dracæna tree, but on occasions of ceremony they generally wear a flowing robe called the lava-lava. This is made of bark cloth, and is beautifully fine and soft, the Samoans excelling in such manufactures, which will presently be described. This robe is gathered round the waist into folds, and reaches down to the ankles.

Small as may be the ordinary dress of the Samoan men, they always seem to be fully dressed, in consequence of the tattooing with which they are carefully decorated. Even to European eyes the tattooing conveys the same impression, and has been mistaken for a dress by some of the early voyagers, who described the people as being clothed from the waist downward, with fringed lace “made of a silken stuff, and artificially wrought.”

The reader will remember that the New Zealanders tattoo no part of the body except the hips, and that even in that case a semblance of dress is produced. The Samoans tattoo the whole of the body from the hips to the knees, covering the skin so completely with the pattern that it looks at a little distance exactly as if the man were wearing a tight pair of ornamental drawers.

Even European eyes become so accustomed to the tattoo that they are rather shocked at its absence; and, according to Mr. Pritchard, an untattooed Samoan does in truth look unmanly, looks even naked, by the side of one who is tattooed. So completely is this feeling realized by the natives that chiefs who have arrived at middle age frequently undergo the process of tattooing a second time, in order to renew the patterns, as they become dim and uncertain by lapse of years; for, though indelible, the tattoo does fade in the course of years, as I can testify from personal experience. When a very young boy, I read of the custom of tattooing, and must needs try it on my own arm. I did not do much of it, but the whole arm swelled up to the shoulder, and was useless for some time. At first the marks were bright blue, clear and well-defined, but now the blue is of dull indigo, and the outline very undecided.

The production of this elaborate decoration is a work of considerable time, the operation being, in the first place, too painful to be continued for any long time; and, in the second, it is apt to cause so much disturbance in the general system that the result would be fatal if the whole were executed at once. The operation is generally performed in company, a number of young men keeping company with the son of the chief. When, for example, a chief’s son arrives at the proper age, i. e. about eighteen, all the lads of his tribe assemble to partake with him of the tattoo, which is to transform them from boys into men.

There is quite a ceremony, or rather a series of ceremonies, for the occasion. The tattooer or Matai, is a man of great influence, and his services have to be requested in regular form, accompanied by a present of fine mats. His acceptance of the mats ratifies the bargain, though no regular charge is made. On the appointed day, the lads and their friends meet in a house set apart for the ceremony, and more mats are presented to the Matai. Should the youth be wealthy, he sometimes gives a canoe. The friends of the lads are also bound to supply provisions as long as the operation lasts.

The tools are simple enough, being a set of five “combs” and a little mallet. The combs are made of human bone, and are an inch and a half in length, varying in width from the eighth of an inch to an inch, and looking very much like little bone adzes with the edges cut into a number of teeth. These blades are attached to handles about six inches in length. The pigment which is introduced into the wounds is made from the ashes of the cocoa-nut.

All being ready, the young chief lies on his face in front of the operator, and lays his head in the lap of his sister or some other female relation, while three or four young women hold his legs, and sing at the tops of their voices, in order to drown any groans or cries that he may utter. This is done out of consideration for his reputation, as it is thought unworthy of the state of manhood to utter a sound. Still the pain is so intense that the lads often do utter groans, and now and then actually yell with the pain. In one or two instances they have been so utterly overcome with the agony that, after they have been released they have not dared to submit themselves again to the operation, in which case they are despised for life as cowards.

Having traced out his pattern, the operator begins his work, driving the teeth of the comb through the skin by sharp and rapid taps of the mallet; there is an art even in holding this instrument, the handle of which passes under the thumb and over the fore-finger, and is used with wonderful rapidity and regularity. “The rapidity with which the Matai works his fingers,” writes Mr. Pritchard, “the precision with which he moves the instrument and punctures exactly the right spot, and the regularity of tapping with the mallet, are astounding.” By the side of the patient are placed several assistants, furnished with strips of white masi, whose duty it is to wipe away the blood as it flows from the punctures of the comb, and to leave the skin clear for the operator. Between every two or three strokes the toothed end of the comb is dipped into the pigment, which is mixed with water.

The pattern is in its main elements alike throughout all the Samoan Islands; but there are usually slight variations which denote the island in which the man lives, and others which mark the family to which he belongs. Sometimes, after a man has slain an enemy, he will make an addition which corresponds to a grant of arms among ourselves. The form of some animal is the ordinary pattern for such a badge of honor.

About an hour is occupied in executing a patch of tattoo not quite three inches square, and when this is done, the lad rises and another takes his place. In a week or so, the turn of the first lad comes round again, and so the process is continued for three or four months, according to the number of the patients, not more than five being operated on in a single day. When the pattern is about half completed, the Matai has another present; but the great payment is only made when the last finishing touch is put to the work. Should the Matai feel dissatisfied with his fees, he will not go on with the work, and, as an unfinished tattoo is thought to be most disgraceful, the friends of the youths get together what property they can, and make up the deficiency.

(1.) TATTOOING DAY IN SAMOA.
(See [page 1013].)

(2.) CLOTH MAKING.
(See [page 1016].)

During the time engaged in the operation, the patients look most miserable beings, the wounded parts swollen and inflamed, and displaying as yet none of the elegant pattern which has been traced on them. The lads hobble about in all sorts of contorted attitudes, fanning away the flies with flappers made of white masi, and doing all in their power to alleviate the pain. At last, however, comes the reward of all their sufferings. As soon as the wounds are healed, their friends get up a grand dance. As the costume of the male dancers is nothing but the little apron of leaves which has been already mentioned, the pattern of the tattooing is freely displayed; and the lads, now admitted among the men, think themselves well repaid for their former sufferings by the honor and glory of being ranked as men, and by the admiration of the opposite sex.

An [illustration] on the preceding page represents the process of tattooing. In the centre is lying the patient with his head in his sister’s lap, and his legs held by her companions, who are singing, in order to cover his groans, should he utter any. Near him are two assistants with their white masi cloths, and at his side kneels the operator, busily at work with his mallet and comb. The little vessel of pigment is by his side. Ranged round the wall of the house are the young men who are waiting their turn. Painful as is the operation, and expensive as it is, involving not only the fees to the operator, but a constant supply of provisions, all the lads look forward to it with the greatest anxiety, knowing that they will never be considered as men unless they can show a complete tattoo.

Both men and women wear mats, called in the native language “je-tonga.” One of these mats is in my collection, and is a beautiful piece of work. It is made of very narrow strips of leaf scraped thin, each strip being about the fifteenth of an inch in width. These are plaited together with beautiful regularity, and the whole is edged with a very fine and almost silken fringe of the same material.

Some of these mats are decorated with the red feathers of the parrot tribe, and increase in their value by age, being handed down to successive generations, and having legends attached to them. My own specimen has been adorned in a way which doubtless was very imposing to a Samoan eye, though not to that of an European. The native maker had evidently treasured up some scraps of English calico, and some blue and yellow paper such as is used for wrapping parcels. These treasures she has fastened to the mat, to which they give a most ludicrous appearance.

Samoan chiefs, when full dressed for war or state, may be known at a great distance by the splendid headdress which they wear. In the first place, they increase the apparent size of their heads by enormous wigs made of their own hair, which is suffered to grow long for this express purpose. When it has attained sufficient length, it is cut off, and is stained red, and frizzed out, until it assumes as large dimensions as the woolly head of a Papuan. They also wear great plumes of feathers, sometimes towering to the height of nearly two feet above their heads; so that the height of a Samoan chief, measured from the top of his plume, is not far from nine feet.

One of these headdresses in my collection is made of a vast number of feathers, tied by the stems in little bundles, and carefully arranged so that they shall droop evenly. There are about ten feathers in each bundle. These tufts are arranged closely together in circles composed of leaf stems and cocoa-nut fibre, and there are four of these circlets placed one over the other, so that several hundred feather tufts are employed for this single dress. The maker has ingeniously, though ignorantly, copied the peacock, the egret, and other birds which are furnished with trains. In them, the tail feathers are short and stiff, so as to allow the long train of feathers to droop gracefully over them. In a similar manner, the Samoan artificer has employed the shortest and stiffest feathers in the lower-most circlet, while in the uppermost are placed the longest and most slender plumes. The headdress is really very handsome, and even when worn by an European gives a most martial aspect to the countenance, especially when the war mat is worn, and the huge Samoan club carried on the shoulder.

The dress of the women is made of the same material as that of the men, but differently arranged. Their work costume is a petticoat of Dracæna leaves, but instead of being, like that of the men, a mere short apron, it is much longer, and completely surrounds the body. On occasions of state or ceremony, however, they wear lava-lavas of siapo like those of the men, only put on rather differently, and of much larger size. A woman of rank will often have this garment so long that it trails on the ground far behind her.

Captain Hood, in describing an entertainment given in honor of the white visitors, writes as follows. After the men had danced “a number of girls entered, who went through a somewhat similar set of evolutions, with infinite exactness and grace. It may seem incredible to our fair sisters in England, that a young lady arranged in no other garment but a mat tied round her waist should look handsomely dressed; but could they see these Samoan belles enter the circle in their full evening costume, with their coronets of nautilus shell and scarlet hibiscus, and their necklaces of red and yellow flowers, I believe they would admit that their appearance is highly imposing.

“Some wore beautifully plaited fine mats, which are so highly prized that they cost more than a rich silk or satin dress. Others had white shaggy dresses, made from the inner fibres of the hibiscus, the amplitude of which would satisfy the most extensive patronesses of crinoline, and indulged in trains equalling in length that worn by those dames of England in former days, while their carriage and air plainly showed that, whatever we might think, they felt themselves superior beings.” To judge from the photographed portraits of these Samoan beauties, Captain Hood is perfectly right; they not only look well dressed, but, if anything, over dressed.

That this opinion was not a rare one is evident from Mr. Williams’s account of Samoa, which he visited more than thirty years before Captain Hood. The missionaries’ wives had endeavored to persuade the Samoan women to wrap their abundant mantles over the whole of the body, but without success. On the contrary, the Samoan belles in their turn tried to convince the white visitors that it would be much better for them to faa Samoa, i. e. to do in Samoa as the Samoans do. Garments that covered the whole of the body might do well enough in the white woman’s country, but when they came to Samoa they ought to dress themselves like the Samoans, tie a shaggy mat round the waist, coquettishly looped up on one side, and anoint themselves with scented oil and color themselves with turmeric; wear a flower on the head instead of a bonnet, and a necklace of flowers by way of a bodice. Thus accoutred, they might faa-riaria, i. e. strut about in the consciousness of being well dressed, and certain of admiration. There is much to be said on both sides of the question.

The women wear their hair differently from the men, generally cutting it rather short, and combing it back. It is then powdered with fine lime made of burning coal, which has the effect of staining it of a reddish purple hue, which is thought to be the most fashionable color. After this is done, a Samoan belle merely twists a wreath of scarlet hibiscus flowers among the hair. In both sexes great pains are taken about the hair, and in order to promote its growth in after years the head is kept shaved in childhood, the boys having a single lock of hair on one side, and the girls one on either side.

There is a slight distinction of dressing the hair in the different islands of the Samoan group. In some of them the women separate the hair into multitudinous ringlets, each bound with cocoa-nut fibre, and cut square at the bottom, much like the ancient Assyrian fashion. As if to carry out the resemblance still further, the men preserve their beards, and dress them almost exactly like those of the figures on the Nineveh marbles.

In bodily form the women are by no means equal to the men, the latter being truly magnificent specimens of humanity, while the former are rather short, and stoutly made, with features that are pleasing in expression, but have otherwise little beauty. They are as well treated as in Tonga, and are not expected to do hard work. In fact, the men seem to take a pride in assisting the weaker sex. Mr. Pritchard writes on this subject as follows:—“We saw several women sitting quietly in their canoe, whilst their cavaliers swam alongside, towing them through the surf, not because they are at all less at home in the water than their husbands and brothers, as we saw this afternoon, when a large number of girls were alongside, who were as often swimming about, laughing and talking, for about half-an-hour at a time in the water, or sitting in their boats, which they are constantly upsetting.”

When the husband of a Samoan wife dies, his widow is not sacrificed at his funeral, but is usually taken by his brother, after the ancient Jewish custom. It is remarkable, by the way, that many of the Mosaic laws still exist in full force among the Samoans. In time of war no male captives are taken, all being killed. Their female relatives, whether wives or sisters, are considered as the property of the victors, and mostly become their wives. Thus it often happens that women are related to both sides, and, as they are by courtesy allowed to visit their relatives, all the designs of one side are speedily told to the other. So, whenever the principal chief prepares any plan of action, some of the women who have relations on the opposite side, immediately go off and tell them about the proposed movements. Still, the Samoans seem to make it a matter of honor not to take advantage of this knowledge, and to allow the enemy to execute his movements without interruption.

The women seem quite at their ease in warfare, and mostly accompany their husbands to the wars, in order to supply them with necessaries, and to nurse them if they should be wounded. Mr. Pritchard says that he has seen them in the heat of action, carrying water to the wounded, and seeming to care less for the thickly flying bullets than the warriors themselves.

Before passing to another subject, we will complete our notices of dress. The reader may remember that on [page 977] was given a full account of the various processes by which the inner bark of the paper mulberry is made into garments. The Samoans employ the same method as the Tongans, but are even more careful in the manufacture of the cloth, which is in great request throughout many parts of Polynesia, and can be recognized at once by a skilful eye.

The women are the sole manufacturers, and are wonderfully skilful and patient over their work. In the first place, for the finest cloth they always employ very young trees, not more than fourteen to fifteen months old, and only two or three inches in diameter. They begin their work by cutting down the trees, peeling off the bark, and steeping it for eight and forty hours in water, so as to enable the rough outer bark to be removed from the thin and delicate inner bark. The well-known “bass,” with which gardeners tie up flowers, is a familiar instance of “liber,” or inner bark, procured from the lime tree. By constant beating, this substance becomes greatly increased in width and reduced in thickness, and, like gold leaf, it can be beaten out to almost any extent.

As the strips of bark are only ten or twelve inches wide, a number of them are united by overlapping the edges and putting between them arrow-root dissolved in water. The united pieces, while still wet, are again beaten, and after a while the two pieces become incorporated into one, and all signs of the junction disappear.

When a piece of sufficient size is made, printing and staining are the next processes. The dyes are generally of three kinds, red, brown, and yellow. The two first tints are obtained from clays, and the third from the ever useful turmeric. The women who make and print the cloth do not prepare the dyes, that being a separate occupation, and in these islands the different professions are strictly limited to certain families, just as is the case with the castes in India. The printing is done on exactly the same principle that is employed in rubbing brasses in this country. The pattern is made by fastening the flexible ribs of the cocoa-nut leaf on a board. When the ribs are quite hard and dry the cloth is stretched over them, and the dye rubbed over it with a stiff brush, so that it only adheres to those parts of the cloth which press against the raised pattern below. For patterns of a larger description a softer bark is used, which holds a quantity of color.

There are in my collection several specimens of Samoan bark cloth; one is very fine, pure white, six feet long, by two wide, and ornamented with a fine fringe all round it. Another is thicker and stronger, being made of four layers of bark, one placed upon the other. In some places the junction has not been completed, and the different layers are quite distinct. It measures rather more than seven feet in length and three feet ten inches in width. It has a deep-colored border about eighteen inches in width, composed of a diamond pattern impressed upon a number of perpendicular parallel lines and dots. This border is a light red in color, and upon it are several circles of dark brown. Circles of a similar kind are scattered over the uncolored portion of the robe, which is of a creamy yellow hue.

The third specimen is still thicker, and larger. It is seven feet square, and has been completely covered on the outside with the clay pigment, which has been put on so thickly as to make the fabric comparatively stiff. Two broad bands of deep black are drawn across it so as to divide it into three equal portions, and in each division are four patterns also drawn in black, very much resembling the “broad arrow” used in the government mark of England.

In the [second illustration] on page 1012 are shown the successive processes of converting the bark into cloth. In the foreground and at the right hand are seen some women kneeling in the stream, engaged in scraping the liber to free it from every particle of the outer bark. One woman is examining a piece against the light, to see whether it is quite clean. Behind them, and toward the left centre of the illustration are more women, some of them beating and scraping the bark with the square mallets which have been already described when treating of Tonga, and another is busily employed in joining two pieces with arrow-root. Just above them is another woman engaged in the more skilful part of the manufacture, i. e. printing by rubbing dye over the cloth when laid on the pattern board, and one or two of the boards themselves are given, in order to show the cocoa-nut leaf pattern upon them. In the distance, the other women are seen hanging the still wet cloth up to dry.

CHAPTER CIII.
SAMOA, OR THE NAVIGATORS’ ISLANDS—Continued.
WAR.

CAUSES OF WAR IN SAMOA — THE MALO, AND STRUGGLES FOR ITS POSSESSION — THE CHIEF’S VENGEANCE — FIRE-ARMS PREVENTIVE OF WAR — SAMOAN WEAPONS — THE CLUBS — PATTERNS OF CLUBS THROUGHOUT POLYNESIA — STRANGE MODE OF USING THE SPEAR — THE SHARK-TOOTH GAUNTLETS — SUITS OF ARMOR — GETTING TOGETHER AN ARMY, AND MODE OF FIGHTING — UNPLEASANT POSITION OF NEUTRALS — THE SEA-FIGHT — DISTINGUISHING PENNANTS — THE DEFIANCE BEFORE BATTLE — TROPHIES OF WAR, AND ELATION OF THE VICTOR — DISPOSAL OF THE BODIES — THE HEAD PILE — SINGLE COMBAT BETWEEN CHIEFS — SAMOAN LAW — PUNISHMENT FOR MURDER AND LESSER OFFENCES — CANNIBALISM — NATIVE LAWYERS — THE PLAINTIFF DEFEATED WITH HIS OWN WEAPONS.

It was mentioned on [page 1014], that women when captured in war become the absolute property of those who take them; we will therefore devote a short space to warfare among the Samoans, omitting those characteristics in which it resembles war among the other Polynesian tribes, which have already been described.

The causes of war may mostly be reduced to four; namely, the desire of political supremacy, disputed succession to chieftainship, revenge for the murder of a chief, and infringement of the strange marriage laws of the Samoans.

The first of these causes is always rankling. Each island is divided into several districts, and when one begins to show signs of special prosperity, another is sure to take umbrage at it and go to war in order to secure the “Malo,” or political supremacy. One example of such a war occurred only a few years ago in the island of Apolo.

Manono, one of the three districts into which it is divided, held the supremacy, and the chiefs felt indignant because another district, Aâna, was prospering under the teaching of the missionaries. The chiefs of Manono therefore began to oppress Aâna by making continual demands of property and food. Still, in spite of their exactions, the district would persist in flourishing; it made and sold more cocoa-nut oil, and sold it for more hatchets, calico, and other European treasures, than the other districts. The Manono chiefs were naturally indignant that when they went to a subject district they found it better cultivated and richer than their own, and construed the inferiority which they could not but feel into an intentional insult on the part of Aâna. So they proclaimed the people of Aâna to be rebels, and made war against them.

Such a cause of war, absurd as it may be, and subversive of all real progress, is intelligible, and to be explained by the petty jealousies of human nature, which is too prone to feel itself personally hurt at the prosperity of another. Vengeance for a murdered chief is intelligible, and so is a war for succession; but the last cause needs some explanation.

By the laws of Samoa, a woman once a wife is always a wife, even though she may be put away by her husband. The Samoan chiefs claim the right of marrying as many wives as they choose, and putting them away as often as they like. Indeed, a man often marries a girl merely for the sake of her dower of mats and other property. But even after he has put away a wife, he still considers her as his own chattel; and if any other chief takes her to his house, war is at once declared against him. It is a curious fact that the original husband cares nothing about the morality of the wife whom he has put away, but only for the insult offered to himself by taking his property. Such cast-off wives mostly attach themselves to the Fala-tele, or visiting house, leading most immoral lives, and may do so without incurring any resentment from their former husband. But let them marry another, and vengeance immediately follows the insult.

Head larger

Full length in proportion to head

MANGAIAN SPEAR.
(See [page 1034].)

ADZE MAGNIFIED.
(See [page 1033].)

SUIT OF ARMOR.
(See [page 1019].)

SAMOAN CLUB.
(See [page 1019].)

MANGAIAN PADDLES
(See [page 1033].)

Before the introduction of fire-arms, the principal weapons of Samoa were the spear and the club. The older chiefs have a rooted objection to the musket, and, like Hotspur’s fop, have not been particularly willing to take the field since that “villanous saltpetre” has come into vogue. Muskets, say they, are weapons for boys; clubs for men. They have some reason to complain of the bullets, which, as they say, do not know chiefs, because their towering headdresses make them so conspicuous that they afford excellent marks to the enemy; and if by chance one of their opponents should have even a moderate notion of taking aim, their chance of coming safely out of the battle would be a very small one.

The clubs used in Samoa are remarkable for the excellence of their make, and the polish and finish with which the native carver loves to ornament them. Some of them are short, used for one hand, and made just like the steel maces of European chivalry. Others are almost exactly like the [club No. 1], figured on page 949. The example which is given in the [illustration] entitled “Club,” on page 1018, is drawn from a specimen in my collection, and belonged to the same chief who owned the war mat and feather headdress which have been described. It is five feet in length, and very heavy, so that none but a very powerful man can use it. As it has seen much work, it has been battered about, the wood of the head cracked, and the carving defaced. I have therefore had it drawn as it was when new.

As a rule the clubs of Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, and other Polynesian groups can hardly be definitely referred to any one of them. The commerce which passes between them has caused an interchange of weapons as well as of peaceful commodities, so that the two distinct races which inhabit Fiji and the Tongan and Samoan group use weapons which are almost identical. Thus the serrated club which has just been mentioned is equally used in New Guinea, Fiji, and Samoa, the pattern having been found a convenient one, and so transmitted from one island to the other.

The spears, again, have a great similitude, and are armed with barbs, the best being tipped with the tail-bone of the sting-ray. In former days, when a warrior had pierced an enemy with his spear, he tried to lift him from the ground upon it; and if he were unable to do so, he was generally assisted by several of his comrades, who all thrust their spears into his body, lifted him in the air, and bore him aloft in triumph, not caring whether he were alive or dead.

One weapon, however, seems to be peculiar to Samoa, and has been mentioned by Mariner. It consists of a pair of gauntlets made of cocoa-nut fibre, on the inside of which are fixed several rows of sharks’ teeth, set edgewise. In fact, this weapon is made exactly on the principle of the terrible “tiger-claw” of India, and is intended for the purpose of ripping up an adversary, the abdomen being the part that is always attacked, both by the Samoan and the Hindoo.

One chief, who was of gigantic dimensions, even for a Samoan, always fought with these terrible gauntlets. He used them, however, in a different manner, and disdained to tear open the body of his antagonist. As all the points of the teeth are directed backward, it is impossible for any one who is grasped by these gauntlets to tear himself away. The gigantic chief was accustomed to rush at one of the enemy, seize him with his gauntleted hand, fling him on his face, place one foot on the small of his back, grasp him by the head and bend him forcibly upward so as to break his spine. This was his mode of dealing with able-bodied men. If, however, he seized a small man, he merely threw the victim across his knee, broke his back, and flung his dying foe on the ground. The [illustration] on page 1025 is taken from a beautiful specimen in the collection of the United Service Museum.

In order to guard themselves against these weapons, the Samoan warriors gird themselves with a very broad and thick belt, made of cocoa-nut fibre, wide enough to reach from the arm to the hip. It is not quite long enough to encircle the body, but is worn mostly on the left side, that being the side most exposed to the enemy.

One of these belts, in my collection, is two feet nine inches in length, so that when fastened round the waist it leaves a considerable portion of the right side exposed. It is made by taking a number of plaited cords, and passing them over two sticks, so that all the cords are parallel to each other. They are then bound firmly together by strings of twisted fibre, which pass under and over each alternately, and make a very strong armor, through which the dreaded sharks’ teeth cannot make their way.

Sometimes the Samoan warrior seems to have been mistrustful of the efficacy of the belt, and to have feared the effects of the shark’s teeth on his naked arms and legs. There is in the collection of the United Service Museum a complete suit of armor, most ingeniously made out of fibre, and so formed as to cover the greater part of the body and limbs. It is in two portions, the upper being put on as a coat, and the lower as trousers. By the sides of the armor, on p. 1018, are [two small sketches], showing on an enlarged scale the patterns of the plaiting.

There is no definite army among the Samoans, each man being considered as a soldier, and having his weapons always at hand. He is liable at any time to be called out by his chief, and, as a rule, he troubles himself very little about the cause of the war, only concerning himself to fight in the train of his chief. The Samoans are a brave race, and, if properly led and taught the veriest rudiments of discipline, would make good soldiers. As it is, however, no Samoan warrior fights with the knowledge that his movements are directed in accordance with a definite plan, or that he will be supported by others. He does not feel himself a simple unit among many, but has to look out for himself, to select his own adversary, to advance when he thinks he can do so with advantage, to run away when he feels himself getting into undue peril.

Whenever a few Samoans have put themselves under the guidance of a white man, they have always repelled their foes. In one such case, twenty men drove off a body of five hundred enemies, flushed with success and bloodshed. Both parties were armed with muskets, but the regular though insignificant volleys of the twenty men so completely disorganized the five hundred undisciplined foes, that the latter dared not attack the little stone wall, five feet high and twenty-five yards long, behind which the defenders were lying.

Had the latter been left to their own devices, they would have fired all their pieces at once, and been left with unloaded muskets at the mercy of their foes. But being taught always to keep half their muskets loaded, they had always a volley ready for their enemies, who were utterly discomfited at their reception, and at last were only too glad to escape as they best could, with the loss of many men.

The position of a neutral is not at all a pleasant one in Samoa, as, in case either side should appear to be likely to win the day, those of the losing side who happen to be friendly with the unfortunate neutral make a point of stripping him of all his property, to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy. Those Europeans who know the native customs always erect barricades whenever war parties come near them, knowing that they stand in equal danger from friends or foes.

When a chief decides on going to war, he calls out all the warriors in his district. Though there is no real discipline of the soldiers, there is at all events some semblance of order in their arrangement. Each town has its definite place, and the inhabitants would resent any attempt on the part of another town to take the place which they consider as their own. The most honorable post is in front, and, though it is a post of danger, it is so honorable that if a man belonging to any town privileged to lead the war were placed in the rear, he would probably desert to the enemy. In fact, a vast amount of desertion does take place, and by means of the deserters and the women, both parties know tolerably well the designs of their antagonists. The idea of conceiving, maturing a plan, keeping it secret, and then suddenly acting on it, seems never to have entered the mind of the Samoan chiefs.

Though the vanguard is the post of danger as well as of honor, it is greatly coveted, for it is also the post of profit both in peace and war. The inhabitants of the privileged towns claim the largest share at the feasts, and generally rule the district in which they live. As all the Samoans dress much alike and speak the same language, they are obliged to wear a sort of uniform, by which they shall know friends from foes. In the case of warriors, the hair is dressed in some strange way, or a white shell is hung round the neck, or a strip of cloth tied round the arm, these symbols being changed every three or four days, in order to prevent the enemy from imitating them.

When canoes unite under one leader, they hang out symbols of a similar character, such as bunches of leaves, strips of matting, or even a sort of flag made of native matting, and having painted on it the rude figure of some animal, such as a pig, a dog, or a bird. True to the independent nature of Samoan warriors, the two men who respectively command the land and the sea forces never think of consulting together, and acting in concert together, but each does what he thinks best on the spur of the moment. In the case already mentioned, where twenty Aâna men repulsed five hundred of the Savaiis, the latter might have been cut off to a man. While they were kept in check by the twenty disciplined warriors, a fleet of Aâna canoes appeared off the shore; and, if the commander had only landed his men, a most thorough example would have been made of the invaders. But he had nothing to do with the land force, and so allowed the enemy to escape without even attempting to stop them.

The student of anthropology always finds that human nature is much the same in different parts of the earth, and that manners and customs wonderfully resemble each other in principle, though they may be modified in detail by the accident of time and place. It has already been mentioned that many of the Samoan laws are identical with those given by Moses, though there is no possibility that any geographical connection could ever have taken place between Polynesia and Sinai.

Warfare is carried on at the present day in Samoa just as the scriptures tell us it used to be in Palestine and Syria, and as Homer tells us it was waged on the plains of Troy. When two opposing bodies meet, the leaders challenge and abuse each other in good set terms, each boasting of his own prowess, depreciating that of the adversary, and threatening after he has killed his enemy to dishonor his corpse in some way. Thus, we find that when David had accepted the challenge of Goliath, before they proceeded to action they reviled each other, Goliath threatening to give David’s flesh unto the “fowls of the air and the beasts of the field,” and David retorting in almost the same words, but adding that he would do the same by the bodies of the whole army.

Thus, in the old Homeric story, where Ulysses flings his spear at Socus, he uses almost exactly the same formula of words:—

“Ah, wretch! no father shall thy corpse compose,

Thy dying eye no tender mother close;

But hungry birds shall tear those balls away,

And hovering vultures scream around their prey.”

Thus, the Fijian warrior defies his enemy in words before he proceeds to blows, threatening to bake and eat his body and make a drinking-cup of his scull. Thus, the Samoan war parties always think it necessary to pause and defy each other in words before they proceed to blows. For example, when the Manono and Aâna men fought in the struggle which has just been described, they exchanged threats and injurious epithets wonderfully like the “winged words” of the Homeric warriors, the sentiment being identical, though the imagery is necessarily different. The [illustration No. 1], on page 1027, shows these Samoan warriors exchanging defiance with their foes.

“You banana-eating Manono men, be your throats consumed by Moso.”

“Ye cocoa-nut eating Aâna men, be your tongues wasted.”

“Where is that Savii pig that comes to his death?”

“Roast that Atua king who is about to die by my spear;” and so on ad infinitum.

These war parties afford excellent opportunities of studying the dress and ornaments of the Samoans. It is thought a point of honor with them, as with the American Indians, to go into action in the fullest dress and decorated with every ornament that can be procured, so that the headdress and general accoutrements of a chief when engaged in war are sure to be the best examples that can be seen.

The proceedings that take place after a battle are well described by Mr. Pritchard. “After a fight, the heads of the slain warriors are paraded in presence of the assembled chiefs and people, when the heroes are individually thanked, and their general prowess and daring publicly acknowledged. The excitement of the successful warrior is intense, as he passes before the chiefs with his bleeding trophy, capering in the most fantastic evolutions, with blackened face and oiled body, throwing his club high in the air, and catching it behind his back or between his legs; sometimes himself carrying his dead enemy’s head, sometimes dancing round a comrade who carries it for him, all the while shouting in his loudest voice, ‘Ou te mau tangata! Ou te mau tangata!’ (‘I have my man, I have my man!’)”

To a young Samoan this is the realization of his highest ambition, to be thus publicly thanked by the chief for slaying an enemy in mortal combat, as he careers before his comrades with the reeking head of his foe in one hand, and his club in the other.

“Then, again, when the war is over, and he returns to his village, to hear his companions rehearse the exploit, and the girls pronounce him ‘toa’ i. e. brave; then it is you see in their very perfection the complacent dignity and latent pride that lurk within that brown-skinned islander. As he assumes an air of unconscious disregard of the praises his deeds evoke, you see the sublime and the ludicrous neatly blending, when he turns to the girls, and mildly exclaims, ‘Funa mai si rului!’ (‘Woman, hand me a cigar.’) This modest little order is at once pretty and pert, dignified and careless, when it falls from the lips of a hero or a beau. And proud is the girl who hands it to him; she has but one ambition then, to become his wife, even with the certainty of being cast off in less than a month for another.

“After the heads have been paraded before the chiefs, they are piled up in the malae, or open space in the centre of the town, the head of the greatest chief slain being placed uppermost. If among the visitors there are any relatives of the slain, they claim the heads and bury them, or send them back to the comrades of the deceased. The unclaimed heads are buried together in the malae. Any bodies that may be recognized are also buried by their friends, while those who have no relations among the visitors are left to rot and make food for the dogs.

“The relations are careful to bury the bodies they identify, lest their spirits should haunt them or wander about the field of battle, disconsolate and mournful, lamenting the fate which left their bodies to rot or to be eaten by the dogs. I have often heard the natives say, ‘Hear that spirit moaning, I am cold! I am cold!’ when a stormy night has thrown its darkness and poured its torrents of rain and gusts of wind over the battle-field. It was vain to tell them that the noise they heard was merely the creaking boughs or the pelting rain; to them it was nothing else than the spirit of the unburied dead enemy.”

The feelings of vanity are so acute in a Samoan warrior that he will do almost anything to procure applause at these meetings after a battle. One man who had failed to kill an enemy was greatly annoyed with himself at having missed the public applause which he had hoped to gain, and hit upon another mode of obtaining a sort of celebrity. He cut off the great toes of a dead enemy whose head had already been taken, and with these toes in his mouth paraded before the chiefs as if he had taken a head. Finding that this novel act excited admiration, he became so excited that he ate the toes, even without cooking them, in the presence of all the people.

Such an act as this might induce the reader to suppose that the Samoans, like many Polynesians, are cannibals. In the ordinary sense of the word, they are not so. After a battle they will sometimes cook and eat a human body, but this is done as an act of disgrace, and not as a gratification of the appetite. In one instance, a young woman whose father had been killed in battle obtained a scalp that had belonged to the enemy. She first burned it to ashes, then beat it to powder, and scattered the dust on the fire over which she cooked her provisions.

After a decisive battle, the chiefs of the beaten side come humbly before their victorious antagonists, carrying firewood, stones and pieces of bamboo. They lay their burdens before the principal chief, and prostrate themselves on the ground, lying there in silence. Should, as is generally the case, the victors be willing to accept the submission, the prostrate chiefs are told to rise and return home; but if they should not be satisfied, the men are clubbed where they lie, while the people whom they represent suffer all the horrors of savage warfare.

The firewood, stones, and bamboo are considered as emblems of the utterly abject state to which the bearers have been reduced. The stones, being the material with which the native ovens are made, signify that those who deposit them at the feet of the victors give themselves up to be baked and eaten by the conquerors. The firewood represents the material with which the ovens are heated, and the bamboo serves as a double symbol. In the first place, the knives with which the Samoans cut up their food were always made of bamboo before the use of iron was introduced by Europeans; and in the second place, the instruments by which torture was inflicted on prisoners by cruel captors were made of the same material.

When the conquered party are pardoned, they enter the house of the chief, kiss his feet, and present him with fine mats, bark cloth, food, and similar property. This ceremony is called Ifonga, and is sometimes employed on other occasions. For example, during the war between Manono and Aâna, two of the most influential chiefs of the latter party took umbrage at some slight, either real or fancied, and deserted to the enemy. Desertion of this nature is quite a common event in Samoan warfare, inasmuch as the chiefs are almost entirely independent of each other, and are bound together by the slightest of ties. In fact, the condition of these islanders much resembles that of the Scottish Highlanders in the old times, when it was hardly possible to wage a regular war on account of the rival jealousies of the different chiefs, besides the internal dissensions among the members of each clan.

Besides, as in the old Scottish clans, there is no discipline by which even the men are bound together. Each man serves as long as he chooses, and no longer. If he thinks himself slighted, or if his crops at home have to be got in, he has no hesitation in shouldering his club, and going off to his own village; nor is there any law by which he can be punished for so doing. In the war to which we are now alluding, a vast number of the Savaii allies of Manono had gone off to their own plantations.

In order to carry out the principle of obtaining the Malo, or sovereignty, it was necessary that the deserters should do homage to Manono, and be replaced in state in their homes, which they were supposed to hold under Manono as vassals in charge. If they could take possession without being attacked by the opposing party, they were supposed to have asserted their rights.

Accordingly, a great ceremony was projected. The Manono chiefs recalled all the allies who had escaped from the war, ostensibly to look after their plantations, but in reality because they had a strong objection to bullets, and summoned them to bring the produce of their plantations to a great “fono,” or discussion. Accordingly, they all came back, allured by the prospect of the feast which accompanies such a “fono.” The two deserting chiefs were introduced to the assembly, and went through the ceremony of Ifonga as a matter of form. Next they had to be safely installed in their own villages. With one of them this was a comparatively easy matter, as the whole district was deserted. So the chief was taken there in triumph, escorted by thirty or forty canoes, and formally installed in his own domains, as vassal to Manono, and therefore acknowledging the right of Malo to belong to that district. He had no followers with him, and in a day or two he left the place and returned to Manono. Still, the transaction had been completed, the time during which he held his domain not being of any importance. The reader may be glad to know that this chief suffered the usual fate of renegades, being received at first with great ceremony, and made much of, and afterward sinking into utter obscurity.

As to the other chief, there was a difficulty respecting the installation. It so happened that, he having been one of the most influential leaders, all the united forces of the two districts, Aâna and Atua, were encamped in and about the place, and if he had been taken there he would not only have been attacked, but the invading party would probably have been repelled by the united forces of the other two districts. So, after much deliberation, it was determined that he should be installed at a convenient season, but that the precise time for performing the ceremony need not for the present be fixed upon.

Sometimes a couple of chiefs quarrel, and, instead of going to war, fight it out themselves with their clubs. They display great dexterity in fencing and guarding, as well as striking, and are watched intently by the spectators. They are usually parted before they do any serious harm to each other, because in case either were killed, or even seriously injured, a war of vengeance would be the inevitable result.

Comparatively little is known of the native laws of Samoa, which, like all similar institutions, are always on the change, and of late years have been almost forgotten by reason of the presence of Europeans in the islands. We find, however, from several travellers, especially from those who have lived among the Samoans as missionaries, that a tolerably well-defined code of laws is recognized, and administered by the chief and his councillors.

Murder, for example, was punishable by death; and this was so well known that when one man murdered another, he and all his family generally fled to another district, where they were sure of protection. It was necessary that all the family should accompany the murderer, because the relatives of the slain man might wreak their vengeance upon any relation of the murderer. Practically, the punishment for murder resolved itself into a heavy fine. The fugitive necessarily left behind him his plantations, his house, and other property, all of which was seized by the chief. Sometimes the whole of the property was confiscated, the house burned down, the plantation devastated, and a message sent to the murderer that he might never return to his own village. Generally, however, this extreme punishment was commuted for a heavy fine, part of which consisted in giving a feast to the entire village.

Damaging a fruit tree was held to be a crime deserving of heavy punishment; and so was speaking disrespectfully to a chief, destroying a fence, or behaving rudely to strangers. For several offences the Samoans had a curiously graduated scale of punishments. Sometimes, when the offence was a light one, the offender was sentenced to seat himself in front of the chief and his council, and take five bites of a cruelly pungent root. Sometimes he was obliged to toss and catch a certain number of times one of the prickly sea-urchins, which are covered with slender spikes, as sharp as needles and as brittle as glass. Sometimes he had to beat his head with sharp stones until his face was covered with blood.

These punishments were usually inflicted, but there was a severe set of penalties for graver offences. In some cases the offender was hung by the feet to the branch of a tree, or stripped of all his clothes, and set in the burning rays of the mid-day sun. One of the severest, as well as most degrading punishments consisted in taking a pole cut from a very prickly tree, tying together the culprit’s feet and hands, slinging him on the pole as pigs are slung when they are being taken to the oven, and carrying him to the house or village against which he had offended.

The degrading part of this punishment consisted in likening the offender to a pig going to the oven. It is always held as a deep insult to a Samoan to compare him to a pig; while the very idea of being baked in the oven is most repulsive to the feelings of the people, who have the same contempt for any of the processes of cookery that prevails throughout New Zealand, Fiji, and Tonga. So utterly humiliating is this punishment, that when the culprit is laid helpless at the feet of those whom he has injured he is almost invariably released and forgiven, the extreme degradation being accepted as an atonement for almost any offence, no matter how heinous. This is the reason why the ceremony of Ifonga is considered as so degrading.

Indeed, it is in consequence of this feeling that cannibalism is occasionally practised, though, as has already been mentioned, it exists in a very modified form. Formerly, the women always attended upon the warriors for the sake of obtaining the bodies of the slain foes, which they dragged out of the field, and then cooked, by way of expressing the utmost contempt for them. The priests used also to accompany the warriors, and pray to the gods for success. They had good reason for wishing for victory, as their portion of the food was only the hands of the slain warriors, and as long as the struggle lasted they were not allowed to eat any other food except these hands. The priests of the losing side have sometimes been obliged to fast for several days in succession.

When the body of a chief was carried off to the oven, great rejoicings were made, and every one was expected to eat a piece of it, no matter how small. On such occasions, even the women and little children had a share, the question being frequently asked whether all have tasted. Sometimes, when a captive has been taken alive, the Samoans have been known to tie him up to a tree, dig a hole in front of him, line it with stones, heat it before his eyes, and then throw him into it.

According to the accounts of the natives, wars were formerly much more common than is now the case, the musket having almost driven the club and spear out of the field, and rendering useless the strength and skill of the warriors, who prided themselves on their dexterity of handling their weapons. How well they fence with the club has already been described, and that they were equally efficient in the use of the spear is evident from an anecdote told by Mr. Williams.

A chief named Matetau had come on board an English vessel, and the captain, wishing to test the skill of his visitor, painted on the foresail a ring about four or five inches in diameter, and asked Matetau to throw his spear at it. The chief retired to the quarter-deck, about eighty feet from the mark, poised his spear for a moment, and sent it through the middle of the ring. Warriors thus skilful in the use of their weapons might well feel indignant at the introduction of fire-arms, which equalize the weak and the strong, and enable a mere boy only just tattooed to kill the greatest chief.

When cases are brought before the council for adjudication, both plaintiff and defendant exhibit the greatest ingenuity in stating their case, and are wonderfully fertile in inventing new arguments. The Samoan litigant is as slippery as an eel, and no sooner has he found one post untenable than he has contrived to glide away from it and establish himself in another. Mr. Pritchard gives a very amusing instance of this characteristic of the Samoan.

The property of an English resident, who was popularly called “Monkey Jack,” had been wantonly destroyed, and the injured man referred the case to the council. As at that time two ships of war arrived, the matter was by common consent referred to the senior officer, and the plaintiff, accompanied by his friends, proceeded to the spot. The chiefs were convened, and, though they could not deny that the property had been destroyed, they put forward a series of excuses for refusing to pay any indemnity.

Firstly, they said that the plaintiff had joined the enemy, and that they were therefore entitled to wage war on him. This accusation being refuted, they shifted their ground from the man to his wife, saying that she was related to the enemy, and that her husband necessarily partook of the relationship. Fortunately, the woman happened to be related equally to both sides, so that the defendants had to abandon that plea.

Their next count was, that the destruction of the property was accidental, and that therefore the owner had no claim on them. As their own previous admissions contradicted them, there was no difficulty in disposing of this allegation. Their next line of defence was a very ludicrous one, and showed that they were nearly brought to bay. It so happened that “Monkey Jack” was something of an armorer, and used to repair for the natives the muskets which their rough hands had damaged. His opponents suddenly recollected this and turned it to account, saying that his charges for repairs were so much heavier to them than to the enemy, that in self-defence they had taken his property in compensation. Evidence was brought that his charges were always the same to any natives, no matter to which party they belonged, and so the defendants were again beaten.

Like wise men, however, they had reserved their weightiest argument to the last. It has already been mentioned that in time of war either party has no scruple in destroying or confiscating the property of a friend, on the plea that it is better for them to have the use of the property than for the enemy to take it. The defendants brought forward an argument based on this custom, saying that they only acted in accordance with national custom, and that they had destroyed the property of the plaintiff, in order to keep it out of the hands of the enemy.

This was by far the most formidable argument they could have employed, but “Monkey Jack” was as clever as his opponents, and replied with crushing effect, that for several weeks the opposite party had been able, if they had desired to do so, to destroy all his property, but had refrained from touching it.

When the chiefs saw that they had met with men more skilful than themselves in argument, they were sadly perplexed, and some of the younger chiefs hit on a mode by which they thought that they might escape from paying the indemnity. They agreed quietly to surround the spot where the captain and the consul were sitting, and suddenly carry them off, and retain them as hostages until the indemnity should be given up. Fortunately, Mr. Pritchard detected their plot, and contrived to slip back to the boats, where he arranged a counter plot.

Before very long, the Samoans surrounded the place where the intended captives were sitting, and, just as they were about to seize them, Mr. Pritchard called out to them, and showed them that they were covered by the levelled muskets of the sailors and marines, who had accompanied the captain and the consul to the spot. Knowing that, unlike themselves, the English warriors had an inconvenient habit of hitting when they fired, the Samoan chiefs acknowledged themselves conquered, and agreed to pay the indemnity.

Another case, much more petty, was a very ludicrous one, the Samoan absolutely granting himself to be defeated by the logic of his opponent.

There was a certain West Indian negro, who had taken up his residence in Samoa, and had attained in a neighboring tribe the rank of chief, together with the name of Paunga. A native chief, named Toe-tangata (called, for brevity’s sake, Toe), had a dog, which was in the habit of stealing from Paunga’s house. The latter had often complained to the owner of the animal, but without success, and at last, as the dog continued to steal, Paunga shot it. Now in Samoa to insult a chief’s dog is to insult the owner, and so Toe considered himself to have been shot by Paunga.

The case was at last referred to the captain of an English man-of-war, but Paunga refused to appear, saying that he was a Samoan chief, and not under the jurisdiction of a foreigner. A file of armed marines was at once sent for Paunga, who ingeniously took advantage of the proceeding, placing himself at their head, and telling the people that they might now see that he was a chief among the white people as well as among natives, and had his guard of honor, without which he would not have stirred out of the house.

Both being before the captain, Toe made his complaint, and was instantly crushed by Paunga’s reply. He admitted that the property of a chief was identical with the owner. Consequently, when Toe’s dog ate Paunga’s food, he, Toe, ate Paunga. Therefore, when Paunga shot Toe in the person of his dog, he only balanced the account, and neither party had grounds of complaint against the other.

SHARK-TOOTH GAUNTLET.
(See [page 1019].)

CHAPTER CIV.
SAMOA, OR THE NAVIGATORS’ ISLANDS—Concluded.
AMUSEMENTS—MARRIAGE—ARCHITECTURE.

SAMOAN AMUSEMENTS — PIGEON CATCHING — THE DECOY BIRDS, AND MODE OF USING THEM — TRAINING THE BIRDS — FISHING: THE NET AND THE LINE — DARING MODE OF SHARK CATCHING — A BOLD FISHERMAN — CURIOUS ACCIDENTS TO THE DIVERS: THE SHARK AND THE CORAL — THE BOAR HUNT — A DANGEROUS FOE — SAMOAN COOKERY — THE PALOLO — ITS CURIOUS APPEARANCE, MODE IN CAPTURE, AND WAY OF COOKING IT — MARRIAGE IN SAMOA — CEREMONIES IN THE MARRIAGE OF A CHIEF — THE WEDDING FEAST AND DANCES — SAMOAN ARCHITECTURE — DIVISION OF THE HOUSE BY MOSQUITO CURTAINS.

The amusements of the Samoans are in many respects identical with those of other Polynesians, and therefore only those will be described wherein is anything characteristic of these islanders. One of the principal sports is pigeon shooting, which is carried on in certain parts of the wood expressly prepared for it. The principle on which the sport is followed much resembles that of the rat shooting practised by the Tongans. Several chiefs agree to go off on a pigeon-catching expedition, and at the appointed time the fowling ground is cleared of bush, a large circle is marked out by stones, and just outside the circle are made a number of ambushes, formed from leaves and branches, which are cut fresh daily.

The sport is preluded by a drink of kava, and when this indispensable preliminary is over, the chiefs repair to their stations, each having a net and a trained bird. The net is small, and is fixed to the end of a bamboo, thirty or even forty feet in length. The bird is perched on a stick near its master, and is attached to its perch by a string forty or fifty yards in length.

At a given signal, the birds are thrown into the air, and, following the instructions they have received, wheel round and round for some little time. The wild pigeons see them from a distance, and fancying from their movements that they are hovering over food, fly to join them. As they wheel to and fro with the decoy birds, the chiefs raise their nets and dexterously capture them. He who takes the greatest number of pigeons wins the game, and receives from each of the other players a stake which has been previously fixed upon. Generally the stakes consist of food or kava roots, and in such cases the winner practically gains nothing but the honor of winning the game, as the food is cooked and distributed by the winner to all his companions, and the kava is converted into drink.

These bird-catching parties last for a very long time, the players sometimes remaining on the spot for a month. Huts are consequently run up around the open space on which the birds are flown. The [second engraving] on the next page illustrates this sport very accurately.

The decoy birds are most carefully trained, the object of the trainer being to make them rise at the word of command, fly to the end of the string, wheel round in graceful circles for some time, and then return to the perch. When a bird will remain on the wing for five minutes and return to its perch at its master’s call, it is considered as having been highly trained, and is held in great estimation. The natives may be often seen engaged in training the birds in the open space in the centre of the village. The birds are encouraged in their flight by a peculiar mode of jerking the string.

(1.) SAMOAN WARRIORS EXCHANGING DEFIANCE.
(See [page 1021].)

(2.) PIGEON CATCHING BY SAMOANS.
(See [page 1026].)

Fishing is a very favorite amusement with the Samoans, who display a wonderful amount of skill and often of courage in their sport. The latter quality is chiefly brought into play when the natives are occupied in shark fishing. Whenever a great feast is to be held, the fishermen go off in search of sharks, the flesh of this fish being one of the principal dainties of Samoa. The fishermen go off in canoes, each canoe being manned by two or three fishermen, who are supplied with a strong rope, having a noose at one end and a quantity of animal offal.

Going to the edge of the lagoon, where the sharks lie under shelter of the rocks, the men throw the offal overboard, for the double purpose of attracting and gorging the sharks. They then peer into the water, and when one of the fishermen sees a shark lazily stretching itself on the sand that lies under the overhanging rocks, he lets himself very quietly into the sea, dives down with the rope in his hand, slips the noose over the shark’s tail, and rises to the surface. As soon as he gets into the boat, the men drag the shark out of his retreat, and haul away until the creature’s tail is raised out of the sea, when it becomes nearly helpless. A sudden jerk brings it into the canoe, where it is instantly killed.

Sometimes the shark lies in a deep submarine cave, with only its head out of the opening. The Samoan fisherman, however, is not to be baffled by this attitude, but dives down to the shark, and taps it gently on the head. The fish, replete with food, feels annoyed at the interruption, and turns round, exposing as it does so its tail to the daring fisherman, who slips the noose over it in a moment.

One young man, mentioned by Mr. Pritchard, was celebrated for his daring in this sport. He disdained assistance, and used to go out alone in a little canoe, dropping bait overboard in order to attract the sharks, and throwing his noosed rope over their tails. On one occasion the rope broke, but the brave fellow had no idea of losing both shark and rope. He leaped overboard among all the sharks, seized the rope, scrambled into his canoe again, and, after a long and severe struggle, succeeded in killing his shark and towing it ashore.

Sometimes the hook is used in shark fishing. The fishermen bait a hook, carry it out in a canoe in twelve feet or so of water, and bring the line back to land. Before very long a shark is nearly sure to seize the bait; and when the fish is fairly hooked, several men haul at the rope and drag the shark into shallow water, where it is allowed to flounce about until it is exhausted, and is then killed without difficulty.

Such a sport as this is necessarily attended with much danger, but the Samoan fisherman is nearly as much at home in the water as the shark itself, and treats his dangerous game with the same easy indifference which a Spanish matador displays toward a furious bull. Accidents certainly do happen in both cases, but they are the exception, and not the rule.

Another of their amusements which is dangerous is pig hunting. As the swine are allowed to run loose in the woods, they have reverted to their wild modes of life, and are sly, swift, active, and ferocious. It is thought a point of honor for a chief to challenge a wild boar, and to receive no assistance except in case of extreme need. The hunter is armed with his knife and tomahawk, or sometimes with a whale spade, which makes a very formidable weapon if the edges are kept sharp.

To kill one of the animals is no easy task. In the first place, a wild boar is so quick that nothing but the greatest activity can save the hunter from its tusks; and were the fight to take place on an open plain instead of among trees, behind which the hunter can jump when hard pressed, the beast might probably get the better of the man. Then the boar is wonderfully tenacious of life, and has a skin so tough that a sharp weapon and a strong arm are needed to inflict a mortal wound. Even when the animal has fallen, and is apparently dead, an experienced hunter always drives his knife into its throat, as boars have an awkward way of suddenly reviving, leaping on their legs, and dashing through their foes into the bush.

The sows are even more dangerous antagonists than the boars. They are, as a rule, lighter, thinner, and more active, and, although they have no long tusks wherewith to rip up their foes, they can bite as sharply and as quickly as wolves. Indeed, were it not for the dogs which are trained to boar-hunting, and are wonderfully courageous and skilful, though very ugly and most unpromising to the eye, they would seldom be brought to bay.

Mr. Pritchard gives an account of an adventure of his own with a boar, which gives an excellent idea of the ferocity, cunning, and activity of the animals. The boar had actually received two rifle bullets in his left shoulder, inflicting wounds which would have disabled, if not killed, most animals, but seemed only to irritate the boar by the pain.

“The fury of the beast was intense, with its two wounds and the worrying of the dogs. He stood grinding his teeth and frothing at the mouth, looking first at one and then at another of us, as if measuring an antagonist for fight. The chief suggested that one of us should tackle him, while the others looked on without interfering. Of course I had to claim the privilege to do so after such a challenge; though, in truth, this being the first boar I had ever encountered, I felt as if I had somewhat rashly undertaken the combat, for, even with his two wounds, I fancied he might possibly hold out longer than myself, and, if I failed to kill him, the failure would be fine sport for my comrades, and not soon forgotten in their jokes.

“However, I stepped out in front of the infuriated beast, and no sooner was I there than he was there too—quite promptly enough, I thought. He made a furious charge at me, which I received with the butt end of my rifle, trying to throw him over on his wounded side, but ineffectually. A second time he came at me, and a second time I checked him. As he drew up for the third charge, his long bristles standing on end, grinding his tusks and tossing the froth from his huge mouth, I drew my tomahawk. On he came, swifter than ever; the tomahawk fell deep into the thick part of his neck, and my boy Atamu did the rest with his long knife.

“It was rather hot work, for these boars have immense strength and no little dogged pluck, and their skins are so tough that often a spear will break short off without leaving even a mark where it struck.”

The same boar had previously forced the writer to employ rather a ludicrous manœuvre. He had fired at the shoulder of the animal, thinking that, if the bullet did not reach the heart, it would at all events disable him. But the boar made at him almost as it received the shot, and sprang on him so quickly that he was forced to jump over its head upon its back, and roll off toward the nearest tree. The smaller pigs are killed in a different manner. The dogs are trained to catch them by the ears, shoulders, and tail, and when the hunters come up they place a stick across the animal’s throat, and press it down until the pig is dead.

As to the cookery of the Samoans, there is little to distinguish it from that of the Tongans and other Polynesians of the same race. They have a great abundance of dishes, being able to produce almost as great a variety in that respect as the Fijians, and many of their dishes are extremely palatable to an European. Vegetables form the staple of the Samoan’s food, and of those he has abundant choice. Putting aside those vegetables which have been imported from Europe, he has yams, taro, bananas, bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, and plantains. Sometimes these are cooked separately and sometimes mixed, in order to produce a compound more palatable to native taste. As a rule, the simpler specimens of Samoan cookery please even the English palate, but when the native cooks dress compound dishes the natives are generally the only persons who can eat them.

For instance, there is nothing better in its way than the young cocoa-nut, which is entirely different from the hard, indigestible state in which we see it in England. But when the milk is poured out, its place is supplied with salt water, and the contents allowed to become putrid, the compound is offensive to more senses than one. Some of their compounds are, however, excellent. Such is a sort of pudding made by pouring the juice of cocoa-nuts over bananas, and baking them together. Even the very young kernel of the cocoa-nut makes a very rich dish when baked.

The strangest diet of the Samoans is the annelid called the Palolo (Palolo viridis). Mr. Pritchard gives an excellent account of this curious being and the mode of cooking it.

It appears only in certain strictly defined and very limited localities in each group (i. e. in Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa); a month earlier, about the first week in November, in Samoa than in the two other groups. It rises directly from the bottom of the sea to the surface, appearing first about four o’clock in the morning, and continuing to increase in number, until about half an hour after sunrise, when it begins to dissolve, and gradually disappears. By eight o’clock not a trace of the palolo remains in the sea. They look just like so many worms, from an inch to a yard in length, showing every conceivable color as they wriggle about, and are soft to the touch.

“The time of their appearance is calculated by the old men of the various tribes, and is known by the sun, moon, and stars having a particular bearing to each other. A month before the great appearance, a few are found in each of the localities where they rise. Parties go out in their canoes to watch for this first appearance, for by it the calculation as to the second and great appearance is verified.

“When that time comes, whole villages, men, women, and children, crowd the scene; by two o’clock the sea is covered with canoes, the outriggers getting foul and breaking adrift without distracting the attention, as by four o’clock all are busied scooping up the palolos and pouring them into baskets made for the occasion. The noise and excitement from four to six o’clock is something astonishing, and the scrambling most amusing. And when, with canoes landed, the crowd disperses, the next thing is to prepare the ovens to cook the palolos, which are merely wrapped in bread-fruit leaves. They are sent round with much formality to friends at a distance, and sometimes kept three or four weeks by being occasionally warmed in an oven.

“I never could muster courage to do more than merely taste them, so repulsive is their very appearance as they roll and coil together, though Englishmen and even English women there are who eat them, and professedly with a relish, for which I suppose one cannot but accept their word. One lady in particular there is, as described by Dr. Seeman, a ‘strong-minded individual,’ who eats palolo with a remarkable gusto. I think she will not be deprived of her fancy dish by many of her visitors.”

There has been much discussion about the palolo, many persons having doubted whether it was ever an annelid, and believing the worms to be mere strings of spawn. The question has, however, been settled, and there is an elaborate paper on the palolo in the “Transactions of the Linnæan Society,” vol. xxii. p. 237.

The worm is allied to the well-known Nereids, several species of which are so plentiful on our own shores. It is flattish, about the sixth of an inch in width, and consists of a vast number of segments. The entire specimen has never been secured, so delicate and fragile is the creature, and it is with the greatest difficulty that a head can be discovered. Among the specimens first sent to the British Museum, not a single head could be found, and among a large bottle full of palolo collected expressly for scientific purposes, only one head was discovered. The head is a little narrower than the joints which compose the neck, and is furnished with two little eyes on the upper surface, between which are placed three tentacles, of which the middle is the longest.

The normal color of the annelid is green, and it is remarkable for the regularly dotted appearance of the back, one black dot being placed on the middle of each segment. So regularly does the palolo make its appearance, that among the Fiji group the months of October and November are known by the names of the Little Palolo and Great Palolo, the former being the month in which it is first seen, and the second that in which it makes its grand appearance.

Marriages in Samoa are conducted much like those of Tonga, the latter group of islands having borrowed many of the Samoan customs. It is thought rather below the dignity of a chief to court a wife for himself, and that office is generally undertaken by his friends, who praise him in the most unmeasured terms, and do all in their power to induce the girl to yield. When her consent has been given, the chief sends property to her father, and receives in return fine mats and other articles, this exchange being considered as the betrothal.

On the day of marriage, the bride, well anointed with oil, colored with turmeric, and dressed in large quantities of the finest mats, is placed in the malae, or open space in the centre of the village, attended by her young friends, who are arrayed in all the gorgeousness of savage finery, with wreaths of flowers and nautilus shells on their heads. She is also accompanied by the two duennas who have had charge of her, and who chant her praises and extol her virtue. The object of this public assembly is to prove whether the girl be worthy to be the wife of a chief. Should the verdict be in her favor, she is presented to the people as the chief’s wife, and, amid their acclamations, is taken into the house by her duennas and attendants. Should, as is very seldom the case, the verdict be adverse, all the male members of her family, even her fathers and brothers, rush on her with their clubs and kill her on the spot, in order to take away the disgrace which she has brought on her house.

After the bride has been led away there is a grand dance. This differs somewhat from the dances which are usually seen among the Polynesians. The spectators being seated in a circle round a cleared space, and keeping up a monotonous chant, the men first enter the circle, led by a young chief, and clothed merely in the little leaf apron, so as to show off the tattoo to the best advantage. Their leader goes through a vast number of steps, sometimes leaping high in the air, and sometimes executing movements of a slower and more graceful character, while every step is watched and criticised as it is danced by the leader and imitated by his followers. After the men have danced for some time they retire, and a number of girls enter, who go through evolutions of a similar character, and afterward both men and women dance together.

The houses of the Samoans are all built on the same model. They are very conservative in some of their ideas, and follow implicitly the plan which was adopted by the chief who, according to their traditions, first built a dwelling. At a distance, the appearance of the house has been compared to a large mushroom.

The first process is, to make a large platform of rough stones, covered with gravel, extending some twenty feet on every side beyond the walls of the house. In the centre are planted three posts, standing about twenty-five feet out of the ground. Upon these central posts are supported the rafters of the roof, one end of each rafter being fixed to them, and the other end to the tops of short posts about four feet high, which form, or rather which do duty for, the walls of the house. Real walls there are none, but at night the space between the posts is closed by blinds made of plaited cocoa-nut leaves. The whole framework of the roof is made in several sections, so that it can be removed.

The thatch is made of the leaves of the sugar-cane, nailed by the women to reeds with spikes made of the ribs of the cocoa-nut leaves. About four thousand leaves are required for thatching a house, and they are lashed carefully with cocoa-nut fibre.

The floor of the house is strewn with very fine gravel and covered with mats. There are no separate chambers, but at night the house is divided into a number of sleeping places by means of the mosquito curtains which are attached to the central post, and let down when required. It is a point of etiquette that all guests should be supplied with clean mats. The pillow used in Samoa is like that of Fiji, and is nothing more than a stick supported on a foot at each end.

CHAPTER CV.
HERVEY AND KINGSMILL ISLANDS.
APPEARANCE—WEAPONS—GOVERNMENT.

POSITION OF THE HERVEY ISLANDS — FIERCE AND TREACHEROUS NATURE OF THE INHABITANTS — THE CHIEF MOUROOA, AND HIS VISIT TO THE SHIP — SKILL IN CARVING — THEIR BEAUTIFUL PADDLES AND CANOES — THE MANGAIAN ADZE: ITS CARVED HANDLE AND STONE HEAD — THE MANY-BARBED SPEAR — THE CLUB AND SLING — THE FOUR RANKS IN BATTLE — FEROCITY OF THE WOMEN — FEUDS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES — A MANGAIAN HOUSE — FOOD — PROCURING AND COOKING IT — A RAT HUNT — IDOLS OF THE MANGAIANS — THE KINGSMILL ISLANDERS — LOCALITY AND GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE KINGSMILL ISLANDS — APPEARANCE OF THE NATIVES — ARCHITECTURE — DRESS AND TATTOOING — WARLIKE NATURE — THE TERRIBLE WEAPONS OF THESE ISLANDS — THE SWORD AND SPEAR — MODE OF GOVERNMENT — BURIAL OF A DEAD CHIEF.

Eastward of Samoa, and rather southward, lie the Hervey, or Cook’s Islands. The group includes seven islands, the principal of which is Rarotonga, an island between thirty and forty miles in circumference. This island is remarkable for the lofty mountains of the interior, and round it extends a large reef of coral. Some of the islands are entirely coral, and all of them are surrounded by the dangerous coral reefs, at which the coral “insects” are still working.

In general appearance the people bear much resemblance to the Samoans, but seem to be of a more warlike and ferocious character. Indeed, so quarrelsome and bloodthirsty are the natives of this group, that when Mr. Williams visited Hervey’s Island he found that only sixty of the population survived, and a few years later they were reduced to five men, three women, and some children, and these were on the point of fighting among themselves, in order to ascertain which should be king.

One of the principal islands of this group, namely, Mangaia, was discovered by Captain Cook in March 1777. The natives were very unwilling to come on board the vessel, but at last two men put off in a canoe, their curiosity overcoming their terror. The name of one of them was Mourooa, and he was distinguishable by a large scar on his forehead, the result of a wound received in battle.

“Mourooa,” writes Captain Cook, “was lusty and well-made, but not very tall. His features were agreeable, and his disposition seemingly no less so, for he made several droll gesticulations, which indicated both good nature and a share of humor. He also made others which seemed of a serious kind, and repeated some words with a devout air before he ventured to lay hold of the rope at the ship’s stern; which was probably to recommend himself to the protection of some divinity.

“His color was nearly of the same cast common to the most southern Europeans. The other man was not so handsome. Both of them had strong, straight hair, of a jet color, tied together on the crown of the head with a bit of cloth. They wore such girdles as we perceived about those on shore, and we found they wore a substance made from the Morus papyrifera, in the same manner as at the other islands of this ocean. It was glazed, like the sort used by the natives of the Friendly Islands, but the cloth on their heads was white, like that which is found at Otaheite.

“They had on a kind of sandal made of a grassy substance interwoven, which we also observed were worn by those who stood upon the beach, and, as we supposed, intended to defend their feet against the rough coral rock. Their beards were long; and the inside of their arms, from the shoulder to the elbow, and some other parts, were punctured or tattooed, after the manner of the inhabitants of almost all the other islands in the South Sea. The lobe of their ears was pierced, or rather slit, and to such a length that one of them stuck there a knife and some beads which he had received from us; and the same person had two polished pearl-shells and a bunch of human hair loosely twisted hanging about his neck, which was the only ornament we observed.”

After some time, Mourooa ventured on board the ship, but seemed very uneasy at his position, his feelings of curiosity being overcome by those of alarm at finding himself in so gigantic a vessel. He showed little curiosity about the ship and the various objects which it contained, but the sight of a goat entirely drove out of his mind any emotion except wonder, he never having seen so large an animal. He wanted to know what bird it could be, and, as soon as he could get ashore, he was seen narrating to the people the wonders which he had seen on board the great canoe.

All the Hervey Islanders are gifted with a natural appreciation of art, and the inhabitants of Mangaia seem to be pre-eminent in this respect. They lavish the most minute and elaborate carving on various objects, the handles of tools and the paddles seeming to be their favorite subjects. The [beautiful paddle] which is shown on the 1018th page, is drawn from a specimen in my own collection. It is nearly four feet in length, and the blade is eleven inches wide in the broadest part. The pattern is given as well as can be done, considering the minute elaboration of the original. The opposite face of the blade is even more carefully decorated, and perhaps with a more artistic design. The squared shaft of the paddle is covered with carving, as is also the peculiarly shaped handle.

Another paddle is made in a similar manner, except that the shaft is rounded instead of squared, and decorated at the handle with a row of ornaments which seem to be conventional imitations of the human face (see [fig. 2]). The wood of which these paddles are made is light, though strong and elastic; and, as the implement is sometimes used as a club, both these last-mentioned characteristics are needed.

Captain Cook noticed the peculiar shape of these paddles, though he does not appear to have handled them, or to have examined them carefully. “The canoe they came in (which was the only one we saw) was not above ten feet long and very narrow, but both strong and neatly made. The fore-part had a board fastened over it and projecting out, so as to prevent the sea from getting in on plunging ... but it had an upright stern about five feet high, like some in new Zealand, and the upper part of this stern-post was forked. The lower part of the canoe was of white wood, but the upper was black, and their paddles made of wood of the same color, not above three feet long, broad at one end and blunted.”

Another paddle was brought to England by the late Admiral Young, and presented to me by his daughter. It is not so large as the specimens which have been just described, but is the most delicately carved specimen I have ever seen. The wood of which it is made is a very rich dark brown, and takes a high polish, so that the effect of the carving is peculiarly good. The blade is covered with a vast number of stars, wonderfully well carved, seeing that the native maker had no compasses by which to take his measurement, and that his only tools were sharks’ teeth and bits of stone. The maker has spared no pains over this trophy of his skill, and, as if to show his own fertility of invention, he has not covered the whole of the shaft with the same pattern, as is the case with the two paddles that have just been described, but has changed the pattern every few inches. I have also a much smaller and shorter paddle, not quite three feet in length, which is made with equal care, but which is not intended so much for use in propelling boats as for ornament in dancing.

The love of ornamentation is displayed in all their manufactures, which are decorated in a manner equally elaborate and artistic. Even their drinking cups, which are made from cocoa-nut shells, are covered with carved patterns of a nature similar to those of the paddles.

The reader will remark that many Polynesians adorn with carving the handles of their tools and weapons, examples of which have been given in the preceding pages. The Hervey Islanders, however, leave no portion of the implement without carving, and, in many instances sacrifice utility to ornament. This is generally the case with the adze handles, many of which are so extremely ornamental that it is not easy to see how they can be useful.

The specimen which is represented on page 1018 ([adze magnified]), is a good example of such an adze. The lower part of the handle is completely hollow, the native manufacturer having contrived to cut away the wood through the intervals between the upright pillars. As these intervals are not quite the third of an inch in width, the labor of removing the interior of the handle must have been very great, and the work exceedingly tedious. Even with European tools it would be a difficult piece of workmanship, and its difficulty is greatly enhanced by the fact that the native who carved it had nothing but a sharp stone or a shark’s tooth lashed to a handle by way of a knife. This particular specimen has been in England for many years, and must have been made before the introduction of European tools among the natives.

The head of the adze is made of stone, and is lashed to the handle in a way exactly like that which is employed by the New Zealanders, except that it is far more elaborate. As if desirous of giving himself as much trouble as possible, the maker has employed the finest plaited sinnet, not wider than packthread and quite flat, and has laid it on the tool in a manner so elaborate that to give a proper idea of it the artist must have occupied an entire page with his drawing. Suffice it to say that the [illustration] gives a good general idea of the mode in which the head is lashed to the handle. The sinnet is laid as regularly as if wound by machinery, and the native artist has contrived to produce the most extraordinary effects with it, throwing the various portions into a simulated perspective, and making the lashing look as if there were four distinct layers, one above another.

Between the stone of the adze head and the wood of the handle is placed a piece of very strong tappa cloth, which seems to have been laid on while wet, so that the bands of sinnet have pressed it well together, and aided in strengthening the junction. The end of this tappa is seen projecting on the upper part of the head, just where it is joined to the handle. That such an implement as this should have been intended for use seems most unlikely, and I believe that it has only been constructed as a sample of the maker’s skill. Sometimes adzes of a similar character are made, the handles of which are from four to five feet long, and carved with a pierced pattern throughout their entire length, so that they could not have been intended for hard work.

A similar elaborate ornamentation is found upon the Hervey Islanders’ spears, one of which is shown in the [illustration] entitled “Spear,” on the 1018th page.

The [spear], which is in my collection, is rather more than ten feet in length, and beautifully made. The shaft is very straight, very slender, and highly polished, but without any carving; indeed, it is so slight that it could not bear any pattern to be carved upon it. The ornament is therefore confined to the many-barbed head, which is a beautiful specimen of savage art.

By referring to the [illustration], the reader will see that just below the first set of barbs the wood of the spear swells into a slightly oval form. This portion of the head is covered with carving, necessarily very shallow, but sufficient for ornament. Between the various sets of barbs the spear is wrapped with very narrow strips of some reed, which is highly polished and of a bright yellow color, so that the contrast between the dark wood of the barbs and the shining yellow of the wrapping is very striking. In spite of the large size of the head, the spear is well balanced, the length of the slender and elastic shaft acting as a counterpoise; and altogether the weapon is as formidable as it is elegant.

Their clubs are ornamented in a similar manner. Mr. Williams describes one of a very curious form. It was carved like the club, [fig. 1], on page 949, but was bent nearly at right angles, rather beyond the junction of the handle with the head, and was ornamented with a great bunch of long and slender feathers. Slings of great length and power are used by these people.

According to the accounts of this missionary, the inhabitants of Mangaia can use their weapons with great skill and courage. They do not try to hide behind trees and bushes, and take their foes by surprise, but boldly meet them in the open field. When two parties meet, they form themselves into four lines. The warriors who compose the first row are armed with the long spears which have just been described, the second rank carry clubs, the third are furnished with slings, and the fourth rank is composed of the women, who carry additional weapons, in case the men should be disarmed, together with a supply of small stones for the slingers. This arrangement of forces is represented in the [battle scene] given on the opposite page.

Sometimes the women take an active part in the fray. One young chief told Mr. Williams that in one battle he was fiercely assailed by the wife of his antagonist. He told her to desist, as he had not come to fight with women. However, she would not listen to him, and exclaiming, “If you kill my husband, what shall I do?” flung a stone at him, which struck him to the ground. Had it not been for the prompt assistance of his own people, who came to the rescue, he would assuredly have lost his life through this woman’s fury.

The people are apt to be ferocious in battle, and Mr. Williams mentions that several of his converts forgot the maxims of Christianity in the excitement of battle, and killed their vanquished enemies in spite of their entreaties for mercy. In all probability, these people were carrying out some feeling of vengeance, according to the custom of these islands.

Throughout the greater part of Polynesia the friends or relatives of the murdered man are bound to avenge his death by killing the murderer, if they can secure him, or at all events by killing one of his family. The family of the victim then retaliate in their turn, so that when a man goes into battle he mostly has a number of feuds on his hands. Like the Corsican Vendetta, if such a feud cannot be carried out in a man’s lifetime, he bequeaths it to his son, so that it may be carried on for any number of generations.

This savage custom has stood greatly in the way of the missionaries. They found no very great difficulty in persuading the people that to harbor malice against another, who might be totally innocent, was exceedingly wrong, and that they ought to abandon the feud. But the new converts argued that it was very unfair to demand that they should abandon their feuds against others while the feuds against themselves were still in operation.

(1.) THE BATTLE.
(See [page 1034].)

(2.) VILLAGE IN THE KINGSMILL ISLANDS.
(See [page 1038].)

In their architecture the Mangaians display the same love of carving which has already been mentioned. Mr. Williams thus describes a building which had been erected for him, and which was large enough to hold sixteen hundred persons:—

“It was a fine building, of an oval shape, about one hundred and twenty feet in length. The large posts which supported the roof (eight in number), the ridge-pole, and the rafters were most beautifully carved, and tastefully colored with various native preparations.

“It is impossible, however, so to describe them as to enable the reader to form a correct idea of their appearance, or of the taste and ingenuity displayed in their execution. These posts were twenty-five feet high, and from twelve to eighteen inches square, and when we considered the tools with which the work was done, which were principally old nails, pieces of iron hoop, and a few chisels, we were amazed both at the patience and skill of the carvers. The effect on entering the place was very striking.”

On the shores of this island fish appear to be less plentiful than is generally the case, and the inhabitants are obliged to have resort to various modes of procuring and preserving food. For example, when they have caught a large quantity of flying fish, they do not eat them at once, but dry them in wood smoke, much as herrings are cured among ourselves. They have an ingenious method of catching these fish by night. The boatmen go out in their double canoes, supplied with torches and large ring nets fastened to the end of handles ten or twelve feet long. They stamp on their canoes so as to make a noise, which is communicated to the water and alarms the fish, and at the same time wave their torches about. According to their instinct, the flying fish dart out of the water toward the light, and are easily captured in the nets.

Rats form a most valued portion of their diet. When the missionaries first visited Mangaia, the natives were so fond of this food that they measured all other kinds of diet by comparison with rats’ flesh. Indeed, the flesh of these animals is far better than is generally supposed. Several English rat-catchers have learned by practical experience the value of rat’s flesh, which is said by those who have tried it to be equal to that of the squirrel and better than that of the rabbit. The Mangaians caught the rats by digging a hole in the ground, and throwing bait into it. When a sufficient number had entered the hole, a net was thrown over the mouth of it, and the inmates easily secured.

In Rarotonga, another island of this group, the rats swarmed in such numbers that they were not only a nuisance, but an absolute pest; and, if it had not been for the pigs which were introduced by the Europeans, and allowed to run wild, the rats would probably have driven the natives out of their villages. At every meal one or two persons were detailed for the sole purpose of keeping the rats from the provisions. When the people sat down in their houses the rats ran over them, and when they lay down to rest the rats had made a settlement in their bed.

At last warfare was declared against the rats, and a number of baskets were made to contain the bodies of the slain, each basket being five or six feet in length. The inhabitants then armed themselves with sticks, and in an hour no less than thirty of these great baskets were filled with dead rats. Even then no diminution seemed to have taken place among these pests. Next, the missionaries tried the introduction of cats, and with some success, but the most fortunate introduction that was made was that of the pig. These animals were brought to Rarotonga for the purpose of supplying the sailors with meat which should supersede the flesh of the rat, and the pigs repaid their introducers by eating every rat which came across them.

When the natives were converted to Christianity, they consulted the missionaries, wishing to know whether the flesh of rats was unlawful food for Christians. They evidently asked this question because they saw that their teachers abstained from these animals. The missionaries returned a very judicious answer to this question, by saying that in their own country rats were not eaten, because the white man had a repugnance to them, but that there was nothing unlawful in eating them, and that the Mangaians might do as they pleased. The people were satisfied with this answer, and contented themselves with passing a law that all Christians should catch and cook their rats on Saturdays, so as to avoid working on the Sunday.

The idols of the Hervey Islanders are very odd-looking things, and would scarcely be recognized as objects of worship. It might naturally be imagined that if these people bestow such pains upon their weapons and implements, they would at least take equal pains with their gods. Yet the gods of the Hervey Islanders are the rudest possible specimens of native workmanship. They consist principally of a staff about sixteen or seventeen feet in length, the upper part of which is carved into a rude representation of a human head. On the staff are laid a few red feathers and a string of beads, which are called the soul of the god. Round the staff and the beads is wrapped a vast quantity of native cloth, so as to form a slightly conical roll about a yard in diameter, and ten feet in length. One of these idols is placed at the bow of every canoe, and whenever the natives are out on a fishing excursion they always make offerings to this strange deity.

---

---