this enclosure, drumming every morning and evening on the ground with hollow bamboos to attract the sea-gods. During this long period they observed certain tabus, and spent the days in complete idleness. Williams heard of a party who, to facilitate the landing of the Luve-ni-wai, built a jetty of loose stones for some distance into the sea. When they were believed to be ascending, flags were set up in some of the inland passes to turn back any of them that might try to make for the forests inland. On the great day a Nanga-like enclosure was made with long poles piled to a height of twelve inches and covered with green boughs, spears bearing streamers being set up at the four angles. Within this the lads sat gaily draped, with their votive offerings of clubs and shells before them, thumping their bamboo drums on the earth. Presently the officers of the lodge were seen approaching headed by the Vuninduvu, a sort of past-master, armed with an axe, and capering wildly; the Lingu-viu (Fan-holder) circling madly round the drummers, waving a great fan; the Mbovoro, dancing and carrying in his hand the cocoanut which he is about to break on his bent knee; the Lingu-vatu, pounding his nut with a stone. Amid a terrific din of shrieks and cat-calls the gods entered into the Raisevu, who thereafter was regarded as a peculiarly favoured person. Then all went mad; the Vakathambe shouted his challenge; the Matavutha shot at him, or at a nut which he held under his arm, and all became possessed with the same frenzy as the inspired priests. One after another they ran to the Vuninduvu to be struck on the belly, believing themselves invulnerable, and if the Vuninduvu was over-simple or over-zealous he sometimes did them mortal injury. Williams, who gives the above description of the rites, says that in the old days the orgy was free from licentiousness: we shall see how they have deteriorated since the conversion of the people to Christianity.
THE CAREER OF A RAISEVU
On the western coast of Vitilevu the favourite ascending place of the Luve-ni-wai is marked with a large cairn of little stones, which has grown year by year with the stones flung upon it by each worshipper and by every passer-by. The more republican institutions of the western tribes permit a
commoner to rise to considerable influence, and not a few of these great commoners can trace their eminent career to the youthful distinction of having been the Raisevu. The combination of hysteria and cunning and impudence necessary to that distinction raised Nemani Ndreu from the lowly position of a commoner of a Nandi village to be the official Roko Tui of Mba. At the date of annexation in 1874 he was Tui Rara (Town-crier); in the heathen outbreak two years later, he was naturally found upon the winning side, and his services as guide and spy were so useful that he rapidly rose in Government favour. I was present at the council when his appointment to the highest office open to Fijians was announced. In an impassioned speech to a cold and hostile audience he suddenly burst into tears that coursed down his cheeks and impeded his utterance, and his most inveterate enemies seemed to be affected. As we left the council-house he turned to me, with the tears still wet upon his cheeks, and said, "How then? Didn't I do that well?" It is unnecessary to add that he was an eminent local preacher.
The kalou-rere was one of the few offences which, under British law, was punished with flogging, a harsh provision if the rites were as innocent as Williams represents. The truth is that they have changed sadly for the worse. The rites are still occasionally practised in secret, but though the ritual is much the same, it may be doubted whether any of the votaries believe that they are alluring the "Little Gods" from the sea. A few lawless young chiefs get a band of roysterers together in a secluded place, and there go through a travesty of the rites as an excuse for nocturnal raids upon the hen-roosts of the neighbouring trader. Usually an equal number of girls are induced to visit them by night under the pretence of practising heathen dances, which are, in reality, mere orgies of debauchery. In one of these cases, reported in detail by the late Mr. Heffernan, stipendiary magistrate of Ba, the frenzy of the votaries was quite genuine, but it found vent in sensuality, the dancers having access to their partners in a set measure controlled by words of command.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] Buro-tu, or Bulo-tu as the Samoans and Tongans call it, is Buro, or Bouro or Bauro with the suffix tu, signifying high rank, which is found in the words tu-i (king) and tu-ranga (chief). There are two places of that name in the West, namely, Bauro (S. Christoval) in the Solomon Islands, and Bouro in the Malay Archipelago. Quiros heard of an Indian, "a great pilot," who had come from Bouro when he visited Taumaco in the Duff Group in 1606, and Mr. Hale, the philologist in Wilkes Expedition, tried to establish the identity of the Malay Bouro with the sacred island, by assuming that the "arrows tipped with silver," which Quiros says were in possession of this native, showed that there was communication between Taumaco and the Malay Islands. But, as Dr. Guppy points out (The Solomon Islands, p. 277), the Bouro there alluded to must have been S. Christoval, which was only 300 miles distant, and the silver arrows a relic of the Spanish expedition to that island forty years before. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that S. Christoval was named Bouro by emigrants from the Malay Island after their old home, and that S. Christoval was a halting-place of the race on their journey eastward.
[46] The disgrace of dying a natural death is so keenly felt that the bodies of the Tui Thakau of Somosomo, and the Rokovaka of Kandavu, who die naturally, are struck with a stone on the forehead or clubbed, to avert the contempt of the gods [Waterhouse].
[47] Thus the Fijians explain recovery from trance.
[48] An edible root related to the yam.