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.