Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

462 AUSTRALASIA.thing possesses a soul, animals, plants, even the houses, canoes, weapons, and implementsof labour. The temples stood for the most part on natural or artificialterraces, and consisted generally ofan ordinary cabin erected on a square base orelse on a p}'ramidal pedestal. A mngic' wand, probably intended to ward offevil influences, was placed horizontally above the roof made of branches andfoliage.Cannibalism entered largely into the religious system of the Fijians. Thenames of certain deities, such as the " God of Slaughter," and the " God eater ofhuman brains," sufficiently attest the horrible nature of the rites held in theirhonour.Religion also taught that all natural kindness was impious, that the godsloved bl(»d, and that not to shed it before them would be culpable ; hence thosewicked people who had never killed anj'body in their lifetime were thrown to thesharks after death. Children destined to be sacrificed for the public feasts weredelivered into the hands of those of their own age, who thus served their apprenticeshipas executioners and cooks. The wives of the chiefs had to follow him tothe grave, and on certain occasions the sons consented to be buried alive in theirfather's tomb, "happy victims highly acceptable to the gods."All protest againsttheir fate would have been regarded as an outrage, and it is related of a womanrescued by the missionaries that she escaped during the night and delivered herselfup to the executioners.and were then usually strangled in their graves.The aged and invalids frequently asked to be despatched,The banquets of "long pig," that is, human flesh, were regarded a^ a sacredceremony from which the women and children were excluded, and while the menused their fingers with all other food, they had to employ forks of hard wood atthese feasts.any other purj^ose.The ovens also in which the bodies were baked could not be used forNotwithstanding certain restrictions human flesh was largelyconsumed, and in various places hundreds of memorial stones were shown whichrecalled the number of sacrifices. Near Namosi, in the interior of Viti-Levu,there was a tribe, the Nalocas, who happening to offend a neighbouring kinglet,was condemned to sj^strmatic extermination. Every year a single household wasput to death and served- ixp at the chief's banquet. After the feast the cabin wasburnt, and the place planted with taro and the solnmim anthropophcKjum, to serveas the future accompaniment of the next family.Flight would have been immediatelypunished withdeath, and the wretched victims had to remain on the spotwhile the plants sprang up, blossomed, and ripened. On the harvest day the.ministers came to prepare the table, to cut the taro, and heat the great pot ; thenseizing the victims by the arms and legs they carried them off and dashed out theirbrains' against a sacred stone. When most of the community had thus perished,the rest were reprieved and an old woman, last of the tribe, died a natural deathin 1860.Thakumbau, who later became " a fervent Christian," and who was accepted bythe English as the " legitimate king " of the whole archipelago, was wont to indicatewith his club the person he should like jircparod for his evening meal. If anywretch dared to sue for pardon the king had his tongue torn out and devoured it