Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/167

 FIJI ISLANDS 157 Animals. Besides the dog and the pig, which (with the domestic fowl) must have been introduced into the Pacific islands in very early ages, the only land Mammalia are a rat and five species of bats. Insects are numerous, but the specie.s few. Of 41 species of land birds, 17, Mr Wallace says, are characteristic of the Australian region, 9 peculiarly Polynesian, and 15 belong to wide-spread genera. Birds of prey are few ; the parrot and pigeon tribes are better represented; of 15 aquatic species only one is peculiar. Fishes, of an Indo-Malay type, are numerous and varied ; Mollusca, especially marine, and Crustaceie are also very numerous. These three form an important element in the food supply. Exports. Numbers of cocoa-nuts have been planted, and the export of copra (the dried kernel of the nut) is rapidly increasing. The chief exports in 187G were copra .41,900, sugar 9036, maize 8465, which are all on the increase; cotton .11,922, and beche-de-mer 2491, which have decreased; coir 2727, pearl-shell, and arrow root. The value of exports from Levuka was 80,890, of imports 112,806. The customs returns were estimated at 15,000; the native land revenue was assessed at 22,000. The revenue of 1878 is estimated at 60,000. People. The Fijian character was till lately proverbial for every savage abomination. Cannibalism, if fenced round at one time by religious sanctions, had degenerated to a morbid craving recklessly indulged whenever possible. Shipwrecked or helpless strangers were nearly always killed and eaten. Widows were strangled at the death of their husbands, slaves killed at the death of their masters ; victims were slain in numbers at the building of a house or of a canoe, or at the visits of embassies from other tribes. The lives of individuals were always subject to the caprices of the chiefs. In the atmosphere of suspicion and treachery thus engendered few virtues could be devel oped. Yet the people were always hospitable, open-handed, and remarkably polite. They themselves attribute to affec tion the practice of killing their sick or aged relations. They are sensitive, proud, vindictive, boastful, cleanly in their houses, cookery, ifcc., with good conversational and reasoning powers, much sense of humour, tact, and per ception of character. Their code of social etiquette is minute and elaborate, and the gradations of rank well- marked. These are 1, chiefs, greater and lesser; 2, priests ; 3, Mata ni Vanua (lit., eyes of the land), em ployed, messengers, or counsellors ; 4, distinguished war riors of low birth ; 5, common people ; 6, slaves. Political Institutions.- The family is the unit of political society. The families are grouped in townships or otherwise (qali) under the lesser chiefs, who again owe allegiance to the supreme chief of the matanitu or tribe. The chiefs are a real aristocracy, excelling the people in physique, skill, intellect, and acquirements of all sorts; and the reverence felt for them, now gradually diminishing, w r as very great, and had something of a religious character. All that a man had belonged to his chief. On the other hand, the chief s pro perty practically belonged to his people, and they were as ready to give as to take. In a time of famine, a chief would declare tho contents of the plantations to be common pro- psrty. A systam of feudal service-tenures (laid) is the in stitution on which their social and political fabric mainly depended. It allowed the chief to call for the labour of any district, and to employ it in planting, house or canoe building, supplying food on the occasion of another chief s visit, &c., This power was often used with much discernment ; thus an unpopular chief would redeem his character by calling for somo customary service and rewarding it liberally, or a district would be called on to supply labour or produce as a punishment. The privilege might of course be abused by needy or unscrupulous chiefs, though they generally deferred somewhat to public opinion ; it has now, with similar customary exactions of cloth, mats, salt, pottery, &c., been reduced within definite limits. An allied custom, solem, enabled a district in want of any particular article to call on its neighbours to supply it, giving labour or some thing else in exchange. Although, then, the chief is lord of the soil, the inferior chiefs and individual families have equally distinct rights in it, subject to payment of certain dues ; and the idea of permanent alienation of land by pur chase was never perhaps clearly realized. 1 Another curious custom was that of vasu (lit., nephew). The son of a chief by a woman of rank had almost unlimited rights over the property of his mother s family, or of her people. War. In time of war the chief claimed absolute control over life and property. Warfare was carried on with many courteous formalities, and considerable skill was shown in the fortifications. There were well-defined degrees of de pendence among the different tribes or districts : the first of these, bati, is an alliance between two nearly equal tribes, but implying a sort of inferiority on one side, acknowledged by military service ; the second, qali, implies greater sub jection, and payment of tribute. Thus A, being bati to B, might hold C in qali, in which case C was also reckoned subject to B, or might be protected by B for political purposes. Religion. The people are now almost all Christians. Their former creed, which had much in common with the Polynesian, included a belief in a future existence, and in two classes of gods, the first immortal, of whom Ndengei is the greatest, said to exist eternally in the form of a serpent, but troubling himself little with human or other affairs, and the others had usually only a local recognition. The second rank (who, though far above mortals, are sub ject to their passions, and even to death) comprised the spirits of chiefs, heroes, and other ancestors. The gods en tered and spoke through their priests, who thus pronounced on the issue of every enterprise, but they were not repre sented by idols ; certain groves and trees were held sacred, and stones which suggest phallic associations. The priest hood usually was hereditary, and their influence great, and they had generally a good understanding with the chief. The institution of Tabu existed in full force. The mbim: or temple was also the council chamber and place of assem blage for various purposes. Customs. They have various games and amusements, dancing, story-telling, and songs being especially popular. Their poetry has well-defined metres, and a sort of rhyme. Their music is rude, and is said to be always in the major key. The excellence of their pottery favours a goud and varied cuisine, and they have great and elaborate feasts ; the preparations are sometimes made months in advance, and enormous waste results from them. Mourning is ex pressed by fasting, by shaving the head and face, or by cutting off the little finger. This last is sometimes done at the death of a rich man in the hope that his family will reward the compliment ; sometimes it is done vicariously, as when the chief cuts off the little finger of his dependants in regret or in atonement for the death of another. Only the women are tatooed. 2 Houses. The houses, of which the framework is timber and the rest lattice and thatch, are ingeniously constructed, with great taste in ornamentation, and are well furnished with mats, musquito-curtains, baskets, fans, nets, and cook ing and other utensils. Population. The population forty years ago was about 1 Of the 4i million acres in Fiji, 854,956 acres, comprising all tin- best land, were purchased by whites before the annexation ; but all the titles have not yet (1878) been confirmed. 2 It will be understood that in the present state of transition seme of the curious poli y and customs here recorded are becoming obsolete.