Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 13, 1902.djvu/216

 200 Correspondence.

Consul, to whom I paid a visit with Hastings. He told many stories, which were very good, particularly as to the value of mats.

.... He then gave us a sketch of a marriage Also an

imaginary case, to show the power of the sister's son, the vasu, as it is called in Fiji. The men of a family being foreigners, the vasus, or sister's sons, and indeed all the female branch, are more or less spoilt children, and can have what they like, any goods they can lay hold of. For instance, a boy asks his uncle (mater- nal) for his gun, and the uncle says no. The boy goes crying to his mother, ' My uncle won't give me his gun.' The mother says, ' His children shall rot, my curse is on them ; their legs shall swell, they shall die.' And she goes out and tears her hair, and curses aloud, 'They shall die, my curse is on them.' The people say, with their hand in awe upon their mouth, 'What is this ! how dreadful ! A curse is upon them ; they have the sister's curse.' And by-and-bye this comes to the brother's ears, who says, with his wife, ' This is dreadful ! Get mats, bring presents ! ' And they heap up all they can and carry it to the sister, and lay it before her and say, ' Have pity ! have mercy ! see us humble ourselves. Take all we have, but forgive and let us live, us and our children — take off the curse.'

" But not only the sisters son, but all the family have a right by custom to all that there is in a man's house, and even to the house itself; and he told us that a chief, just the other side of the first stream, east from Mataatu, built for himself a very good bread-fruit-tree house — a very good house. His wife was a niece of old Bullamacow, chief of Saluafata ; and Bullamacow, coming down one day, says, ' Dear me, what a nice house ! ' ' Yes,' says the other, ' and I have spent all I had, my savings and earnings, and all that I had, to build it, and pay the carpenter's wages, and I have nothing left.' ' Dear me,' says Bullamacow, ' how nice that house would look on one side of my square ! ' for he has a square at Saluafata with houses round it. ' Oh, don't say that ! ' says the chief, ' don't say that ! ' beginning to see what is up ; but Bullamacow goes on hinting, and at last goes away. The chief hopes it is all over, but in a week he suddenly misses his wife, and finds from his son that Bullamacow has taken her away, and that she is not to return ; so after a bit he collects mats, and a lot of goods to fifty dollars' value, and goes up to Bullamacow, who says, ' Ah, how d'ye do ? Your wife is up here imrsing her sick rela-