Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/22

12 many districts gods who were reputed lepers, and in others gods, who, though not lepers themselves, were held to preside in some way over leprosy. It is stated by Mr. Williams, in describing native Fijian divinities, that "Naitono is the leper". Kabuya is the name of a leprosy god of whom I heard at Burebasaga, and of the potency of whose maleficent attributes an example was shown to me in the person of one Seraseini, an elderly woman (case No. 17) suffering from mixed leprosy.

I have discovered several Leprosy Stones, called by the natives "Vatu ni Sakuka," or "Vatu ni Vukavuka," meaning the same thing, according to different dialects. These stones appear to be the shrines of manes, the outward visible sign by which occasionally the shades of leprous ancestors manifest their supposed power of communicating the disease to living persons. Such at least would seem to be the light in which some if not all of them are regarded by the natives. They are treasured in particular families, generally leprous ones, the principal elder of which is by birthright the officiating priest or wizard who conjures the spirit. All this borders of course closely upon witchcraft and mere magic; but bearing in mind the old religious cult of the Fijians and of the Polynesian and Melanesian races and blends, the underlying principle of it seems to be most likely ancestor-worship with its attendant demonolatry; and what might otherwise be considered quite commonplace fetiches or wishing stones are really probably menhirs—survivals of the ancestral tomb. Even at the present time everyday occurrences in the life and conversation of a Fijian teem with evidence that his inmost impulses are still bound up in a reverential awe for his ancestors, and a belief in the existence and potentiality on earth of their spirits or souls, even though it may be unconsciously so on his part. His national motto might well be Colore monumentum patris.