Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/34

24 visit to Fort Carnarvon I hope to be able to verify this account, and to visit the Wala burial ground, and see the stone or stones described in it.

Besides these leprosy stones I have met with two instances of stones sacred to disease: in these cases abdominal tumours, and abdominal dropsy. One of these is near Na Rokovuaka, in the district of Nababa (Ra province) on the Wai ni Buka. The other is, as Katalewe and his mates were, at Toga (Rewa province). They are both designated Vatu ni Bukete Vatu, probably best paraphrased by "dropsy stones." Abdominal dropsy is sometimes termed Bukete Wai, water-pregnancy; but when very tense it is called Bukete vatu, stone-pregnancy. Abdominal tumours are occasionally met with in the natives; but they are rare. They share the latter designation with abdominal dropsy, which does not seem to be differentiated from them in character any more than in name, by native wiseacres. These are the only diseases besides leprosy in connection with which I have met with these sacred stones, or shrines; and they are also more often than any other ailment attributed to the same cause which is sometimes said to bring about leprosy, Kana valeca, tureva, vuka, and are in several districts known by the term 'vuka,' a word, which in some parts however, Nadroga for instance, means a swelling of any sort, but is most often applied to general dropsy.

The natives themselves can afford no connected history or explanation of these leprosy stones. They are ignorant of some of the circumstances relating to them, while they have not sufficient education or general knowledge to enable them to crystallise what they do know about others into an intelligent series of statements. No one was more surprised than themselves when I translated to them, some months after I had gathered it, the foregoing account of Katalewe, and of his downfall, and of Saiasi's retribution, to find that a connection could be traced between the events,