Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/691

Rh off, and saw the white buli shells gleaming on the roofs of the great dwellings of Nakauvadra; and he threw away the via roots he was carrying, for he knew that he was near his resting place and would want no more provisions for the journey. So he flung away his via, to travel unencumbered, and to this day you may see the via sprouting where the shades threw it. Going on, the shade had many adventures. He was crippled by Tatovu's axe; he was wounded by Motoduruka's reed spear; he crawled forward on his belly; he bowed ten times; he fainted away, and was dragged onward as corpses are dragged to the cannibal ovens; he had to pinch the "pinching stone" to see whether his nails are long, for if the stone is indented, it is a sign that he was lazy in his lifetime, and that his nails are not worn away by scooping up the yam hills in his plantation. From the "pinching stone" he went onward, dancing and jesting, till he came to Taleya, the Dismisser, who asked him how he died—whether by the club, or the strangling cord, or the water, or naturally of disease or old age. And if he said he died of violence, the Dismisser let him journey onward, but if he said that he died naturally, he was commanded to re-enter his body; but not all of these obey, so anxious are they to reach Nakauvadra. Thus the Fijians explained recoveries from trances and epileptic seizures. He goes on through myriad adventures and dangers, and it is entirely out of the question to give them all. One of the most curious is that of the vasa tree at Naililili—the "hanging place." From the branches of this tree are hanging the souls of little children, like bats, waiting for their mothers to come and lead them onward, and they cry to the passing shades, "How are my father and my mother?" If the shade answers, "The cooking fire of your mother is set upright," the child ghost wails aloud, knowing that it must still wait, for its mother is still in her prime; but if the shade answers, "Their hair is gray, and the smoke of their cooking fire hangs along the ground," the child laughs with joy, crying: "It is well! my mother will soon be here. Oh, let her hasten, for I am weary of waiting for her!"

I wish that space permitted me to follow the journey of the Fijian shade to its end. The folklore of a people spontaneously developed and uninfluenced from without will always have an interest of its own, because of the light it throws upon the genesis of religions. Many of us have heard of the Fijians as the most striking example of the success of missionary enterprise. Their conversion, however, was in most cases a political move. The chief found it convenient to "lotu," and his people of course followed him. In one of these cases the missionary attended a meeting of the tribe to receive their conversion to Christianity. The heathen priest took his seat near the piled-up feast, and thus