Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 86.djvu/533

Rh and lolo, oily, referring to the oily appearance of the water when myriads of the worms burst and cast forth their eggs.

I suspect this myth to be of recent origin, for it bears a suspiciously close resemblance to the manna story in the Bible. Moreover, the old Fijian mythology asserts that their original ancestors were created in Fiji and did not sail over the ocean to these islands. It is remarkable how quickly a new myth may arise among a simple people. Certain floods which occurred within the century have passed into mythology, and one of the mountain tribes has a song of the marvellous manner in which sugar is made at the recently established sugar mill on the Rewa river. A tower of Babel myth has arisen since the conversion to Christianity, and, in Tahiti, a recently originated folk story tells of the creation of the first woman Ivi from a bone of the first man.

The Fijians are of mixed stock. Their dark brown skin, thick