Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/184

160 sleep on a pillow consisting of a stick like a thick lath, with legs four or five inches long. It is like taking a section of a two-inch plank a foot long and four inches wide, and resting one's neck on the edge. A Feejeean pillow is by no means an inconvenient weapon in a fight, and 'very handy to have in the house.'

FORK OF A CANNIBAL KING.

"It is said the Feejeeans look upon lying as an accomplishment, and I have been told that one of the worst stumbling-blocks in the way to their conversion to Christianity was to have them understand that it was wrong to tell deliberate falsehoods. They have improved a great deal under missionary teachings, and there is still plenty of opportunity for more improvement in the same direction. When angry, they are sullen rather than noisy; when a chief is offended, he puts a stick in the ground as a mark by which he remembers the cause of his anger. After a while he may pull up the stick as a sign that his anger is relenting, and he is ready to be propitiated with gifts.

"We look upon this people with a great deal of curiosity, as we have all our lives associated them with terrible stories of the most horrible forms of cannibalism. Happily this is a thing of the past, but it is by no means so very long ago. Even now the people among the mountains are said to indulge in it occasionally; but if they do, the extent of the practice is very small by comparison with fifty years ago.

"How it was adopted no one knows; the Feejeeans have a tradition that it began in an effort to prevent the incursions of people from other islands, and as a result of battle, which is quite likely to have been the case. In course of time it was not confined to enemies and foreigners, but extended to those who were offered as sacrifices in the temples. Sacrifices increased in number year by year until, as in Tahiti, a considerable part of the population was liable at any time to be offered up at the bidding of the priests or chiefs.

"In every village there were particular ovens and pots devoted to