Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/161

 MAK^KEES A]ST> CUSTOMS. 131 them are pointed out as the objects of present hatred, and the victims of future revenge. The hair of the boys is kept short, but that of the girls is allowed to grow long, and fall in all directions from the croTi of the head, in twisted locks of a brown, red, or flaxen colour, so as often entirely to hide the eyes. The countenances of the children show signs of that restless observance which is so fully developed in the faces of their parents. They ascend the hill of life with rapid strides, and, having reached the summit, run into their graves. " You English," said a fine young man to me, " grow slowly, like the nut, and abide : we Fijians grow with the rapidity of the plantain, and, like it, decay and are not in a few days." Both sexes go unclad until the tenth year, and some be- yond that. Chiefs' children are kept longest without dress. Males are circumcised when from seven to twelve years old. The cutting instrument is a piece of split bamboo, and the recovery is rapid. The operation is generally performed on a company of ten or twenty at a time, who, for several days afterwards, live together in some public building, their food. being taken to them by women, who in some places, as they carry the meal, generally a dish of cooked greens, sing, — " Memu wai o qori Jca EJula ; An solia mai loaloa ; Au solia na drau ni ceviiga : Memu wai o qori lea Xula.'" " This is your broth, Sirs the Circumcised ; I give it from the wilderness ; I give the leaf of the cevuga : This is your broth, Sirs the Circumcised." Kula is one of the names by which those who are newly circumcised may be spoken of by or before women, teve, the proper word, being tabu if a woman is present. ICida is also the name of a strip of cloth which receives the blood, and, on Vanua LeTi, is afterwards hung from the roof of the temple or Chief's house. The proper time for perform- ing this rite is after the death of a Chief, and many rude games attend it. Blindfolded youths strike at thin vessels of water hung from the branch of a tree. At Lakemba, the men arm themselves with branches of the cocoa-nut, and carry on a sham fight. At Ono, they wrestle. At Mbau, they fillip small stones from the end of a bamboo with suffi- cient force to make the person they hit wince again. On Vanua Levu, there is a mock siege. On the fifth day after a Chief's death, a hole is dug in the floor of a hure, and one of the circumcised youths is secreted in it, whereupon his