Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/164

 134 FIJI AXD THE FIJIAls^S. cooked and, when ready, an intimation to that effect is sent to the young man, who dresses himself in style, and, accompanied by a number of his companions, oiled and dressed, directs his steps to the house in which his betrothed waits his arrival. The bridegroom and his companions take off their new dresses, which are given to the relatives of the bride. The fish-soup is then served up with good yam, the prospective wife commencing her duties by pouring out and handing to her future lord a dish of soup, which he drinks, eating yam with it. A part of the yam he gives to the bride, who eats with him. Probably they never were so near or spoke to each other before, and very likely this their first meal passes in silence. Thi| ceremony is named na sili, " the bathing." In the leeward islands, this generally concludes the form of marriage. To windward such is not the case ; but the girl goes back to her parents, and the friends on both sides make cloth and mats to present with the young people on the wedding-day. Meantime the young man is expected to build a house to which to take his wife, who undergoes now the painful process of tattooing, if it has not already been done. Some chief ladies, however, defer the performance of this opera- tion until they have become mothers. During this period the bride is tabu siga^ kept from the sun, to improve her complexion. These pre- liminaries over, the grand feast takes place, when the friends of each party try to outdo the others in the food and property presented. As in other native feasts, so here it is easier to specify the good cheer by yards and hundred-weights, than by dishes. When Tanoa gave his daughter to Ngavindi, the Lasakau Chief, there was provided for the en- tertainment of the friends assembled, a wall of fish five feet high, and twenty yards in length, besides turtles and pigs, and vegetables in pro- portion. One dish at the same feast was ten feet long, four feet wide, and three deep, spread over with green leaves, on which were placed roast pigs and turtles. Whatever is prepared by the friends of the woman is given to those of the man, and vice versa. The conclusion of this day is the vaqasea, when the marriage is complete, the announce- ment of which, in some tribes, is by tremendous shoutings ; and ar- rangements are made for the veiiasi, or " clipping," which, to windward, consists in cutting off a bunch of long hair worn over the temples by the woman while a spinster. To leeward, however, the woman is de- prived of all her hair, and thus made sufficiently ugly to startle the most ardent admirer. This act has its feast, food being prepared, and often taken as the breakfast of the newly married couple. In some places the great feast follows the clipping. Priests are never in requi sition officially on marriage occasions. Matrimony, in Fiji, is a social