Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/186

 156 FIJI AKD THE FIJIANS. after the husband's death. The manifestations of mourning just de- scribed are optional : the following are exacted by custom. Vakavi- diulo, "jumping-of-maggots," is a bitter lamentation for the dead, to which friends assemble on the fourth day after the funeral, and which consists in picturing to themselves the corruption which has taken place in the dead body of the departed. In strongest contrast with this cus- tom is one observed on the fifth night, called the vaTcadredre, " causing- to-laugh." On this occasion companies gather together, and entertain the friends of the dead with comic games, in which decency is not al- ways regarded, for the purpose of helping them to forget their grief. About the tenth day, or earlier, the women arm themselves with cords, switches, and whips, and fall upon any men below the highest Chiefs, plying their weapons' unsparingly. I have seen grave personages, not accustomed to move quickly, flying with all possible speed before a company of such women. Sometimes the men retaliate by bespatter- ing their assailants with mud ; but they use no violence, as it seems to be a day on which they are bound to succumb. Funeral banquets are made out of respect to the dead, and to com- fort the surviving friends. This is not only done by those near at hand, but by those at a distance. If these should not hear of the death for a year, a feast of the dead is prepared directly the news reaches them. Bogi drau^ " hundred nights," whatever it meant originally, is now the name of a feast at which the mourners return to their usual mode of life, after having abstained for ten or more days. Every canoe arriving at a place for the first time after the death of a great Chief, must show the loloTcxh of the sail. A long mas'i^ fixed to the mast-head or yard, is sometimes the lolohii, or a whale's tooth is thrown from the mast-head so as to fall into the water, when it is scrambled for by people from the shore. When the canoe gets nearer in, the sail and masi are both thrown into the water. The laiva ni mate is, perhaps, the final ceremony, and signifies the accomplishing of some unusually large or good work, as the building of a canoe, or the making of an immense ball of sinnet, bale of cloth, or roll of matting, in memory of the dead, whose name the production thus completed bears. Thus the Ra Marama was built in memory of the Queen of Thakaundrovi. When the laioa ni mate is a canoe, it is, while in progress, regularly " awoke " every morning before the carpenters be- gin their day's work, and " put to sleep " again when they have finished. This is done at each time by a merry beat of drums. One custom I observed only on Lakemba. A long line of women, each bearing on her shoulder or hip a green basket of white sand, to