Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/190

 160 FIJI Am) THE FUIAlfS. were eighteen. Of these, two mothers were rescued by Christian in- terposition ; the remaining sixteen persons were all either killed in war or strangled ! Among the dark mysteries of death and the grave, superstition traces her wildest and most terrible imaginings ; for herein ignorance, credulity, and fear, work and develope unhindered. In Fiji, as well as England, the howling of a dog at night is believed to betoken death, and the grim dread is near indeed to the man round whose feet a cat purrs and rubs itself, though frequently repulsed. If rats scratch the mound of a woman's grave, it decides that she was unchaste. Popular superstition dooms that warrior to certain death whose face looks but indifferently after great pains have been taken to make it a jet black. Large " shooting stars " are said to be gods ; smaller ones, the de- parting souls of men. Being on the sea one night, off the east coast of Vanua Levu, we heard, at midnight, a single loud report like a clap of thunder ; the sky, however, was so clear, that all on board agreed it must be something else. Heathen natives, with whom we conversed next morning, assured me that it was " the noise of a spirit, we being near the place in which spirits plunge to enter the other world, and a Chief in the neighbourhood having just died." The following tradition professes to account for the universal spread of death. When the first man, the father of the human race, was being buried, a god passed by this first grave, and asked what it meant. On being informed by those standing by, that they had just buried their father, he said, " Do not inter him. Dig the body up again." " No," was the reply, " we cannot do that ; he has been dead four days, and stinks." " Not so," said the god ; " disinter him, and I promise you he shall live again." Heedless, however, of the promise of the god, these original sextons persisted in leaving their father's remains in the earth. Perceiving their perverseness, the god said, " By refusing com- pliance with my commands, you have sealed your own destinies. Had you dug up your ancestor, you would have found him alive, and yourselves also, as you passed from this world, should have been buried, as bananas are, for the space of four days, after which you should have been dug up, not rotten, but ripe. But now, as a punishment for your disobedience, you shall die and rot." " O," say the Fijians, after hearing this recounted, " O that those children had dug up that body!" Another tradition relates a contest between two gods as to how man should die. Ea Vula (the moon) contended that man should be like himself, — disappear awhile, and then live again. Ea Kalavo (the rat)