Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/51

 OEIGm AHJy POLITY. 31 red, are all in requisition on that festive day. The coiffure that has been in process for months is now shown in perfection ; the beard, long nursed, receives extra attention and the finishing touch ; the body is anointed with most fragrant oil, and decorated with the gayest flowers and most elegant vines. The weapons also — clubs, spears, and muskets — are all highly polished and unusually gay. The Fijian carries his tribute with every demonstration of joyful excitement, of which all the tribe concerned fully partake. Crowds of spectators are assembled, and the King and his suite are there to receive the impost, which is paid in with a song and a dance, and received with smiles and applause. From this scene the tax-payers retire to partake of a feast provided by their King. Surely the policy that can thus make the paymg of taxes " a thing of joy " is not contemptible. Whales' teeth always form a part of the property paid in. Those smooth and red with age and tumeric are most valued ; and the greater the quantity of these, the more respectable is the solevu (tribute). Canoes, bales of plain and printed cloth, {iapa,) each bale fifteen or twenty feet long, with as many men to carry it, musquito curtains, balls and rolls of sinnet,* floor-mats, sail-mats, fishing nets, baskets, spears, clubs, guns, scarfs or turbans, likus, pearl-shell breast-plates, turtles, and Avomen, may be classed under the head of tribute. In some of the smaller states, pigs, yams, taro, arrow-root, tumeric, yaqona, sandal, wood, salt, tobacco, and black powder, are principal articles. The presentation of a canoe, if new and large, is a distinct affair. Tui Nayau, King of Lakemba, gave one to Thakombau in the following manner. Preliminaries being finished, Tui Nayau approached the Mbau Chief, and knelt before him. From the folds of his huge dress he took a whale's tooth, and then began his speech. The introduction was an expression of the pleasure which Thakombau's visit gave to Tui Nayau and his people. As he warmed, the speaker proceeded : " Before we were subject to Mbau, our land was empty, and no cocoa-nuts grew on its shore ; but since you have been our Chiefs, the land is full of people, and nuts and food abound. Our fathers were subject to Mbau, and desired so to be ; and my desire, and that of my friends and my subjects, is towards Mbau, and it is very intense." The sentences here strung together were picked out from among a great number of petitions, praying that " Tui Nayau and his people might live." Neither was this ing. An average roll of sinnet, wound with beautiful neatness, is three feet six Inches high, and five feet in circumference. t Women's dresses or girdles.
 * Braid or flat string made with the cocoa-nut fibre, and in general use for every kind of fasten-