practically belonged to his people, and they were as ready to give
as to take. In a time of famine, a chief would declare the
contents of the plantations to be common property. A system
of feudal service-tenures (lala) is the institution on which their
social and political fabric mainly depended. It allowed the chief
to call for the labour of any district, and to employ it in planting,
house or canoe-building, supplying food on the occasion of another
chief’s visit, &c. This power was often used with much discernment;
thus an unpopular chief would redeem his character by
calling for some customary service and rewarding it liberally, or a
district would be called on to supply labour or produce as a
punishment. The privilege might, of course, be abused by needy
or unscrupulous chiefs, though they generally deferred somewhat
to public opinion; it has now, with similar customary exactions
of cloth, mats, salt, pottery, &c. been reduced within definite
limits. An allied custom, solevu, enabled a district in want of any
particular article to call on its neighbours to supply it, giving
labour or something else in exchange. Although, then, the chief
is lord of the soil, the inferior chiefs and individual families have
equally distinct rights in it, subject to payment of certain dues;
and the idea of permanent alienation of land by purchase was
never perhaps clearly realized. Another curious custom was that
of vasu (lit. nephew). The son of a chief by a woman of rank had
almost unlimited rights over the property of his mother’s family,
or of her people. In time of war the chief claimed absolute
control over life and property. Warfare was carried on with
many courteous formalities, and considerable skill was shown in
the fortifications. There were well-defined degrees of dependence
among the different tribes or districts: the first of these, bati, is
an alliance between two nearly equal tribes, but implying a sort
of inferiority on one side, acknowledged by military service; the
second, qali, implies greater subjection, and payment of tribute.
Thus A, being bati to B, might hold C in qali, in which case C was
also reckoned subject to B, or might be protected by B for
political purposes.
The former religion of the Fijians was a sort of ancestor-worship, had much in common with the creeds of Polynesia, and included a belief in a future existence. There were two classes of gods—the first immortal, of whom Ndengei is the greatest, said to exist eternally in the form of a serpent, but troubling himself little with human or other affairs, and the others had usually only a local recognition. The second rank (who, though far above mortals, are subject to their passions, and even to death) comprised the spirits of chiefs, heroes and other ancestors. The gods entered and spoke through their priests, who thus pronounced on the issue of every enterprise, but they were not represented by idols; certain groves and trees were held sacred, and stones which suggest phallic associations. The priesthood usually was hereditary, and their influence great, and they had generally a good understanding with the chief. The institution of Taboo existed in full force. The mburé or temple was also the council chamber and place of assemblage for various purposes.
The weapons of the Fijians are spears, slings, throwing clubs and bows and arrows. Their houses, of which the framework is timber and the rest lattice and thatch, are ingeniously constructed, with great taste in ornamentation, and are well furnished with mats, mosquito-curtains, baskets, fans, nets and cooking and other utensils. Their canoes, sometimes more than 100 ft. long, are well built. Ever excellent agriculturists, their implements were formerly digging sticks and hoes of turtlebone or flat oyster-shells. In irrigation they showed skill, draining their fields with built watercourses and bamboo pipes. Tobacco, maize, sweet potatoes, yams, kava, taro, beans and pumpkins, are the principal crops.
Fijians are fond of amusements. They have various games, and dancing, story-telling and songs are especially popular. Their poetry has well-defined metres, and a sort of rhyme. Their music is rude, and is said to be always in the major key. They are clever cooks, and for their feasts preparations are sometimes made months in advance, and enormous waste results from them. Mourning is expressed by fasting, by shaving the head and face, or by cutting off the little finger. This last is sometimes done at the death of a rich man in the hope that his family will reward the compliment; sometimes it is done vicariously, as when one chief cuts off the little finger of his dependent in regret or in atonement for the death of another.
A steady, if not a very rapid, decrease in the native population set in after 1875. A terrible epidemic of measles in that year swept away 40,000, or about one-third of the Fijians. Subsequent epidemics have not been attended by anything like this mortality, but there has, however, been a steady decrease, principally among young children, owing to whooping-cough, tuberculosis and croup. Every Fijian child seems to contract yaws at some time in its life, a mistaken notion existing on the part of the parents that it strengthens the child’s physique. Elephantiasis, influenza; rheumatism, and a skin disease, thoko, also occur. One per cent of the natives are lepers. A commission appointed in 1891 to inquire into the causes of the native decrease collected much interesting anthropological information regarding native customs, and provincial inspectors and medical officers were specially appointed to compel the natives to carry out the sanitary reforms recommended by the commission. A considerable sum was also spent in laying on good water to the native villages. The Fijians show no disposition to intermarry with the Indian coolies. The European half-castes are not prolific inter se, and they are subject to a scrofulous taint. The most robust cross in the islands is the offspring of the African negro and the Fijian. Miscegenation with the Micronesians, the only race in the Pacific which is rapidly increasing, is regarded as the most hopeful manner of preserving the native Fijian population. There is a large Indian immigrant population.
Trade, Administration, &c.—The principal industries are the cultivation of sugar and fruits and the manufacture of sugar and copra, and these three are the chief articles of export trade, which is carried on almost entirely with Australia and New Zealand. The fruits chiefly exported are bananas and pineapples. There are also exported maize, vanilla and a variety of fruits in small quantities; pearl and other shells and bêche-de-mer. There is a manufacture of soap from coconut oil; a fair quantity of tobacco is grown, and among other industries may be included boat-building and saw-milling. Regular steamship communications are maintained with Sydney, Auckland and Vancouver. Good bridle-tracks exist in all the larger islands, and there are some macadamized roads, principally in Viti Levu. There is an overland mail service by native runners. The export trade is valued at nearly £600,000 annually, and the imports at £500,000. The annual revenue of the colony is about £140,000 and the expenditure about £125,000. The currency and weights and measures are British. Besides the customs and stamp duties, some £18,000 of the annual revenue is raised from native taxation. The seventeen provinces of the colony (at the head of which is either a European or a roko tui or native official) are assessed annually by the legislative council for a fixed tax in kind. The tax on each province is distributed among districts under officials called bulis, and further among villages within these districts. Any surplus of produce over the assessment is sold to contractors, and the money received is returned to the natives.
Under a reconstruction made in 1904 there is an executive council consisting of the governor and four official members. The legislative council consists of the governor, ten official, six elected and two native members. The native chiefs and provincial representatives meet annually under the presidency of the governor, and their recommendations are submitted for sanction to the legislative council. Suva and Levuka have each a municipal government, and there are native district and village councils. There is an armed native constabulary; and a volunteer and cadet corps in Suva and Levuka.
The majority of the natives are Wesleyan Methodists. The Roman Catholic missionaries have about 3000 adherents; the Church of England is confined to the Europeans and kanakas in the towns; the Indian coolies are divided between Mahommedans and Hindus. There are public schools for Europeans and half-castes in the towns, but there is no provision for the education of the children of settlers in the out-districts. By an
