Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/171

MANKEBS AND CUSTOMS. 141 " Where is Ratu Lingalingani ? " " He is at Vuna, Madam. He is angry with Andi Lasangka," (a favourite wife,) " who is ill at that place." " Is she not likely to become a mother 1 " " Yes : and it is on that account that she has gone to Vuna. The other wives of the Chief are displeased at if; and, rather than endure their anger, she has gone to destroy the child, that it may be still- born." The treatment of a fine girl, the daughter of the mate of an American vessel, and inferior wife of a Mbau Chief, is too horrid to narrate. The herd of women brought together by polygamy under the will of one man, are robbed of the domestic pleasures springing from reciprocated affection, and are thus led literally, " to bite and devour one another." The testimony of a woman who lived two years in my family, afler having been one among several of a Chief's wives, is, that they know nothing of comfort. Contentions among them are endless, the bitterest hatred common, and mutual cursing and recrimination of daily occurrence. When their quarters become untenable, they generally run. Indeed, I was told by a chief lady that it was a settled point, that an offensive under-wife must be made to fly by abundant scolding and abuse. When a woman happens to be under the dis- pleasure of her master as well as that of his lady wives, they irritate the Chief by detailing her misdemeanours, until permission is gained to punish the delinquent, when the women of the house — high and low — fall upon her, cuffing, kicking, scratching, and even trampling on the poor creature, so unmercifully as to leave her half dead. Another and most heavy curse of polygamy falls on the children, since it is an institution which virtually dissolves the ties of relation- ship, and makes optional the discharge of duties which nature, reason, and religion render imperative. Hence there are multitudes of child- ren in Fiji who are wholly uncared for by their parents ; and I have noticed cases beyond number, where natural affection was wanting on both sides. The Fijian child is utterly deprived of that wholesome and necessary discipline which consists of regular and ever repeated acts of correction and teaching. Fitful attemps to gain the mastery are made by the parent, coming in the form of a furious ouburst of passion, to which the child opposes a due proportion of obstinacy, and, in the end, is triumphant. Thus the children grow up without knowledge, with- out good morals or habits, without amiability or worth, fitted, by the way in which they are reared, to develope the worst features of