Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/179

MANNEES AND CUSTOMS. 149 in addition to his own wife, five men and their wives were strangled, to form the floor of his grave. They were laid on a layer of mats, and the Chief was placed on them. Mbule-i-Navave, a Chief of limited influence, was buried on four poor women, one quite a girl. Six were to have been killed; but one was bold enough to object, and .was spared; the other owed her life to missionary interposition. The usual victims on these occasions are two women, or a man and a wom- an. After the women are strangled, they are well oiled, their heads dressed and ornamented, new likus put on them, and vermilion or tu- meric powder spread on their faces and bosoms. I have seen this done on some women before death. When prepared, they are placed by the side of the warlike dead, and together form one of the strangest and saddest of groups. The young Chief of Lasakau, Ngavindi, was laid out with a wife at his side, his mother at his feet, and a servant a short way off. After this, visits are received from companies of ten or twenty men and women — who weep in the way already described ; and if tears may be taken as evidence, their sorrow is sincere. These visits are styled ai reguregu, a name which is also applied to presents given at the same time. The word comes from regu^ to " kiss," since the visitors kiss as well as bewail the dead. After this, I have seen the heads of tribes who had maintained a friendly intercourse with him whom they mourn, present a whale's tooth or a mat to the man who has succeeded him as the head of the house, and, pointing to the deceased, mention the friendship which existed between him and them, saying, that the object of their visit was not only to show their regard for the dead, but also to put the living in mind of their friendly relationship, lest, for- getting it, they should break up a long cherished union. The person addressed receives what is offered, and expresses a wish that the friend- ship of the two tribes may remain unbroken. On Vanua Levu, the visitors turn from this form to kiss and weep over the corpse. If a person dies towards evening, the body is kept in the house, and a sort of wake follows ; persons sit and watch with the corpse, the tedium of their duty being relieved by companies of young men who, either indoors or outside, sing a succession of dirges. The climate makes speedy burial necessary, and the grave is dug the next morning. Cer- tain persons do this work, while another party prepares the oven for the feast. At some funerals priests attend, and superintend the cere- monies. The two diggers, seated opposite each other, make three feints with their digging sticks, which are then struck into the earth, and a grave, rarely more than three feet deep, is prepared. Either the grave- diggers, or some one near, repea':s twice the words, " Fiji, Tonga."