Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/205

RELIGION. 175 persons in the village even use it as a sleeping-place. Though built expressly for the purposes of religion, it is less devoted to them than any others. Around it, plantains and bread-fruit trees are often found, and yaqona is grown at the foot of the terrace, the produce of each be- ing reserved for the priests and old men. Several spears set in the ground, or one transfixing an earthen pot, as well as one or more blanched human skulls, are not uncommonly arranged in the sacred precincts. Votive offerings, comprising a streamer or two, with a few clubs and spears, decorate the interior, while a long piece of white masi, fixed to the top, and carried down the angle of the roof so as to hang before the corner-post and lie on the floor, forms the path down which the god passes to enter the priest, and marks the holy place which few but he dare approach. If the priest is also a doctor in good practice, a number of hand-clubs, turbans, necklaces of flowers, and other trifles paid as fees, are accumulated in the temple. A few pieces of withered sugar-cane are often seen resting over the wall-plate. In one bure, I saw a huge roll of sinnet ; and in another, a model of a temple, made of the same material. In one at Mbau, parts of victims slain in war are often seen hung up in clusters. From some temples, the ashes may not be thrown out, however they may accumulate, until the end of the year. The clearing out takes place in November, and a feast is made on the occasion. There are priestesses in Fiji ; but few of sufficient importance to have a temple ; and in the case of these, it merely serves as a place for sleeping, and the storing of offerings. Bures are often unoccupied for months, and allowed to fall into ruin, until the Chief wants to make some request to the god, when the necessary repairs are first carried out. Nothing like regular worship or habitual reverence is found, and a principle of fear seems the only motive to religious observances ; and this is fully practised upon by the priests, through whom alone the people have access to the gods, when they wish to present petitions affecting their socal or individual interest. When matters of importance are involved, the soro or offering consists of large quantities of food, together with whales' teeth. In smaller affairs, a tooth, club, mat, or spear, is enough. Young nuts, covered with tumeric powder, form the meanest offering I have known. On one occasion, when Tuikilakila asked the help of the Somosomo gods in war, he built the war-god a large new temple, and presented a great quantity of cooked food, with sixty turtles, besides whales' teeth. Part of the offering — the si g ana — is set apart for the deity, the rest