DUBLIN UNIVERSITY ZOOLOGICAL AND BOTANICAL ASSOCIATION. 9 



are disregarded, and she is looked upon as a disgraced person. The mis- 

 sionaries have been at great pains to abolish this custom, but have 

 encountered much opposition. Even if the successor of the deceased 

 chief be disposed to acquiesce, his people, and often the brothers and 

 sisters of the women, interfere to require this compliance with the cus- 

 toms of the country. It is thought to be a dishonouring of the dead, 

 if companions be not sent with him to the grave. When the late king 

 of Bau died, it was thought a great condescension to missionary preju- 

 dices that only five of his fifteen wives were put to death. Mr. Calvert, 

 the missionary, interfered during the ceremony, and by his intercession 

 alone were the lives of the ten others saved. This was considered a 

 great victory over native customs, for similar intercession, even when 

 backed by the influence of captains of our vessels of war, had, on many 

 previous occasions, failed. Sometimes a woman of very high rank 

 escapes, because there is no person present who is of sufficient rank to act 

 as executioner. I saw a Queen Dowager of Eewa, who had escaped for 

 this reason. None of the surviving relations were near enough to the 

 throne to authorize them in strangling her. It is only as the chiefs 

 become converts to Christianity, that this custom— which has more hold 

 on the popular mind than cannibalism itself — is given up. 



Propitiatory sacrifices of children are also, by the heathen Feejeeans, 

 frequently made to the gods, — particularly in cases of the illness of great 

 chiefs. The children are sometimes buried alive. Cutting and maiming 

 their bodies, as evidence of grief, is also common. The practice of cut- 

 ting off the two upper joints of the little finger, on occasion of the death 

 of a relative, is so common, that you rarely meet with a Eeejeean who 

 has not lost at least the little finger of one hand. "When the late king 

 of Somo Somo died, above an hundred fingers were cut off, and an eye- 

 witness counted seventy of them stuck in a split reed, and thrust into the 

 thatch of the house over the doorway. 



Ethnologists class the Eeejeeans with the Papuan race, or that family 

 of mankind that has spread over New Guinea and several neighbouring 

 islands. It is obviously akin to the Australian, though superior to that 

 most degraded people. Dr. Ball will, I hope, state to you what pecu- 

 liarities are exhibited by a pair of skulls which I procured. I do not 

 know their history ; they were brought to me for sale the day we left 

 the islands. 



The Eeejeeans are of moderate stature, and of a very dark brown or 

 blackish colour ; but some are pale, and such are called damu-damu, or 

 red, by their blacker countrymen. There is much more variety of 

 feature than we usually find in an unmixed and uncivilized race. Some 

 have the thick lips, broad nostrils, depressed noses, and high cheek- 

 bones properly characteristic of the Nigrite type; and others have 

 straight or even hooked noses, and lips not thicker than those of Cauca- 

 sians. Some of the men and women of rank are very handsome, with 

 good foreheads, and well-opened, expressive, black eyes. The face, 

 indeed, admits of a great display of expression. But there is great dif- 

 ference in physical development between the chiefs and the common 



vol. iv. c 



