Fijian Human Sacrifices. 



27 



and here I must add to their credit the most artistic housebuilding. If the Fijian ex- 

 cels in beauty of form and proportion, the Maori excites our surprise and pleasure in 

 his carved work, which as used in housebuilding seems to take the lead. 



There is a chapter of Fijian housebuilding that has been omitted from all the 

 accounts already quoted, but which I do not propose to skip, for the matter is also a part 

 of Hawaiian practice as well ; I refer to the human sacrifice usual at the planting of 



FIG. 22. VIKW OF .\ MBURE IN MB.\U. 



the corner posts (or at least of one) of any important building, whether it be for the 



use of the gods or of -the chiefs. I quote from an author thoroughly cognizant of 



Vitian customs, Lorimer Fison :" 



The ]"aka-so>iil>H-jii>idi()ii, literally, the "lowerers of the post", were men killed when the 

 coruer-posts of a heathen temple, or a great chief's house, were lowered into the holes dug for them. 

 The god iu whose honor the temple was being erected, or the chief whose house was building, would be 

 dishonored if no human life were taken when the posts were set up ; and it used to be of no uncom- 

 mon occurrence for a liviug man to be placed standing in each post-hole, and there buried alive by 

 the side of the post, the hole being filled up and the earth rammed down over him. But a few jears 

 ago there were houses in Fiji, on whose floor the babe and its mother slept, and little children played, 

 while within hand-reach underground grim skeletons stood embracing the corner posts with their 



"Tales from Old Fiji, by Lorimer Fison. London, 1904. xv. 



[211] 



