268 FIJI ISLANDS. 



Hearing that there was to be a "make meke " or native 

 dance at the next village, Bureta, we went on to this place, the 

 path crossing and recrossing continually a stream which here 

 runs through comparatively flat land, and in places is as much 

 as 20 yards across. We found numerous visitors in Bureta, 

 many of whom had passed us on the road. All were dressed 

 in their best, with bright new girdles of yellow and scarlet 

 dyed Pandanus leaves, bodies and hair freshly oiled, orna- 

 ments displayed, and faces painted black or red or a mixture 

 of both. 



The various methods of dressing the hair are so numerous 

 as to be indescribable. The thickly growing crisp mop of 

 fine close curls is trimmed just as an old-fashioned yew hedge 

 used to be. Someiimes a single thick tuft is left projecting 

 from the back of the head, sometimes a diagonal ridge-like 

 tuft, sometimes one, two, or more small plaited tails only, 

 sometimes a curtain-like fringe shading the neck. 



The hair is constantly dressed with shell or coral lime, both 

 to kill vermin and to change the colour, and also, certainly, 

 as a fashion. Most of the young Mbau chiefs that I saw had 

 their hair always in this condition. These young chiefs cut 

 their hair in front in a straight line across the forehead and 

 square at the temples ; and, in fact, trimmed it so that when 

 whitened with lime it reminded one most forcibly of a bar- 

 rister's wig. A young Mbau chief was on a visit at Bureta, 

 and besides having his hair whitened, his face was blackened 

 for the meke, and the contrast between black and white was 

 most effective. 



Kaava* drinking was going on in the chief's house at the 

 time of our arrival, the young Mbau chief presiding at the 

 ceremony. It is usual to decry kaava as a drmk altogether, 

 because, no doubt, of the nasty manner in which it is prepared, 

 but some persons who habitually drink it praise it as extremely 

 pleasant and cooling. Many of the resident whites at Fiji, as 

 I was told, took kaava once or twice daily, and I knew per- 

 sonally of a German planter and an English settler who did so. 

 It seems, however, that in all Polynesia, it is only at Fiji that 

 this occurs. In the Sandwich Islands and in Tahiti the Whites 

 never think of drinking kaava, but scout the idea. 



The taste is at first strange and unpleasant, and has often 

 been compared to that of Gregory's mixture. Travellers 

 seldom make more than one trial of the drink. The taste 

 is, however, certainly not more unpleasant than that of London 

 porter, for example, must be on the first occasion to French- 



* A solution in water of the chewed root of a Pepper {Piper ntethy- 

 sticun-i). An intoxicpting drink. 



