286 FIJI ISLANDS. 



or cuticle of the shoot of the cocoanut tree. These hung in 

 long folds from the backs of their heads, and were wrapped 

 round their bodies as far as up to the armpits, and hung from 

 the waist down to the knees in such quantity as to stick out 

 almost in crinoline fashion. Round the men's heads were 

 turbans, or high cylindrical tubes or mitres of white tappa, 

 whilst hanging on their breasts were pearl oyster shells set in 

 whales' teeth, the most valuable ornament which a Fijian 

 possesses, and which he is forbidden by the chiefs to sell. 



Some of the men had remarkable head-dresses. One of them 

 for instance had, sticking out from the front of his head, and 

 secured in his hair, a pair of light thin twigs of wood, which 

 were a yard in length. I'hey were slightly bent over in front of 

 his face, and at their -extremities were fastened plumes of red 

 feathers. The whole was elaborately decorated. As he danced, 

 the red plumes swayed and shook at each jerk of his head with 

 great effect. 



The most interesting dances were a Club Dance and a Fan 

 Dance, in each of which a large body of full-grown fighting men, 

 some of them with grey beards, performed. In all the dances, 

 except the first one already described, the chorus, which 

 usually contained a number of small girls and boys, sat on the 

 ground at a corner of the Green, and used in addition to the 

 wooden drum, a number of lorig bamboo joints open at the 

 upper end, which, when held vertically and struck on the 

 ground, give out a peculiar booming note. 



In each of the dances there was a leader, who gave the word 

 of command for the changes in the figures, and his part was 

 especially prominent in the Club Dance. In this dance all the 

 attitudes of advance, retreat, and the striking of the blow, were 

 gone through with various manoeuvres, such as the forming of 

 single file and of column. Clubs are carefully decorated when 

 used for dancing ; some clubs indeed seem to be kept for 

 dancing with, and to correspond to our Court swords in being 

 merely decorative. There are flat spaces near the heads of the 

 curved clubs, which on festive occasions are freshly smeared 

 with red, blue, or white paint. Coloured strips of Screw-pine 

 leaf are often wound round the clubs, and some are decked 

 with beads strung on Rhizomorpha fibres. Thackombau's son's 

 club was, as I have said, freshly painted blue near the top. 

 Thackombau on State occasions had a decorated club carried 

 before him, just as at home one is carried before the Vice- 

 Chancellor of Oxford, and even before the President of the 

 Royal Society. No doubt at some future time, when fire-arms 

 have been superseded, rudimentary guns, richly ornamented 

 will be carried in state before distinguished personages. 



