54 



ETHNOGRAPHY. 



ancestors; and certain animals, as the shark, land-crab, serpent, 

 hawk, &c., are considered sacred, and reverenced, not as being 

 themselves divine, but as the property of divinities. 



There are still other deities whose offices and attributes are con- 

 nected with the native belief respecting the future state of the soul. 

 The most important of these is one who approaches to the vulgar idea 

 of the devil. He is called by such as worship him, who are not many, 

 Ratu-mbati-ndua, or the one-toothed lord ; others speak of him as the 

 kalou kana, devouring god, or kalou tha, evil deity ; and in Lakemba 

 he is commonly termed Samu-ialo, or destroyer of souls. He has the 

 form of a man, with wings in place of arms, provided with claws to 

 snatch his victims. He has a tooth so large that, as the natives say, 

 when he is lying in his house it goes over the roof. He flies through 

 the air, emitting sparks of fire, like a meteor. He is said to roast in a 

 fire and eat the souls of men who are delivered over to him by the 

 supreme divinity.* 



The general belief of the Feejeeans seems to be that the soul passes 

 throuo-h two states or conditions of future existence before it under- 



O 



goes its final destiny, annihilation. The first of these is a residence, 

 for an indefinite period, in some place upon the earth, (termed thimba- 

 thimba,) which is a kind of terrestrial elysium. Nearly every island 

 and large district has its own place of souls. From thence the spirit 

 descends to the Mbulu, or infernal regions, situated beneath the earth, 

 where it remains until its extinction. In some places it would appear 

 that the second stage is omitted, and in others it is placed beneath the 

 sea. It is possible, however, that in these instances our information 

 was imperfect, as we were assured that the natives generally believe 

 in both the earthly elysium and the subterranean hades. 



At Rewa the word lothia was given to us as the term for annihila- 

 tion, or the doom to which the spirit is finally subjected. At La- 

 kemba, according to Mr. Cargill, Lothia is the name of the sovereign 

 of Mbulu, under whom the souls undergo this destiny. 



The people of Vanua-levu believe that the spirits of the dead repair 

 to a point of land near Sandal- wood Bay, termed Thombathomba, 

 from whence they pass down into the sea, where they are received by 

 the two canoes of Rokona and Rokola. When it is stormy weather, 

 with thunder, rain, and high winds, the natives say that their canoes 



* The idea of this being has evidently been grafted by the Feejeeans on the Polynesian 

 mythology, in which there is nothing of the sort. See elsewhere the account given of the 

 evil spirit, as imagined by the Australian aborigines. 



