58 ETHNOGRAPHY. 



GOVERNMENT. 



From these atrocities we willingly turn to a consideration of the 

 system of civil polity which prevails in these islands. We find here 

 the same three orders as in most of the Polynesian groups, those of 

 chiefs (turanga), landholders (matanivanua), and common people 

 (kai si). The distinction between these has nothing of the rigidness 

 of caste, and there are many persons, such as the children of chiefs 

 by women of low rank, who cannot properly be included in either of 

 the three classes. The chiefs are at the head of affairs, but the real 

 strength and influence of a state reside in the matanivanua, who are 

 frequently spoken of as the " true owners of the land," (tauM ndina 

 ni vanua.} Of the kai si, some are slaves, who have become so by 

 the fortune of war, but the greater number are artisans and labourers, 

 who work for the chiefs and landholders, and are supported by them. 



The group is not under a single government, but is divided into 

 several states, which, though independent, are yet closely connected 

 by various relations of alliance and policy, some of which are of a 

 novel and peculiar nature. The most important of these states are 

 Mbau, Rerva, Naitasiri, and Verata, on the east side of Viti-levu, 

 Mba on the western end, Mathuata on the north side of Vanua-levu, 

 and Somusomu on the island of Vuna. They are not properly speak- 

 ing provinces, but towns, or, as the white men resident on the islands 

 term them, " chief cities." Each of them has under it dependent 

 towns and islands, which, in their turn, exercise sway over subject 

 districts and hamlets. From this state of things, a system of politics 

 has grown up, bearing, as already remarked, a striking similarity, in 

 many points, to that which prevailed among the Grecian republics. 

 Mbau, Rewa, and Naitasiri, are the Sparta, Athens, and Thebes of 

 Viti. They are alternately in close alliance and at war. In the 

 latter case, the policy of each belligerent is to excite the dependencies 

 of its opponent to rebellion, either by bribery, or by holding out the 

 prospect of relief from oppression. A similar course is pursued by 

 each city towards the important districts which are subject to it. If 

 these grow too powerful, and begin to aspire to independence, the 

 governing power secretly foments rebellion among the inferior towns 

 of the dependent state. Thus Ovolau, which is one of the largest 

 islands subject to Mbau, is under the government of the chief of 



