VITIAN GRAMMAR, 383 



CEREMONIAL. COMMON. ENGLISH. 



serau sarasara to see 



serau mata eye, face 



tauri hi i a, i to eat 



tavi yone a son or daughter 



taw moSe sleep ; to sleep 



tokawale mborisi anger; angry 



turatura ava (yava) the foot or leg 



vakatambuna vosa to speak 



vakatatambu vosa a word 



vakatoka a/Sa name 



vanua-i-Sake ulu head 



wav e kete the abdomen 



wiri liko to sit 



wiriwiri tikotiko a seat 



PROSODY. 



The Feejeeans pay more attention to poetical composition than any of their Polynesian 

 neighbours. Nearly all their dances are accompanied by songs, in a kind of recitative, 

 to which the motions of the dancers are made to correspond. The song and dance appear 

 to be looked upon as inseparable, and any important celebration or festival is usually 

 signalized by the production of a meke, or dance, of which both the movements and the 

 words are newly composed. There are persons, both male and female, who devote them- 

 selves to this species of composition, some of whom acquire a great reputation. They 

 frequently obtain a high price for their productions, twenty tambua (the native currency 

 of whale's teeth) being sometimes given for a single song and dance. As a person with 

 forty or fifty of these teeth is considered wealthy, and for eight or ten a ship may be 

 supplied with provisions for a cruise, it is evident that the Feejeeans affix no slight 

 value to the works of their composers. 



Indeed a poet of Viti has a far more difficult task than those of most countries. He 

 must not only possess a good knowledge of music, as it is understood by his countrymen, 

 and be acquainted with the principles on which their dances are regulated, but in the 

 composition of his song he has to adapt it both to the tune and the dance, and he must 

 do this while fettered by a complicated system of rhythm and rhyme peculiar, so far as 

 we know, to his language. 



The most common measure in their songs consists of three dactyles and a trochee ;* 

 but in the place of any of the dactyles a spondee may be used. Thus the line 



This measure is one not wholly unknown to English ballad literature ; it is that adopted by Scott, in 

 the well-known lines 



"Wh<5re shall the fover rest, wh6m the fates sever 

 From his true maiden's breast, parted for ever ?" &c. 



