RELIGION, PAST AND PRESENT. 67 



ceremony with which the Catholic Church commences her forty 

 days of penance. 



When I was in Fiji this custom of soro was dying out. Both 

 the Catholic and Protestant missionaries had discountenanced 

 it for years, on the ground that it had been of late more used 

 as a means of corruption than anything else. While there was 

 much that was theoretically right and certainly interesting in 

 this ritual of peace-offerings, we can hardly regret that it has 

 been superseded by the freer forgiveness of the Christian's 

 code. Whether the Fijians are as forgiving as their new 

 religion requires, is another question. 



CHAPTER IX. 



FIJI IN CANNIBAL DAYS. 



I CONFESS to a strong feeling of repugnance in approaching the 

 subject of cannibalism. The only inducement to dwell on such 

 an abominable custom, is the reflection that it is now a thing 

 of the past (I believe even the Kai Colos have abandoned it) ; 

 and it may be useful, now that Fiji is a Christian colony of 

 the British Empire, to show what she was only a few years 

 back, when cannibalism was one of her institutions. 



In Wilkes's days (about 1840) prisoners were fattened for a 

 feast, and then roasted alive ; he thus describes the awful 

 practice : 



' When about to be sacrificed, the victims are compelled to 

 sit upon the ground with their feet drawn under their thighs 

 and their arms placed close beside them. In this position they 

 are bound so tightly that they cannot move a joint. They are 



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