178 FEJEE GROUP. 



fond of painting their noses and cheeks with, vermilion. 

 After marriage the curls are cut off, and the hair is kept short 

 and frizzled. 



Polygamy, in its greatest extent, is practised — some of the 

 chiefs having from ten to one hundred "wives. The woman, 

 however, who is of the best family is always looked upon as 

 the principal wife — all the others being required to yield im- 

 plicit obedience to her. The daughters of chiefs are usually 

 betrothed early in life. If the betrothed husband dies before 

 the girl grows up, the next brother takes his place. The 

 parties may be frequently seen walking arm-in-arm after they 

 are engaged. Among the lower classes, however, marriages 

 are mere matters of bargain, and wives are looked upon as 

 property. The usual price is a musket or a whale's tooth. 

 If detected in infidelity, they may be killed by the husband, 

 or sold into slavery ; but I was told that Fejee wives are 

 generally faithful. On the death of the husband, his favorite 

 wives are strangled and buried with him in a common grave.* 



When a member of a family is dangerously ill, one or more 

 of the other members cut off his little finger as a sacrifice to 

 the gods for his recovery ; if the sick person is afflicted with a 

 lingering disease, his relatives kill him, that he may escape all 



* We learn that among the Fejee Islanders, the chiefs have from twenty to a hundred 

 wives, according to their rank, and at the interment of a principal chief, the body is 

 laid in state upon a spacious lawn in the presence of an immense concourse of specta- 

 tors. The principal wife, after the utmost ingenuity of the natives has been exercised 

 in adorning her person, then walks out, and takes her seat near the body of her hus- 

 band, when a rope is passed round her neck, which eight or ten powerful men pull 

 with all their strength, until she is strangled and dies. Her body is then laid by that 

 of the chief. This done, a second wife comes out and seats herself in the same place. 

 The process is repeated, and she also dies. A third and a fourth become voluntary 

 sacrilices in the same manner, and all of them are then interred in a common grave — 

 one above, one below, and one on either side of the husband. The reasons assigned 

 for this are, that the spirit of the chief may not be lonely in its passage to the invisible 

 world, and that by such*an offering, its happiness may be at once secured. 



Missionary Enter;yrises in the South Sea Islands. 



