FIJIAN RELIGION. 391 



most kinds of work, to go to war, sail about, plant, 

 build houses, beat the drums, or make much noise, lest 

 he should take offence and depart with his work unfin- 

 ished. In December the priests bathe Eatu mai Bulu, 

 and then announce his departure from earth by a great 

 shout, which is quickly carried from village to village, 

 from town to town. 



One of the most universal beliefs of all mankind is, 

 doubtless, that in the aid or protection departed an- 

 cestors are able to afford. All nations participate in it 

 more or less, and even Christianity has not been able 

 to uproot an idea which poetry and art have rivalled 

 to perpetuate. What educated man could be so cruel 

 as to wish to prove to an orphan child, left alone in 

 the wide world, that, according to strict orthodoxy, 

 the spirit of its mother could not possibly watch over 

 it, because the lost one would quietly slumber in her 

 grave till the great day of judgment ? The Chinese, 

 Japanese, South African tribes, and Polynesians, do not 

 clothe their ideas in so poetical a garb, or banish ad- 

 miration for the mighty deeds of their ancestors from 

 the region of religious sentiment. They supplicate their 

 formidable shades when misfortune befalls them, or fear 

 of the future takes possession of their minds. With 

 the Fijians, as soon as beloved parents expire, they 

 take their place amongst the family gods. Bures, or 

 temples, are erected to their memory, and offerings de- 

 posited either on their graves or on rudely constructed 

 altars mere stages, in the form of tables, the legs of 

 which are driven in the ground, and the top of which 

 is covered with pieces of native cloth. The construe- 



