THE FIJI ISLANDS 477 



Fiji Islands, and have to some extent modified both 

 the customs and the language of the indigenes. Yet 

 they remain undoubted Melanesians, and differ from 

 their eastern neighbours not only in their scanty dress, 

 which is hardly more than that of the savage New Hebri- 

 deans, but in using the bow and arrow as a weapon, and 

 in making pottery, both arts being foreign to the true 

 Polynesians. 



The people had a regular system of government under 

 chiefs of tribes, of whom there are twelve or more. 

 The tribe, or matanitu, is composed of an association of 

 clans, these being termed gcdis, and each gcdi consists 

 of numerous families, or mafagalis. The manners and 

 morals are in many respects those of a civilised people, 

 yet perhaps nowhere in the world has human life been 

 so recklessly destroyed, or cannibalism been reduced 

 to such a system, as here. Human flesh was, till a 

 generation ago, the Fijian's greatest luxury, and not only 

 enemies or slaves kept for the purpose, but on rare 

 occasions even relatives and friends were sacrificed 

 to gratify it. At great feasts it was not uncommon 

 to see twenty human bodies cooked at a time, and 

 on the demand of a chief for " long pig," which was 

 their euphuism for a human body, his attendants would 

 rush out and kill the first person they met, rather 

 than fail to gratify him. No less horrible were the 

 human sacrifices which attended most of their cere- 

 monies. AVhen a chief died a whole hecatomb of 

 wives and slaves had to be buried alive with him. 

 When a chief's house was built, the hole for each 

 post must have a slave to hold it up and be buried 

 with it. When a great war-canoe was to be launched, 

 or to be brought home, it must be dragged to or 

 from the water over living human beings tied between 



