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of the Oriental negro or Kalceonesian stock, having a close affinity to aboriginal races 

 still found in India, the jungles and heights of Ultra-India, Malaya, Luzon, Sumatra, 

 and as far cast as Japan." The hill tribes of Navitilevu, or Kai T/iofa, as they were 

 called, may perhaps be taken as specimens of the purer Fijian race, who lived in fortified 

 villages (koro} surrounded by moat and mound and double stockade, the planting 

 grounds being generally as near as possible to the village. A number of these koro 

 made up what was called a matanitu, a term generally rendered, for the want of a better, 

 by the word "kingdom." These koro were of unequal status. One of them, where the 

 chief clan dwelt, was called the koro-turanga (koro of chiefs), and the others owed more 

 or less tribute and ser- 

 vice to it. The clans in 

 some of the villages were 

 called Mbati ( Borderers). 

 These gave service in 

 war, for which they were 

 paid by feasts and pre- 

 sents. The people of the 

 other koro were nggali of 

 various grades, down to 

 the husbandmen, who 

 were called lew ni valc- 

 ni-kuro (people of the 

 house of pots, i.e., the 

 cook-house), or, in one 

 instance at least, Icwc ni 

 kuro (contents of the 

 pot), a title which the 

 chiefs had power to verify 

 in actual fact if they 

 wanted a man for a feast 

 and could not convenient- 

 ly get one elsewhere. 

 These matanitu were usually at deadly feud one with another. Their normal condition 

 was war, broken by occasional intervals of peace, and the boom of the big wooden war- 

 drum was always sounding somewhere or other in the Group. A cause of war was never 

 lacking, for the blood feud was a religious institution, and new occasions of offence 

 were continually occurring. Perhaps the most prolific cause of war was the jealousy 

 between the chiefs themselves, arising out of polygamy. Sons of a great chief, whose 

 mothers were inaraina (ladies of rank), being all qualified to succeed him, naturally looked 

 upon their half-brothers as rivals whom it would be well to get out of the way. Their 

 respective mothers taught them this lesson from their earliest boyhood, with a success 

 which is terribly shown in the fact that the language has a word for " murderous 

 hate between brother and brother." Their chief weapons were, the club and spear. The 

 bow and arrow also were used, but not to any great extent, excepting as a boy's play- 



KING THAKAMBAU S HOUSE. 



