512 MYSTIC ISLES 



What was the secret of the miracle I had witnessed? 

 How was it that in all the Orient, and formerly in 

 America, this power over fire was known and practised, 

 and that it was interwoven with the strongest and oldest 

 emotions of the races? That from the Chaldea of mil- 

 lennimiis ago to the Tautira of to-day, the ceremonial 

 was virtually the same? Our own boys and girls who 

 in the fall leaped over the bonfire of burning leaves were 

 unpremeditatedly imitating in a playful manner and 

 with risk what their forefathers had done religiously. 



In Raiatea, the chief Tetuanui informed me, the mem- 

 bership of the Protestant church of Uturoa walked on 

 the umu, and embarrassed the missionaries, who had 

 taught them, as the Tautirans were taught, that the 

 Umuti was a pagan sacrament. 



In some islands it was called vilavilairevo, and in Fiji 

 the oven was lovu. According to legend, the people of 

 Sawau, Fiji, were drawn together to hear their history 

 chanted by the orero, when he demanded presents from 

 all. Each, in the brave way of Viti, tried to outdo the 

 other in generosity, and Tui N'Kualita promised an 

 eel that he had seen at Na Moliwai. Dredre, the orero, 

 said he was satisfied, and began his tale. It was mid- 

 night when he finished. He looked for his present at an 

 early hour next morning. 



Tui N'Kualita had gone to Na Moliwai to hunt for the 

 eel, and there, as he sank his arms in the eel's hole, he 

 found it a piece of tapa that he knew to be the dress of 

 a child. Tui N'Kualita shouted: 



"Ah! Ah! this must be the cave of children. But 

 that does n't matter to me. Child, god, or new kind of 

 man, I '11 make you my gift." 



