i66 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



the future world of the Fijians as of the Tongans, the air is so strong 

 that mortals grow old very quickly,^^ as in the Angami Whedzura,^^ and 

 the topsytun^dom of the Angami chiisenii, when pestles put forth leaves 

 and the grain will fly in the air and men run about to catch it, while their 

 ears grow the wrong way on,^^ has a precise equivalent in the Fijian 

 Tavuki,®" as it has in the Apu Lagan of the Karen of Burma, and possibly 

 in the Apo Leggan of the Kayan of Borneo. 



Numbers of parallels appear in beliefs and practices current in the 

 two areas. Both Fiji *^ and the Naga hills ®^ believe in the separability 

 of the soul from the body. It is conceived of as animula vagula blandula, 

 and when illness of the body is caused by the temporary absence of 

 the soul the vagrant can be recalled by name. After death it may hang 

 about its earthly haunts for three or four days,^^ while belief in the 

 plurality of souls in one body occurs in both areas.®* The symptoms of 

 possession by a spirit causing a violent trembling of the limbs and rapid 

 incoherent speech are the same in Assam and Fiji,®^ as perhaps in many 

 other parts of the world. So also the belief in the immanence of gods 

 or spirits in stones is perhaps too widespread to be of value for the pur- 

 poses of this comparison, though the use of baetylic stones is almost 

 identical in both areas, and both areas firmly believe that these stones 

 breed as if alive and produce children in the shape of smaller nodules. ®® 



Both in Fiji and among the Ao Nagas the fish appears associated with 

 the marriage ceremony,®^ while tattooing is applied to girls when they 

 reach a marriageable age.®^ In Fiji, as among the Konyak Nagas, we 

 find girls taken from their subjects to attend a daughter of a chief going 

 as a bride to a distant village,®^ and in both areas the postponement of 

 cohabitation after marriage is usual. ''° In Fiji again, as among some of 

 the Assam tribes, we find the practice of teknonymy,^^ which Brewster 

 compares to the Polynesian practice by which parents ' sink into obscurity 

 when their children arrive at the age of discretion.' One is reminded of 

 the practice in Laruri in the Naga hills by which the parents abandon their 

 house to their eldest son on his marriage and occupy a lean-to or separate 

 hut of comparative insignificance. 



In Fiji again "^^ a system is found known as vakandewa, identical with 

 that of the ' sentry ' system by which letters in the Ao county can be 

 sent direct from one end of the tribe to the other, '^ though this system 

 is not found in the majority of Naga tribes, at any rate in the south of 

 the Naga hills. In both areas the official carver and meat distributor 



6' Frazer, I, 462 ; II, 88. ss Hutton, I, 260. 



53 Hutton, I, 252 ; Mills, II, 108. 6" Brewster, 237. 



'1 Williams, I, 102, 127 ; II, 242 ; Deane, 156. 

 *2 Hutton, II, 200, 209. 

 «^ Waterhouse, II, 326 ; Hutton, II, 210. 



6* Williams, II, 241 ; MiUs, II, 224. ** WiUiams, II, 224. 



^8 Seemann, 90 ; Hutton, II, 174, 253, 255. 

 " Williams, II, 170 ; Brewster, 51 ; MiUs, II, 271. 



^* Deane, 23 ; Mills, II, 31. '' Williams, I, 329 n. 



"• Brewster, 196 ; Hutton, I, 222, 344 ; Shaw, 58 w.^ 

 '^ Brewster, 181 ; Parry, 238 ; Shaw, 140. 

 • « Brewster, 137. " MiUs, II, 178. 



