AGRICULTURE. WOMEN. 359 



fork, and the lower end " is tapered off on one side, after the 

 shape of a quill toothpick. In digging this flattened side is 

 kept downwards. When preparing a piece of ground for 

 yams, a number of men are employed, divided into groups of 

 three or four. Each man being furnished with a digging- 

 stick, they drive them into the ground so as to enclose a 

 circle of about two feet in diameter. When, by repeated 

 strokes, the sticks reach the depth of eighteen inches, they 

 are used as levers, and the mass of soil between them is thus 

 loosened and raised."* The clods are then broken up by boys 

 with short sticks. Weeding " is accomplished by means of 

 a tool used like a Dutch hoe, the workman squatting so as to 

 bring the handle nearly level with the ground. The blade 

 used formerly to be ma^le of a bone from the back of a turtle, 

 or a plate of tortoise-shell, or the valve of a large oyster, or 

 large kind of pinna. In the windward islands they use a 

 large dibble, eight feet long, about eighteen inches in cir- 

 cumference, and tapering to a point. They had also pruning 

 knives of" tortoise-shell lashed to the end of a rod ten feet 

 long. They are skilful in basket-making, and have good 

 strong nets, made of creepers or of sinnet. 



The women were kept in great subjection. " The men 

 frequently tie them up and flog them. Like other property, 

 wives might be sold at pleasure, and the usual price is a 

 musket. Those who purchase them may do with them as 

 they please, even to knocking them on the head." Erskine, 

 however, gives a more satisfactory account of the position 

 held by the women ; and it appears that they are on the 

 whole more chaste than is the case in some of the other 

 Pacific Islands ; which is saying something for them, but 

 certainly not much. 



Although but scantily clothed, the Feegeeans are said to 

 have been very particular about their garments and their 

 * Figi and the Figians, vol. i., p. 63. 



