A WHOLE TRIBE EATEN. 177 
taro (Caladium esculentum, Schott, var.), called “ Ku- 
rilagi,” was pointed out as having been eaten with a 
whole tribe of people. The story sounds strange, but 
as a number of natives were present when it was told, 
several of whom corroborated the various statements, 
or corrected the proper names that occurred, its truth 
appears unimpeachable. In the interior of Viti Levu, 
about three miles N.N.E. from Namosi, there dwelt a 
tribe, known by the name of Kai-na-loca, who in days 
of yore gave great offence to the ruling chief of the Na- 
mosi district, and, as a punishment of their misdeeds, 
the whole tribe was condemned to die. Every year the 
inmates of one house were baked and eaten, fire was set 
to the empty dwelling, and its foundation planted with 
kurilagi. In the following year, as soon as this taro 
was ripe, it became the signal for the destruction of the 
next house and its inhabitants, and the planting of a 
fresh field of taro. Thus, house after house, family after 
family, disappeared, until Ratuibuna, the father of the 
present chief Kuruduadua, pardoned the remaining few, 
and allowed them to die a natural death. In 1860, only 
one old woman, living at Cagina, was the sole survivor 
of the Na-loca people. Picture the feelings of these 
unfortunate wretches, as they watched the growth of the 
ominous taro! Throughout the dominions of the power- 
ful chief whose authority they had insulted, their lives 
were forfeited, and to escape into territories where they 
were strangers would, in those days, only have been to 
hasten the awful doom awaiting them in their own 
country. Nothing remained save to watch, watch, 
watch, the rapid development of the kurilagi. As leaf 
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