STAPLE FOOD. 297 
tated to me by an intelligent Bauan chief, and the con- 
sular interpreter, Mr. Charles Wise. The names given 
by me, as well as their succession, do not quite agree with 
those given by Wilkes. This discrepancy is partly ex- 
plained by Wilkes having taken down his list from the 
lips of Europeans imperfectly versed in Fijian, and by 
his adopting a loose way of spelling. The names of the 
months may also be different in different parts of the 
group. The subject, however, requires still further in- 
vestigation. If, as has been averred, the Fijians inva- 
riably commenced the months with the appearance of 
the new moon, there would soon have been a vast dif- 
ference between the lunar and the solar year. To guard 
against the irregularity that would thus have been in- 
troduced into the seasons, and to make the lunar year 
correspond with the solar, it would have been necessary 
either to intercalate a moon after every thirty-sixth 
moon, or to allow a greater period of time for one of 
the eleven months into which the Fijian year is divided. 
The latter seems to have been effected by the Vula i 
werewere (clearing month). Hazelwood (‘Fijian and 
English Dictionary,’ Viwa, 1850, p. 180) allows four 
months, May, June, July, and August, for it; but this 
cannot be correct, as it would derange the others. By 
restricting it to two or thereabouts, June and July, a 
proper arrangement is effected. I place the Vula i 
werewere first in my list instead of the month answering 
to January, because it is in the spring of the year (June 
and July), and the commencement of the agricultural 
operations and natural phenomena upon which the ca- 
lendar is based. 
