FIJIAN RELIGION. 391 
most kinds of work, to go to war, sail about, plant, 
build houses, beat the drums, or make much noise, lest 
he should take offence and depart with his work unfin- 
ished. In December the priests bathe Ratu mai Bulu, 
and then announce his departure from earth by a great 
shout, which is quickly carried from village to village, 
from town to town. 
One of the most universal beliefs of all mankind is, 
doubtless, that in the aid or protection departed an- 
cestors are able to afford. All nations participate in it 
more or less, and even Christianity has not been able 
to uproot an idea which poetry and art have rivalled 
to perpetuate. What educated man could be so cruel 
as to wish to prove to an orphan child, left alone in 
the wide world, that, according to strict orthodoxy, 
the spirit of its mother could not possibly watch over 
it, because the lost one would quietly slumber in her 
grave till the great day of judgment? The Chinese, 
Japanese, South African tribes, and Polynesians, do not 
clothe their ideas in so poetical a garb, or banish ad- 
miration for the mighty deeds of their ancestors from 
the region of religious sentiment. They supplicate their 
formidable shades when misfortune befalls them, or fear 
of the future takes possession of their minds. With 
the Fijians, as soon as beloved parents expire, they 
take their place amongst the family gods. Bures, or 
temples, are erected to their memory, and offerings de- 
posited either on their graves or on rudely constructed 
altars—mere stages, in the form of tables, the legs of 
which are driven in the ground, and the top of which 
is covered with pieces of native cloth. The construc- 
