CUSTOMS OF THE FEEJEE GROUP. 



79 



FEEJEE GIRL. 



When the boys grow up, their hair is no longer cropped, and great 

 pains is taken to spread it out into a mop-like form. The chiefs, in 

 particular, pay great attention to the dressing of their heads, and 

 for this purpose all of them have barbers, whose sole occupation is 

 the care of their masters' heads. The duty of these functionaries is 

 held to be of so sacred a nature, that their hands are tabooed from 

 all other employment, and they are not even permitted to feed them- 

 selves.* To dress the head of a chief occupies several hours, and 

 the hair is made to spread out from the head, on every side, to a dis- 

 tance that is often eight inches. The beard, which is also carefully 

 nursed, often reaches the breast, and when a Feejeean has these 

 important parts of his person well dressed, he exhibits a degree of 

 conceit that is not a little amusing. 



In the process of dressing the hair, it is well anointed with oil, 

 mixed with a carbonaceous black, until it is completely saturated. f 

 The barber then takes the hair-pin, which is a long and slender rod, 

 made of tortoise-shell or bone, and proceeds to twitch almost every 

 separate hair. This causes it to frizzle and stand erect. The bush of 

 hair is then trimmed smooth, by singeing it, until it has the appearance 



* These barbers are called a-vu-ni-ulu. They are attached to the household of the chiefs 

 in numbers of from two to a dozen. 



f The oil is procured by scraping and squeezing a nut called maiketu ; the black is 

 prepared from the laudi nut. 



