FEEJEE GROUP. 351 



A place about two hundred feet in length is cleared for this purpose, 

 and it excites great interest, often producing quarrels attended with 

 bloodshed, and sometimes wars. 



The older boys are trained to the use of the spear, using in the 

 exercise long reeds and sticks, whose ends are rolled up in tapa, in 

 order to prevent accident. 



The Feejee mode of sending messages (lotu) is as follows : a chief, 

 when he wishes to send one, gives the messenger as many reeds as 

 the message is to contain separate subjects. These reeds are of dif- 

 ferent lengths, in order to distinguish them from each other. When 

 the messenger arrives at his destination, he delivers the reeds succes- 

 sively, and with each of them repeats the purport of the part of the 

 message of which it is the memorial. Such messages are carried 

 and delivered with great accuracy ; and the messengers, when ques- 

 tioned on their return, repeat them with great precision. 



A reed is also used as the pledge on closing an agreement, and the 

 delivery of it makes it binding. If a chief presents a reed, or sticks 

 one in the ground, it is considered as binding him to the performance 

 of his promise. 



The women are kept in great subjection, and this is not accom- 

 plished without severity. Their lords and masters frequently tie 

 them up and flog them, and even the whites punish their native wives, 

 which they say they are compelled to do, as without the discipline to 

 which they are accustomed, they could not be managed. 



The women are besides never permitted to enter the mbure, nor, 

 as we have seen, to eat human flesh, at least in public. They keep 

 the house clean, take care of the children, weed the yam and taro 

 beds, and carry the roots home after the men have dug them up. 

 Like other property, wives may 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. 



The girls of the lower classes of a town or koro, are entirely at 

 the disposal of the chief, who may sell or bargain them away as he 

 pleases. 



Next to war, agriculture is the most general occupation of this 

 people. To this they pay great attention, and have a great number 

 of esculent fruits and roots which they cultivate, in addition to many 

 spontaneous products of the soil. 



Of the bread-fruit tree they have nine different kinds, distinguished 

 by fruits of different sizes and shapes, and the figure of their leaves. 



