FEEJEE GROUP. 375 



the full dress of a chief, is said to be sometimes as much as fifty 

 yards in length, and on state occasions I have seen it so long as to 

 require an attendant to act as train-bearer. 



The chiefs also wear sometimes a pareu, like that of the Samoans 

 and Tongese. High chiefs wear, as an ornament around the neck, 

 a single shell of the cyprsea aurora, and a valve of a large red spon- 

 dylus. Both of these are highly prized, and handed down from 

 father to son. Some wear a collar or necklace of whale's teeth, 

 fashioned like claws ; others strings of beads ; others of human teeth, 

 torn from the victims of their cannibal feasts ; others strings of the 

 cowrie moneta, and occasionally of large shells of the Venus. 



Armlets are also worn, for which purpose the shell of the trochus 

 is ground into a ring. 



The mode of wearing the hair-pricker, or comb, is an indication of 

 rank. None but the king wears it in front. Those next in rank 

 wear it a little to one side, while the lower class carry it as clerks 

 do their pens, behind the ear. 



They have a very high opinion of their taste in dress, and in this 

 their national pride may be said chiefly to consist. 



The women are not allowed to wear tapa,* and their dress is slight 

 and scanty. It consists of no more than the liku, a kind of band, 

 made, as has been stated, from the bark of the vau or hibiscus. 

 Before marriage the liku is worn short, but after the birth of the first 

 child, it is much lengthened. 



Tattooing is only performed on the women, and is chiefly confined 

 to the parts which are covered by the liku. The women believe that 

 to be tattooed is a passport to the other world, where it prevents them 

 from being persecuted by their own sex, numbers of whom, by com- 



* This prohibition appears to arise from the jealousy of their own sex, who punish 

 severely any who infringe upon this custom. As an instance of this, an old woman at 

 Levuka was pointed out to me by Whippy, who once took it into her head to wear a small 

 piece of tapa, with which she showed herself in the village, whereupon the other women 

 fell upon her, and after beating her almost to death, bit off her nose, and left her a monu- 

 ment of her own vanity, and of the ferocity of the fair sex of Feejee. 



