The Night of Heathenism, 215 
arise from this fact, that it was common to see wives muti- 
lated and injured for life at the hands of their lord's numerous 
seraglio. One day, a poor oppressed native woman of this 
class came to the mission house, minus her nose. The 
missionary's wife asked the reason of her being so disfigured, 
when it turned out that one of her sister-wives had bitten it 
off in a fit of rage. This seemed to be the favourite mode 
of injury adopted by a jealous wife. Torn ears, bites, 
scratches, and employment of witchcraft, also bore evidence 
of the unhappiness caused by a plurality of wives. 
As another result of polygamy, child murder prevailed. 
Many children were killed because of jealous quarrels and 
strifes ; many professors of the art of child murder existed 
in the villages and towns. The children seemed to belong 
to nobody in particular, and were accordingly neglected. 
Most of them — two-thirds it is asserted by good authority 
— were slain as soon as born, and if any one dared to 
remonstrate, the reply would be, if the infant were a girl, 
" Of what use could she be ? '' " Would she ever be able 
to fight? " Or, supposing the mother were a captive taken 
from the tribe at war with the one among whom she was 
married, she would make a point of killing all her children 
in order to prevent an increase in the number of the 
enemies of her native tribe. The mode of correction most 
in favour among the husbands, in case the wives were unruly, 
was that of severe beatings with thick sticks ; a practice, to 
our national shame, be it said, not altogether unknown in 
Christian England ! In Fiji, however, when a wife proved 
incorrigible, she was clubbed and kicked until dead. And 
in almost every case, the wife was killed upon the death of 
her husband, to keep him company in the far-off mysterious 
spirit-world ; so that whether ill or well conducted, certain 
death awaited her by violence, sooner or later. 
