THE FIJI ISLANDS 
477 
Fiji Islands, and have to some extent modified both 
the customs and the language of the indigenes. Yet 
they remain undoubted Melanesians, and differ from 
their eastern neighbours not only in their scanty dress, 
which is hardly more than that of the savage New Hebri¬ 
deans, but in using the bow and arrow as a weapon, and 
in making pottery, both arts being foreign to the true 
Polynesians. 
The people had a regular system of government under 
chiefs of tribes, of whom there are twelve or more. 
The tribe, or matanitu , is composed of an association of 
clans, these being termed galis , and each gali consists 
of numerous families, or matagalis. The manners and 
morals are in many respects those of a civilised people, 
yet perhaps nowhere in the world has human life been 
so recklessly destroyed, or cannibalism been reduced 
to such a system, as here. Human flesh was, till a 
generation ago, the Fijian’s greatest luxury, and not only 
enemies or slaves kept for the purpose, but on rare 
occasions even relatives and friends were sacrificed 
to gratify it. At great feasts it was not uncommon 
to see twenty human bodies cooked at a time, and 
on the demand of a chief for “ long pig,” which was 
their euphuism for a human body, his attendants would 
rush out and kill the first person they met, rather 
than fail to gratify him. No less horrible were the 
human sacrifices which attended most of their cere¬ 
monies. When a chief died a whole hecatomb of 
wives and slaves had to be buried alive with him. 
When a chiefs house was built, the hole for each 
post must have a slave to hold it up and be buried 
with it. When a great war-canoe was to be launched, 
or to be brought home, it must be dragged to or 
from the water over living human beings tied between 
