The Fijians a Study of the Decay of Custom

enth century. While the chiefs of the Marquesas and Hawaii are said to recall the names of their ancestors for seventy- three generations,1 the chiefs of Mbau cannot give the name of any of their predecessors before Nailatikau, who reigned during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, and the earliest name recalled by other tribes of longer memory is only the sixth generation from the reigning chief. It is not that the Fijians were less prone than other islanders to embody their tribal history in traditional poetry, but that the political morcellement of the tribal units left the poets nothing to record. A century ago Mbau was nothing but a petty fortified village in the interior, governed by chiefs whose names were unknown three miles from its'public square. The chiefs of Rewa were equally obscure, and the songs which celebrated their petty achievements died with the generation that sang them. When the great wave of unrest in the interior of Vitilevu sent them forth to fight their way to a new home on the coast, and to found confederations of the tribes they had subdued, their history was born; and at its birth died the old traditions of the tribes they conquered, for vassals in Fiji have nothing to do with memories of departed greatness. 1 The Polynesian Race, by A. Fornander, Vol. i, p. 193. 4 THE BOND OF TAUVU 5 Besides the historical meke there remain a few mythological sagas which refer to a far older period. With ancestor- worshippers like the ... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.