Wanderings Among South Sea Savages | Page 9

sometimes Ratu Lala would wait
several minutes before he deigned to notice him.

CHAPTER 2
My Further Adventures with Ratu Lala.
Fijian Huts -- Abundance of Game and Fish -- Methods of Capture -- A
Fijian Practical Joke -- Fijian Feasts -- Fun after Dinner -- A Court
Jester in Fiji -- Drinking, Dress, and Methods of Mourning -- A Bride's
Ringlets -- Expedition to Vuna -- Tersi and Moe Journey to School --
Their Love of Sweets -- Rough Reception of Visitors to Vuna --
Wonderful Fish Caught -- Exhibition of Surf-board Swimming by
Women -- Impressive Midnight Row back to Taviuni -- A Fijian
Farewell.
In comparison with Samoan huts, the Fijian huts were very comfortable,
though they are not half as airy, Samoan huts being very open; but in
most of the Fijian huts I visited the only openings were the doors, and,
as can be imagined, the interior was rather dark and gloomy. In shape
they greatly resembled a haystack, the sides being composed of grass or
bunches of leaves, more often the latter. They are generally built on a
platform of rocks, with doors upon two or more sides, according to the
size of the hut; and a sloping sort of rough plank with notches on it
leads from the ground to each door. In the interior, the sides of the
walls are often beautifully lined with the stems of reeds, fashioned very
neatly, and in some cases in really artistic patterns, and tied together
with thin ropes of coconut fibre, dyed various colours, and often
ornamented with rows of large white cowry shells. The floor of these
huts is much like a springy mattress, being packed to a depth of several
feet with palm and other leaves, and on the top are strips of native mats
permanently fastened, whereas in Samoa the floor is made up of small
pieces of brittle white coral, over which are loose mats, which can be
moved at will. In Fijian huts there is always a sort of raised platform at
one end of the hut, on which are piles of the best native mats, and,
being the guest, I generally got this to myself. The roof inside is very
finely thatched, the beams being of "Niu sau," a native palm,[5] the
cross-pieces and main supports being enormous bits of hard wood. The
smaller supports of the sides are generally the trunks of tree-ferns. The
doors in most of the huts are a strip of native matting or

fantastically-painted "tapa" cloth, fastened to two posts a few feet
inside the hut. In some huts there are small openings in the walls which
answer for windows. The hearth was generally near one of the doors in
the centre of the hut, and fire was produced by rubbing a piece of hard
wood on a larger piece of soft wood, and working it up and down in a
groove till a spark was produced. I have myself successfully employed
this method when out shooting green pigeon ("rupe") in the mountains.
With regard to food, I at first fared very well, although we had our
meals at all hours, as Ratu Lala was very irregular in his habits. Our
chief food was turtle. We had it so often that I soon loathed the taste of
it. The turtles, when brought up from the sea were laid on their backs
under a tree close by the house, and there the poor brutes were left for
days together. Ratu Lala's men often brought in a live wild pig, which
they captured with the aid of their dogs. At other times they would run
them down and spear them; this was hard and exciting work, as I
myself found on several occasions that I went pig hunting. One of the
most remarkable things that I saw in Taviuni, from a sporting point of
view, was the heart of a wild pig, which, when killed, was found to
have lived with the broken point of a wooden spear fully four inches in
length buried in the very centre of its heart. It had evidently lived for
many years afterwards, and a curious kind of growth had formed round
the point.
As for other game, every time I went out in the mountain woods I had
splendid sport with the wild chickens or jungle fowl and pigeons, and I
would often return with my guide bearing a long pole loaded at both
ends with the birds I had shot. The pigeons, which were large birds,
settled on the tops of the tallest trees and made a very peculiar kind of
growling noise. Many years ago (as Ratu Lala told me) the natives of
Taviuni had been in the habit of catching great quantities of pigeons by
means of large