“When a man came to the priests to beg some heavenly, or rather infernal, favour, they would tell him, either from whim, malice, or some reason best known to themselves, that the god required a human sacrifice, and naming the victim, present the supplicant with the death-warrant in the shape of a sacred stone. He hides this carefully somewhere about him, and collecting a few friends, seeks out the doomed man. At last they find him sitting lazily under a tree or mending his canoe, and squatting down round him begin talking about the weather, fishing, or what not. Suddenly a hand is opened--the death stone discovered to his horrified view. He starts up terror-stricken, and tries to escape--one short, furious struggle and he is knocked down, secured, and carried off to the merciless priests. Ugh! it is an ugly picture.”[56] CHAPTER XIII. _THE FIJI ISLANDERS._ The annexation of the Fiji Islands to the British empire lends to the practices and beliefs of their inhabitants a peculiar interest, though to a great extent these have been abandoned since the establishment of Christianity. Their creed is undiluted polytheism; their pantheon is full of all kinds of gods, differing in rank and power, and very widely represented on earth by some animate or inanimate object. Each Fijian has a god of his own, under whose care he supposes himself to be placed. They do not seem to have any religious teaching; but they have a priesthood, and that priesthood has, of course, its traditional formulas of worship. But nothing like regular worship, as Christians understand the phrase, is accepted or observed, and the Fijian religion is really a superstition, because its sole inspiring motive is fear. This motive the priests carefully develope, making it the basis of their claims and the source of their influence. No man can gain access to the gods except through the priests; and the priests insist upon liberal offerings. When the worshipper comes upon questions of importance, the _Soro_ or sacrifice consists of whales’ teeth and large quantities of food. For matters of inferior moment, the god is content with a mat, a club, a spear, or a tooth, or even young nuts coated with turmeric powder. On one occasion, when the chief Tuikilakila solicited the help of the Somo-somo gods in war, he built a large new temple to the war-god, and presented a quantity of cooked food, numerous turtles, and whales’ teeth. Part of the offering, or _sogaria_, is set apart for the god, and the rest forms a feast to which everybody is invited. The god’s portion, as the reader will immediately conclude, is eaten by the priest and old men, but to the younger members of the community is strictly _tapu_.