Turukawa used to coo all the day long, He did not coo at daybreak, Ndengei wept for love of him, Alas! my fowl, my noble fowl, For a whole month I have eaten nothing, For two months have I fasted for him, Let one run to Narauyamba, And question the two young chiefs, Did ye shoot Turukawa? He did not coo at daybreak, "Joy possesses us, We did injure the Awakener." They joined battle at nightfall, It is a war that can never be atoned. Never atoned; go, storm the fortress, Both sides joined battle, Ah! one is clubbed, Ah! another is down, The bodies of the Ului Ndreketi are piled high. The war spreads even to the shore, Aye, spreads even to the sea-shore, The Kauvandra tribes are thrashed, Whose was the word that set the battle going? Lo! the death-dance for the ending of the war! Crash goes the club into the thick of the chiefs! We fight, we fight, we fight--i! This poem is given in the dialect of Rakiraki. As in all Fijian poems there are no indications of the speaker, and it is as difficult to translate as a modern play would be if all the speakers' names and the stage directions were omitted. Judging by the phraseology I take it to be a late version of the ancient story, probably not more than a century old. The older poems contain archaic words whose meaning is unintelligible to the natives of these days, for the language is being steadily impoverished as the older generation is giving place to men taught in the mission schools. The Tuka Heresy [Pageheader: THE IMMORTALITY HERESY] In 1876 the Fijians had all nominally accepted Christianity. In every village throughout the group services were held regularly by native teachers of the Wesleyan Mission; the heathen temples had been demolished; and all customs likely to keep alive the old heathen cults had been sternly discountenanced. Even the old men conformed outwardly to the new faith, and it was hoped that, as they died out, the old beliefs would perish with them. But it was not to be expected that they had really abandoned all belief in the religion of their fathers.