DESCENDANTS OF TONGAN IMMIGRANTS PERFORMING THE TONGAN DANCE _LAKALAKA_ _To face page_ 22 BRINGING FIRST FRUITS TO MBAU " 60 BUILDING A CHIEF'S HOUSE " 70 SPOIL FROM THE PLANTATIONS--(TARO, COCOANUTS AND YANGKONA) " 78 PAINTING A _TAPA_ SHROUD " 130 SERUA, AN ISLAND CHIEF VILLAGE IN THE _MBAKI_ COUNTRY " 154 THE MBURE-NI-SA (CLUB HOUSE) " 176 WOMEN FISHING WITH THE SEINE " 212 A WAR DANCE " 286 THE _THAMAKAU_ " 290 THE HAIR PLASTERED WITH BLEACHING LIME " 302 THE CHIEF'S TURTLE FISHERS " 320 SLAUGHTERING THE TURTLE " 326 BREWING YANGKONA " 344 PICKING COCOANUTS " 364 _Photographs by_ Waters, _Suva, Fiji_. THE FIJIANS CHAPTER I THE TRANSITION The Fijian of to-day is neither savage nor civilized. Security from violence has fostered his natural improvidence. The missionaries, who have effected so marvellous a change in his moral and religious sentiments, who have induced him to join in the suppression of such customs as polygamy, cannibalism, strangling of widows, amputating the finger as a mark of mourning, dressing the hair in heathen fashion, wearing the loin bandage, tattooing and many others, have neglected to teach him to care for his health and his physical well-being. They have taught him to cultivate his mind rather than his food plantation, and they have given him no immediate punishment for thriftlessness and disobedience to take the place of the old club law. He was accustomed to be ruled by a strong hand because no other rule was possible, and he is suffering from the fact that civilization was not forced upon him. If, instead of being ceded, the country had been conquered and each man relegated to his place with a strong hand, the dawn of settled government would have been less bleak.