The man's parents, having ascertained that their overtures would be acceptable, sent betrothal gifts (_ai ndunguthi_) to the parents of the girl. The token of acceptance was sometimes a miniature _liku_ (apron). If _vei-ndavolani_ (concubitants), they were often betrothed in early childhood; sometimes, however, a girl child was thus promised to a man old enough to be her grandfather. In either case the girl's parents kept strict watch over her, for any lapse on her part would cover them with shame and dishonour. If the betrothed whom she thus dishonoured was a man of rank her own relations would not scruple to put her to death, as was done by the great chief Ritova in 1852, when his sister thus disgraced him. While the girl is growing up her friends were supposed to "nurse" (_vei-mei_) her, or they might take her to the bridegroom's parents to be cared for till the marriage. When she reached puberty the bridegroom's friends prepared a quantity of property, consisting of mats and bark-cloth, and called the _yau-ni-kumu_, or the _solevu_, and presented it formally to the parents of the girl, and marriages were often delayed for years when the bridegroom's family were too poor to acquire property commensurate with their pride. It was this pecuniary element, and also the custom of _vasu_, which gave every Fijian a lien over the property of his mother's family, that made each clan so jealous in counting the interchange of wives. "_Veka!_" they would exclaim when a fresh proposal was made, "they have had already five women from us, and we but three from them, and now they ask us for a sixth!"