abandoned revellers and debauchees
settled down into staid married couples; and brothers and sisters, in
accordance with the regular Fijian etiquette, might not so much as speak
to one another. It should be added that these extravagances in connexion
with the rite of circumcision appear to have been practised only in
certain districts of Viti Levu, the largest of the Fijian Islands, where
they were always associated with the sacred stone enclosures which went
by the name of _Nanga_.[691]

[Sidenote: These orgies were apparently associated with the worship of
the dead, to whom offerings were made in the _Nanga_ or sacred enclosure
of stones.]

The meaning of such orgies is very obscure, but from what we know of the
savage and his ways we may fairly assume that they were no mere
outbursts of unbridled passion, but that in the minds of those who
practised them they had a definite significance and served a definite
purpose. The one thing that seems fairly clear about them is that in
some way they were associated with the worship or propitiation of the
dead. At all events we are told on good authority that the _Nanga_, or
sacred enclosure of stones, in which the severed foreskins were offered,
was "the Sacred Place where the ancestral spirits are to be found by
their worshippers, and thither offerings are taken on all occasions when
their aid is to be invoked. Every member of the _Nanga_ has the
privilege of approaching the ancestors at any time. When sickness visits
himself or his kinsfolk, when he wishes to invoke the aid of the spirits
to avert calamity or to secure prosperity, or when he deems it advisable
to present a thank-offering, he may enter the _Nanga_ with proper
reverence and deposit on the dividing wall his whale's tooth, or bundle
of cloth, or dish of toothsome eels so highly prized by the elders, and
therefore by the ancestors whose living representatives they are: or he
may drag into the Sacred _Nanga_ his fattened pig, or pile up there his
offering of the choicest yams. And, having thus recommended himself to
the dead, he may invoke their powerful aid, or express his thankfulness
for the benefits they have conferred, and beg for a continuance of their
goodwill."[692] The first-fruits of the yam harvest were presented with
great ceremony to the ancestors in the _Nanga_ before the bulk of the
crop was dug for the people's use, and no man might taste of the new
yams until the presentation had been made. The