er
with other swine, if they should be needed to furnish a plenteous
repast.

[Sidenote: Acceptance of the novices by the ancestral spirits.]

The novices were now "accepted members of the _Nanga_, qualified to take
their place among the men of the community, though still only on
probation. As children--their childhood being indicated by their shaven
heads--they were presented to the ancestors, and their acceptance was
notified by what (looking at the matter from the natives' standpoint) we
might, without irreverence, almost call the _sacrament_ of food and
water, too sacred even for the elders' hands to touch. This acceptance
was acknowledged and confirmed on the part of all the _Lewe ni Nanga_
[junior initiated men] by their gift of food, and it was finally
ratified by the presentation of the Sacred Pig. In like manner, on the
birth of an infant, its father acknowledges it as legitimate, and
otherwise acceptable, by a gift of food; and his kinsfolk formally
signify approval and confirmation of his decision on the part of the
clan by similar presentations."

[Sidenote: The initiation followed by a period of sexual license. Sacred
pigs.]

Next morning the women, their hair dyed red and wearing waistbands of
hibiscus or other fibre, came to the sacred enclosure and crawled
through it on hands and knees into the Holy of Holies, where the elders
were singing their solemn chant. The high priest then dipped his hands
into the water of the sacred bowl and prayed to the ancestral spirits
for the mothers and for their children. After that the women crawled
back on hands and feet the way they had come, singing as they went and
creeping over certain mounds of earth which had been thrown up for the
purpose in the sacred enclosure. When they emerged from the holy ground,
the men and women addressed each other in the vilest language, such as
on ordinary occasions would be violently resented; and thenceforth to
the close of the ceremonies some days later very great, indeed almost
unlimited, licence prevailed between the sexes. During these days a
number of pigs were consecrated to serve for the next ceremony. The
animals were deemed sacred, and had the run of the fleshpots in the
villages in which they were kept. Indeed they were held in the greatest
reverence. To kill one, except for sacrifice at the rites in the
_Nanga_, would have been a sacrilege which the Fijian mind refused to
contemplate; and on the other hand to feed the