[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

118 WITH NATIVES IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC

which grows rankly everywhere, are stuck into the
ground at short intervals; they immediately begin
to sprout, and after a short time form a living and
impenetrable hedge. But they last much longer
than is necessary, so that everywhere the fences of
old gardens bar the road and force the traveller to
make endless detours, all the more so as the natives
have a way of making their fields right across the
paths whenever it suits them.

The number of women here amounts only to
about one-fourth of that of the men. One reason
for this is the custom of killing all the widows of
a chief, a custom which was all the more pernicious
as the chiefs, 'as a rule, owned most of the young
females, while the young men could barely afford to
buy an old widow. Happily this custom is dying
out, owing to the influence of the planters and
missionaries; they appealed, not unwisely, to the
sensuality of the young men, who were thus depriv-
ing themselves of the women. Strange to say, the
women were not altogether pleased with this change,
many desiring to die, for fear they might be haunted
by the offended spirit of their husband.

When a chief died, the execution did not take
place at once. The body was exposed in a special
little hut in the thicket, and left to decay, which
process was hastened by the climate and the flies.
Then a death-feast was prepared, and the widows,
half frantic with mad dancing and howling, were
strangled.

Ordinary people are buried in their own houses,