Note 715 — INDEX
Reading edition
Footnote 715:
(return)
John Jackson's Narrative, in Capt. J. E. Erskine's Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific (London, 1853), pp. 464 sq., 472 sq. The genital members of the men over whom the canoe was dragged were cut off and hung on a sacred tree (akau-tambu), "which was already artificially prolific in fruit, both of the masculine and feminine gender." The tree which bore such remarkable fruit was commonly an ironweed tree standing in a conspicuous situation. As to these sacrifices compare Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. iii. 97; Lorimer Fison, Tales from Old Fiji, pp. xvi. sq.