Note 689 — LECTURE XIX
Reading edition
Footnote 689:
(return)
Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. iii. 100. Williams also says (op. cit. i. 167) that the proper time for performing the rite of circumcision was after the death of a chief, and he tells us that "many rude games attend it. Blindfolded youths strike at thin vessels of water hung from the branch of a tree. At Lakemba, the men arm themselves with branches of the cocoa-nut, and carry on a sham fight. At Ono, they wrestle. At Mbau, they fillip small stones from the end of a bamboo with sufficient force to make the person hit wince again. On Vanua Levu, there is a mock siege."