178 RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES. 



strangled, and laid down before the images of 

 the gods in the Marai, with their faces turned 

 to the earth. 



The burial of the dead was a very sacred 

 ceremony, and accompanied with many forms. 

 The corpse was laid in a pit till the flesh de- 

 cayed, the bones were then cleaned, and a part 

 of them distributed among the relations and 

 friends to be preserved as relics, part laid in 

 consecrated ground. Dying persons sometimes 

 desired that their bones should be thrown into 

 the crater of the volcano at O Wahi, which 

 was inhabited by the revered god Pelai. It 

 has already been mentioned, that the women 

 were prohibited from eating many kinds of 

 food ; they were also forbidden, under pain of 

 death, to enter a house where the men were 

 eating, and they were entirely secluded from 

 the Marais ; with these exceptions, they enjoy- 

 ed great freedom, and even had a voice in the 

 deliberations concerning war and peace. 



The religious regulation of the Tabu, or inter- 

 dict, existed here as well as on many other of 

 the South Sea islands. A person declared under 

 a Tabu was inviolable ; a piece of land under a 



