A GLIMPSE OF TONGAN HISTORY. 291 



his own hand. This time the rebels were completely victo- 

 rious, but at the cost of some of their bravest men, and they 

 had to retire to the Hapai Group, of which Finoo was 

 declared king, and after installing Tubu Neuha as Viceroy of 

 Vavau (the flight of whose chief to Samoa gave rise to the 

 Tongan disturbances already referred to), returned to Tonga- 

 tabu to complete his triumph. 



In the end Finoo succeeded in making himself master of the 

 greater part of the group, behaved somewhat treacherously to 

 his brother, Tubu Xeuha, and eventually shared the government 

 of the group with his assassin, one Tubu Toa, a natural son of 

 the late king. The assassination of Xeuha was as dramatic as 

 that of the old king ; and the son of the man who had been 

 killed by Tubu Xeuha, after having struck the body of his 

 father's murderer several times, thus addressed it : 



' The time of vengeance is come ! Thou hast been long 

 enough the chief of Vavau, living in ease and luxury, thou 

 murderer of my father ! I would have acted long ago if I 

 could have depended on others to second me ; not that I 

 feared death by making thee my enemy, but the vengeance of 

 my chief, Tubu Toa, was first to be satisfied, and it was a 

 duty. I was bound by duty to the spirit of my father to 

 preserve my life as long as possible, that I might have the 

 satisfaction of seeing thee thus lying dead.' 



Finoo resided chiefly at Vavau, while Tubu Toa reigned at 

 Tonga ; thus the country was divided between them. Shortly 

 before his own death, Finoo's daughter, six or seven years old, 

 fell ill, and ultimately died ; and to give some little idea of the 

 religion of these people not many years before the intro- 

 duction of Christianity, I extract the following from Mariner's 

 account of his visit to Tonga in the early part of this century (the 

 year would be about 1808). The little girl had been removed 



192 



