3o6 THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



' Tongaloa then spoke thus to the others : 



' " You shall be black because your minds are bad, and shall 

 be destitute ; you shall not be wise in useful things, neither 

 shall you go to the great land of your brothers. How can you 

 go with your bad canoes ? But your brothers shall come to 

 Tonga, and trade with you as they please." ' 



Mr. Mariner tells us he took particular pains to make in- 

 quiries respecting -the foregoing tradition, and found that 

 although the chiefs and matabooles were acquainted with it, the 

 bulk of the people were entirely ignorant of it. This led him 

 at first to suspect that the chiefs had obtained the leading facts 

 from the missionaries that had stayed a short time previously 

 in the group ; but the oldest men affirmed strongly that it was 

 an ancient traditionary record, and founded on truth. It 

 agrees with many of the Fijian and Samoan legends, in which, 

 as I have pointed out, there is a strong Mosaic element, and I 

 am inclined to think that the story is correctly described as 

 veritable Tongan tradition of great antiquity. It certainly 

 seems strange that they should believe an account which serves 

 to make them a degraded race, the cursed descendants of the 

 murderer of his brother. 



The chastity of the married women was considered of the 

 highest importance : divorce, however, was a common practice, 

 and a woman thus divorced would marry again. As in Fiji, 

 prostitution was simply unknown, the men being generally 

 very true to their wives. 



Children were occasionally strangled as sacrifices to the god, 

 but with the greatest reluctance, as the Tongans have been for 

 centuries most devoted parents. The chief widow of the 

 Tuitonga was, however, strangled on the day of her husband's 

 burial, that she might be interred with him. The funeral of a 



