1278 



USTRALASH ILL USTRA TED. 



the "Water of Life," and also the "Speaking Tree," which received all the commands of 

 the gods. The human soul existed after death, and possessed the same attributes as the 

 minor gods, but in a lesser degree. All evil was attributed to the malice of mischievous 

 gods. Circumcision was practised, the rite being performed at about fourteen years of 

 age. First-fruits were given with great ceremony to the sacred king, the Tni Tonga, 

 as is so well described by Captain Cook. Everyone and everything that touched a dead 



body was regarded as unclean for a certain 

 number of days or weeks. Man)' animals were 

 regarded as the shrines of certain deities, and 

 the native who worshipped those gods never 

 ate those particular animals. 



Near a village called Niutoua, in the east 

 end of Tonga, are three large and peculiar 

 stones. These stones are called by the natives 

 Koe Haamoga o Afaui, "the burden of Mam'."' 

 They are made of coralline limestone, and have 

 evidently been cut out of the solid reef, and 

 transported to the place where they now stand. 

 The t\vo large perpendicular stones are four- 

 teen feet high above the ground, twelve feet 

 wide at the bottom, and nearly five feet thick. 

 The large stone on the top is mortised into 

 the perpendicular columns, and is not simply 

 laid upon the top as in most trilithons. This 



top stone is sixteen feet in length, four feet eight inches wide, and about two 

 feet thick. N.o satisfactory explanation can be obtained from the natives as to the use 

 or meaning of these stones. They simply ascribe their position to supernatural agency. 

 It is very difficult to understand how such huge stones could be quarried and trans- 

 ported so far inland as they now stand, by a people with so few mechanical appliances 

 as the Tongans of late years possessed. The two most probable theories as to their 

 use appears to be that they either formed a gate-way into the old burial-place of the 

 sacred kings, the Tni Tongas, or that they were erected as a monument to some one 

 of them in early times. Near to Mua are also some old burial-places of the Tut Tongas, 

 which are very interesting relics of the olden days/ These are built in three terraces, 

 on the top of which the grave was placed. The lower terrace in one of these burial- 

 places is one hundred and twenty-six feet in length, and ninety-three feet in width. One 

 of the stones built into this terrace measures fourteen feet in length, and two feet in 

 thickness. It stands three feet above the ground. A large corner stone in this lower 

 wall is worked fourteen feet on one face, six feet on the other face, and js two feet 

 in thickness. Another of these burial-places is about one hundred and seventy feet 

 square, and has one large stone in the lower terrace twenty-five feet six inches long, 

 and two feet in thickness, and is seven feet six inches high from the lowest ground level. 

 The great advance which Tonga has made of late years is due in no small measure 

 to the influence of the missionaries upon the people. The first attempt to introduce 



<;KOI;K OF TOM;A. 



