i;o GENERAL ACCOUNT OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDS CH. vn 



These houses of corruption, tu papow, are of a size pro- 

 portionate to the rank of the person contained in them. If 

 he is poor it merely covers the bier, and generally has no 

 railing round it. The largest I ever saw was eleven yards 

 in length. These houses are ornamented according to the 

 ability and inclination of the surviving relations, who never 

 fail to lay a profusion of good cloth about the body, and 

 often almost cover the outside of the house ; the two ends, 

 which are open, are also hung with garlands of the fruits 

 of the palm-nut (Pandanm), cocoanut leaves knotted by 

 the priests, mystic roots, and a plant called by them ethee 

 nota marai (Terminalia), which is particularly consecrated 

 to funerals. Near the house is also laid fish, fruits, and 

 cocoanut s, or common water, or such provisions as can 

 well be spared ; not that they suppose the dead in any- 

 way capable of eating this provision, but they think that 

 if any of their gods should descend upon that place, and 

 being hungry find that these preparations had been neglected, 

 he would infallibly satisfy his appetite with the flesh of the 

 corpse. 



No sooner is the corpse fixed up within the house, or 

 ewhatta, as they call it, than the ceremony of mourning 

 begins again. The women (for the men seem to think 

 lamentations beneath their dignity) assemble, led on by the 

 nearest relative, who, walking up to the door of the house, 

 swimming almost in tears, strikes a shark's tooth several 

 times into the crown of her head ; the blood which results 

 from these wounds is carefully caught in their linen, and 

 thrown under the bier. Her example is imitated by the 

 rest of the women; and this ceremony is repeated at intervals 

 of two or three days, as long as the women are willing or 

 able to keep it up ; the nearest relation thinking it her 

 duty to continue it longer than any one else. Besides this 

 blood which they believe to be an acceptable present to the 

 deceased, whose soul they believe to exist, and hover about 

 the place where the body lays, observing the action of the 

 survivors they throw in cloths wet with tears, of which all 

 that are shed are carefully preserved for that purpose ; and 



