i?7o MOURNING 251 



the South Sea Islands, and only one private one came under 

 my notice, which was in the neighbourhood of a plantation 

 of their sweet potatoes. It was a small square bordered 

 round with stones ; in the middle was a spade, and on it 

 hung a basket of fern roots an offering (I suppose) to the 

 gods for the success of the crops so, at least, one of the 

 natives explained it. They, however, acknowledged the 

 influence of superior beings. Tupia, however, seemed to be 

 much better versed in legends than any of them, for when- 

 ever he began to preach, as we called it, he was sure of a 

 numerous audience, who attended with most profound silence 

 to his doctrines. 



The burial of the dead, instead of being a pompous 

 ceremony as in the islands, is here kept secret ; we never 

 so much as saw a grave where any one had been interred ; 

 nor did they always agree in the accounts they gave of 

 the manner of disposing of dead bodies. In the northern 

 parts they told us that they buried them in the ground ; 

 and in the southern, said that they threw them into the sea, 

 having first tied to them a sufficient weight to cause their 

 sinking. However they disposed of the dead, their regret 

 for the loss of them was sufficiently visible ; few or none 

 were without scars, and some had them hideously large on 

 their cheeks, arms, legs, etc., from the cuts they had given 

 themselves during their mourning. I have seen several 

 with such wounds of which the blood was not yet stanched, 

 and one only, a woman, while she was cutting herself and 

 lamenting ; she wept much, repeating many sentences in a 

 plaintive tone of voice, at every one of which she with a 

 shell cut a gash in some part of her body. She, however, 

 contrived her cuts in such a manner that few of them drew 

 blood, and those that did, penetrated a small depth only. 

 She was old, and had probably outlived those violent im- 

 pressions that grief, as well as other passions of the mind, 

 make upon young people ; her grief also was probably of 

 long standing. The scars upon the bodies of the greater 

 part of these people evinced, however, that they had felt 

 sorrows more severely than she did. 



