BURIAL. BURIAL-PLACES. 385 



sheltered by a roof. By the side are deposited the weapons 

 of the deceased and a supply of food and water. When the 

 body has entirely decayed, the bones are collected, carefully 

 cleaned and buried, according to the rank of the deceased, 

 either within or without a "morai."* The largest morai 

 seen by Captain Cook was the one prepared for Oamo and 

 Oberea, who were the then reigning sovereigns. This was 

 indeed the " principal piece of architecture in the island. 

 It was a pile of stonework, raised pyramidically, upon an 

 oblong base, or square, two hundred and sixty seven feet 

 long, and eighty-seven wide. It was built like the small 

 pyramidal mounts upon which we sometimes fix the pillar of 

 a sun-dial, where each side is a flight of steps ; the steps, 

 however, at the sides, were broader than those at the ends, 

 so that it terminated not in a square of the same figure with 

 the base, but in a ridge, like the roof of a house : there 

 were eleven of these steps, each of which was four feet high, 

 so that the height of the pile was forty- four feet ; each step 

 was formed of one course of white coral stone, which was 

 neatly squared and polished ; the rest of the mass, for there 

 was no hollow within, consisted of round pebbles, which, 

 from the regularity of their figure, seemed to have been 

 wrought, "f A very similar account of this structure has 

 been more recently given by Wilson, J who makes the size 

 and height a little greater; and when it is considered that 

 this was raised without the assistance of iron tools to shape 

 the stones, or of mortar to fasten them together, it is im- 

 possible not to be struck with admiration at the magnitude 



* In some cases the head is not iii., p. 6). In the Friendly Islands, 



buried with the other bones, but is D'Urville saw a similar mausoleum 



deposited in a kind of box. built with blocks of stone, some of 



f Cook's Voyage Round the World, which were twenty feet long, six or 



vol. ii., p, 166. Similar but somewhat eight broad, and two in height. They 



smaller morais were observed in the were neatly squared. I.e. vol. iv., p. 106. 

 Sandwich Islands (Third Voyage, vol. J I.e. p. 207. 



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