170 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDS cu. vir 
These houses of corruption, tw 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 (Pandanus), 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 
cocoanuts, 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 
