1770 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. 
