146 SAMOAN GROUP. 



conquered enemies when they thought proper. At a marriage cere- 

 mony a great feast is made, particularly if it be a chief's. 



A man is at liberty to repudiate his wife and marry again on 

 certain conditions, but the woman cannot leave her husband without 

 his consent. 



Adultery was formerly punished with death, and is very seldom 

 committed. Among single women, intercourse with a Samoan 

 before marriage, is a reproach, but not with transient foreigners. 



It is a common practice for parents to make a present of their 

 children to chiefs or others, who adopt the child as their own, and 

 treat it ever after as such. After it is grown up, one-half of its earn- 

 ings goes to its adopted parent. This custom gives the chiefs many 

 adopted children of both sexes, who continue to live with them, and 

 are in all respects treated as their own ; and spreads their connexions 

 far and wide. 



In their burials at Upolu, they have but little ceremony. The 

 body is enveloped in many folds of tapa, and deposited, as has 

 already been described at Tutuila, with the Ti planted around. No 

 utensils, arms, &c, are deposited with the bodies; for, according to 

 their belief, they have these things provided for them in their 

 Elysium. A feast is made for the attendants, consisting of pigs, taro, 

 bread-fruit, &c. ; presents are made by all the relatives to the family 

 of the deceased, and if the family can afford it, a small canoe is 

 procured for a coffin. After the body has lain in the grave some 

 time, they take up the skull and place it in a box in their houses. 

 The reason assigned for this is to prevent their enemies from possess- 

 ing themselves of it, for it was a custom in their wars to violate the 

 sanctity of the grave. We heard that a few of the bodies of chiefs 

 had been preserved by oil and heat ; and the missionaries informed 

 me that they had seen the bodies of those who died thirty or forty 

 years before, preserved in this manner. 



Their mode of showing their grief is to burn themselves to 

 blisters, (forming indelible marks,) with little rolls of twisted tapa, 

 which, on being lighted, soon produced a coal. They also scratch 

 their bodies. The females are said (in token of affliction for deceased 

 friends) to have pricked holes in the corpse, and sucked out the 

 fluids. All these practices may be now said to be passing away, and 

 are almost obliterated. 



There is already a very great difference not only in dress, but in 

 appearance, between those who have adopted Christianity, and those 



