98 CUSTOMS OF THE FEEJEE GROUP. 
last moments are approaching, his friends place in his hands two 
whale’s teeth, which it is supposed he will need to throw at a tree that 
stands on the road to the regions of the dead. As soon as the last 
struggle is over, the friends and attendants fill the air with their lamen- 
tations. Two priests then take in each of their hands a reed about 
eighteen inches long, on which the leaves at the end are left, and with 
these they indicate two persons for grave-diggers, and mark out the 
place for the grave. The spot usually selected is as near as possible to 
the banks of a stream. The grave-diggers are provided with man- 
grove-staves (tiri) for their work, and take their positions, one at the 
head, the other at the foot of the grave, having each one of the priests 
on his right hand. At a given signal, the labourers, making three 
feints before they strike, stick their staves into the ground, while the 
priests twice exchange reeds, repeating Feejee, Tonga ; Feejee, Tonga. 
The diggers work in a sitting posture, and thus dig a pit sufficiently 
large to contain the body. The first earth which is removed is con- 
sidered as sacred, and laid aside. 
The persons who have dug the grave also wash and prepare the 
body for interment, and they are the only persons who can touch the 
corpse without being laid under a taboo for ten months. The body 
after being washed is laid on a couch of cloth and mats, and carefully 
wiped. It is then dressed and decorated as the deceased was in life, 
when preparing for a great assembly of chiefs: it is first anointed with 
oil, and then the neck, breast, and arms, down to the elbows, are 
daubed with a black pigment; a white bandage of native cloth is 
bound around the head, and tied over the temple in a graceful knot; a 
club is placed in the hand, and laid across the breast, to indicate in the 
next world that the deceased was a chief and warrior. The body is 
then laid on a bier, and the chiefs of the subject tribes assemble; each 
tribe presents a whale’s tooth, and the chief or spokesman says: “ This 
is our offering to the dead ; we are poor and cannot find riches.” All 
now clap their hands, and the king or a chief of rank replies: “ Ai mu- 
mundi ni mate,” (the end of death); to which all the people present 
respond, “e dina,” (it is true.) The female friends then approach and 
kiss the corpse, and if any of his wives wish to die and be buried with 
him, she runs to her brother or nearest relative and exclaims, “I wish 
to die, that I may accompany my husband to the land where his spirit 
has gone! love me, and make haste to strangle me, that I may over- 
take him!” Her friends applaud her purpose, and being dressed and 
decorated in her best clothes, she seats herself on a mat, reclining her 
head on the lap of a woman; another holds her nostrils, that she may 
not breathe through them; a cord, made by twisting fine tapa (masi), 
