532 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
It was^ throughout^ adapted to awaken tenderness, and 
feelings of regret at the event, and sympathy with the 
Survivors. 
Several weeks after the decease of a chief or person of 
distinction, another singular ceremony, called a heva^ was 
performed by the relatives or dependants. The princi¬ 
pal actor in this procession was a priest, or relative, who 
wore a curious dress, the most imposing part of which 
was the head-ornament, or parae. A cap of thick native 
cloth was fitted close to the head; in front were two large 
broad mother-of-pearl shells, covering the face like a 
mask, with one small aperture through which the wearer 
could look. Above the mask a number of beautiful, 
long, white, red-tipped, tail feathers of the tropic bird, 
were fixed, diverging like rays; beneath the mask was a 
curved piece of thin yet strong board, six or nine inches 
wide in the centre, but narrow at the ends, which were 
turned upwards, and gave it the appearance of a cres¬ 
cent. 
Attached to this was a beautiful kind of net-work of 
small pieces of brilliant mother-of-pearl shell, each 
piece being about an inch, or an inch and a half long, 
and less than a quarter of an inch wide. Every piece 
was finely polished, and reduced to the thinness of a 
card \ a small perforation was made at each corner, and 
the pieces fastened together by five threads passed 
through these perforations. They were fixed perpendi¬ 
cularly to the board, and extended nearly from one end 
to the othei. The depth varied according to the taste 
or means of the family, but it was generally nine inches 
or a foot. 
The labour in making this part of the parae must have 
been excessive. The many hundred pieces of mother-of ■ 
