FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 361 
the spirits of those buried there. Like most ig¬ 
norant and barbarous nations, they imagine that 
apparitions are frequently seen, and often injure 
those who come in their way. Their funerals take 
place in the night, to avoid observation; for, we 
have been told, that if the people were to see a 
party carrying a dead body past their houses, 
they would abuse them, or even throw stones at 
them, for not taking it some other way, supposing 
the spirit would return to and fro to the former 
abode of the deceased, by the path along which 
the body had been borne to the place of inter¬ 
ment. 
The worshippers of Pele threw a part of the 
bones of their dead into the volcano, under the 
impression that the spirits of the deceased would 
then be admitted to the society of the volcanic 
deities, and that their influence would preserve 
the survivors from the ravages of volcanic fire. 
The fishermen sometimes wrapped their dead in 
red native cloth, and threw them into the sea, to 
be devoured by the sharks. Under the influence 
of a belief in the transmigration of souls, they 
supposed the spirit of the departed would animate 
the shark by which the body was devoured, and 
that the survivors would be spared by those vo¬ 
racious monsters, in the event of their being over¬ 
taken by any accident at sea. 
The bodies of criminals who had broken tabu, 
after having been slain to appease the anger of 
the god whose tabu, or prohibition, they had 
broken, were buried within the precincts of the 
heiau. The bones of human sacrifices, after the 
flesh had rotted, were piled up in different parts of 
the heiau in which they had been offered. 
Idolatry, since 1819, has been abolished, and 
