164 
MISSIONARY TOUR 
on religious subjects, with those who crowded our 
lodgings. 
At this place we observed many of the people with 
their hair either cut or shaved close on both sides of 
their heads, while it was left very long in the middle 
from the forehead to the back of the neck. When we 
inquired the reason of this, they informed us, that, ac¬ 
cording to the custom of their country, they had cut 
their hair, in the manner we perceived, on account of 
their chief who had been sick, and who they had heard 
was dead. 
The Sandwich islanders observe a number of singu¬ 
lar ceremonies on the death of their kings and chiefs, 
and have been till very recently, accustomed to make 
these events occasions for the practice of almost every 
enormity and vice. The custom we noticed at this 
place is the most general. The people here had fol¬ 
lowed only one fashion in cutting their hair, but we 
have seen it polled in every imaginable form ; some¬ 
times a small round place only is made bald just on 
the crown, which causes them to look like Romish 
priests; at other times the whole head is shaved or 
cropped close, except round the edge, where, for about 
half an inch in breadth, the hair hangs down its usual 
length. Some make their heads bald on one side, and 
leave the hair twelve or eighteen inches long on the 
other. Occasionally they cut out a patch, in the shape 
of a horse-shoe, either behind, or above the forehead • 
and sometimes we have seen a number of curved fur¬ 
rows cut from ear to ear, or from the forehead to the 
neck. When a chief who had lost a relative or friend 
had his own hair cut after any particular pattern, his 
followers and dependants usually imitated it in cutting 
