Mourning ceremonies for chiefs. 175 
informed us, that, according 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 
singular ceremonies on the death of their kings 
and chiefs, and have been, till very recently, ac- 
customed 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 followed only one fashion in 
cutting their hair, but we have seen it polled in 
every imaginable form; sometimes 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 furrows 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 theirs. 
Not to cut or shave off the hair, indicates want 
of respect towards the deceased and the sur¬ 
viving friends; but to have it cut close, in any 
form, is enough. Each one usually follows his 
own peculiar taste, which produces the almost end¬ 
less variety in which this ornamental appendage of 
\he head is worn by the natives during a season 
if mourning. 
