SELF-INFLICTION FOR THE DEAD. 181 
injected the dye at the same time. Her tongue 
bled much, and a few moments after I entered 
she made a sign for him to desist. She emptied 
her mouth of the blood, and then held her hands 
to it to counteract the pain. As soon as it ap¬ 
peared to have subsided a little, I remarked thal 
I was sorry to see her following so useless a cus¬ 
tom ; and asked if it was not exceedingly painful ? 
She answered. He eha nui no, he nui roa ra kuu 
aroha / Pain, great indeed; but greater my 
affection! After further remarks, I asked some 
of the others why they chose that method of 
shewing their affectionate remembrance of the 
dead ? They said, A ore roa ia e naro / That 
will never disappear, or be obliterated! 
Another method, very generally practised by 
all classes on these occasions, was that of burning 
on their skin a large number of semicircles dis¬ 
posed in different forms. It was not done by a 
heated iron, but having stripped the bark from 
a small branch of a tree, about an inch in dia¬ 
meter, they held it in the fire till one end of the 
bark was perfectly ignited, and in this state ap¬ 
plied it to the face or bosom, which instantly 
raised the skin, and after the blister had subsided, 
the sears remained a number of days. 
We never found any apologists for the enor- 
mities practised on these occasions ; and the only 
excuse they have ever given has been, that at 
the death of a great chief, the paroxysm of grief 
has been so violent, as to deprive the people of 
their reason; hence they neither knew nor cared 
what they did* being hehena , frantic, or out of 
their senses, through sorrow. 
Since the introduction of the gospel by Chris¬ 
tian Missionaries, or rather since the death of 
