FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 3 51 
place and other parts of the island. The bones 
of the legs and arms, and sometimes the skull, of 
their kings and principal chiefs, those who were 
supposed to have descended from the gods, or 
were to be deified, were usually preserved, as 
already noticed. The other parts of the body were 
burnt or buried, while these bones were either 
bound up with cinet, wrapped in cloth, and de¬ 
posited in temples for adoration, or distributed 
among the immediate relatives, who, during their 
lives, always carried them wherever they went. 
This was the case with the bones of Tamehameha; 
and, it is probable that some of his bones were 
brought by his son Rihoriho, on his recent visit to 
England, as they supposed, that so long as the 
bones of the deceased were revered, his spirit 
would accompany them, and exercise a superna¬ 
tural guardianship over them. 
They did not wash the bodies of the dead, as 
was the practice with some of the South Sea 
Islanders. The bodies of priests, and chiefs of 
inferior rank, were laid out straight, wrapped in 
many folds of native tapa, and buried in that 
posture ; the priests, generally within the precincts 
of the temple in which they had officiated. A 
pile of stones, and frequently a circle of high 
poles, surrounded their grave, and marked the 
place of their interment, corresponding exactly 
with the rites of sepulture practised by some of 
the tribes on the opposite coast of North America. 
It was only the bodies of priests, or persons of 
some importance, that were thus buried. The 
common people committed their dead to the earth 
in a most singular manner. After death, they 
raised the upper part of the body, bent the face 
forwards to the knees, the hands were next put 
