1769. ed about the place; provision and water are also

left at a little distance, of which, and of other decorations, a more particular description has been given already.

As foon as the body is deposited in the Tupapow, the mourning is renewed. The women affemble, and are led to the door by the nearest relation, who ftrikes a fhark's tooth several times into the crown of her head: the blood copiously follows, and is carefully received upon pieces of linen, which are thrown under the bier. The reft of the women follow this example, and the ceremony is repeated at the interval of two or three days, as long as the zeal and forrow of the parties hold out. The tears alfo which are shed upon thefe occafions, are received upon pieces of cloth, and offered as oblations to the dead: fome of the younger people cut off their hair, and that is thrown under the bier with the other offerings. This cuftom is founded upon a notion that the foul of the deceafed, which they believe to exift in a separate ftate, is hovering about the place where the body is depofited: that it obferves the actions. of the furvivors, and is gratified by fuch teftimonies of their affection and grief.

Two or three days after these ceremonies. have been commenced by the women, during which the men feem to be wholly infenfible of their lofs, they also begin to perform their part.

The

The nearest relations take it in turn to affume
the drefs, and perform the office which have al-
ready been particularly described in the account
of Tubourai Tamaide's having acted as chief
mourner to an old woman, his relation, who died
while we were in the ifland. One part of the
ceremony, however, which accounts for the run-
ning away of the people as foon as this procef-
fion is in fight, has not been mentioned. The
chief mourner carries in his hand a long flat
ftick, the edge of which is fet with fhark's
teeth, and in a phrenzy, which his grief is sup-
posed to have inspired, he runs at all he fees,
and if
any of them happen to be overtaken, he
strikes them most unmercifully with this indent-
ed cudgel, which cannot fail to wound them in
a dangerous manner.

1769.

These proceffions continue at certain intervals for five moons, but are less and less frequent, by a gradual diminution, as the end of that time approaches. When it is expired, what remains of the body is taken down from the bier, and the bones having been fcraped and washed very clean, are buried, according to the rank of the perfon, either within or without a Morai: if the deceased was an Earee, or Chief, his skull is not buried with the rest of the bones, but is wrapped up in fine cloth, and put in a kind of box made for that purpose, which is alfo placed in the Morai. This coffer is called Ewbarre no te Orometua,

G 4

1769.

Orometua, the house of a teacher or master After this the mourning ceafes, except fome of the women continue to be really afflicted for the lofs, and in that cafe they will fometimes fuddenly wound themselves with the fhark's tooth wherever they happen to be: this perhaps will account for the paffion of grief in which Terapo wounded herself at the fort; fome accidental circumftance might forcibly revive the remembrance of a friend or relation whom she had loft, with a pungency of regret and tenderness which forced a vent by tears, and prompted her to a repetition of the funereal rite.

The ceremonies, however, do not cease with the mourning prayers are ftill faid by the priest, who is well paid by the furviving relations, and offerings made at the Morai. Some of the things, which from time to time are depofited there, are emblematical: a young plantain represents the deceased, and the bunch of feathers the deity who is invoked. The priest places himself over-against the symbol of the God, accompanied by fome of the relations, who are furnished with a fmall offering, and repeats his oraison in a fet form, confifting of feparate fentences; at the fame time weaving the leaves of the cocoa-nut into different forms, which he afterwards depofits upon the ground where the bones have been interred; the deity is then addreffed by a fhrill fcreech, which is used only

upon

upon that occafion. When the priest retires, the 1769. tuft of feathers is removed, and the provisions left to putrify, or be devoured by the rats.

Of the religion of these people, we were not Religion. not able to acquire any clear and confiftent knowledge: we found it like the religion of most other countries, involved in mystery, and perplexed with apparent inconfiftencies. The religious language is alfo here, as it is in China, different from that which is used in common; so that Tupia, who took great pains to instruct us, having no words to exprefs his meaning which we understood, gave us lectures to very little purpose: what we learnt, however, I will relate with as much perfpicuity as I can.

Nothing is more obvious to a rational being, however ignorant or ftupid, than that the universe and its various parts, as far as they fall under his notice, were produced by fome agent inconceivably more powerful than himself; and nothing is more difficult to be conceived, even by the most fagacious and knowing, than the production of them from nothing, which among us is expreffed by the word Creation. It is natural therefore, as no Being apparently capable of producing the univerfe is to be seen, that he fhould be supposed to refide in fome diftant part of it, or to be in his nature invisible, and that he fhould have originally produced all that now exists in a manner fimilar to that in which nature

is

1769. is renovated by the fucceffion of one generation

to another; but the idea of procreation includes in it that of two perfons, and from the conjunction of two perfons these people imagine every thing in the universe either originally or derivatively to proceed.

The Supreme Deity, one of these two firft beings, they call TAROATAIHETOOмOO, and the other, whom they fuppofe to have been a rock, TEPAPA. A daughter of thefe was TETTOWMATATAYO, the year, or thirteen months collectively, which they never name but upon this occafion, and she, by the common father, produced the months, and the months, by conjunction with each other, the days; the ftars they suppose partly to be the immediate offspring of the first pair, and partly to have increased among themfelves; and they have the fame notion with respect to the different species of plants. Among other progeny of Taroataihetoomoo and Tepapa, they suppose an inferior race of deities whom they call EATUAS. Two of these Eatuas, they fay, at fome remote period of time, inhabited the the earth, and were the parents of the first man. When this man, their common anceftor, was born, they fay that he was round like a ball, but that his mother, with great care, drew out his limbs, and having at length moulded him into his prefent form, fhe called him ЕOTHE, which fignifies finifbed. That being prompted by the univerfal