The uncivilized races of men in all countries of the world; vol. 2 of 2 / Being a comprehensive account of their manners and customs, and of their physical, social, mental, moral and religious characteristics

by J. G. Wood

While Mariner was in the Tonga Islands, a young chief, remarkable for his beauty, became inspired to such a degree that he fainted, and was taken to the house of a priest, who told him that the spirit was that of a young woman who had died two years before, and was now in Bolotoo the Tonga heaven. She inspired him because she wished for him as a husband in Bolotoo, and would soon take him there. The young chief acknowledged the truth of the exposition, saying that for several nights he had been visited in his sleep by a young woman, and had suspected that she was the person who inspired him. Two days after he was taken ill and died. Mariner was present when the priest gave his explanation of the illness.

Shortly before Mariner was at the Tonga Islands, a still graver form of human sacrifice was practised than that of a child.

When the Tooi-tonga died, his chief widow was strangled on the day of the funeral, and buried in the same grave with him, just as is the case in Fiji, whence in all probability, the Tongans borrowed the practice. Comparatively short as was Mariner’s stay two Tooi-tongas died; but in neither case was this terrible rite observed. In the one case there happened to be no chief wife, all his wives being so equal in rank that neither of them ruled the household; and, in consequence a selection of a victim became impossible. In the second case the chief wife was the daughter of Finow, who said openly, that if the husband were to die first, his daughter should not be strangled, for that to destroy a young and beautiful woman because her husband had died was inflicting a double loss upon the community. As it happened, the Tooi-tonga did not die until after the elder Finow was dead and had been succeeded by his son, who not only carried out his father’s wishes on that subject, but would not allow another Tooi-tonga to succeed; thus abolishing the source of the only rank that was superior to him.

The Tooi-tonga being abolished, it necessarily follows that the ceremony of Ináchi was abolished too, and but for the fact of Mariner’s enforced residence in Tonga, this curious and interesting ceremony would have passed away without being known to European civilization.

Mariner was present at the wedding of Finow’s daughter to the Tooi-tonga, and describes it with some minuteness. It much resembled a Fijian wedding, except in the costume of the bride, who was first copiously anointed with cocoa-nut oil scented with sandal-wood, and then arrayed in a vast number of the finest Samoan mats, which were wrapped round her in such quantities that her arms were stuck out almost horizontally from her body, and her legs were so much trammelled that she could not sit down, but had to rest in a bent attitude upon her attendants.

She was eighteen at the time. Had it not been for the good sense of Finow, Mariner would have seen within a very short time her wedding, her murder, and her burial. The technical name for the ceremony of strangling is Nawgía.

We now come naturally to the subject of funerals, and will take as a typical example the funeral of the elder Finow.

Almost immediately after the death and burial of his favorite daughter, a child about seven years of age, Finow fell ill, his malady having been increased by the exertions which he made during the long ceremony of the funeral. It was on this occasion that he ordered the women to box in general combat. On the evening of that day Finow retired to a small house that had just been built for him, and was seized with a violent illness, which almost deprived him of the power of speech, though not of intellect. He evidently knew that his end was at hand, and continually muttered “My country! my country!” evidently feeling that calamities might come on his land if he were suddenly taken away.

A child was offered on behalf of him, which had already been selected, but, by the time that the sacrificing party had come back to the house where the king lay, he had lost both his speech and his consciousness, and in a few minutes the great and wise Finow had departed this life. When his death was ascertained, a curious ceremony was performed. The body was carried to the Tooi-tonga’s house, and placed on the hole in which the cooks were accustomed to light their fires. This was a symbolical expression of humility and submission to the gods, the cooking place being so degraded a spot that only the lowest Tooas would condescend to touch it.

Not only the king himself, but all those in his confidence, fully believed that his death was caused by a god named Toobo Totai, to whom he had prayed in vain for his daughter’s recovery. In revenge for the negligence of the god, Finow had made arrangements for killing his priest, and had been heard to say that if Toobo Totai did not change his conduct, and exert himself a little more, his priest should not live long. Finow’s sudden death put a stop to this project, which was only known to one or two of his immediate friends. It is not unlikely that the threatened priest may have heard of his intended assassination, and saved himself by getting a dose of poison administered to Finow at the funeral banquet.