The funeral ceremonies seem to have undergone some modification since the natives began to have intercourse with Europeans. In former times the dead were enveloped in straw mats, and kept for a considerable time in the huts: through the influence of the missionaries, apparently, they
have adopted the European custom of interring their dead in certain special places. On the death of a chief or any exalted person, the female relatives of the deceased assemble to mourn for a specific period, and betray their sorrow by loud sobs and lamentations by day and dances by night. The connections of the deceased cut off their hair as a mark of their sorrow. All the goods and clothes of the defunct are carried away by whoever is nearest or first possesses himself of them, and this custom is so universal that objects thus obtained are thenceforth considered as lawful property.
The natives usually pray to the spirits of their departed chiefs, whom they implore to grant them success in fishing, rich harvests in bread-fruit and yams, the arrival of numerous foreign ships with beautiful articles for barter, and a variety of similar matters. The priests of their idols profess to be able to read the future, and the natives place the most implicit confidence in these predictions. They believe that the priest is inspired with the spirit of a deceased chief, and that every word they utter when in this excited state is dictated by the departed. When any of these prophecies fail, as is often enough the case, the cunning priest pretends that another more powerful spirit has interfered, and forcibly prevented the accomplishment of what they had foretold.
The religion of this primitive people is very simple. They have neither idols nor temple, and although they believe in a future state after death, they seem to have no religious customs or festivals of any sort. Their notion of a future
state is under such circumstances exceedingly extraordinary.
Their abode after death they believe to be surrounded by a colossal wall amid a fathomless abyss, in fact a sort of fortress. The only portal into this Elysian abode is guarded by an old woman, whose duty it is to hurl back into the yawning deep the shadows of the departed, who are compelled to spring upwards from the abyss. Such of the shadows as succeed in eluding the evil spirit and effecting an entrance are for ever happy; on the other hand, those whom the malicious female demon succeeds in precipitating into the abyss sink into the region of endless woe and torture.
The native festivals, as a rule, take precedence of every other business, no matter how pressing. Every year the king visits the various villages and settlements of those of his tribe, at which period the chief festivities take place, the chiefs vieing with each other in entertaining him. Enormous quantities of yam and bread-fruit are on such occasions cooked two days previous, and Kawa is drunk to excess.
Their dances are far from unbecoming, and are quite free from those lascivious gestures which are so often seen at the festivals of the other inhabitants of the South Sea. The dancers are usually unmarried lads and girls, who stand opposite each other in long rows. While keeping time with their feet to the music, they accompany the dance with graceful motions of the arms and upper part of the body.
Occasionally they throw their arms out, snap their fingers, and then clap the hands together. Every movement is performed with extraordinary precision, and at the same moment by all the dancers. Their sole musical instrument is a small flute made of bamboo-cane, the notes of which they draw forth by inserting one end in the nostril and blowing gently, while their hands are busy fingering the holes in the usual way.
Their drum is a piece of hollowed-out wood with the skin of a shark stretched over it, of the shape of a sand-glass. This is struck with the fingers of the right hand, the instrument being hung on the left side. The sound somewhat resembles the Tom-tom of the Hindoos. The drummer sits cross-legged on the ground, and accompanies the beat of the drum with apposite words.