ling a short but appropriate prayer to the god,
that he would intercede with the other gods in behalf of the dying king,
and would accept of this sacrifice as an atonement for the sick man's
crimes.[83] When, not long afterwards, the divine chief Tooitonga, in
spite of his divinity, fell sick and seemed like to die, one or other of
his young relations had a little finger cut off every day, as a
propitiatory offering to the gods for the sins of the saintly sufferer.
But these sacrifices remaining fruitless, recourse was had to greater.
Three or four children were strangled at different times, and prayers
were offered up by the priests at the consecrated houses and
burial-grounds (_fytocas_) but all in vain. The gods remained deaf to
the prayers of the priests; their hearts were not touched by the cutting
off of fingers or the strangling of children; and the illness of the
sacred chief grew every day more alarming. As a last resort and
desperate remedy, the emaciated body of the dying man was carried into
the kitchen, the people imagining that such an act of humility,
performed on behalf of the highest dignitary of the Tonga islands, would
surely move the deities to compassion and induce them to spare a life so
precious to his subjects.[84] The same curious remedy had shortly before
been resorted to for the benefit of the dying or dead king, Finow the
First: his body was carried into the kitchen of the sacred chief, the
Tooitonga, and there placed over the hole in the ground where the fire
was lighted to cook victuals: "this was thought to be acceptable to the
gods, as being a mark of extreme humiliation, that the great chief of
all the Hapai islands and Vavaoo, should be laid where the meanest class
of mankind, the cooks, were accustomed to operate."[85]

[82] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 208 _sq._

[83] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 366.

[84] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 438 _sq._; compare _id._
ii. 214.

[85] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 367 _sq._

The custom of strangling the relations of a sick chief as a vicarious
sacrifice to appease the anger of the deity and ensure the recovery of
the patient was found in vogue by the first missionaries to Tonga before
the arrival of Mariner. When King Moom[=o]oe lay very sick and his death
was hourly expected, one of his sons sent for a younger brother under
pretence of wishing to cut off his little fingers as a sacrifice to save
the life of their dying