: "Near the south end of the island, and on the west
side, we met with an artificial mount. From the size of some trees that
were growing upon it, and from other appearances, I guessed that it had
been raised in remote times. I judged it to be about forty feet high;
and the diameter of its summit measured fifty feet. At the bottom of
this mount stood a stone, which must have been hewn out of coral rock.
It was four feet broad, two and a half thick, and fourteen high; and we
were told by the natives present, that not above half its length
appeared above ground. They called it _Tangata Arekee_;[193] and said,
that it had been set up, and the mount raised, by some of their
forefathers, in memory of one of their kings; but how long since, they
could not tell."[194]

[193] "_Tangata_, in their language, is man; _Arekee_, king."

[194] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 298 _sq._ To this
description of the monument Sir Basil Thomson has called
attention; he rightly classes it with the tombs of the chiefs.
See his "Notes upon the Antiquities of Tonga," _Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, xxxii. (1902) p. 85.

When we remember that Tongan kings were commonly buried in such mounds
as Captain Cook here describes, and further that these mounds were
commonly enclosed or faced with great blocks of hewn stone, we may be
disposed to accept as reasonable and probable the explanation which the
natives gave of this great monolith, which, if the reported measurements
of it are correct, must have been no less than twenty-eight feet high.
If it was indeed a memorial of a dead king, it might be thought to
strengthen the view that the great trilithon was also set up as a
monument to a deceased monarch or Tooitonga.

Another possible explanation of the trilithon is, as Sir Basil Thomson
points out, that it served as a gateway to some sacred spot inland. But
against this view he observes that he examined the bush for some
distance in the neighbourhood without finding any trace of ruins or
stones of any kind. He adds that the memory of sacred spots dies very
hard in Tonga, and that the natives do not believe the trilithon to have
been a gateway.[195]

[195] (Sir) Basil Thomson, "Notes upon the Antiquities of
Tonga," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxii.
(1902) pp. 81 _sq._

It is natural to compare the trilithon of Tongataboo with the famous
trilithons of Stonehenge, which it resembl