W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 393.

[219] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 141 note *.

[220] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 336. The writer does not
translate the expression _taboo mattee_; but _mate_ is the
regular Tongan word for "death" or "to die." See Mariner, _Tonga
Islands_, Vocabulary, _s.v._ "Mate." Compare E. Tregear,
_Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p. 228, _s.v._
"Mate."

Such were the regular observances at the death and burial of chiefs;
they were not peculiar to the obsequies of Finow the king.[221]

[221] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 394 _sq._

The twentieth day of mourning concluded the ceremonies in honour of the
deceased monarch. Early in the morning all his relations, together with
the members of his household, and also the women who were tabooed on
account of having touched his dead body in the process of oiling and
preparing it, went to the back of the island to procure a quantity of
flat pebbles, principally white, but a few black, which they brought
back in baskets to the grave. There they strewed the inside of the house
and the outside of the burial-ground (_fytoca_) with the white pebbles
as a decoration; the black pebbles they laid only on the top of those
white ones which covered the ground directly over the body, to about the
length and breadth of a man, in the form of a very eccentric ellipse.
After that, the house on the burial mound was closed up at both ends
with a reed fencing, which reached from the eaves to the ground; while
at the front and the back the house was closed with a sort of
basket-work, made of the young branches of the coco-nut tree, split and
interwoven in a very curious and ornamental way. These fences were to
remain until the next burial, when they would be taken down and, after
the conclusion of the ceremony, replaced by new ones of similar pattern.
A large quantity of food and kava was now sent by the chiefs and the
king to the public place (_malai_) in front of the burial mound, and
these provisions were served out among the people in the usual way. The
company then separated and repaired to their respective houses, to
prepare for the dances and the grand wrestling-match, which were to
conclude the funeral rites.[222]

[222] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 401-403.

During the intervals of the dances, which followed, several warriors and
ministers (_matabooles_) ran before the grave, cutting and bruising
their heads with a