ng the dead body, said, "There are your family, there is
your child, there is your wife, there is your father, and there is your
mother. Be satisfied yonder (that is, in the world of spirits). Look not
towards those who are left in this world." The concluding parts of the
ceremony were designed to impart contentment to the deceased, and to
prevent his spirit from repairing to the places of his former resort,
and so distressing the survivors. This was considered a most important
ceremony, being a kind of mass for the dead and necessary as well for
the peace of the living as for the quiet of the departed. It was seldom
omitted by any who could pay the priest his usual fees, which for this
service generally took the form of pigs and cloth, in proportion to the
rank or possessions of the family.[195]

[195] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 401-403. Compare J. A. Moerenhout,
_op. cit._ i. 552.

Soon after the decease of a chief or person of distinction, another
singular ceremony, called a _heva_, was performed by the relatives or
dependants, who personated the ghost of the departed. The principal
actor in the procession was a priest or kinsman who wore a curious dress
and an imposing head-ornament called a _parae_. A cap or turban of thick
native cloth was fitted close to the head; in front were two broad
mother-of-pearl shells that covered the face like a mask, with only a
small aperture through which the wearer could look in order to find his
way. Above the mask were fixed a number of long, white, red-tipped
feathers of the tropic bird, diverging like rays and forming a radiant
circle; while beneath the mask was a thin yet strong board curved like a
crescent, from which hung a sort of network of small pieces of brilliant
mother-of-pearl, finely polished and strung together on threads. The
depth of this network varied according to the taste or means of the
family, but it was generally nine inches or a foot, and might consist of
ten to fifteen or twenty perfectly straight and parallel rows. The
labour of making this mother-of-pearl pendant must have been immense;
for many hundred pieces of the shell had to be cut, ground down to the
requisite thinness, polished and perforated, without the use of iron
tools, before a single line could be fixed upon the head-dress. Fringed
with feathers, the pendant formed a kind of ornamental breastplate or
stomacher. Attached to it was a garment composed of alternate stripes of
black and yel