00]

[99] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 173; Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i.
133 _sq._; Melville, _Typee_, p. 206; Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp.
286 _sq._; Clavel, _op. cit._ pp. 44 _sq._ In a house in
Nukahiva the missionary Stewart saw a canoe-shaped coffin
containing the remains of a man who had died many years before.
It was raised on a bier of framework, at a height of two or
three feet above the ground. Stewart adds, "The dead bodies of
all persons of high distinction are preserved in their houses
for a long period in this way." See C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i.
259.

[100] Clavel, _op. cit._ pp. 45 _sq._; Baessler, _op. cit._ pp.
233 _sq._

Each family had its own _morai_ or burial-place, where the mouldering
bones or mummies were finally deposited and left to decay.[101] Such
family cemeteries were scattered about the valleys; the choice of a
site seems to have been determined by no special rule.[102] The _morai_
or burial-place of ordinary people was near their houses, and not far
from it was a taboo-house, where the men feasted on the flesh of
pigs.[103] But the cemeteries of chiefs were situated in the interior of
the valleys, often so deeply imbedded in dense foliage that it was not
easy to find them without the guidance of a native.[104] Similarly we
are told that the cemeteries (_morais_) of priests lay quite apart from
all dwellings.[105]

[101] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 127, 173; Langsdorff, _op.
cit._ i. 115, 134. Other writers on the Marquesas in like manner
speak of a _morai_ simply as a place of burial. See Porter, _op.
cit._ ii. 114 ("the gods at the burying-place, or morai, for so
it is called by them"); Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 52 ("un _morai_
(sepulchre) en ruine"); Melville, _Typee_, p. 168 ("the 'morais'
or burying-grounds"). So, too, the term was understood by the
French navigator, J. Dumont d'Urville. See his _Voyage au Pole
Sud, Histoire du Voyage_, iv. (Paris, 1842), pp. 27, 33.

[102] Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 253.

[103] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 115. According to Krusenstern
(_op. cit._ i. 127), the _morais_ in general "lie a good way
inland upon hills."

[104] F. D. Bennett, _Narrative of a Whaling Voyage_, i. 329.

[105] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 115.

The ordinary form of a Marquesan _morai_ or burial-place seems to have
been a thatched shed erected on a squar