eavens."--E.]

As soon as a native of Otaheite is known to be dead, the house is filled
with relations, who deplore their loss, some by loud lamentations, and
some by less clamorous, but more genuine expressions of grief. Those who
are in the nearest degree of kindred, and are really affected by the
event, are silent; the rest are one moment uttering passionate
exclamations in a chorus, and the next laughing and talking without the
least appearance of concern. In this manner the remainder of the day on
which they assemble is spent, and all the succeeding night. On the next
morning the body is shrouded in their cloth, and conveyed to the seaside
upon a bier, which the bearers support upon their shoulders, attended by
the priest, who having prayed over the body, repeats his sentences
during the procession: When it arrives at the water's edge, it is set
down upon the beach; the priest renews his prayers, and taking up some
of the water in his hands, sprinkles it towards the body, but not upon
it. It is then carried back forty or fifty yards, and soon after brought
again to the beach, where the prayers and sprinkling are repeated: It is
thus removed backwards and forwards several times, and while these
ceremonies have been performing, a house has been built, and a small
space of ground railed in. In the centre of this house, or Tupapow,
posts are set up to support the bier, which is at length conveyed
thither, and placed upon it, and here the body remains to putrify till
the flesh is wholly wasted from the bones.

These houses of corruption are of a size proportioned to the rank of the
person whose body they are to contain; those allotted to the lower class
are just sufficient to cover the bier, and have no railing round them.
The largest we ever saw was eleven yards long, and such as these are
ornamented according to the abilities and inclination of the surviving
kindred, who never fail to lay a profusion of good cloth about the body,
and sometimes almost cover the outside of the house. Garlands of the
fruit of the palm-nut, or _pandanus_, and cocoa leaves, twisted by the
priests in mysterious knots, with a plant called by them _Ethee no
Morai_, which is particularly consecrated to funeral solemnities, are
deposited about the place; provision and water are also left at a little
distance, of which, and of other decorations, a more particular
description has been given already.

As soon as the body is deposited in the Tupa