Polynesian Society_, xxx. (1921) pp. 152, 153.

In this curious story we may perhaps detect a tradition of a time when
among the Tongans, as among the Semites, religion or superstition
demanded the sacrifice of all first-born sons, a barbarous custom which
has been practised by not a few peoples in various parts of the
earth.[99]

[99] As to a custom of putting the first-born to death, see _The
Dying God_, pp. 178 _sqq._; and for other reported instances of
the custom, see Mrs. James Smith, _The Booandik Tribe of South
Australia_ (Adelaide, 1880), pp. 7 _sq._; C. E. Fox, "Social
Organisation in San Cristoval, Solomon Islands," _Journal of the
R. Anthropological Institute_, xlix. (1919) p. 100; E. O.
Martin, _The Gods of India_ (London and Toronto, 1914), p. 215;
N. W. Thomas, _Anthropological Report on the Ibo-speaking
peoples of Nigeria_, Part i. (London, 1913) p. 12. Compare E.
Westermarck, _Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_
(London, 1906), i. 458 _sqq._

The human soul after its separation from the body at death was termed a
_hotooa_ or _atua_, that is, a god or spirit, and was believed to exist
in the shape of the body and to have the same propensities as in life,
but to be corrected by a more enlightened understanding, by which it
readily distinguished good from evil, truth from falsehood, and right
from wrong. The souls dwelt for ever in the happy regions of Bolotoo,
where they bore the same names as in life and held the same rank among
themselves as they had held during their mortal existence. But their lot
in Bolotoo was in no way affected by the good or evil which they had
done on earth; for the Tongans did not believe in a future state of
retribution for deeds done in the body; they thought that the gods
punished crime in this present world, without waiting to redress the
balance of justice in the world to come. As many of the nobles who
passed at death to Bolotoo had been warlike and turbulent in their life,
it might naturally be anticipated that they should continue to wage war
on each other in the land beyond the grave; but that was not so, for by
a merciful dispensation their understandings were so much enlightened,
or their tempers so much improved, by their residence in Bolotoo, that
any differences they might have between themselves, or with the
primitive gods, they adjusted by temperate discussion without resort to
violence; though people in T