e capital and resumed
their mourning dress of mats and leaves. Such were the rites performed
during the fifteen days; every day the ceremony of the burning torches
was also repeated.[233]

[233] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 217-219.

For one month from the day of burial, greater or less quantities of
provisions were brought every day and shared out to the people. On the
first day the quantity supplied was prodigious; but day by day the
supply gradually diminished till on the last day it was reduced to very
little.[234] Nevertheless the consumption or waste of food on such
occasions was so great that to guard against a future dearth of
provisions it was deemed necessary to lay a prohibition or taboo on the
eating of hogs, fowls, and coco-nuts for a period of eight or ten
months, though two or three plantations were exempted from this rigorous
embargo, to the end that in the meantime hogs, fowls, and coco-nuts
might be furnished for occasional religious rites, and that the higher
order of chiefs might be able to partake of these victuals. At the end
of the eight or ten months' fast the taboo was removed and permission to
eat of the forbidden foods was granted by the king at a solemn ceremony.
Immense quantities of yams having been collected and piled up in
columns, and some three or four hundred hogs having been killed, the
people assembled from all quarters at the king's _malai_ or public
place. Of the slaughtered hogs about twenty were deposited, along with a
large quantity of yams, at the grave of the deceased Tooitonga. The rest
of the provisions were shared out in definite proportions among the
gods, the king, the divine chief (the living Tooitonga), the inferior
chiefs, and the people, so that every man in the island of Tongataboo
got at least a mouthful of pork and yam. The ceremony concluded with
dancing, wrestling, and other sports, after which every person retired
to his home with his portion of food to share it with his family. The
hogs and yams deposited at the dead Tooitonga's grave were left lying
till the pork stank and the yams were rotten, whereupon the living
Tooitonga ordered that they should be distributed to all who chose to
apply for a portion. In strict law they belonged to the principal
chiefs, but as these persons were accustomed to feed on meat in a rather
less advanced stage of decomposition they kindly waived their claims to
the putrid pork and rotten yams in favour of the lower orders