The natives pointed out
the effects of the shot; on the trees, a large branch of a casuarina tree
in the sacred enclosure was shot off, several coco-nut trees were cut in
two, and the marks of several spent shots still remain on the trees: three
natives were killed in this attack. A great number of the flying-fox, or
vampire bat, hung from the casuarina trees in this enclosure, but the
natives interposed to prevent our firing at them, the place being tabued.
Mr. Turner had been witness to the interment here, not long previously, of
the wife of a chief, and allied to the royal family. The body, enveloped
in mats, was placed in a vault, in which some of her relations had been
before interred, and being covered up, several natives advanced with
baskets of sand, &c. and strewed it over the vault; others then approached
and cut themselves on the head with hatchets, wailing and showing other
demonstrations of grief. Small houses are erected over the vaults. All the
burial-places are either fenced round or surrounded by a low wall of coral
stones, and have a very clean, neat, and regular appearance.
"I observed that nearly the whole of the natives whom I had seen, were
deficient in the joints of the little finger of the left hand, and some of
both; some of the first joint only, others two, and many the whole of both
fingers.
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