Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/218

152 should return from Hamoa. He had, indeed, brought two wives with him, natives of that place, but, finding that his friends at home had not been unmindful of him in this particular, he resolved to marry these young maidens also : and partly to please his own humour, and partly to afford a little amusement to the Ha- pai people, he resolved, also, that the cere- mony should be performed, for the most part, after the manner of the Navigator's islands. On the morning of the day of marriage, )vhich was about a week after the arrival of the prince, most of the lower class of the people were employed in bringing from different parts of the island, yams, ripe plantains, and ba- nanas; cocoa-nuts, bread fruit, fish, and cakes*. These were piled up on the maldi in four large heaps, with a baked pig on the top of each. The people assembled on the spot, dressed up in new garments, ornamented with wreaths of flowers, and with red ribbands made of the fine membrane of the leaf of the lo ac6xi much re- sembling silk : their persons were anointed with sweet-scented oil. The spectators seated themselves in two sections of a circle, one be- ginning from the right, the other from the left hod root (see the vocabulary), mixed up with scraped cocoa- nut into a paste, and baked. They are considered a luxury.
 * These cakes are made of flour prepared from the Ma~