Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/219

Rh THE TONGA ISLANDS. 153 liand of Finow and his matabooles ; at their ter- minations stood the Hapai people on the one side, and the new-comers (most of them Hapai people also), on the other, so as to be opposite to each other, both parties being furnished with clubs made of the green branches of the cocoa? nut tree. The prince, who was also armed with a club, stood up among his Hamoa com- panions. The two brides were now conducted by their female attendants from the house of Tinow (near the malai). They were dressed in the finest Hamoa mats *, but not in such profusion as described in Tooitonga's marriage, and were veiled in the finest gnatoo. They were led into the house on the mallii, and seated on bales also of the finest gnatoo. Here their feet, hands, faces, and breasts, were anointed with a mixture of sandal-wood oil, and the purest turmeric, producing a deep orange tint on their skins. They remained seated in this place, to be spectators of the combat that was about to ensue between the inhabitants of Hapai and their friends from Hamoa. The two parties being ready, the challenges fine and large, occupy two years making ; this renders them exceedingly valuable. They are so exquisitely raanufac- turedj that one would suppose them to be woven by a loom.
 * These mats are made entirely by handj and when very