Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/395

Rh THE TONGA ISLANDS. 329 though at the Fiji islands it is of much greater length, being wrapped round the body many times : one end of it passes between the legs, so as to represent^ when adjusted, what in sur- gery is called a T bandage *. Children are married by their parents (or rather betrothed to each other) when they are three or four years old. This circumstance gives rise to the complaint usually made by the natives of Tonga who visit Fiji, that they can find no woman but who is under the pro- tection of a jealous husband. This Cow Mooala sadly complained of ; and it leads us to the inference, that the women there are very faithful to their husbands. A man may have several wives ; but the greatest chief, that is, she who is of the best family, is the principal wife ; and in respect to her,— if her husband die first, she must be strangled on the day of his death, and afterwards buried with him. Mr, Mariner knows this fact from what hap- pened at Vavaoo, a short time after the peace with Toe Oomoo; and as it was not men- tioned at that time, the present is a fit oppor- years of age, after the Judaic method, i. e. by drawing for- ward the praeputium, and cutting off a section. At the Tonga islands they only make a longitudinal incision of the upper part of the praeputiu;m.
 * At these islands they perform circumcision at fourteen