Page:An account of the natives of the Tonga Islands.djvu/417

Rh before the house, as an offering to the god, that he might spare her life for the sake of Finow. On these occasions, one or other of the matabooles, and sometimes two or three in succession, made an address to the invoked divinity (for he had no priest), to the following purpose: "Here thou seest assembled Finow and his chiefs, and the principal matabooles of thy favoured land" (the Tonga islands, taken collectively), "thou seest them humbled before thee. We pray thee not to be merciless, but spare the life of the woman for the sake of her father, who has always been attentive to every religious ceremony : but if thy anger is justly excited by some crime or misdemeanor committed by any other of us who are here assembled, we entreat thee to inflict on the guilty one the punishment which he merits, and not to let go thy vengeance on one who was born but as yesterday. For our own parts, why do we wish to live but for the sake of Finow; but if his family is afflicted, we are all afflicted,