Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/219

 had one of his legs bitten off by a shark. His parents at once strangled him, giving as the reason that if he  lived he would be a disgrace to the family in consequence  of having but one leg.

The usual sign of mourning was to have the hair and beard cut short. Women in mourning burned themselves with hot irons, raising large blisters, the scars of which might be seen long afterward upon neck, shoulders, breast, and arms. It was called loloe mate.

The eating of human flesh was not for the love of it, nor to appease hunger, but was one of their religious  rites or was due to habit or revenge. One morning a big canoe came alongside our ship with two chiefs and  nine roasted human bodies. The chiefs were bound for one of the leeward islands to have a feast with their  brother, the head chief of the island. Three of the victims were chiefs, and were tallied as such, their faces  being painted black. None but chiefs were allowed to partake of the flesh of a chief. The brains were equally divided among the participants. They believed that if they ate the brains of a chief they would inherit his warlike qualities.

Our prisoner, Vendovi, the chief who had been captured by us through the treachery of one of his nephews, declared after he had been on board a few weeks that if  ever he had a chance he would club, roast, and eat the  treacherous fellow, dry and grind his bones, and drink  them in his ava. Six months afterward the old chief had become so much civilized that the irons were taken  off him. He appeared to be a very thoughtful, genial, and pleasant sort of a man. After he had been with us