When they have Sufficient Collected to Make a beginning they fix a day to fetch them down and a house is erected to build the Canoe in. When the timber is brought down a Feast is made and an Offering of a Hog to the Deity to prosper the Work, a Feast is also made for the Workmen. At evry Piece they make Fast and when the Bottom is Compleated a Grand Feast and Offering is Made, which is repeated at the Finishing of evry Streak till the Whole is Compleat, when a greater Feast is Made, and the Canoes being Dressd with Cloth, Breast plates. Red and Black Feathers, Fine Matting &c. — they are Brought to the Grand Morai, and a Man is killd and put on board and Offered as a Sacrafice, when the Canoes are hauld up near the Morai where she is Covered with Thatch till Wanted, the Priests securing the Feathers for the Deity and the other Decorations for the King, to whom they are presented in Form, as before, the Eye of each Sacrafice being presented before him and the Body interd in the Morai. The War Canoes are Offered in like Manner but Hogs serve instead of Men. When Men are Wanted for Such Occasions the Chief assembles the Ratirras, at the Morai and a Feast is Made at which none must be present but those who are by birth intituled to give their Oppinion, he then informs them of the Business, which they however know beforehand. They then agree among themselves about the Fittest Man and if any have been Guilty of Blasphemy or has been a Most Notorious thief and has escaped punnishment they fix on him and one of themselves undertakes to kill him and watches his Opportunity, the business being mostly kept a secret till he is killd, which is generally in the Night when the Man appointed to kill him, finding where he sleeps, knocks him in the Head with a Stone and gets his servants to make a large Basket of Cocoa Nut leaves into which they put the body and Convey it to the Canoe to be offered into which they put it — they are careful not to disfigure the Face as that would make them unfit for an offering and an other must be got in stead for which reason they mostly strike

Indigenous Histories