Mr. Bennett thus describes the spot, with some interesting circumstances: 

“July 29th.  I visited this morning a beautiful spot named Maofanga, at a short distance from our anchorage; here was the burial-place of the chiefs.  The tranquillity of this secluded spot, and the drooping trees of the casuarina equisetifolia, added to the mournful solemnity of the place.  Off this place, the Astrolabe French discovery ship lay when, some time before, she fired on the natives.  The circumstances respecting this affair, as communicated to me, if correct, do not reflect much credit on the commander of the vessel.  They are as follow:  During a gale the Astrolabe drove on the reef, but was afterwards got off by the exertion of the natives; some of the men deserting from the ship, the chiefs were accused of enticing them away, and on the men not being given up the ship fired on the village; the natives barricaded themselves on the beach by throwing up sand heaps, and afterwards retired into the woods.  The natives pointed out the effects of the shot; on the trees, a large branch of a casuarina tree in the sacred enclosure was shot off, several coco-nut trees were cut in two, and the marks of several spent shots still remain on the trees:  three natives were killed in this attack.  A great number of the flying-fox, or vampire bat, hung from the casuarina trees in this enclosure, but the natives interposed to prevent our firing at them, the place being tabued.  Mr. Turner had been witness to the interment here, not long previously, of the wife of a chief, and allied to the royal family.  The body, enveloped in mats, was placed in a vault, in which some of her relations had been before interred, and being covered up, several natives advanced with baskets of sand, &c. and strewed it over the vault; others then approached and cut themselves on the head with hatchets, wailing and showing other demonstrations of grief.  Small houses are erected over the vaults.  All the burial-places are either fenced round or surrounded by a low wall of coral stones, and have a very clean, neat, and regular appearance.

“I observed that nearly the whole of the natives whom I had seen, were deficient in the joints of the little finger of the left hand, and some of both; some of the first joint only, others two, and many the whole of both fingers.  On inquiry, I found that a joint is chopped off on any occasion of the illness or death of a relation or chief, as a propitiatory offering to the Spirit.  There is a curious analogy between this custom and one related by Mr. Burchell as existing among the Bushmen tribe in Southern Africa, and performed for similar superstitious reasons to express grief for the loss of relations.

“Near this place was the Hufanga, or place of refuge, in which a person in danger of being put to death is in safety as long as he remains there; on looking in the enclosure, it was only a place gravelled over, in which was a small house and some trees planted."[1]