[Footnote 186:  The practice of wounding the body on the death of friends, appears to have existed in ancient times, and among different people.  Moses forbids it to the Israelites, in Levit. xix. 28.  “Ye shall not make any cutting in your flesh for the dead, nor print any mark upon you.”  So in Deut. xiv. 1.; and Parkhurst, in his Heb.  Lexicon, commenting on the passage in Deuteronomy, says, the word rendered to cut, is of more general signification, including “all assaults on their own persons from immoderate grief, such as beating the breasts, tearing the hair, &c. which were commonly practised by the heathen, who have no hope of a resurrection.”  He instances in the Iliad xix, line 284, in the Eneid iv, line 673, the case of the Egyptians mentioned by Herodotus, Q. 85, and several other passages in different writers.  It would be easy to find out similar examples in the accounts of more modern nations.  But the subject is not very inviting to extensive research.—­E.]

Their long and general mourning proves that they consider death as a very great evil.  And this is confirmed by a very odd custom which they practise to avert it.  When I first visited these islands, during my last voyage, I observed that many of the inhabitants had one or both of their little fingers cut off, and we could not then receive any satisfactory account of the reason of this mutilation.[187] But we now learned, that this operation is performed when they labour under some grievous disease, and think themselves in danger of dying.  They suppose, that the Deity will accept of the little finger, as a sort of sacrifice efficacious enough to procure the recovery of their health.  They cut it off with one of their stone hatchets.  There was scarcely one in ten of them whom we did not find thus mutilated in one or both hands, which has a disagreeable effect, especially as they sometimes cut so close, that they encroach upon the bone of the hand, which joins to the amputated finger.[188]

[Footnote 187:  Cantova’s account of the practice of the Caroline Islands, is as follows:  “Lorsqu’il meurt quelque personne d’un rang distmgue, ou qui leur est chere par d’autres endroits, ses obseques se font avec pompe.  Il y eu a qui renferment le corps da defunct dans un petit edifice de pierre, qu’ils gardent au-dedans de leur maisons.  D’autres les enterrent loin de leurs habitations.”—­Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, tom. xv. p. 308, 309.—­D.]

[Footnote 188:  It may be proper to mention here, on the authority of Captain King, that it is common for the inferior people to cut off a joint of their little finger, on account of the sickness of the chiefs to whom they belong.—­D.]