On the occasion of a chiefs illness, all his kith and kin gather around his house, and give way to the loudest lamentations, in which the invalid is careful to join. When the weeping and wailing capacities of one village have been exhausted he is carried to another, and the process is repeated. But in New Zealand, as elsewhere, the common lot cannot be averted by sorrowing humanity; the sick man dies; and then all that remains to the survivors is to show their respect and regret by such funeral pomp as they are able to devise. They assemble round the dead body, after it has been equipped in its bravest attire, and indulge in the most violent demonstrations of grief,--partly feigned, no doubt, but partly sincere. This luxury of woe, however, is chiefly accorded to the women, who display that extravagance of passion we are accustomed to regard as characteristic of the Southern nations. They throw themselves upon the ground, wrap their faces and bodies in their mantles, shriek and sob aloud, wave their arms frantically in the air, and finally gash and scar their skin with long, deep cuts, which they fill in with charcoal until they become indelible records of the loss they have sustained. Funeral orations, full of the most vehement eulogies, and interrupted by complaints and reproaches against the dead man for his unkindness in going away from them, are incessantly delivered. These ceremonies completed, they place the corpse in a kind of coffin, along with various emblems of the rank of the departed, and leave it to decay. The process of decomposition is completed in about seven or eight months; the ceremony of the _hahunga_ then takes place. The friends and relatives assemble; the bones are removed from the coffin, and cleaned; a supply of provisions is passed around; a new series of funeral panegyric is spoken; and the _tiki_, _merai_, and other symbols of the departed chieftain’s headship are handed over to his eldest son, who is thus invested with his father’s power and privileges.