the new canarium nuts may not be eaten until the first-fruits have been offered to the ghosts. Moreover, the first flying-fish of the season must be sacrificed to these spirits of the dead before the living are allowed to partake of the fish. The ghosts to whom the flying-fish are offered have the form of sharks. Some of them have sanctuaries ashore, where images of sharks are set up; and the flying-fish are laid before these images. Other shark-ghosts have no place on shore; so the fish offered to them are taken out to sea and shredded into the water, while the names of the ghosts are called out.(364) (M103) In some of the Kingsmill Islands the god most commonly worshipped was called Tubuériki. He was represented by a flat coral stone, of irregular shape, about three feet long by eighteen inches wide, set up on end in the open air. Leaves of the coco-nut palm were tied about it, considerably increasing its size and height. The leaves were changed every month, that they might be always fresh. The worship paid to the god consisted in repeating prayers before the stone, and laying beside it a portion of the food prepared by the people for their own use. This they did at their daily meals, at festivals, and whenever they specially wished to propitiate the deity. The first-fruits of the season were always offered to him. Every family of distinction had one of these stones which was considered rather in the light of a family altar than as an idol.(365) (M104) In the Tonga Islands the first-fruits of the year were offered with solemn ceremony to the sacred chief Tooitonga, who was regarded as divine. The ceremony generally took place about October, and the people believed that if the rite were neglected the vengeance of the gods would fall in a signal manner upon them. The following is a description of the festival as it was celebrated in the days when a European flag rarely floated among the islands of the Pacific: “_Inachi._ This word means, literally, a share or portion of anything that is to be or has been distributed out: but in the sense here mentioned it means that portion of the fruits of the earth, and other eatables, which is offered to the gods in the person of the divine chief Tooitonga, which allotment is made once a year, just before the yams in general are arrived at a state of maturity; those which are used in this ceremony being of a kind which admit of being planted sooner than others, and, consequently, they are the first fruits of the yam season. The object of this offering is to insure the protection of the gods, that their favour may be extended to the welfare of the nation generally, and in particular to the productions of the earth, of which yams are the most important.