Rejoicing.—­About the third day the woman was up and at her usual occupation, and ready to take part in the rejoicings connected with the occasion.  By this time the principal friends were assembled.  They all brought presents, and observed an unvarying rule in the kind of presents each was expected to bring.  The relations of the husband brought “oloa,” which included pigs, canoes, and all kinds of foreign property.  The relations of the wife brought “tonga,” which included the leading articles manufactured by the females—­viz. fine mats and native cloth.  The “oloa” brought by the friends of the husband was all distributed among those of the wife, and the “tonga” brought by the friends of the wife was divided among those of the husband; and thus the whole affair was so managed that the friends were the benefited parties chiefly, and the husband and wife left no richer than they were.  Still, they had the satisfaction of having seen what they considered a great honour—­viz. heaps of property collected on occasion of the birth of their child.  Feasting, sham-fighting, night-dancing, and many other heathen customs, formed one continued scene of revelry for two or three days, when the party broke up.  When the child became strong and able to sit there was another feast for “the sitting of the child.”  A third feast was for the “creeping of the child.”  A fourth when the child was able to stand, and called “the standing feast.”  But the greatest was the fifth, when the child could walk.  Then there was singing and night-dances, and then, too, if the child danced and sang, and was “impudent,” the parents boasted over its abilities.

Twins were rare.  Triplets still more so; indeed, there is only a vague tradition of such a thing.  Twins were supposed to be of one mind, and to think, feel, and act alike, during the time of infancy and childhood at least.  There were a few instances of large families, but four or five would be the average.

Adopted Children.—­The number of children seen in a family was small, occasioned, to a great extent, by the bad management and consequent mortality of children, and also a custom which prevailed of parting with their children to friends who wished to adopt them.  The general rule was for the husband to give away his child to his sister.  She and her husband gave, in return for the child, some foreign property, just as if they had received so many fine mats or native cloth.  The adopted child was viewed as “tonga” and was, to the family who adopted it, a channel through which native property (or “tonga”) continued to flow to that family from the parents of the child.  On the other hand, the child was to its parents a source of obtaining foreign property (or “oloa”) from the parties who adopted it, not only at the time of its adoption, but as long as the child lived.  Hence the custom of adoption was not so much the want of natural affection as the sacrifice of it to this systematic facility of traffic in native and foreign property.  Hence, also, parents may have had in their family adopted children, and their own real children elsewhere.