Often the wives of the departed killed themselves in their grief, or a slave was sacrificed in his honour.
His soul was believed to mount aloft, and perhaps some star was henceforth pointed out as his eye shining down and watching over his tribe.

The tattooed head of the dead man was usually reverently preserved--stored away in some secret recess and brought out by the priest to be gazed upon on high occasions.

The body, placed in a canoe-shaped coffin, was left for a time to dry on a stage or moulder in a hollow tree.

After an appointed period the bones were scraped clean and laid away in a cavern or cleft known only to a sacred few.
They might be thrown down some dark mountain abyss or _torere_.

Such inaccessible resting-places of famous chiefs--deep well-like pits or tree-fringed chasms--are still pointed out to the traveller who climbs certain New Zealand summits.