Webber, born in London of German-Swiss parents, was the official artist on Captain Cook's third and last voyage. The scene depicted in this watercolour was witnessed in 1777 in Huahine, one of the Society Islands, a hundred miles west of Tahiti. The site is a sacred place in the tropical wilderness where the house of the god stands, and the seated figure, a priest, is both a worshipper and a mourner of the dead whose body is contained in the raised structure. Webber produced several versions of this watercolour, the earliest in 1777 and this one in 1786. The image was also engraved.