Tonga concludes 100-night royal mourning today

Nuku'alofa: Tonga's royal family is set to end a 100-night mourning period for the late king this morning with a gift-giving ceremony.

And 40 undertakers who were banned from using their hands - which touched the royal body - for three months, will also be released.

At the end of the royal mourning period the South Pacific nation's 40 royal undertakers, who buried the late King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV in an elaborate state funeral in September that mixed tribal traditions with Christian prayers, will be allowed to return to their villages in an ancient ritual called Pongipongi Tuku.

The undertakers - known as nima tapu, meaning sacred hands - have been held together at a special house where they are fed by hand and otherwise looked after, since the king's body was flown home from New Zealand on September 13.

They have not been allowed to do anything with their hands other than tend to the king's body and conduct the funeral, because they had touched royalty.

Until 300 years ago, the nima tapu would have been strangled or had their hands severed after taking part in such a funeral.

Tupou IV died at age 88 in a hospital in the northern New Zealand city of Auckland on September 11, plunging Tonga into mourning.

Throughout Tonga, black and purple mourning cloth festooned buildings, roadsides and even palm trees, to mark the biggest royal funeral since 1965 when Queen Salote, Tupou IV's mother, was buried.

Tongan citizens ended a one-month mourning period on October 17, but the royal family's mourning period continued for three months and was to end officially midnight yesterday.