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The Legends and Myths of Hawaii
Kalakaua, David, King of Hawaii
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The Legends and Myths of Hawaii
The Legends and Myths of Hawaii
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THE LEGENDS AND MYTHSOF
THE FABLES AND FOLK-LOREOF A
The Legends and Myths of Hawaii
HIS HAWAIIAN MAJESTY KALAKAUANew York: CHARLES L. WEBSTER & COMPANY. 1888. For material in the compilation of many of the legends embraced in this volume obligation is acknowledged to H. R. H. Liliuokalani; General John Owen Dominis; His Excellency Walter M. Gibson; Professor W. D. Alexander; Mrs. E. Beckley, Government Librarian; Mr. W. James Smith, Secretary of the National Board of Education; and especially to Hon. Abram Fornander, the learned author of "An Account of the Polynesian Race, its Origin and Migrations." The legends, in the order of their publication, beginning with the first and ending with "The Destruction of the Temples," may be regarded, so far as they refer to the prominent political events with which they are associated, as in a measure historic. Those following have been selected as the most striking and characteristic of what remains of the fabulous folk-lore of the Hawaiian group. And, glancing still farther backward through the centuries, we behold adventurous chiefs, in barges and double canoes a hundred feet in length, making the journey between the Hawaiian and more southern groups, guided only by the sun and stars. Later we see battles, with dusky thousands in line. The warriors are naked to the loins, and are armed with spears, slings, clubs, battle-axes, javelins and knives of wood or ivory. They have neither bows nor shields. They either catch with their hands or ward with their own the weapons that are thrown. Their chiefs, towering above them in stature, have thrown off their gaudy feather cloaks and helmets, and, with spear and stone halberd, are at the front of battle. The opposing forces are so disposed as to present a right and left wing and centre, the king or principal chief commanding the latter in person. In the rear of each hostile line are a large number of women with calabashes of food and water with which to refresh their battling fathers, husbands and brothers. While the battle rages their wails, cries and prayers are incessant, and when defeat menaces their friends they here and there take part in the combat. The augurs have been consulted, sacrifices and promises to the gods have been made, and, as the warring lines approach, the war-gods of the opposing chiefs, newly decorated and attended by long-haired priests, are borne to the front. War-cries and shouts of defiance follow. The priests retire, and the slingers open the battle. Spears are thrown, and soon the struggle is hand-to-hand all over the field. They fight in groups and squads around their chiefs and leaders, who range the field in search of enemies worthy of their weapons. No quarter is given or expected. The first prisoners taken are reserved as offerings to the gods, and are regarded as the most precious of sacrifices. Finally the leading chief of one of the opposing armies falls. A desperate struggle over his body ensues, and his dispirited followers begin to give ground and are soon in retreat. Some escape to a stronghold in the neighboring mountains, and a few, perhaps, to a temple of refuge; but the most of them are overtaken and slain. The prisoners who are spared become the slaves of their captors, and the victory is celebrated with feasting and bountiful sacrifices to the gods. This is a representative battle of the past, either for the supremacy of rival chiefs or in repelling invasion from a neighboring island. But here and there we catch glimpses of actual conflicts indicative of the warlike spirit and chivalry of the early Hawaiians. Far back in the past we see the beautiful Hina abducted from her Hawaiian husband by a prince of Molokai, and kept a prisoner in the fortress of Haupu until her sons grow to manhood, when she is rescued at the end of an assault which leaves the last of her defenders dead. Later we see the eight hundred helmeted chiefs of the king of Hawaii, all of noble blood, hurling themselves to destruction against the spears of the armies of Maui on the plains of Wailuku. And then, less than a generation after, Kamehameha is seen in the last battle of the conquest, when, at the head of sixteen thousand warriors, he sweeps the Oahuan army over the precipice of Nuuanu and becomes the master of the archipelago. Finally we behold Kekuaokalani, the last defender in arms of the Hawaiian gods and temples, trampling on the edict of the king against the worship of his fathers, and dying, with his faithful wife Manono, on the field of Kuamoo. In the midst of these scenes of blood the eye rests with relief on numerous episodes of love, friendship and self-sacrifice touching with a softening color the ruddy canvas of the past. We see Kanipahu, the exiled king of Hawaii, delving like a common laborer on a neighboring island, and refusing to accept anew the sceptre in his old age because his back had become crooked with toil and he could no longer look over the heads of his subjects as became a Hawaiian king. We see Umi, a rustic youth of royal mien and mighty proportions, boldly leap the palace-walls of the great Liloa, push aside the spears of the guards, enter the royal mansion, seat himself in the lap of the king, and through the exhibition of a forgotten token of love receive instant recognition as his son. And now Lono, the royal great-grandson of Umi, rises before us, and we see him lured from self-exile by the voice of his queen, reaching him in secret from without the walls of the sovereign court of Oahu, to return to Hawaii and triumph over his enemies. These and many other romantic incidents present themselves in connection with the early Hawaiian kings and princes, and are offered in the succeeding pages with every detail of interest afforded by available tradition.
The Legends and Myths of Hawaii
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICSA few general remarks concerning the physical characteristics of the Hawaiian Islands would seem to be appropriate in presenting a collection of legends dealing alike with the history and folk-lore of their people. The islands occupy a place in a great waste of the Pacific between the nineteenth and twenty-third degrees of north latitude, and the one hundred and fifty-fourth and one hundred and sixty-first degrees of longitude west from Greenwich. They are two thousand one hundred miles southwest from San Francisco, and about the same distance from Tahiti. The group consists of ten islands, including two that are little more than barren rocks. The farthest are about three hundred miles from each other, measuring from their extreme boundaries, and their aggregate area is a little more than six thousand one hundred square miles. Of the eight principal islands all are habitable, although the small islands of Niihau and Kahoolawe are used almost exclusively as cattle-ranges. The most of the shores of the several islands are fringed with coral, but their origin seems to be indisputably shown in the numerous craters of extinct volcanoes scattered throughout the group, and in the mighty fires still blazing from the mountain-heights of Hawaii. By far the larger part of the area of the islands is mountainous; but from the interior elevations, some of them reaching altitudes of from ten to fourteen thousand feet, flow many small streams of sweet water, widening into fertile valleys as they reach the coast, while here and there between them alluvial plateaus have been left by the upland wash. With rare exceptions the mountain-sides are covered with vegetation, some of sturdy growth, capable of being wrought into building materials and canoes, while lower down the ohia, the palm, the banana, and the bread-fruit stand clothed in perpetual green, with groves of stately cocoas between them and the sea. Once the fragrant sandal-wood was abundant in the mountains, but it became an article of commerce with the natives in their early intercourse with the white races, and is now rarely seen. Once the valleys and plateaus were covered with growing taro and potatoes; now the cane and rice of the foreigner have usurped the places of both, and in the few shaded spots that have been left him the forgiving and revengeless Hawaiian sadly chants his wild songs of the past. Neither within the memory of men nor the reach of their legends, which extend back more than a thousand years, has there been an active volcano in the group beyond the large island of Hawaii, which embraces two-thirds of the solid area of the archipelago. The mighty crater of Haleakala, more than thirty miles in circumference, on the island of Maui, has slept in peace among the clouds for ages, and hundreds of lesser and lower craters, many of them covered with vegetation, are found scattered among the mountains and foot-hills of the group; but their fires have long been extinct, and the scoria and ashes buried at their bases tell the story of their activity far back in the past. It must have been a sight too grand for human eyes to witness when all these dead volcanic peaks, aglow with sulphurous flames, lit up the moonless midnights of the eight Hawaiian seas with their combined bombardment of the heavens! On the island of Hawaii alone have the fires of nature remained unextinguished. At intervals during the past thousand years or more have Mauna Kea, Mauna Hualalai and Mauna Loa sent their devastating streams of lava to the sea, and to-day the awful, restless and ever-burning caldron of Kilauea, nearly a mile in circumference, is the grandest conflagration that lights up the earth. Within its lurid depths, in fiery grottoes and chambers of burning crystal, dwell Pele and her companions, and offerings are still thrown to them by superstitious natives. Do they yet believe in these deities after more than sixty years of Christian teaching? after their temples have been leveled and their gods have been destroyed? after their tabus have been broken and their priesthood has been dethroned and dishonored? The only answer is, "The offerings are still made." Although the channel and ocean coasts of the islands are generally bold, rocky and precipitous, there are numerous bays and indentations partially sheltered by reefs and headlands, and many stretches of smooth and yellow beach, where the waves, touched by the kona, or the trade-wind's breath, chase each other high up among the cocoa's roots and branches of the humble hau-tree clinging to the sands. The harbor of Honolulu, on the island of Oahu, is the only one, however, where passengers and freights of ocean crafts may be received or landed without the aid of lighters. The most of the useful and ornamental growths of the tropics now flourish on the islands. The indigenous plants, however, are confined to the banana, plantain, cocoanut, breadfruit, ohia, sugar-cane, arrow-root, yam, sweet potato, taro, strawberry, raspberry and ohelo. The lime, orange, mango, tamarind, papaia, guava, and every other edible product, aside from those named as indigenous, are importations of the past century. The only domestic animals of the ancient Hawaiians were dogs, swine and fowls, and the most formidable four-legged creatures found in their fields and forests were mice and lizards. Wild geese, including a species peculiar to the islands, ducks, snipe and plover were abundant in their seasons, but seem to have been sparely eaten; and owls, bats, and a few varieties of birds of simple song and not over-brilliant plumage made up about the sum total of animal life on the islands a hundred years ago. But the native could well afford to be content with this limited provision, since it did not include snakes, mosquitoes, centipedes, tarantulas, or scorpions. To what processes of creation or isolation do the Hawaiian Islands owe their existence? Were they raised from the depths of the ocean by volcanic action, as plainly suggested by their formation? or are they a part of a great sunken continent which speculation, sustained by misty tradition, claims once occupied the Polynesian seas? Hawaiian meles mention islands no longer to be found, and the facility with which communication was maintained between the Hawaiian and more southern groups previous to the twelfth century renders plausible the assumption that this intercourse was abruptly terminated six or seven centuries ago by the disappearance of a number of intervening atolls or islands which had served as guides to early Polynesian navigators. The gigantic ruins of temples and other structures found on Easter and one or two other islands of the equatorial Pacific are almost unanswerable arguments in favor of the theory of a sunken Polynesian continent; but the question will probably never be removed beyond the field of surmise.
The Legends and Myths of Hawaii
HISTORIC OUTLINESThe source and early history of the Hawaiian people, and, in fact, of the Polynesian race, of which they are a part, are involved in doubt. They have generally been regarded as an offshoot of the great Malayan family; but more recent as well as more thorough investigation, particularly by Judge Fornander, the learned and conscientious historian, with reasonable conclusiveness shows the Polynesian and Malayan races to be of distinct and widely different origin. Accepting this conclusion, we trace the strictly Polynesian tribes to an Aryan beginning, somewhere in Asia Minor or Arabia. There, in the remote past, it is assumed, they were brought in close contact with early Cushite and Chaldeo-Arabian civilizations. Subsequently drifting into India, they to some extent amalgamated with the Dravidian races, and, following the channels of the great Chaldean commerce of that period, at length found a home in the Asiatic archipelago from Sumatra to Luzon and Timor. The exact time of their settlement on the large coast islands of southern Asia cannot be definitely determined, but their legends and genealogies leave little room to doubt that it was contemporaneous with the Malay and Hindoo invasions of Sumatra, Java, and other islands of the archipelago, during the first and second centuries of the Christian era, that the Polynesians were pushed out--not at once in a body, but by families and communities covering a period of years--to the smaller and more remote islands of the Pacific. Their first general rendezvous was in the Fiji group, where they left their impress on the native Papuans. Expelled from, or voluntarily leaving, the Fijis, after a sojourn there of several generations, the Polynesians scattered over the Pacific, occupying by stages the several groups of islands where they are now found. Moving by the way of the Samoan and Society Islands, the migratory wave did not reach the Hawaiian group until about the middle of the sixth century. Nanaula, a distinguished chief, was the first to arrive from the southern islands. It is not known whether he discovered the group by being blown northward by adverse winds, or in deliberately adventuring far out on the ocean in search of new lands. In either event, he brought with him his gods, priests, prophets and astrologers, and a considerable body of followers and retainers. He was also provided with dogs, swine and fowls, and the seeds and germs of useful plants for propagation. It is probable that he found the group without human inhabitants. During that period--probably during the life of Nanaula--other chiefs of less importance arrived with their families and followers either from Tahiti or Samoa. They came in barges and large double canoes capable of accommodating from fifty to one hundred persons each. They brought with them not only their priests and gods, but the earliest of Polynesian traditions. It is thought that none of the pioneers of the time of Nanaula ever returned to the southern islands, nor did others immediately follow the first migratory wave that peopled the Hawaiian group. For thirteen or fourteen generations the first occupants of the Hawaiian Islands lived sequestered from the rest of the world, multiplying and spreading throughout the group. They erected temples to their gods, maintained their ancient religion, and yielded obedience to their chiefs. The traditions of the period are so meagre as to leave the impression that it was one of uninterrupted peace, little having been preserved beyond the genealogies of the governing chiefs. But late in the tenth or early in the beginning of the eleventh century the Hawaiians were aroused from their dream of more than four centuries by the arrival of a party of adventurers from the southern islands, probably from the Society group. It was under the leadership of Nanamaoa. He was a warlike chief, and succeeded in establishing his family in power on Hawaii, Maui and Oahu. But stronger leaders were soon to follow from the south. Among the first was the high-priest Paao, from Samoa. He arrived during the reign of Kapawa, the grandson of Nanamaoa, or immediately after his death. The people were in an unsettled condition politically, and Paao, grasping the situation, either sent or returned in person to Samoa for Pili, a distinguished chief of that island. Arriving with a large following, Pili assumed the sovereignty of the island of Hawaii and founded a new dynasty. Paao became his high-priest, and somewhat disturbed the religious practices of the people by the introduction of new rites and two or three new gods. However, his religion did not seem to differ greatly from that of the native priests, and from him the last of the priesthood, seven hundred years after, claimed lineage and right of place. The intercourse thus established between the Hawaiian and southern groups by Nanamaoa, Paao and Pili continued for about one hundred and fifty years, or until the middle or close of the twelfth century. During that period several other warlike families from the south established themselves in the partial or complete sovereignty of Oahu, Maui and Kauai, and expeditions were frequent between the group and other distant islands of Polynesia. It was a season of unusual activity, and the legends of the time are filled with stories of love, conquest and perilous voyages to and from the southern islands. In that age, when distant voyages were frequent, the Polynesians were bold and intelligent navigators. In addition to large double canoes capable of withstanding the severest weather, they possessed capacious barges, with planks corded and calked on strong frames. They were decked over and carried ample sail. Their navigators had some knowledge of the stars; knew the prominent planets and gave them names; were acquainted with the limits of the ecliptic and situation of the equator. With these helps, and keenly watchful of the winds and currents, of ocean drifts and flights of birds, they seldom failed to reach their destination, however distant. Near the close of the twelfth century all communication between the Hawaiian and southern groups suddenly ceased. Tradition offers no explanation of the cause, and conjecture can find no better reason for it than the possible disappearance at that time of a number of island landmarks which had theretofore served as guides to the mariner. The beginning of this period of isolation found the entire group, with the exception, perhaps, of Molokai and a portion of Oahu, in the possession of the southern chiefs or their descendants. It has been observed that the first discovery and occupation of the islands by Polynesians from the Society and Samoan groups occurred in the sixth century, and that more than four hundred years later a second migratory tide from the same and possibly other southern islands reached the coasts of Hawaii, continuing for more than a century and a half, and completely changing the political, and to some extent the social, condition of the people. Although nearly five centuries elapsed between the first and second migratory influxes from the south, during which the inhabitants of the group held no communication with the rest of the world, it is a curious fact that the Pili, Paumakua, and other chiefly families of the second influx traced back their lineage to the ancestors of the chiefs of the first migration, and made good their claim to the relationship by the recital of legends and genealogies common to both. At the close of the second migratory period, which concluded their intercourse with the world beyond them for more than six hundred years, or from A.D. 1175 to 1778, the people of the group had very generally transferred their allegiance to the newly-arrived chiefs. The notable exceptions were the Maweke and Kamauaua families of Oahu and Molokai, both of the ancient Nanaula line. Although they were gradually crowded from their possessions by their more energetic invaders, the high descent of the prominent native chiefs was recognized, and by intermarriage their blood was allowed to mingle with the royal currents which have flowed down the centuries since they ceased to rule. A mere outline of the political history of the islands from the twelfth century to the nineteenth is all that will be given here. The legends following will supply much that will be omitted to avoid repetition. Until the final conquest of the group by Kamehameha I. at the close of the last century, the five principal islands of the archipelago--Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, Kauai and Molokai--were each governed, as a rule, by one or more independent chiefs. The smaller islands of Lanai and Kahoolawe were usually subject to Maui, while Niihau always shared the political fate of Kauai. On each island, however, were descendants of distinguished ancient chiefs and heroes, who were recognized as of superior or royal blood, and with them originated the supreme chiefs, kings, or mois of the several islands, whose lines continued in authority, with interruptions of insurrection and royal feuds, until the consolidation of the group by Kamehameha. No one was recognized as a tabu chief unless his genealogical record showed him to be of noble blood, and intermarriage between the ruling families, as well as between the lesser chiefs of the several islands, in time united the entire aristocracy of the group by ties of blood, and gave to all of royal strain a common and distinguished ancestry. The nobility and hereditary priesthood claimed to be of a stock different from that of the common people, and their superior stature and intelligence seemed to favor the assumption. To keep pure the blood of the chiefly classes, far back in the past a college of heraldry was established, before which all chiefs were required to recite their genealogies and make good their claims to noble descent. The legends of the group abound in stories of romantic and sanguinary internal conflicts, and political and predatory wars between the islands; but down to the time of Kamehameha but a single attempt had been made to subjugate the entire archipelago. This bold scheme was entertained by a king of the island of Hawaii who reigned during the latter part of the thirteenth century. He succeeded in overrunning Maui, Oahu and Molokai, but was defeated and taken prisoner on Kauai. Without further reference to the intervening years from the twelfth century to the eighteenth--a long period of wars, festivals, tournaments, and royal and priestly pageantry--we will now glance at the condition of the islands at the time of their discovery by Captain Cook, a little more than a century ago. It was estimated that the islands then contained a population of four hundred thousand souls. This estimate has been considered large. But when it is noted that fifteen years later there were between thirty and forty thousand warriors under arms in the group at the same time, with large reserves ready for service, the conclusion is irresistible that the population could scarcely have been less. Kamehameha invaded Oahu with sixteen thousand warriors, principally drawn from the island of Hawaii. He was opposed by eight or ten thousand spears, while as many more awaited his arrival on Kauai. According to the figures of the Rev. Mr. Ellis, who travelled around the island of Hawaii in 1821 and numbered the dwellings and congregations addressed by him in the several coast districts through which he passed, the number of people on that island alone could not have been less than one hundred and fifteen thousand. At the time of the arrival of Captain Cook, Kalaniopuu, of the ancient line of Pili, was king of the large island of Hawaii, and also maintained possession of a portion of the island of Maui. Kahekili, "the thunderer," as his name implied, was moi of Maui, and the principal wife of Kalaniopuu was his sister. Kahahana, who was also related to Kahekili, was the king of Oahu and claimed possession of Molokai and Lanai. Kamakahelei was the nominal queen of Kauai and Niihau, and her husband was a younger brother to Kahekili, while she was related to the royal family of Hawaii. Thus, it will be seen, the reigning families of the several islands of the group were all related to each other, as well by marriage as by blood. So had it been for many generations. But their wars with each other were none the less vindictive because of their kinship, or attended with less of barbarity in their hours of triumph. At that time Kahekili was plotting for the downfall of Kahahana and the seizure of Oahu and Molokai, and the queen of Kauai was disposed to assist him in these enterprises. The occupation of the Hana district of Maui by the kings of Hawaii had been the cause of many stubborn conflicts between the chivalry of the two islands, and when Captain Cook first landed on Hawaii he found the king of that island absent on another warlike expedition to Maui, intent on avenging his defeat of two years before, when his famous brigade of eight hundred nobles was hewn in pieces. Connected with the court of Kalaniopuu at that time was a silent and taciturn chief, who had thus far attracted but little attention as a military leader. He was a man of gigantic mould, and his courage and prowess in arms were undoubted; yet he seldom smiled or engaged in the manly sports so attractive to others, and his friends were the few who discerned in him a slumbering greatness which subsequently gave him a name and fame second to no other in Hawaiian history. He was the reputed and accepted son of Keoua, the half-brother of Kalaniopuu, although it was believed by many that his real father was Kahekili, moi of Maui. But, however this may have been, he was of royal blood, and was destined to become not only the king of Hawaii, but the conqueror and sovereign of the group. This chief was Kamehameha. Such, in brief, was the political condition of the islands when Captain Cook arrived. He was an officer in the English navy, and, with the war-ships Resolution and Discovery, was on a voyage in search of a northwest passage eastward from Behring's Straits. Leaving the Society group in December, 1777, on the 18th of the following month he sighted Oahu and Kauai. Landing on the latter island and Niihau, he was received as a god by the natives, and his ships were provided with everything they required. Without then visiting the other islands of the group, he left for the northwest coast of America on the 2d of February, 1778, and in November of that year returned to the islands, first sighting the shores of Molokai and Maui. Communicating with the wondering natives of the latter island, he sailed around the coasts of Hawaii, and on the 17th of January dropped his anchors in Kealakeakua Bay. He was hailed as a reincarnation of their god Lono by the people, and the priests conducted him to their temples and accorded him divine honors. Returning from his campaign in Maui, the king visited and treated him as a god, and his ships were bountifully supplied with pigs, fowls, vegetables and fruits. The ships left the bay on the 4th of February, but, meeting with a storm, returned on the 8th for repairs. Petty bickerings soon after occurred between the natives and white sailors, and on the 13th one of the ships' boats was stolen by a chief and broken up for its nails and other iron fastenings. Cook demanded its restoration, and, while endeavoring to take the king on board the Resolution as a prisoner, was set on by the natives and slain. Fire was opened by the ships, and many natives, including four or five chiefs, were killed. The body of Cook was borne off by the natives, but the most of the bones were subsequently returned at the request of Captain King, and the vessels soon after left the island. If Captain Cook was not the first of European navigators to discover the Hawaiian Islands, he was at least the first to chart and make their existence known to the world. It has been pretty satisfactorily established that Juan Gaetano, the captain of a Spanish galleon sailing from the Mexican coast to the Spice Islands, discovered the group as early as 1555. But he did not make his discovery known at the time, and the existence of an old manuscript chart in the archives of the Spanish government is all that remains to attest his claim to it. Native traditions mention the landing of small parties of white men on two or three occasions during the latter part of the sixteenth century; but if the faces and ships of other races were seen by the Hawaiians in the time of Gaetano, their descendants had certainly lost all knowledge of both two hundred or more years later, for Cook was welcomed as a supernatural being by the awe-stricken islanders, and his ships were described by them as floating islands. A simple iron nail was to them a priceless jewel, and every act and word betrayed an utter ignorance of everything pertaining to the white races. Kalaniopuu, the king of Hawaii, died in 1782, and Kamehameha, through the assistance of three or four prominent chiefs, succeeded, after a struggle of more than ten years, in securing to himself the supreme authority over that island. This done, encouraged by the prophets, assisted by his chiefs, and sustained by an unwavering faith in his destiny, he conquered Maui, Oahu, Kauai and their dependencies, and in 1795 was recognized as the sole master of the group. Although of royal stock, the strain of Kamehameha from the old line of kings was less direct than that of his cousin, Kiwalao, from whom he wrested the Hawaiian sceptre; but his military genius rallied around him the warlike chiefs who were dissatisfied with the division of lands by the son and successor of Kalaniopuu, and in the end his triumph was complete. To farther ennoble his succession he married the daughter of his royal cousin, and thus gave to his children an undoubted lineage of supreme dignity. The existence of the Hawaiian Islands became generally known to the world soon after the final departure of the Resolution and Discovery, but it was not until 1786 that vessels began to visit the group. The first to arrive after the death of Captain Cook were the English ships King George and Queen Charlotte, and the same year a French exploring squadron touched at Maui. In 1787 several trading vessels visited the group, and the natives began to barter provisions and sandal-wood for fire-arms and other weapons of metal. In 1792, and again in 1793, Captain Vancouver, of an English exploring squadron, touched and remained for some time at the islands. He landed sheep, goats and horned cattle, and distributed a quantity of fruit and garden seeds. His memory is gratefully cherished by the natives, for his mission was one of peace and broad benevolence. Thenceforward trading-vessels in considerable numbers visited the group, and during the concluding wars of Kamehameha the rival chiefs had secured the assistance of small parties of white men, and to some extent had learned the use of muskets and small cannon, readily purchased and paid for in sandal-wood, which was then quite abundant on most of the timbered mountains of the islands. The harbor of Honolulu was first discovered and entered by two American vessels in 1794, and it soon became a favorite resort for the war, trading and whaling vessels of all nations. In the midst of these new and trying conditions Kamehameha managed the affairs of his kingdom with distinguished prudence and sagacity. He admonished his people to endure with patience the aggressions of the whites, and to retain, as far as possible, their simple habits. With his little empire united and peaceful, Kamehameha died on the 8th of May, 1819, at the age of about eighty; and his bones were so secretly disposed of that they have not yet been found. Liholiho, the elder of his sons by Keopuolani, the daughter of his cousin Kiwalao, succeeded his warlike father with the title of Kamehameha II. Some knowledge of the Christian religion had reached the natives through their white visitors, but the old chief died in the faith of his fathers. The death of Kamehameha was immediately followed by an event for which history affords no parallel. In October, 1819--six months before the first Christian missionaries arrived on the islands--Liholiho, under the inspiration of Kaahumanu, one of the widows of his father, suddenly, and in the presence of a large concourse of horrified natives, broke the most sacred of the tabus of his religion by partaking of food from vessels from which women were feasting, and the same day decreed the destruction of every temple and idol in the kingdom. He was sustained by the high-priest Hewahewa, who was the first to apply the torch; and within a few weeks idols, temples, altars, and a priesthood which had held prince and subject in awe for centuries were swept away, leaving the people absolutely without a religion. But all did not peacefully submit to this royal edict against their gods. In the twilight of that misty period looms up a grand defender of the faith of Keawe and Umi and the altars of the Hawaiian gods. This champion was Kekuaokalani, a nephew, perhaps a son, of the first Kamehameha, and a cousin, perhaps a half-brother, of Liholiho. In his veins coursed the royal blood of Hawaii, and his bearing was that of a king. He was above six and one-half feet in height, with limbs well proportioned and features strikingly handsome and commanding. He was of the priesthood, and, through the bestowal of some tabu or prerogative, claimed to be second in authority to Hewahewa, who traced his lineage back to Paao, the high-priest of Pili. His wife, Manono, was scarcely less distinguished for her courage, beauty and chiefly strain. The apostasy of Hewahewa left Kekuaokalani at the head of the priesthood--at least so he seems to have assumed--and the royal order to demolish the temples was answered by him with an appeal to the people to arm and join him in defence of their gods. He raised the standard of revolt on the island of Hawaii, and was soon at the head of a considerable army. A large force was sent against him, and every effort was made to induce him to lay down his arms. But he scorned all terms, refused all concessions. A battle was fought at Kuamoo, at first favorable to the defenders of the gods; but the fire-arms of the whites in the service of the king turned the tide of war against them, and they were defeated and scattered. Kekuaokalani was killed on the field, and Manono, his brave and faithful wife, fighting by his side, fell dead on the body of her husband with a musket-ball through her temples. A rude monument of stones still marks the spot where they fell; and it is told in whispers that the kona, passing through the shrouding vines, attunes them to saddest tones of lamentation over the last defenders in arms of the Hawaiian gods. Four or five months before the death of Kekuaokalani, Kalaimoku, the prime minister of Liholiho, and his brother Boki, were baptized under the formula of the Roman Catholic Church by the chaplain of a French corvette on a passing visit to the islands. They scarcely knew the meaning of the ceremony, and it is safe to say that, at the time of the destruction of their temples and the repudiation of their gods, the Hawaiian people knew little or nothing of any other religion. The abolition of the tabu, which had made them slaves to their chiefs and priests, and held their fathers in bondage for centuries, was hailed with so great a joy by the native masses that they did not hesitate when called on to consign the priesthood and their gods to the grave of the tabu. On the 30th of March, 1820--some months after this strange religious revolution--the first party of Christian missionaries arrived at the islands from Massachusetts. They were well received. They found a people without a religion, and their work was easy. Other missionary parties followed from time to time, and found the field alike profitable to the cause in which they labored and to themselves individually. They acquired substantial possessions in their new home, controlled the government for the fifty or more years following, and their children are to-day among the most prosperous residents of the group. This is not said with a view to undervalue the services of the early missionaries to Hawaii, but to show that all missionary fields have not been financially unfruitful to zealous and provident workers. And now let it be remarked with emphasis that the value of missionary labors in the Hawaiian group should not be measured by the small number of natives who to-day may be called Christians, but rather by the counsel and assistance of these thrifty religious teachers in securing and maintaining the independence of the islands, and by degrees establishing a mild and beneficent constitutional government, under which taxation is as light and life and property are as secure as in any other part of the civilized world. They were politicians as well as religious instructors, and practical examples of the value of Christian discipline when prudently applied to the acquisition of the needful and inviting things of life, and the establishment of a civil system capable of protecting the possessor in his acquired rights. In 1824 Liholiho and his queen died while on a visit to England, and their remains were sent back to the islands in an English man-of war. Kauikeaouli, a youth of ten years, and brother of the deceased king, was accepted as the rightful heir to the throne under the title of Kamehameha III., and Kaahumanu, one of the wives of Kamehameha I., acted as regent and prime minister. In 1827, and ten years later, Roman Catholic missionaries arrived, and were sent away by order of the government; but in 1839 the priests of that denomination were finally landed under the guns of a French frigate and allowed to remain. Meantime churches, schools and printing-presses had been established, the Hawaiian had become a written language, and the laws and decrees of the government were promulgated in printed form. In 1840 the first written constitution was given to the people, guaranteeing to them a representative government. In February, 1843, Lord Paulet, of the English navy, took formal possession of the islands, but in the July following their sovereignty was restored through the action of Admiral Thomas. In November of the same year France and England mutually agreed to refrain from seizure or occupation of the islands, or any portion of them, and the United States, while declining to become a party to the agreement, promptly acknowledged the independence of the group. Kamehameha III. died in 1854 and was succeeded by Kamehameha IV. The latter reigned until 1863, when he died and was succeeded by Prince Lot, with the title of Kamehameha V. In 1864 Lot abrogated the constitution of 1840 and granted a new one. He reigned until 1872, and died without naming a successor, and the Legislative Assembly elected Lunalilo to the throne. He was of the Kamehameha family, and with his death, in 1873, the Kamehameha dynasty came to an end. He, too, failed to designate a successor, and as but two of the accepted descendants of the first Kamehameha remained--one a sister of Kamehameha V. and the other a female cousin of that sovereign--David Kalakaua was elected to the throne by the Legislative Assembly in 1874, receiving all but five votes of that body, which were cast for the queen-dowager Emma, widow of Kamehameha IV. Provision having been made for the event by a previous Legislative Assembly, King Kalakaua, with his queen, Kapiolani, was formally crowned on the 12th of February, 1883, in the presence of the representatives of many of the nations of the Old World and the New. Since the coronation the last of the Kamehamehas has passed away, including the queen-dowager Emma, and King Kalakaua remains the most direct representative in the kingdom of the ancient sovereigns of Hawaii. He draws his strain from Liloa through the great I family of Hawaii, who joined their fortunes with the first Kamehameha in the conquest of the group. His queen, Kapiolani, is a granddaughter of the last independent sovereign of Kauai, and is thus allied in blood with the early rulers of the group. She is childless, and the Princess Liliuokalani, the elder of the two sisters of the king, has been named as his successor. She is the wife of His Excellency John O. Dominis, an American by birth and present governor of the islands of Oahu and Maui. The only direct heir in the families of the king and his two sisters is the Princess Kaiulani, daughter of the Princess Likelike, [1] wife of Mr. Cleghorn, a merchant of Honolulu. Following is a list of the sovereigns of Hawaii, with the dates and durations of their several governments, from the eleventh to the nineteenth century. It embraces only the rulers of the island of Hawaii, who eventually became the masters of the group. Until the reign of Kalaniopuu, which began in 1754, the dates are merely approximate: Pilikaeae, from A.D. 1095 to 1120 Kukohau,,, 1120 to 1145 Kaniuhi,,, 1145 to 1170 Kanipahu,,, 1170 to 1195 Kalapana (including the usurpation of Kamaiole),,, 1195 to 1220 Kahaimoelea,,, 1220 to 1260 Kalaunuiohua,,, 1260 to 1300 Kuaiwa,,, 1300 to 1340 Kahoukapu,,, 1340 to 1380 Kauholanuimahu,,, 1380 to 1415 Kiha,,, 1415 to 1455 Liloa,,, 1455 to 1485 Hakau,,, 1485 to 1490 Umi,,, 1490 to 1525 Kealiiokaloa,,, 1525 to 1535 Keawenui,,, 1535 to 1565 Kaikilani and Lonoikamakahiki,,, 1565 to 1595 Keakealanikane,,, 1595 to 1625 Keakamahana,,, 1625 to 1655 Keakealaniwahine,,, 1655 to 1685 Keawe and sister,,, 1685 to 1720 Alapanui,,, 1720 to 1754 Kalaniopuu,,, 1754 to 1782 Kamehameha I,,, 1782 to 1819 Kamehameha II.--Liholiho,,, 1819 to 1824 Kaahumanu regency,,, 1824 to 1833 Kamehameha III.--Kauikeaouli,,, 1833 to 1854 Kamehameha IV,,, 1854 to 1863 Kamehameha V.--Lot,,, 1863 to 1872 Lunalilo,,, 1872 to 1873 Kalakaua,,, 1874 to ---- Having thus briefly sketched the outlines of the prominent political events of the islands, the ancient religion of the Hawaiians will next be referred to; and as the tabu was no less a religious than a secular prerogative, it may properly be considered in connection with the priesthood. A knowledge of the power, scope and sanctity of the tabu is essential to a proper understanding of the relations existing in the past between the people and their political and religious rulers, and this great governing force will now claim our attention.
The Legends and Myths of Hawaii
THE TABUStrictly speaking, the ancient tabu, or kapu, was a prerogative adhering exclusively to political and ecclesiastical rank. It was a command either to do or not to do, and the meaning of it was, "Obey or die." It was common to the Polynesian tribes, and was a protection to the lives, property and dignity of the priesthood and nobility. The religious tabus were well understood by the people, as were also the personal or perpetual tabus of the ruling families; but the incidental tabus were oppressive, irksome and dangerous to the masses, as they were liable to be thoughtlessly violated, and death was the usual penalty. Everything pertaining to the priesthood and temples was sacred, or tabu, and pigs designed for sacrifice, and running at large with the temple mark on them, could not be molested. It was a violation of perpetual tabu to cross the shadow of the king, to stand in his presence without permission, or to approach him except on the knees. This did not apply to the higher grades of chiefs, who themselves possessed tabu rights. Favorite paths, springs, streams and bathing-places were at intervals tabued to the exclusive use of the kings and temples, and squid, turtle, and two or three species of birds could be eaten only by the priests and tabu nobility. Yellow was the tabu color of royalty, and red of the priesthood, and mantles of the feathers of the oo and mamo could be worn only by kings and princes. Feather capes of mingled red and yellow distinguished the lesser nobility. Women were tabued from eating plantains, bananas, and cocoanuts; also the flesh of swine and certain fish, among them the kumu, moano, ulua, honu, ea, hahalua and naia; and men and women were allowed under no circumstances to partake of food together. Hence, when Liholiho, in 1819, openly violated this fundamental tabu by eating with his queen, he defied the gods of his fathers and struck at the very foundation of the religious faith of his people. The general tabus declared by the supreme chief or king were proclaimed by heralds, while the puloulou--a staff surmounted by a crown of white or black kapa--placed at the entrance of temples, royal residences and the mansions of tabu chiefs, or beside springs, groves, paths, or bathing-places, was a standing notification against trespass. General tabus were declared either to propitiate the gods or in celebration of important events. They were either common or strict, and frequently embraced an entire district and continued from one to ten days. During the continuance of a common tabu the masses were merely required to abstain from their usual occupations and attend the services at the heiaus, or temples; but during a strict tabu every fire and every light was extinguished, no canoe was shoved from the shore, no bathing was permitted, the pigs and fowls were muzzled or placed under calabashes that they might utter no noise, the people conversed in whispers, and the priests and their assistants were alone allowed to be seen without their places of abode. It was a season of deathly silence, and was thought to be especially grateful to the gods. Some of the royal tabus, centuries back in the past, were frivolous and despotic, such as regulating the wearing of beards and compelling all sails to be lowered on passing certain coast points; but, however capricious or oppressive, the tabu was seldom violated, and its maintenance was deemed a necessary protection to the governing classes.
The Legends and Myths of Hawaii
ANCIENT HAWAIIAN RELIGIONThe ancient religion of the Hawaiians, of which the tabu formed an essential feature, was a theocracy of curious structure. It was a system of idolatrous forms and sacrifices engrafted without consistency on the Jewish story of the creation, the fall of man, the revolt of Lucifer, the Deluge, and the repopulation of the earth. The legends of the Hawaiians were preserved with marvellous integrity. Their historians were the priests, who at intervals met in council and recited and compared their genealogical meles, in order that nothing might be either changed or lost. How did the Hawaiian priesthood become possessed of the story of the Hebrew genesis? It was old to them when the Resolution and Discovery dropped their anchors in Kealakeakua Bay; old to them when one or more chance parties of Spanish sailors in the sixteenth century may have looked in on them for a moment while on their way to the Spice Islands; and it was probably old to them when the Hawaiians found their present home in the sixth century, and when the Polynesians left the coast of Asia four hundred years earlier. One theory is that the story was acquired through Israelitish contact with the ancestors of the Polynesians while the latter were drifting eastward from the land of their nativity. But the more reasonable assumption seems to be that the Hawaiian theogony, so strangely perpetuated, is an independent and perhaps original version of a series of creation legends common in the remote past to the Cushite, Semite and Aryan tribes, and was handed down quite as accurately as the Jewish version before it became fixed in written characters. In fact, in some respects the Hawaiian seems to be more complete than the Jewish version. From the beginning, according to Hawaiian story, a trinity of gods existed, who were the sole and all-pervading intelligences of chaos, or night--a condition represented by the Hawaiian word Po. These gods were: Kane, the originator; Ku, the architect and builder; and Lono, the executor and director of the elements. By the united will of Hikapoloa, or the trinity, light was brought into chaos. They next created the heavens, three in number, as their dwelling-places, and then the earth, sun, moon and stars. From their spittle they next created a host of angels to minister to their wants. Finally, man was created. His body was formed of red earth mingled with the spittle of Kane, and his head of whitish clay brought by Lono from the four quarters of the earth. The meaning of Adam is red, and it will be remarked that the Hawaiian Adam was made of earth of that color. He was made in the image of Kane, who breathed into his nostrils, and he became alive. Afterwards, from one of his ribs, taken from his side while he slept, a woman was created. The man was called Kumu-honua, and the woman Ke-ola-ku-honua. The newly-created pair were placed in a beautiful paradise called Paliuli. Three rivers of "the waters of life" ran through it, on the banks of which grew every inviting fruit, including the "tabued bread-fruit tree" and "sacred apple-tree," with which are connected the fall and expulsion of the man and woman from their earthly paradise. The three rivers had their source in a beautiful lake, fed by "the living waters of Kane." The waters were filled with fish which fire could not destroy, and on being sprinkled with them the dead were restored to life. Legends relate instances in which these waters were procured, through the favor of the gods, for the restoration to life of distinguished mortals. As a specimen of the chants perpetuating these traditions and embellishing the plainer prose recitals, the following extract relating to the creation is given: "Kane of the great Night, Ku and Lono of the great Night, Hika-po-loa the king. The tabued Night that is set apart, The poisonous Night, The barren, desolate Night, The continual darkness of midnight, The Night, the reviler. O Kane, O Ku-ka-pao, And great Lono dwelling in the water, Brought forth are Heaven and Earth, Quickened, increased, moving, Raised up into Continents. Kane, Lord of Night, Lord the Father, Ku-ka-pao, in the hot heavens, Great Lono with the flashing eyes, Lightning-like has the Lord Established in truth, O Kane, master-worker; The Lord creator of mankind: Start, work, bring forth the chief Kumu-honua, And Ola-ku-honua, the woman; Dwelling together are they two. Dwelling in marriage (is she) with the husband, the brother." Among the angels created was Kanaloa, the Hawaiian Lucifer, who incited a rebellion in heaven, with the results, strangely enough, related in immortal song by Milton. When man was created, Kanaloa demanded his adoration. This was refused by Kane, as angels and man were alike the creations of Deity, whereupon Kanaloa ambitiously resolved to create a man of his own who would worship him. Kane allowed him to proceed with his seditious work. He made a man in the exact image of Kumu-honua, but could not give it life. He breathed into its nostrils, but it would not rise; he called to it, but it would not speak. This exasperated him, and he determined to destroy the man made by the gods. He therefore crept into Paliuli in the form of a moo, or lizard, and, through some deception not definitely stated by tradition, Kumu-honua and his mate committed some offence for which they were driven from paradise by the "large, white bird of Kane." Kumu-honua had three sons, the second of whom was slain by the first. The name of the Hawaiian Cain is Laka. Ka Pili was the youngest son, and thirteen generations are named between him and the Deluge, whereas the Hebrew version records but ten on the corresponding line of Seth. The Hawaiian Noah is called Nuu. At the command of the gods he constructed an ark, and entered it with his wife and three sons, and a male and female of every breathing thing. The waters came and covered the earth. When they subsided the gods entered the ark, which was resting on a mountain overlooking a beautiful valley, and commanded Nuu to go forth with all of life that the ark contained. In gratitude for his deliverance Nuu offered a sacrifice to the moon, mistaking it for Kane. Descending on a rainbow, that deity reproved his thoughtlessness, but left the bow as a perpetual token of his forgiveness. Continuing the genealogical record, ten generations are given between Nuu and Ku Pule, who "removed to a southern country," taking with him as a wife his slave-woman Ahu. So was it with Abraham. Ku Pule established the practice of circumcision, and was the grandfather of Kini-lau-a-mano, whose twelve children became the founders of twelve tribes, from one of which--the Menehune--the Hawaiians are made to descend. A story similar to that of Joseph is also given, and mention is made of the subsequent return of the Menehune people to the land set apart for their occupation by Kane. Two brothers led them over deserts and through waters, and after many tribulations they reached their destination. This would seem to imply that the Menehune people were one of the tribes of Israel; yet it is more probable that they had their origin in some one of the other twelveships into which the early Asiatic tribes were in many instances divided, and that the stories of Joseph and the Exodus became a part of their folk-lore through contact with other races. The genealogical line from the Hawaiian Adam to the grandson of Ku Pule--that is, until the time of Jacob--has been brought down through three distinct traditional channels. The agreement of the several versions is remarkable, but the one brought to the islands by the high-priest Paao in the eleventh century, and retained by his ecclesiastical successors, is regarded as the most authentic. It was an heirloom of the priesthood, and was never communicated beyond the walls of the temples. With the settlement of the Menehune people in the land set apart for them by Kane, the Hawaiian legends cease to remind us of the later history of the Hebrews. There the similarity of historic incident abruptly ends, and, with an uncertain stride of twelve or thirteen generations, the chiefly line is brought down to Wakea and his wife Papa, mythical rulers of superhuman attributes, who must have existed before the Polynesians left the Asiatic coast, although in some legends they are connected not only with the first settlement of the Hawaiian archipelago, but with the creation of its islands. A few of the many legends relating to the creation and first settlement of the islands will be noted. One of them in substance is that Hawaii-loa, a distinguished chief, and fourth in generation from Kini-lau-a-mano, sailed westward, and, guided by the Pleiades, discovered the Hawaiian group. He gave to the largest island his own name, and to the others the names of his children. Another tradition refers to Papa, the wife of Wakea, as a tabued descendant of Hawaii-loa, and superior in caste to her husband. Mutual jealousies embittered their lives and led to strange events. Wakea found favor with the beautiful Hina, and the island of Molokai was born of their embrace. In retaliation Papa smiled on the warrior Lua, and the fruit of their meeting was the fair island of Oahu. Hence the old names of Molokai-Hina and Oahu-a-Lua. Quite as fanciful a legend relates that an immense bird laid an egg on the waters of the ocean. It was hatched by the warm winds of the tropics, and the Hawaiian group came into being. Shortly after a man and woman, with a pair each of dogs, hogs and fowls, came in a canoe from Kahiki, landed on the eastern coast of Hawaii, and became the progenitors of the Hawaiian people. Fifty-six generations are mentioned from Wakea to the present ruling family. The legends of the twenty-nine generations covering the period between Wakea and Maweke--which brings the record down to the eleventh century, when the second migratory influx from the southern islands occurred--abound in wars, rebellions and popular movements, in which giants, demi-gods, and even the gods themselves took part; and it was doubtless during that period that the idolatrous forms and practices of the Hawaiian religion, as it existed a century ago, were engrafted on an older and simpler creed confined to the worship of the godhead. When the high-priest Paao arrived with Pili he introduced some new gods while recognizing the old, strengthened and enlarged the scope of the tabu, and established an hereditary priesthood independent of, and second only in authority to, the supreme political head. Different grades of priests also came into existence, such as seers, prophets, astrologers and kahunas of various function, including the power of healing and destroying. In fact, the priesthood embraced ten distinct grades or colleges, each possessing and exercising powers peculiar to it, and the mastery of all of them was one of the qualifications of the high-priesthood. The tutelar deity of the entire body was Uli. The form of the heiau, or temple, was changed by Paao and his successors, and the masses mingled less freely in the ceremonies of sacrifice and other forms of worship. The high-priesthood became more mysterious and exclusive, and assumed prerogatives above the reach of royalty. The old Hawaiian trinity--Kane, Ku and Lono--remained the supreme gods of the pantheon, but Kanaloa, the spirit of evil, was accorded beneficent attributes and exalted among them. The regions of Po, or death, were presided over by Milu, a wicked king who once ruled on earth, while the spirits of favorite chiefs were conveyed by the divine messenger Kuahairo to the presence of Kaono-hio-kala, whose beatific abode was somewhere in the heavens. Another belief was that the ruler of Po was Manua, and that Milu did not follow Akea, the first king of Hawaii, to that place, but dwelt in a region far westward and beneath the sea. Although significant of darkness, Po was not without light. Like Tartarus, it could be visited by favored mortals, and the dead were sometimes brought back from it to earth. Pele, the dreadful goddess of the volcanoes, with her malignant relatives, was added to the Hawaiian deities during the second influx from the south, and temples were erected to her worship all over the volcanic districts of Hawaii. At that period were also introduced Laamaomao, the god of the winds, the poison goddesses Kalaipahoa and Kapo, and many other deities. But the worship of the Hawaiians was not confined to Kane, Ku, Lono and Pele. Heiaus were erected to the war-gods of the kings, and great sacrifices were frequently made to them, generally of human beings, preceding, during, and following campaigns and battles. Humbler temples were also maintained to fish, shark, lizard and other gods, where sacrifices of fish and fruits were offered. To the superstitious masses the land abounded in gnomes and fairies, and the waters in nymphs and monsters, whose caprices are themes of a bountiful store of folk-lore. With almost every stream, gorge and headland is connected some supernatural story, and the bards and musicians of old earned an easy support by keeping alive these legends of the people. To some supernatural powers were given, and malignant and beneficent spirits assumed human forms and flitted among the palms in the guise of birds. The people made their own household gods, and destroyed them when they failed to contribute to their success. For example, at Ninole, on the southeast coast of Hawaii, is a small beach called Kaloa, the stones of which, it was thought, propagated by contact with each other. From the large stones the people made gods to preside over their games. When a stone was selected for a god it was taken to the heiau, where certain ceremonies were performed over it. It was then dressed and taken to witness some game or pastime. If the owner was successful it was accepted as a god; if unsuccessful more than once or twice, it was thrown away or wrought into an axe or adze. Sometimes a stone of each sex was selected, wrapped in kapa, and laid away. In time a small pebble was found with them. It increased in size, and was finally taken to the heiau and formally made into a god. Such is the story that is still told. The people believed that the spirits of the departed continued to hover around their earthly homes, and the shades of their ancestors were appealed to in prayer. The owl and a bird called the alae were regarded as gods, and scores of other deities, controlling the elements or presiding over the several industries and amusements of the masses, were recognized and placated with sacrifices when in unfavorable moods. They had a god of the winds, of the husbandman, the warrior, the canoe-maker, the hula dancer, the distiller, the orator, the doctor and the sorcerer, and many gods of the sailor and the fisherman. The services of the high-priest did not extend to these popular deities on any of the islands of the group. The heiaus over which he presided were dedicated either to the higher gods of the pantheon or to the war-god of the king or supreme chief. He was next to the king in authority, and always of distinguished blood. Surrounded by seers, prophets and assistants, and claiming to hold direct intercourse with the gods, he was consulted on all matters of state consequence, and the auguries of the temple were always accepted with respect and confidence. The high-priest sometimes had charge of the war-god of the king, and in such cases went with it to the field of battle. Hua, one of the ancient kings of Maui, defied the priesthood and slew his high-priest. As a warning to ruling chiefs, the story of the consequences of Hua's madness has come down with great conciseness through the chroniclers of the priesthood. Hua's kingdom became a desolation. Wherever he traveled all vegetation perished, and he finally died of famine on Hawaii, and his bones were left to whiten in the sun. There were several classes of priests, or kahunas, beside those who were connected with the temples. They were seers, doctors and dealers in enchantment, and subsisted by preying on the people through their superstitions. All physical illness was attributed either to the anger of the gods, witchcraft, or the prayers of a malignant kahuna. The afflicted person usually sent for a kahuna, whose first business was to discover the cause of the malady through incantation. This ascertained, an effort was made to counteract the spells or prayers which were wearing away the life of the patient, and sometimes with so great success that the affliction was transferred to the party whose malice had invoked it. The belief that one person might be prayed to death by another was universal with the ancient Hawaiians, and not a few of the race would turn pale to-day if told that one of priestly strain was earnestly praying for his death. In praying a person to death it was essential that the kahuna should possess something closely connected with the person of the victim--a lock of his hair, a tooth, a nail-paring, or a small quantity of his spittle, for example; hence the office of spittoon-bearer to the ancient kings was entrusted only to chiefs of some rank, who might be expected to guard with care the royal expectoration. The belief was general that the spirits of the dead might be seen and conversed with by the kilos, or sorcerers, and the spirits of the living, it was claimed, were sometimes invoked from their slumbering tabernacles by priests of exceptional sanctity. The spirit of the dead was called unihipili, while the disembodied and visible spirit of a living person was known as kahoaka. Of all the deities Pele was held in greatest dread on the island of Hawaii, where volcanic irruptions were frequent. With her five brothers and eight sisters--all representing different elemental forces--she dwelt in state in the fiery abysses of the volcanoes, moving from one to another at her pleasure, and visiting with inundations of lava such districts as neglected to cast into the craters proper offerings of meats and fruits, or angered her in other respects. One of her forms was that of a beautiful woman, in which she sometimes sought human society, and numerous legends of her affairs of love have been preserved. She was regarded as the special friend of Kamehameha I., and the suffocation of a portion of the army of Keoua, near the crater of Kilauea, in 1791, was credited directly to her. The last public recognition of the powers of Pele occurred as late as 1882 on the island of Hawaii. The village of Hilo was threatened. A broad stream of lava from Mauna Loa, after a devastating journey of twenty-five miles or more, reached a point in its downward course within a mile or two of the bay of Hilo. Its movement was slow, like that of all lava-streams some distance from their source, but its steadily approaching line of fire rendered it almost certain that the village, and perhaps the harbor, of Hilo would be destroyed within a very few days. Trenches were digged, walls were raised, and prayers were offered, but all to no purpose. Downward moved the awful avalanche of fire. Ruth, a surviving sister of the fourth and fifth Kamehamehas, was then living in Honolulu. She was a proud, stern old chiefess, who thought too little of the whites to attempt to acquire their language. The danger threatening Hilo was reported to her. "I will save the fish-ponds of Hilo," said the old chiefess. "Pele will not refuse to listen to the prayer of a Kamehameha." She chartered a steamer, left Honolulu for Hilo with a large number of attendants, and the next day stood facing the still moving flow of lava. Ascending an elevation immediately back of the village, she caused to be erected there a rude altar, before which she made her supplications to Pele, with offerings fed to the front of the advancing lava. This done, she descended the hill with confidence and returned to Honolulu. The stream of fire ceased to move, and to-day its glistening front stands like a wall around Hilo. "A remarkable coincidence," explained the whites. "The work of Pele," whispered the natives, although the last of the temples of that goddess had been destroyed sixty years before. Without discussing the cause--a natural one beyond a doubt--it may be remarked that the result has been something of a renewal with the natives of faith in the discarded gods of their fathers. All of the minor gods of the Hawaiians seem to have been independent and self-controlling. It is not claimed that they derived their powers from, were directed by, or were responsible to the supreme godhead. Hence the mythology of the Polynesians, strong though it be in individual powers and personations of the forces and achievements of nature, presents itself to us in a fragmentary form, like an incongruous patchwork of two or more half-developed or half-forgotten religious systems. One of the most noted of the independent deities of the group was Kalaipahoa, the poison-goddess of Molokai. Some centuries back she came to the islands, with two or three of her sisters, from an unknown land, and left her mark in many localities. She entered a grove of trees on the island of Molokai, and left in them a poison so intense that birds fell dead in flying over their branches. The king of the island was advised by his high-priest to have a god hewn from one of the poisoned trees. Hundreds of his subjects perished in the undertaking, but the image was finally finished and presented to the king, wrapped in many folds of kapa. It came down the generations an object of fear, and was finally seized by the first Kamehameha, and at his death divided among his principal chiefs. Kuula was the principal god of the fishermen on all the islands of the group. Rude temples were erected to him on the shores of favorite fishing-grounds, and the first fish of every catch was his due. His wife was Hina, and she was appealed to when her husband withheld his favors. Laeapua and Kaneapua were gods worshipped by the fishermen of Lanai, and other fish-gods were elsewhere recognized. There were a number of shark and lizard gods. They were powerful and malignant, and greatly feared by the classes who frequented the sea. Heiaus were erected to them on promontories overlooking the ocean, and the offerings to them of fish and fruits were always liberal. They assumed the forms of gigantic sharks and lizards, and not unfrequently lashed the waters into fury and destroyed canoes. Moaalii was the great shark-god of Molokai and Oahu. Apukohai and Uhumakaikai were the evil gods infesting the waters of Kauai. Lonoakihi was the eel-god of all the islands, and Ukanipo was the shark-god of Hawaii. Among the celebrated war-gods of the kings of the group was that of Kamehameha I. It was called Kaili, or Ku-kaili-moku, and accompanied the great chief in all of his important battles. It had been the war-god of the Hawaiian kings for many generations, and was given in charge of Kamehameha by his royal uncle, Kalauiopuu. It was a small wooden image, roughly carved, and adorned with a head-dress of yellow feathers. It is said that at times, in the heat of battle, it uttered cries which were heard above the clash of arms. It is not known what became of the image after the death of Kamehameha. The public heiaus, or temples, of the Hawaiians were usually walled enclosures of from one to five acres, and generally irregular in form. The walls were frequently ten feet in thickness and twenty feet in height, and the material used, was unhewn stone, without mortar or cement. They narrowed slightly from the base upward, and were sometimes capped with hewn slabs of coral or other rock not too firm in texture to be worked with tools of stone.
The Legends and Myths of Hawaii
Within this enclosure was an inner stone or wooden temple of small dimensions, called the luakina, or house of sacrifice, and in front of the entrance to it stood the lele, or altar, consisting of a raised platform of stone. The inner temple was sacred to the priests. Within it stood the anu, a small wicker enclosure, from which issued the oracles of the kaulas, or prophets, and around the walls were ranged charms and gods of especial sanctity. Beside the entrance to this sacred apartment were images of the principal gods, and the outer and inner walls were surmounted by lines of stone and wooden idols. :::
The Legends and Myths of Hawaii
ANCIENT HAWAIIAN RELIGIONThe enclosure contained other buildings for the accommodation of the high-priest and his assistants; also a house for the governing chief or king, some distance removed from the domiciles of the priest. It was used temporarily by him when on a visit of consultation to the temple, or as a place of refuge in a time of danger. On each side of the entrance to the outer enclosure was a tabu staff, or elevated cross, and near it was a small walled structure in which were slain the victims for the altar. When an augury was required by the king he frequently visited the heiau in person and propounded his questions to the kaulas. If the answers from the anu were vague and unsatisfactory, other methods of divination were resorted to, such as the opening of pigs and fowls, the shapes of the clouds, the flights of birds, etc. After prayers by the priest the animals were killed, and auguries were gathered from the manner in which they expired, the appearance of the intestines--which were supposed to be the seat of thought--and other signs. Sometimes the spleens of swine were removed, if auguries of war were required, and held above the heads of the priests while prayers were offered. Before engaging in war or any other important enterprise attended by doubt or danger, human and other sacrifices were made, of which there were fifteen different kinds, and the first prisoners taken in battle were reserved for the altar. The priests named the number of men required for sacrifice, and the king provided them, sometimes from prisoners and malefactors, and sometimes from promiscuous drafts along the highways. The victims were slain with clubs without the temple walls, and their bodies, with other offerings, were laid on the altar to decay. When the king or other high chief made a special offering of an enemy, the left eye of the victim, after the body had been brought to the altar, was removed and handed to him by the officiating priest. After making a semblance of eating it the chief tossed it on the altar. During the construction of heiaus human sacrifices were usually offered as the work progressed, and when completed they were dedicated with great pomp and solemnity, and the altars were sometimes heaped with human bodies. In dedicating ordinary temples the kaiopokeo prayer was employed; but in consecrating heiaus of the first class the kuawili invocation was recited, a prayer continuing from sunrise to sunset. Oil and holy water were sprinkled on the altars and sacred vessels, and the services were under the direction of the high-priest, and generally in the presence of the governing chief. The ordinary services in the temples consisted of offerings of fruits and meats, and of chants, prayers and responses, in which the people sometimes joined. Women did not participate in the ceremonies of the temples, but the exclusion found ample compensation in their exemption from sacrifice when human bodies were required. Temples of refuge, called puhonuas, were maintained on Hawaii, and possibly on Lanai and Oahu in the remote past; but concerning the latter there is some doubt. One of the puhonuas on Hawaii was at Honaunau, near the sacred burial-place of Hale-o-Keawe, and the other at Waipio, connected with the great heiau of Paa-kalani. Their gates were always open, and priests guarded their entrances. Any one who entered their enclosures for protection, whether chief or slave, whether escaping criminal or warrior in retreat, was safe from molestation, even though the king pursued. These places of refuge, with the right of circumcision, which existed until after the death of the first Kamehameha, suggest a Polynesian contact with the descendants of Abraham far back in the past, if not a kinship with one of the scattered tribes of Israel. In further evidence of the wanderings of the early Polynesians in western and southern Asia, and of their intercourse with the continental races, it may be mentioned that a disposition toward phallic worship, attested by tradition and existing symbols, followed them far out into the Pacific; and that connected with their story of the creation, so closely resembling the Hebrew version, is the Buddhist claim of previous creations which either ran their course or were destroyed by an offended godhead. Nor is Hawaiian tradition content with the mere advancement of the theory of successive creations. It makes specific reference to a creation next preceding that of their Ku-mu-honua, or Adam, and gives the names of the man and woman created and destroyed. They were Wela-ahi-lani and Owe. It has been mentioned that the birds pueo and alae were sacred and sometimes worshipped. Among the sacred fish were the aku and opelu. How they became so is told in a legend relating to the high-priest Paao, who migrated to the islands in the eleventh century and induced Pili to follow him. Before visiting Hawaii, Paao lived near his brother, probably on the island of Samoa. Both were priests and well skilled in sorcery and divination. The name of the brother was Lonopele. Both were affluent and greatly respected. Lonopele's lands were near the sea and produced the choicest varieties of fruits. One season, when the fruits were ripening, Lonopele discovered that some one was surreptitiously gathering them in the night-time, and accused one of the sons of Paao of stealing them. Indignant at the charge, and discerning no better way of disproving it, Paao killed and opened his son, and showed his brother that there was no fruit in the stomach of the boy. Grieved at the death of his son, and holding his brother accountable for it, Paao concluded to emigrate to some other land, and built strong canoes for that purpose. About the time they were completed a son of Lonopele chanced to be in the neighborhood, and Paao, remembering the death of his own son, ordered the boy to be killed. He was missed, and search was made for him, and his body was finally found near Paao's canoes. Lonopele charged his brother with the murder. Paao did not deny it, and Lonopele ordered him to leave the island. To avoid further trouble Paao set sail at once with a party consisting of thirty-eight persons. One tradition says Pili was of the party; but he must have left Samoa some years later, as Paao sent or went for him after reaching Hawaii. As the canoes were moving from the shore several prophets, standing on the cliffs above, expressed a desire to join the party. "Very well," was the answer of Paao; "if you are prophets, as you say, leap from the cliffs and I will take you aboard." Several leaped into the sea and were dashed against the rocks and drowned. Finally Makuakaumana, a prophet of genuine inspiration, who was to have accompanied the expedition, reached the shore and discovered the canoes of Paao far out on the ocean. Raising his voice, he hailed Paao and asked that a canoe might be sent back for him. "Not so," returned the priest in a loud voice, which the favoring winds bore to the belated prophet. "To return would be an omen of evil. There is room for you, but if you would go with us you must fly to our canoes." And, flying, the prophet reached the canoes in safety. Observing the canoes of Paao as they were disappearing in the distance, Lonopele sent a violent storm to destroy them; but the strong fish Aku assisted in propelling the canoes against the storm, and the mighty fish Opelu swam around them and broke the waves with his body. The malignant brother then sent the great bird Kihahakaiwainapali to vomit over the canoes and sink them; but they were hastily covered with mats, and thus escaped destruction. After a long voyage Paao landed in Puna, on the coast of Hawaii. Thenceforth the aku and opelu were held sacred by Paao and his descendants. Following is a list of the supreme and principal elemental, industrial and tutelar deities of the Hawaiian group: The Godhead. Kane, the organizer. Ku, the architect and builder. Lono, the executor. Kanaloa, the Lucifer, or fallen angel. Rulers in the realms of Po, or death. Akea, the first Hawaiian king, who, after life, founded the island-kingdom of Kapapahaunaumoku, in the realms of Po, or death. Milu, the successor of Akea, or who, according to another belief, accompanied Akea to Po, and became the perpetual ruler of a kingdom on its western confines. Manua, referred to in some legends as the supreme sovereign of Po. With him abide the spirits of distinguished chiefs and priests, who wander among beautiful streams and groves of kou trees, and subsist on lizards and butterflies. Minor Celestial Deities. Kaonohiokala (the eyeball of the sun), a celestial god, with an abode somewhere in the heavens, and to whose presence the departed spirits of chiefs were conducted. Kuahairo, the messenger who conducted the souls of distinguished chiefs to Kaonohiokala. Olopue, a god of Maui, who bore the spirits of noted chiefs to the celestial paradise. Kamehameha sought to secure possession of a very sacred image of this god, inherited by Kahekili, moi of Maui. The Volcanic Deities. Pele, the ruling goddess of the volcanoes, with her sisters, Hiiaka-wawahi-lani, the heaven-rending cloud-holder; Makoie-nawahi-waa, the fire-eyed canoe-breaker; Hiiaka-noho-lani, the heaven-dwelling cloud-holder; Hiiaka-kaalawa-maka, the quick-glancing cloud-holder; Hiiaka-hoi-ke-poli-a-pele, the cloud-holder kissing the bosom of Pele; Hiiaka-ka-pu-enaena, the red-hot mountain lifting clouds; Hiiaka-kaleiia, the wreath encircled cloud-holder; Hiiaka-opio, the young cloud-holder; and their brothers, Kamo-hoalii, or King Moho, the king of vapor or steam; Kapohoikahiola, god of explosions; Keuakepo, god of the night-rain, or rain of fire; Kane-kahili, the husband of thunder, or thundering god; Keoahi-kamakaua, the fire-thrusting child of war. [The last two were hunchbacks.] Akuapaao, the war-god of Paao, taken from the temple of Manini by Umi. Ku-kaili-moku, the war-god of Kamehameha I., bequeathed to him by Kalaniopuu. Deities of the Elements. Laamaomao, god of the winds, the Hawaiian Æolus, whose home was on Molokai. Hinakuluiau, a goddess of the rain. Hinakealii and Hookuipaele, sisters of Hinakuluiau. Mooaleo, a powerful gnome of Lanai, conquered by Kaululaau, a prince of Maui. Kuula, a god of the fishermen. Hina, wife of Kuula. Laeapua and Kaneapua, gods of the fishermen of Lanai. Hinahele and her daughter Aiaiakuula, goddesses of the fishermen of Hawaii. Ukanipo, the great shark-god of Hawaii. Moaalii, the principal shark-god of Molokai and Oahu. Lonoakiki, the great eel-god of all the group. Apukohai and Uhumakaikai, evil shark or fish-gods of Kauai. Gods of the Arts and Industries. Akua-ula, the god of inspiration. Haulili, a god of speech, special to Kauai. Koleamoku, the deified chief who first learned the use of herbs and the art of healing from the gods. He was a patron of the kahunas. Olonopuha and Makanuiailone, deified disciples of Koleamoku. Kaanahua, the second son of the high-priest Luahoomoe, and Kukaoo, gods of the husbandman. Lakakane, god of the hula and similar sports. Mokualii, god of the canoe-makers. Hai, god of kapa making. Ulaulakeahi, god of distillation. Kalaipahoa, a goddess who entered and poisoned trees. Kapo and Pua, sisters of Kalaipahoa, with like functions. Kama, a powerful tutelar god of all the islands. Laauli, the god who made inviolable laws. Kuahana, the god who killed men wantonly. Leleioio, the god who inflicted bodily pain. Lelehookaahaa, wife of Leleioio. Lie, a goddess of the mountains, who braided leis. Maikahulipu, the god who assisted in righting upset canoes. Pohakaa, a god living in precipitous places, and who rolled down stones, to the fright and injury of passers. Keoloewa, a god worshipped in the heiaus of Maui. Kiha, a goddess of Maui, held in great reverence. Uli, the god of the sorcerers. Pekuku, a powerful god of Hawaii. Lonoikeaualii, a god worshipped in the heiaus of Oahu. Kauakahi, a god of Maui and Molokai. Hiaka, a mountain god of Kauai. Kapo and Kapua, and several others, messengers of the gods. Ouli, the god appealed to by the kahunas in praying people to death. Maliu, any deified deceased chief. Akua noho, gods possessing the spirits of departed mortals, of which there were many. Kiha-wahine and Kalo, noted deities of the class of akua-noho. Mahulu, a name common to three gods in the temples of Lono. Manu, the names of two gods at the outer gates of heiaus dedicated to Lono. Puea, the god worshipped in the darkness. Kaluanuunohonionio, one of the principal gods of the luakina, or sacrificial house of the temple. Kanenuiakea, a general name for a class of thirteen gods connected with the larger heiaus.