HAWAIIAN HISTORICAL LEGENDS

                               By
                        W. D. WESTERVELT
          Author of “Maui the Demi-God of Polynesia”;
     “Legends of Old Honolulu”; “Hawaiian Gods and Ghosts”;
       “Around the Poi-bowl”; “Hawaiian Volcanoes,” etc.


                          ILLUSTRATED


                     New York      Chicago
                   Fleming H. Revell Company
                      London and Edinburgh








                               To
              my wife, Caroline Castle Westervelt,
             and my son, Andrew Castle Westervelt,
               this sixth of my books on Hawaiian
               Literature is heartily dedicated.








PREFACE


From mist to sunshine—from fabled gods to a constitution and
legislature as a Territory of the United States—this is the outline of
the stories told in the present volume. This outline is thoroughly
Hawaiian in the method of presentation. The old people rehearsed
stories depending upon stories told before. They cared very little for
dates. This is a book of stories related to each other.

Veiled by the fogs of imagination are many interesting facts concerning
kings and chiefs which have been passed over untouched—such as the
voyages of the vikings of the Pacific, who left names and legends
around the islands. For instance, Hilo, in the island of Hawaii, is
named after Whiro, a noted viking who sailed through many island groups
with his brother, Punga, after whom the district of Puna is named.
Ka-kuhi-hewa, ruler of Oahu, was the King Arthur of the Hawaiians, with
a band of noted chiefs around his poi-bowl. Umi was a remarkable king
of the island Hawaii. Many individual incidents of these persons are
yet to be related.

The Hawaiian language papers since 1835, Fornander’s Polynesian
Researches, and many of the old Hawaiians have been of great assistance
in searching for these “fragments of Hawaiian history,” now set forth
in this book.


    W. D. W.








PRONUNCIATION


In reading Hawaiian words do not end a syllable with a consonant, and
pronounce all vowels as if they were Italian or French.


                       a = a in father.
                       e = e in they.
                       i = i in pin.
                       o = o in hold.
                       u = oo in spoon.


This is a fairly good rule for the pronunciation of all Polynesian
words.








CONTENTS


    CHAPTER                                    PAGE

        I.   Maui the Polynesian                 13
       II.   Maui Seeking Immortality            19
      III.   The Water of Life                   24
       IV.   A Viking of the Pacific             35
        V.   Home of the Polynesians             41
       VI.   Sons of Kii                         47
      VII.   Paao from Samoa                     65
     VIII.   Moikeha the Restless                79
       IX.   Laa from Tahiti                     86
        X.   First Foreigners                    93
       XI.   Captain Cook                       100
      XII.   The Ivory of Oahu                  114
     XIII.   The Alapa Regiment                 125
      XIV.   The Last Prophet of Oahu           143
       XV.   The Eight of Oahu                  149
      XVI.   The Red Mouth Gun                  155
     XVII.   The Law of the Splintered Paddle   162
    XVIII.   Last of the Tabu                   176
      XIX.   First Hawaiian Printing            183
       XX.   The First Constitution             189
      XXI.   The Hawaiian Flag                  200
             Index                              217





ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                   FACING PAGE

    Idols by Which Captain Cook Was Worshipped      Title page
    Spear Throwing Contest                                  62
    Chiefs in Feather Cloaks and Helmets                    88
    Landing of Warriors                                    134
    Hawaiian Grass Houses                                  172
    First Leaflet Printed, 1822                            184
    Title Page of First Hymn Book, 1823                    186
    First Bible Printing, 1827                             188








I

MAUI THE POLYNESIAN


Among the really ancient ancestors of the Hawaiian chiefs, Maui is one
of the most interesting. His name is found in different places in the
high chief genealogy. He belonged to the mist land of time. He was one
of the Polynesian demi-gods. He was possessed of supernatural power and
made use of all manner of enchantments. In New Zealand antiquity he was
said to have aided other gods in the creation of man.

Nevertheless he was very human. He lived in thatched houses, had wives
and children, and was scolded by the women for not properly supporting
his family. Yet he continually worked for the good of men. His
mischievous pranks would make him another Mercury living in any age
before the beginning of the Christian era.

When Maui was born his mother, not caring for him, cut off a lock of
her hair, tied it around him and cast him into the sea. In this way the
name came to him, Maui-Tiki-Tiki, “Maui formed in the topknot.”

The waters bore him safely. Jellyfish enwrapped him and mothered him.
The god of the seas protected him. He was carried to the god’s house
and hung up in the roof that he might feel the warm air of the fire and
be cherished into life.

When he was old enough he came to his relations while they were at
home, dancing and making merry. Little Maui crept in and sat down
behind his brothers. His mother called the children and found a strange
child, who soon proved that he was her son. Some of the brothers were
jealous, but the eldest addressed the others as follows:

“Never mind; let him be our dear brother. In the days of peace remember
the proverb, ‘When you are on friendly terms, settle your disputes in a
friendly way; when you are at war, you must redress your injuries by
violence.’ It is better for us, brothers, to be kind to other people.
These are the ways by which men gain influence—by labouring for
abundance of food to feed others, by collecting property to give to
others, and by similar means by which you promote the good of others.”

Thus, according to the New Zealand story related by Sir George Grey,
Maui was received in his home.

Maui’s home in Hawaii was for a long time enveloped in darkness.
According to some legends the skies pressed so closely and so heavily
upon the earth that when the plants began to grow all the leaves were
necessarily flat. According to other legends the plants had to push up
the clouds a little, and thus the leaves flattened out into larger
surface, so that they could better drive the skies back. Thus the
leaves became flat and have so remained through all the days of
mankind. The plants lifted the sky inch by inch until men were able to
crawl about between the heavens and the earth, thus passing from place
to place and visiting one another. After a long time Maui came to a
woman and said: “Give me a drink from your gourd calabash and I will
push the heavens higher.” The woman handed the gourd to him. When he
had taken a deep draught he braced himself against the clouds and
lifted them to the height of the trees. Again he hoisted the sky and
carried it to the tops of the mountains; then, with great exertion, he
thrust it up to the place it now occupies. Nevertheless, dark clouds
many times hang low along the great mountains and descend in heavy
rains, but they dare not stay, lest Maui, the strong, come and hurl
them so far away that they cannot come back again.

The Manahiki Islanders say that Maui desired to separate the sky from
the earth. His father, Ru, was the supporter of the heavens. Maui
persuaded him to assist in lifting the burden. They crowded it and bent
it upward. They were able to stand with the sky resting on their
shoulders. They heaved against the bending mass and it receded rapidly.
They quickly put the palms of their hands under it, then the tips of
their fingers, and it retreated farther and farther. At last, drawing
themselves out to gigantic proportions, they pushed the entire heavens
up to the very lofty position which they have ever since occupied.

On the island Hawaii, in a cave under a waterfall, dwelt
Hina-of-the-fire, the mother of Maui.

From this home Maui crossed to the island Maui, climbed a great
mountain, threw ropes made from fibres of plants around the sun’s legs,
pulled off many and then compelled the swift traveller of the heavens
to go slowly on its way that men might have longer and better days.

Maui’s home, at the best, was only a sorry affair. Gods and demi-gods
lived in caves and small grass houses. The thatch rapidly rotted and
required continual renewal. In a very short time the heavy rains beat
through the decaying roof. The home was without windows or doors, save
as low openings in the ends or sides allowed entrance to those willing
to crawl through. Here Maui lived on edible roots and fruits and raw
fish, knowing little about cooked food, for the art of fire-making was
not yet known.

By and by Maui learned to make fire by rubbing sticks together.

A family of mud hens, worshipped by some of the Hawaiians in later
years, understood the art of fire-making.

From the sea Maui and his brothers saw fire burning on a mountain side
but it was always put entirely out when they hastened to the spot.

Maui proposed to his brothers that they go fishing, leaving him to
watch the birds. But the Alae counted the fishermen and refused to
build a fire for the hidden one who was watching them. They said among
themselves, “There are three in the boat and we know not where the
other one is, we will make no fire to-day.”

So the experiment failed again and again. If one or two remained or if
all waited on the land there would be no fire—but the dawn which saw
the four brothers in the boat, saw also the fire on the land.

Finally Maui rolled some kapa cloth together and stuck it up in one end
of the canoe so that it would look like a man. He then concealed
himself near the haunt of the mud-hens, while his brothers went out
fishing. The birds counted the figures in the boat and then started to
build a heap of wood for the fire.

Maui was impatient—and just as an old bird began to select sticks with
which to make the flames he leaped swiftly out and caught her and held
her prisoner. He forgot for a moment that he wanted the secret of
fire-making. In his anger against the wise bird his first impulse was
to taunt her and then kill her for hiding the secret of fire.

But the bird cried out: “If you are the death of me—my secret will
perish also—and you cannot have fire.”

Maui then promised to spare her life if she would tell him what to do.

Then came a contest of wits. The bird told the demi-god to rub the
stalks of water plants together. He guarded the bird and tried the
plants. Then she told him to rub reeds together—but they bent and broke
and he could make no fire. He twisted her neck until she was half
dead—then she cried out: “I have hidden the fire in a green stick.”

Maui worked hard but not a spark of fire appeared. Again he caught his
prisoner by the head and wrung her neck, and she named a kind of dry
wood. Maui rubbed the sticks together but they only became warm. The
twisting process was resumed—and repeated until the mud-hen was almost
dead—and Maui had tried tree after tree. At last Maui found fire. Then
as the flames rose he said: “There is one more thing to rub.” He took a
fire stick and rubbed the top of the head of his prisoner until the
feathers fell off and the raw flesh appeared. Thus the Hawaiian mud-hen
and her descendants have ever since had bald heads, and the Hawaiians
have had the secret of fire-making.

Maui was a great discoverer of islands. Among other groups he “fished
up from the ocean” New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands with a magic
hook. One by one he pulled them to himself out of the deep waters. He
discovered them.

Thus Maui raised the sky, lassoed the sun, found fire and made the
earth habitable for man.








II

MAUI SEEKING IMMORTALITY


The story of Maui seeking immortality for the human race is one of the
finest myths in the world. For pure imagination and pathos it is
difficult to find any tale from Grecian or Latin literature to compare
with it. In Greek and Roman fables gods suffered for other gods, and
yet none were surrounded with such absolutely mythical experiences as
those through which the demi-god Maui of the Pacific ocean passed when
he entered the gates of death with the hope of winning immortality for
mankind. The really remarkable group of legends which cluster around
Maui is well concluded by the story of his unselfish and heroic battle
with death.

The different islands of the Pacific have their hades, or abode of the
dead. Sometimes the tunnels left by currents of melted lava running
toward the west are the passages into the home of departed spirits. In
Samoa there are two circular holes among the rocks at the west end of
the island Savaii. These are the entrances to the underworld for chiefs
and people. The spirits of those who die on the other islands leap into
the sea and swim around the land from island to island until they reach
Savaii. Then they plunge down into their heaven or their hades.

There is no escape from death. The natives of New Zealand say: “Man may
have descendants but the daughters of the night strangle his
offspring”; and again: “Men make heroes, but death carries them away.”

Maui once said to the goddess of the moon: “Let death be short. As the
moon dies and returns with new strength, so let men die and revive
again.”

But she replied: “Let death be very long, that man may sigh and sorrow.
When man dies let him go into darkness, become like earth, that those
he leaves behind may weep and wail and mourn.”

“Maui did not wish men to die but to live forever. Death appeared
degrading and an insult to the dignity of man. Man ought to die like
the moon which dips in the life-giving waters of Kane and is renewed
again, or like the sun, which daily sinks into the pit of night and
with renewed strength rises in the morning.”

The Hawaiian legends say that Maui was slain in a conflict with some of
the gods. The New Zealand legends give a more detailed account of his
death.

Maui sought the home of Hine-nui-te-po—the guardian of life. He heard
her order her attendants, the brightest flashes of lightning, to watch
for any one approaching and capture all who came walking upright as a
man. He crept past the attendants on hands and feet, found the place of
life, stole some of the food of the goddess and returned home. He
showed the food to his brothers and friends and persuaded them to go
with him into the darkness of the night of death. On the way he changed
them into the form of birds. In the evening they came to the house of
the goddess on an island long before fished up from the seas.

Maui warned the birds to refrain from making any noise while he made
the supreme effort of his life. He was about to enter upon his struggle
for immortality. He said to the birds: “If I go into the stomach of
this woman do not laugh until I have gone through her, and come out
again at her mouth; then you can laugh at me.”

His friends said: “You will be killed.” Maui replied: “If you laugh at
me when I have only entered her stomach I shall be killed, but if I
have passed through her and come out of her mouth I shall escape and
Hine-nui-te-po will die.”

His friends called out to him: “Go then. The decision is with you.”

Hine was sleeping soundly. The sunlight had almost passed away and the
house lay in quiet gloom. Maui came near to the sleeping goddess. Her
large fishlike mouth was open wide. He put off his clothing and
prepared to pass through the ordeal of going to the hidden source of
life, tear it out of the body of its guardian and carry it back with
him to mankind. He stood in all the glory of savage manhood. His body
was splendidly marked by the tattoo-bones, and now well oiled shone and
sparkled in the last rays of the setting sun.

He leaped through the mouth of the enchanted one and entered her
stomach, weapon in hand, to take out her heart, the vital principle
which he knew had its home somewhere within her being. He found
immortality on the other side of death. He turned to come back again
into life when suddenly a little bird laughed in a clear, shrill tone
and Great Hine, through whose mouth Maui was passing, awoke. Her sharp,
obsidian teeth closed with a snap upon Maui, cutting his body in the
centre. Thus Maui entered the gates of death, but was unable to return,
and death has ever since been victor over rebellious men. The natives
have the saying:

“If Maui had not died he could have restored to life all who had gone
before him, and thus succeeded in destroying death.”

Maui’s brothers took the dismembered body and buried it in a cave
called Te-ana-i-hana. “The cave dug out,” possibly a prepared burial
place.

Maui’s wife made war upon the gods, and killed as many as she could to
avenge her husband’s death. One of the old native poets of New Zealand
in chanting the story to Mr. White said: “But though Maui was killed
his offspring survived. Some of these are at Hawa-i-ki (Hawaii) and
some at Ao-tea-roa (New Zealand) but the greater part of them remained
at Hawaiki. This history was handed down by the generations of our
ancestors of ancient times, and we continue to rehearse it to our
children, with our incantations and genealogies, and all other matters
relating to our race.”


        “But death is nothing new
        Death is, and has been ever since old Maui died
        Then Pata-tai laughed loud
        And woke the goblin-god
        Who severed him in two, and shut him in,
        So dusk of eve came on.”

                            —Maori Death Chant.








III

THE WATER OF LIFE [1]


“The Self-reliant Dragon” is frequently mentioned in the oldest
Hawaiian legends. This dragon was probably a very old crocodile
worshipped as the ancestor goddess of the Hawaiian chief families.

She dwelt in one of the mysterious islands mentioned in the Hawaiian
chants as Kua-i-Helani, “the Far-away Helani,” lying in the ancient far
western home of the Polynesians.

Iku was the chief. He had several sons. The youngest was
Aukele-nui-a-Iku, Aukele the Great Son of Iku.

Aukele was a favorite of the Self-reliant Dragon. She gave him a large
bamboo stick. Inside she placed an image of the god Lono, and also a
magic leaf which could provide plenty of food for any one who touched
the leaf to his lips. She put in a part of her own skin.

She said, “This skin is a cloak for you. If you lift it up against any
enemies, they will fall to pieces as dust and ashes.”

They put all these treasures in the bamboo stick. Then the dragon
taught the boy all kinds of magic power.

The brothers, who were great warriors, determined to sail away, find a
new land and conquer it by fighting. Aukele persuaded them to take him.
Then he sent one to get the stick he had brought from the dragon pit
which was near the sea.

After a long time on the sea all their food was gone and they were
starving and lying in the bottom of the boat. Aukele fed them from the
leaf which he touched to their lips.

Some days passed and Aukele said, “To-morrow we will come to a land
where a woman is the ruler. Let me tell why we journey.”

They said, “Did you build this boat, and have you its chant?”

He said: “We must not call this a boat for war, but of discovery, to
find new land.”

The chiefess of that land looked out and saw a boat in the ocean, and
sent some birds to see what the boat was doing and learn whether it was
a war canoe, or a travelling boat. The birds went out, and Aukele
wanted his brothers to say it was a travelling boat. The birds asked
and the brothers said: “This is a war canoe.” The birds went away.
Aukele took up the bamboo stick and threw it in the sea, and leaped in
after it. The brothers threw the cloak of Aukele on the beach. The
chiefess found the cloak and shook it toward the boat, then threw it
away. The brothers broke into small dust and were destroyed. The boat
and the brothers sank to the bottom of the sea.

Aukele swam to the beach, pulled up his stick, found his cloak and lay
down under a tree and slept. A watchdog came out, and smelled the man,
and barked.

The chiefess called two women, and told them to see who it was, and if
they found any one, kill him. They came down and the god of Aukele
awakened him, and told him the names of the women.

The women came and he greeted them. They were ashamed because he had
found their names, and one said to the other, “What can we give him for
naming us?” The other said, “We will let him be the husband of our
ruler.” So they came and sat down by him, and they talked lovingly
together and he won their hearts.

The women told him that they had been sent to kill him, but that they
would say they did not find him; then other messengers would be sent.
They went home and told the chiefess: “We went to the precipice; there
was no one there. Then to the forest and the sea. There was no one
there. Perhaps the dog made a mistake.”

The chiefess turned the dog out again; at once there was more barking.
She told her bird brothers to go and look over the land. Lono saw them
and said; “Here is another death day for us. I will tell you who these
birds are. When they come you say their names quickly and welcome
them.” So he did. They wondered how he knew their names. This knowledge
gave him power over them and they could not harm him. The birds also
thought they would have to offer their ruler as a wife to this
wonderful stranger. They went back to their sister and told her they
had found a husband for her. This pleased her. She sent them after
Aukele. He told them he would go by and by.

Lono said to Aukele, “Death has partly passed, but more trouble lies
before us. When you go up do not sit down or enter the house. Stand at
the door. First these two women will come. If they say ‘Aloha’ it is
all right. The dog will come and will try to kill you. When he has
passed by, the brothers will come. The food they make and put in old
calabashes, do not eat. See if the calabash has anything growing in its
cracks. You will find new calabashes scattered over the ground. Food
and fish and water are inside. Eat from these.”

He made ready to go, and went up to the house, and stood by the door.
The two women said “Aloha” and called to him to come in, but he would
not enter. The dog ran out, opened her mouth and tried to bite Aukele
through the magic cloak. The dog became ashes. The chiefess saw the dog
was dead and was very sorry because he was the watchman for her land.

The brothers came to him with food which they had put in moss-covered
calabashes. He never touched it. It was the death food. He went to a
place where green calabash vines were growing, took a calabash, shook
it, broke it, opened it and found good food inside.

Then they lived as man and wife. The chiefess had been a cannibal but
at this time stopped eating men. Soon a son was born.

After a time the bird brothers taught Aukele how to leap into the air
and fly as a bird.

The chiefess told her brothers to go away into the heavens and find her
father, Ku-waha-ilo, a cannibal god. He was also the father of Pele,
the goddess of volcanic fire. They must tell him that she had given all
her treasures to her husband—stars, lands, and seas. She told them to
take her husband to see the father.

They flew away, Aukele flying faster than the others. The father saw
him and thought his daughter was dead. He said, “She is the watchman
for my land, and no man could come here if she were alive,” and he was
angry.

Lono told Aukele to put on his magic cloak that now covered him from
head to foot. Then he understood there must be a battle. The cannibal
father made fire, called Kuku-ena (the lightning); then Ikuwa, a stone
crashing like thunder. The lightning and the crashing stone were struck
by the cloak and rattled into ashes, cracking and breaking,
reverberating, sounding like a drum.

The bird brothers saw the fire and heard the thunder. They were far
behind Aukele. They saw the lightning and the thunder defeated. After
the battle, they all came before their father and told him that the
daughter was well and this was her husband.

After this flight to a cannibal land and this victory over the cannibal
god, Aukele returned to his wife.

After a time the ghosts of his brothers appeared to him and reminded
him of their grave in the sea.

Aukele was very sorry and ate nothing for days. His wife, with great
sympathy, told him if he had strength enough to find the living water
of Kane he could still restore his brothers. He was encouraged and ate.
He asked what path he should take to find the land of the water of
life. She made a straight line toward the East, the sunrise, and told
him to fly straight, not swerving to either side.

He took his bamboo stick with all his aid inside and put it under his
arm, put on his magic cloak, and said “Aloha.” A long time passed.

He thought he was flying in a straight line, but one arm became tired
because the stick was under it. He changed the stick, and this moved
his direction. His god saw this and told him he was leaving the
straight line and was flying to some other place. There was fire far
below. All the people had fled except one. The god said, “Let us go
straight till we come to that one; then you catch him and hold him
fast. We shall have life.” This was the moon, who was an ancestress of
his wife. The moon had been cooking food. She arose to take up her food
and get ready to go. But Aukele caught her, held her and ate her food.
She thus became thin—a new moon—and the traveller gained strength to
return to his home.

Aukele thought he would try again, according to his wife’s line. She
made a line from the door of the house toward the sunrise, and warned
him. He flew straight a long time until he found a strange land with a
deep pit lined with trees and wonderful plants. At the bottom was the
spring of the water of life. He leaped down upon the back of a watchman
on the edge of the pit, who had been put there by the guardian to kill
any one coming after the water. He tried to shake Aukele off, saying:
“Who are you? What do you mean, O proud man? My grandchild, the brother
of Pele, never got on my back. Who are you?” He gave his name and
ancestors, and told the watchman he had come for the water of life for
his brothers. The watchman said: “Go straight out from where I stand.
Do not turn to the side or you will strike bamboo which will make a
great noise, and my grandchild, Pele’s brother, will hear and will
cover the water tight, and you cannot get it.”

So Aukele flew and leaped straight on the second watchman, who told him
not to go to the left or he would strike the lama trees (very hard
wood, used for building houses for the gods). These trees would make a
great noise and the guardian would cover the water tight and he could
not get it.

He flew to another watchman, who told him to go straight to the bottom
of the pit. “There a blind woman will be sitting. Look at the place
where she is cooking bananas. She will take them one by one. You eat
all her bananas. Then she will become angry and throw ashes. If she
throws on the right side, you must fly to the left. Watch if she
strikes with a stick, then run quickly, sit in her lap, and tell her
who you are.”

When he had done all these things and all attempts to kill him had
failed, Aukele made the old blind woman lie down under a cocoanut tree.
He got two young cocoanuts and told her to turn her eyes toward the
sky. He dropped the cocoanuts in her eyes. She wept sorely because of
the pain. He told her to rub the water out of her eyes and not cry. She
did so, and said: “I can see you.” He came down from the tree and she
told him what he must do to get the water of life: “Go and break the
stem of a water plant, and near it a bush with white flowers. Bring
them to me.” This he did and laid the plants before her. She squeezed
the water from the plants into a cup, took charcoal and other things
and mixed them together until black; then she painted Aukele’s hands
very black, like the hands of the brother of Pele. His hands were
black, and those watching the water of life would look at the hands
reaching for water and make no mistake. They would tightly cover up the
water if a white hand came down. “Wait until the guardian god is asleep
and the servants are preparing drink for him when he should awake. Then
go to the door and one will give you some water. The first will be
dirty water; throw it away. Put your hand down again. They will give
you another calabash of water. This will be the living water of Kane;
take it.”

He went down and put his hand in for the water. The watchman handed out
a calabash of dirty water. He threw it away and again thrust his black
hand down the pit.

The watchman gave him a calabash of the pure water of life.

He flew rapidly along the path to the outside world. In his haste he
struck the leaves of the groves of trees and the noise was that of
strong winds thrashing the branches and leaves back and forth, up and
down. The sound swept through the land of the water of life like
rolling thunder.

The brother of Pele and his servants awoke and followed, but he fled
through the heavens to the place where the ghosts of his brothers lay
in the sunken ship by the home of the goddess of the sea.

They all went down to the sea. The chiefess told her husband to pour
the water of life in his hand. She put her fingers in the water and
sprinkled drops over the sea.

Out in the ocean under the moving surface was a boat, its mast coming
up through the waves. In a little while they saw men standing in the
boat. These were the brothers of Aukele. After the welcome, he gave
them lands and homes.

In that strange far-off land of the ancestors—the mysterious “Floating
Island”—the “Hidden Island of Kane,” it is said they still live under
the rule of their younger brother.

Aukele thought he would like to see his parents once more, so he went
to the far-away Helani—but the land was desolate. The parents were
gone, the people had disappeared, the houses had all decayed, and the
land was covered with a forest.

Only a dragon was left—one of the family of the “Self-reliant Dragon.”
He discovered her body fast in the coral reef near the shore. He
thought she was dead, but he stood up and stamped with full strength
and broke the coral so that the dragon was free. He saw the body
moving, but the dragon was very weak and near death.

He was sorry for her, remembering that it was by the aid of dragon
powers he had gone into the heavens and from the deep pit of the skies
secured the water of life. Therefore he provided food and gave new life
to the dragon. He asked about his parents and their gods, and the
desolation of the land.

The dragon told him how the entire household of gods, dragons and men
had found a new home, in the Islands of Oahu and Hawaii. She told how
“the child adopted or brought up by the gods,” and the Maiden of the
Golden Clouds, had been taken by the Self-reliant Dragon to Oahu, and
how all the rest had gone, leaving her as a guard in the old land of
his birth and childhood.

Aukele went back to the legendary land, the “Hidden Island of Kane,”
and there lived among the ghost gods who welcome the dead as they
escape from wandering over the islands and fly by the path of the
sunset back to the home of the most distant ancestors—the mysterious
lands in the skies of the western seas.

Here he and his brothers are high chiefs of the au-makuas, the ghost
gods of Hawaii, who wait to welcome and give peace to the spirits of
the dead.








IV

A VIKING OF THE PACIFIC


History is frequently legendary. That historian is incompetent who
deliberately ignores tradition and fable. A nation founded in the
sunlight of civilisation cannot have a legendary past, but it must
depend many times upon the cloudy memory of individuals. Legends are
the indistinct memories of nations, and are of real value when there is
any opportunity for comparison. Early Norse history was told in song
legends. The sagas of the Vikings are rivalled in some measure by the
meles of the Hawaiians. The Hawaiians have both the chant—the mele, and
the tradition—the olelo. From these come Hawaiian ancient history. The
Vikings, “sea kings,” as they are often named, the “wickel-ings,” as
Froude calls them, the men who sailed out from the “vicks,” the fjords
of the Scandinavian coast, were brave mariners. They swept the European
coast; they infested Mediterranean waters; they found the North
Atlantic islands. They made themselves at home in Sneeland (Snowland),
now Iceland and Greenland. They named the countries newly discovered
after their own fancies, as Flatland, Woodland, and Vinland, for
Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Massachusetts, respectively.

The Polynesian folklore abounds in stories of remarkable men, bold
expeditions, stirring adventures and voyages to far-off lands. The
Vikings of the Pacific gave to their foreign lands the names by which
these lands were then known, and by which they are known to-day.

In the long Hawaiian chant of Kumu Honua, “the first created,” there is
a part devoted to Hawaii-loa, the first sea-king of the Polynesians. He
is reported as making long journeys and discovering the Hawaiian
Islands. Besides this chant there are many legends and references which
make him an important ancestor among Hawaiians, an ancestor of islands
rather than of families. He lived in the “land of the handsome or
golden god, Kane.” To the north lay the land Ulu-nui or “the Great
Ulu,” possibly Ur of Chaldea. His home was near the “green precipiced
paradise” of Hawaiian legend, the place where the water of life gave
forth healing even for the dead.

Hawaii-loa was a noted fisherman. He launched out into deep waters. He
fished for new worlds and found them. From the Great Ulu to Java, from
Java to Jilolo, and from Jilolo far out into the eastern Pacific,
Hawaii-loa sailed. His relative, Ti-i, also launched out into the deep
seas. Ti-i went almost directly east from the old home, and found the
Society Islands. These he made his home, according to the Society
Island legends, becoming the creator of the islands.

Hawaii-loa sailed to the northeast, following “Iao,” Jupiter, as the
morning star. Iao was a favorite guiding star among the Hawaiians. Five
of the planets were known by the sea-rovers. The planets were called
“Na Hoku hele”—“the going stars.” Mars was known as “Hoku ula,” “the
red star.” “Na hoku paa” were “the fastened stars, immovable in the
heavens.” The name “Iao” is given to one of the mountains of the Island
of Maui.

Hawaii-loa found the fire islands—the islands somewhat like the old
Java home, luxuriant and volcanic. He named the large island
Hawa-i-i—“the little or the burning Java.”

The large island was full of delight to the bold navigator, and he
determined to bring his family to this new land for their permanent
home. He took them from “the land where his forefathers dwelt before
him.” He sailed through the “dotted sea,” the sea with many islands
lying near his old ancestral home, “the rainy Zaba”—the modern Zaba or
Saba of the Arabian seacoast—from which his own name, “Hawa,” is easily
derived. On his journey back and forth he passed through a sea which
delighted his heart as a fisherman—“a sea where the fishes run.” He
must have found excellent deep-sea fishing. He crossed the
“many-coloured  ocean” and the “sky-blue sea.” He revelled in the
beauty of the sun rising and setting in glorious colours on the
restless waves. On he sailed with his family until he came to
Hawaii—“the burning Java,” the land of volcanoes and earthquakes and of
luxuriant valleys and fertile seacoasts.

Fornander suggests that Hawaii is derived from Java and Java from the
Arabian Saba.

Evidently a Polynesian chief of high rank gathered a number of
adherents or members of his tribe, and sailed eastward over the
Pacific, about the beginning of the Christian era. His descendants, or
at least such portion of his family as did not follow him on his
voyage, seem to have moved from Java to the Molucca Islands and settled
in Jilolo.

It is said that after he brought his family to Hawaii, new islands
sprang out of the sea, well wooded and well watered. These he divided
among his children.

When the later sea-rovers came to Hawaii, possibly in the fifth or
sixth century, they found the islands already inhabited by people of
their own race, and yet apparently without a chief—probably a servant
class. If we sift the legends and then assume that in the course of
three or four hundred years the family of the chief, Hawaii-loa, became
extinct in Hawaii, leaving only the servants on the islands, we have at
least a probable explanation of the coming of the so-called little
people, or fairies, from the Southern Pacific to Hawaii.

The South Pacific islanders called their servants, or laborers, the
Manahune people.

The fairies were known in the Hawaiian legends as the Menehunes.
Sometimes they were credited with powers like the gnomes of old
England. They were supposed to work only at night. A very ancient stone
water-wall along the side of one of the swift-flowing Hawaiian rivers
has no tradition or history save that the Menehune people built it in
one night. Another very ancient stone wall around a large fish pond is
referred to the Menehunes, who did not finish their work in one night,
therefore the wall has always been incomplete. So also some of the most
ancient temples were referred to the mysterious midnight labors of this
people.

One of the legends states that a priest desired to carry the Menehune
people across the long stretch of ocean between the foreign lands and
the Island of Oahu, therefore “he stretched out his hands to the
farthest bounds of Tahiti and over him the Menehunes—the
servants—crossed to Oahu.”

It was this same sorcerer-priest who saw the sun die and the earth
become dark. He leaped across to the foreign land, caught the sun
before it was buried, brought it back to Hawaii and placed it in the
heavens, where it has been ever since. These are simply graphic
descriptions of an eclipse, and also of a chief who carried his common
people—his servants—with him across the waters. The presence of this
servant class in the very ancient times is unquestioned.

Chiefs coming later found this servant class which readily accepted new
rulers.

Hawaii-loa—“the Great Hawaii”—may well be considered both a founder of
the Polynesian race and the first settler of the Hawaiian Islands.
Brave lover of the sea and founder of nations, Hawaii-loa deserves
first place among the Vikings of the Pacific.








V

LEGENDARY HOME OF THE POLYNESIANS


The Hawaiians, like the native residents of many other groups of
islands in the Pacific Ocean, have not taken kindly to the European
names tacked upon their doorposts by the sailors who discovered them.
This is very fortunate for those who desire to gather together the
facts out of which to weave a connected history of Polynesia.

It is also fortunate that the language spoken in the groups so widely
diffused over the Pacific Ocean, has the same common structure, with
only such differences as may be resolved into dialects.

The Tahitian, Samoan, New Zealander, and Hawaiian, though thousands of
miles apart, are members of one family, and require but a short period
to acquire the faculty of a free exchange of ideas.

Students find a slight difficulty in the different spellings which
different voyagers have given to the native words according to the way
in which they heard the sounds—for instance, “Hawaii” was “Owyhee” in
the days of Captain Cook.

This difficulty was not overcome when the Polynesian dialects were
reduced to writing by the many missionaries to the different parts of
the Pacific Ocean. It was impossible to adopt a uniform method. In some
places “h” was used, in others “f” and “l” or “r” or “k,” as in the
Hawaiian word “aloha”—which in other island groups was “alofa” and
“aloofa,” “aroha,” “kaoha,” “akaaroa,” all meaning “friendship.”

In attempting to trace the place of origin of the Hawaiians and other
Polynesians it is absolutely necessary to take into account this
phonetic difficulty.

Fornander gives the following list of island groups with the various
methods of using the word Hawaii:


                    Hawaii—Hawa-i-i.
                    Tahiti—Hawa-i-i.
                    Samoa—Sawa-i-i or Sava-i-i.
                    New Zealand—Hawa-iki.
                    Marquesas—Hawa-iki.
                    Raro Tonga—Awa-iki.
                    Tonga—Haba-i.


Hawaii in some form of the word is the most universally used name among
all the Polynesians as the place for their ancestral home.

The name of the Hawaiian Islands is taken from this mythological name.
So also is the Savaii of the Samoan Islands. So also the small island
Hawaiki in Lake Rotorua of New Zealand, where the New Zealand legends
say the ancestors of the Maoris placed the relics which they brought
with them from their ancestral Hawaiki when they settled in New
Zealand. In far eastern Tahiti is a place on Raiatea, the island now
known as Opoa. Its ancient and sacred name was Hawaii.

Some writers have thought that Samoa might be the center of dispersion
to the other Pacific islands, but the Samoan dialect is very corrupt,
its legends are fragmentary, and its history of sea rovers seems to
lack a sufficient similarity of names with the migrators from the
original home to allow this supposition to have very great weight.

It is also interesting to note that the Hawaiian Islands do not have a
good foundation for any claim to be the original centre of dispersion,
although many of the most ancient legends of Hawaii and of New Zealand
are the same. There is abundance of proof of a common origin, but not
sufficient to found any claim for Hawaiian parentage.

Ellis, writing in 1830 concerning the Tahitians and inhabitants of
neighbouring islands, says:

“A tradition stated that the first inhabitants of these islands
originally came from a country in the direction of the setting sun, to
which several names were given. Pigs and dogs were brought from the
West.”

In the Hawaiian Islands the point from which the ancient voyages sailed
away to visit the other groups of islands of the Pacific was off the
western coast of the island of Maui and was called Ke-ala-i-kahiki, The
Path to Tahiti. They might ultimately sail eastward to Tahiti or to the
Marquesas Islands, but they started toward the home of their ancestors,
westward. They called their vikings—Ka-poe-holo-kahiki, The People
Sailing to Tahiti. Tahiti at last meant any distant or foreign group of
islands, although individual names of islands are used in the
chants—such as Bolabola and Upolu.

The Hawaiian said that, ke alo, the face or front of an island, was
toward the west. The back, ke kua, was toward the east. This, as
Fornander says, was “because the ancestors of the islanders came from
the west originally.”

The students of Polynesian legends are practically united in ascribing
the Hawaii of mythology to some place west of all the islands.

Early writers on the origin of the Polynesians took it for granted that
these ancestors were Malays. Certain words and names among both Malays
and Polynesians were similar, but later study has convinced the vast
majority of students that this theory is not true. It is now believed
that the Polynesians came to the island groups from the neighbourhood
of the straits of Sunda, where they had their home for a long time. The
fierce Malay tribes descended upon them and scattered them in all
directions over the seas. A trace of the remnants of this dispersion is
found even among the mixed elements of the people of Japan. Another
trace is found in Madagascar, while the great body of the storm-tossed
people took possession of the middle and southeastern islands of the
Pacific.

Hon. Edward Tregear, of New Zealand, writing about the original home of
the Polynesians, thinks that their first residence was either India or
Central Asia, from whence they passed through India, there making a
stay of some time. Then they journeyed to the Malay archipelago,
residing there many generations until driven out by the Malays. This is
the original Hawa-iki from which Polynesia was first settled,
expeditions probably passing out to the far distant island groups. Then
lastly came the canoe voyagers—the rovings of the vikings of the
Pacific which in New Zealand meant a new peopling of the land of the
“long white cloud,” and to the Hawaiians and Tahitians and other
islands almost two centuries of adventurous sea roving.

The late Hon. S. Percy Smith, Minister of Native Affairs in New
Zealand, traces the Polynesians from Aryan connection in Asia Minor and
Western Europe to India, Malayasia and thence to the scattered islands
of the Pacific.

Max Müller calls attention to the use of the word Av-iki by both
Brahmins and Buddhists as the name of their “hades.”

Hawa-iki was the name of the place from which the Polynesians came and
about which they talked in their most ancient stories. This other world
became mysterious as the ages passed by until at last Hawa-iki meant
the place to which the spirits of the dead went, as well as the home
from which their ancestors came. A journey to or from any of the
Polynesian islands meant passing out of one world into another. The
area of vision bounded by the horizon was the world in which the people
lived. Passing out of sight over the waters was breaking through the
wall dividing one world from another. The idea that Hawa-iki was the
home of the ghosts could very easily be derived from the other world
beyond the shining wall of the sky into which any one sailing out of
sight of land might be forever lost.

The path into this other world—this Hawa-iki of the ancestors—was
universally toward the west—the golden path of the setting sun.








VI

THE SONS OF KII


Sometime during the fifth or sixth century of the Christian
era—according to estimates based on Hawaiian genealogies—two brothers,
Ulu and Nanaulu, came to the Hawaiian Islands and established a dynasty
of high chiefs. Their father was Kii, a king in the Southern Pacific
Islands. Tahiti, the chief island of the Society group, furnishes the
only ancient king of that name. We have the additional fact that in
Hawaiian legends the place to which Hawaiian Vikings frequently sailed
for centuries was usually Kahiki or Tahiti, the old home of the family
of ruling chiefs.

It has been suggested that Ulu remained in the southern islands and
that Nanaulu alone found his way to Hawaii; but the frequent use of the
name Ulu in the genealogies of the chiefs of the two large islands,
Hawaii and Maui, would support the position taken in the story that
follows—that the brothers, sailing together, found Hawaii.



Two strong young men, about six feet in stature, were hastening
together along a mountain spur leading down to the harbour of Papeete.
They had met but a short time before, one coming around the base of the
turreted crags of an extinct volcano known as “La Diademe”—The Diadem,
or crown of Tahiti. The other had left his house in the hills from
which the beautiful river of the Vai-ta-piha valley takes its source.
They had given each other the universal Polynesian greeting—“Love to
you,” with the reply, “Love indeed.”

Soon they came to the seashore where a long boat, the waa of Ulu, had
been built. Large crowds of natives were watching the workmen as the
stone adzes rang for the last time on the boarded-up sides of the boat.

As the two young chiefs drew near they saw a small company of solemn,
dignified men, evidently of high rank, emerge from the door of a large
grass house and march slowly to the side of the long boat.

A trumpet shell was sounded. The people fell with their faces toward
the ground. Another blast, and there could be seen a number of gigantic
slaves coming from the door of a stone temple not far away. Each slave
was leading a prisoner. In a few minutes they surrounded the boat. Two
prisoners were held at the prow of the boat, two at the stern, four
along the boat sides and others in a line extending to the beach.

A priest stepped forth from the little company of leaders. In a strong
and yet monotonous tone he began a chant of praise of Kii and his sons.
He sang of the boat building and the protecting care of the gods.

He chanted the charms which would control the action of the gods of the
seas over which the boats might sail. He invoked the gods of the home
land to make friendly the gods of any new country to which the sailors
might go. He pleaded for the acceptance of the human sacrifice about to
be made to the gods.

Executioners with sharp-edged clubs of heavy hardwood then struck down
the prisoners as the boat was rushed to the sea.

Human sacrifices at the launchings of the canoes of chiefs were not at
all unusual, but the two young chiefs from the mountains had never
before known such wholesale slaughter. The importance of the plans of
the high chiefs was made evident by this large human sacrifice. The new
boat of the king’s son, Ulu, was evidently destined for some very
important expedition.

“E Taunoa,” cried a chief to the two latest arrivals, calling one of
them by the name of his district. “Make haste or you will be too late
to hear the voice of the king.”

“How is it, Taunoa,” said another, “that you, a chief of Nanaulu,
should be present at the call of Kii in the interest of Ulu?”

Taunoa replied: “We shall soon see Nanaulu with a cloud of boats. I was
sent to announce his coming to his father, the king. His heart is with
his brother Ulu in the observance of the plans of Kii. I found this
young chief of Vai-ta-piha on his way hither, and made him my
companion. Take me at once to Kii, the king.”

Okela, the chief who had called to Taunoa, at once preceded the crowd
thronging hastily behind, giving Taunoa the post of honour after Okela.
As they approached the dignified high chiefs they all prostrated
themselves to the ground except Okela and Taunoa.

Taunoa drew from under his cloak a feathery frond of the cocoanut, and
raising it above his head, asked for an interview with the king.

The trumpeter with his large pu or conch shell sounded the call of the
coming of the king. Trumpet shells responded from the temple and from
the king’s residence. A terrific beating of drums followed, the people
fell upon their faces; even the high chiefs prostrated themselves. Only
the messenger from Nanaulu remained partially upright.

From the king’s house came the royal retinue. King Kii was borne on the
shoulders of a stalwart slave, supported by two other slaves, while
ranks of trusted chiefs walked by his side. Following the king, riding
in the same way upon the shoulders of slaves, was Ulu, the king’s son,
surrounded also by his chosen chiefs.

To the king Taunoa at once presented his tuft of the cocoanut and was
ordered to give his message.

“O King,” he said, “Nanaulu, the high chief, your son, has heard of the
boat of Ulu and your purpose of sending Ulu upon a mysterious mission.
Nanaulu, the elder brother, was the kahu (caretaker) of Ulu in the days
past. He desires to still stand by his brother’s side and care for him
in the place of Kii, the royal father. He has searched the forests of
the sharp-peaked mountain and has fashioned a boat, the Mano-nui (great
shark), and soon expects to come to Papeete with a royal fleet to do
honour to the king, his father.”

The king had turned his eyes for a moment toward Ulu and had caught the
joy flashing from his eyes when he heard of his brother’s speedy
coming, then, looking down upon Taunoa, who had prostrated himself as
soon as his message was delivered, simply said:

“Your message gives joy,” and then was borne into the midst of the
group of high chiefs.

The king’s herald then made proclamation:

“Where are you, O chiefs? Where are you, O nobles of Tahiti? Where are
you, O servant people? For the message is to all, from the highest to
the lowest. Listen, O men of Tahiti, to the will of Kii, your king.

“It is his wish that Ulu, his son, should sail toward the west and
should find the land of our fathers, He will have many companions, but
these will be selected from only the most worthy. His prophets and
priests, his teachers, have already been chosen. But now choice must be
made of chiefs and warriors and common people. Two days will be given
you for rest. On the third day the king and his high chiefs will be
judges of wrestling contests. On the fourth day will be struggles in
the surf; or, if the sea gods are not propitious the chiefs will
contest on the hillsides and in the games of physical strength. On the
fifth day there will be the exercise with the spears and clubs. The
skill and strength of the Tahitians will be manifest during these
days.”

Then followed such a scene of unbridled revelry as could occur only in
a land given up to physical pleasures and passions. Feasting and the
heiva dance and drinking kava occupied the time of the common people.

The chiefs gave themselves up to gambling and rioting until the night
was wearied with their excesses and the new day sent the revellers to
needed rest wherever any tree or grass house afforded even a little
shade.

As the afternoon of the first day began to cast its long shadows, a
large fleet of hundreds of canoes filled the entrance to Papeete Bay.
They were preceded by a very large war canoe with a prow shaped into a
rude resemblance of a shark’s head, with shark’s teeth fastened in the
open jaws. The body of the boat was of polished wood, well oiled. The
multitude of canoes following were painted and stained with as many
brilliant dyes as possible. Not a torn or weather-beaten sail hung by
the masts. Sails of dyed kapa cloth and woven matting, new and
beautifully painted, had been made ready long before, that Nanaulu’s
homecoming might have no blot upon its impressive appearance. As the
large boat came near the shore the oarsmen leaped into the surf; chosen
men from the other canoes joined them. Passing strong cords of cocoanut
fibre under the keel, they lifted the boat, with several chiefs resting
upon a small deck which partially covered the canoe. Then they bore the
great burden up the beach toward the grass house of Kii. Standing by
the mast of the canoe was Nanaulu, a chief of splendid physical
appearance, about thirty years of age, before whom all the people
prostrated themselves as he was carried by.

Midway between the beach and the king’s house a young chief rushed down
to meet Nanaulu. As he came near the canoe he leaped over the heads of
the bearers, landing on the deck by the side of Nanaulu and catching
the mast gracefully, steadied himself for a moment and then, throwing
his arms around Nanaulu, began the loud Polynesian wailing, with which
in sorrow or in joy alike they were accustomed to greet one another.
This was Ulu, the younger brother, not over twenty-five years old, and
his warm-hearted greeting of his elder brother, who during his boyhood
had been his steadfast friend and caretaker, showed the deep love which
bound them together. Ulu was of higher chief rank than his elder
brother. Sons of Kii, they were nevertheless sons of different queens
of unequal rank; therefore Nanaulu owed allegiance to his brother.
After the wailing was over the boat was carried to the king’s house,
while the two brothers discussed plans. Nanaulu requested that his own
retainers might be given an opportunity to contest in the games and
athletic exercises of the coming days. To this his brother readily
acceded.

Early in the morning of the next day the contests were opened by the
chiefs of the various districts of Tahiti, who called their best
wrestlers together and chose the champions to contest with other
champions from other districts.

After the king had taken his place the ceremonies of the day were
introduced by the royal ceremonial dance. Over a hundred chiefs,
throwing aside their cloaks and putting on tall helmets making the
average stature about eight feet and, taking slender, thin paddles,
ranged themselves before the king in lines, and then passed through a
series of gymnastic exercises, gracefully moving the paddles in exact
harmony, at the same time changing their positions, passing in and out
between one another, sometimes forming squares, circles and
semi-circles. The music for the rhythmic motion was furnished by rude
drums, upon which musicians beat time. The dance ended by two chiefs
taking war clubs and, while in motion, keeping time with the drums,
twirling the clubs and striking rapidly at each other, circling the
clubs over each other’s heads and yet avoiding all injury to one
another.

One of the chiefs stepped to the centre of the open arena and began to
chant:


        “I am the wrestler
        From the groves of Papeete,
        By the sea waters.
        Where are you, Opale,
        The great man! the strong man!
        Living by the rough waves
        Of Makavia?
        Come and fight with Makima.”


The champion wrestler from Matavia Bay very slowly walked into the
arena, trying to appear utterly oblivious of his antagonist. He looked
into the sky, glanced along the sand, then shouted:


        “Where are you, Makima,
        The boastful little man,
        The weak in limb and arm?
        Where are you, Makima,
        Who dares to fight with Opale?”


It was the custom of the Polynesians to throw out a taunt in a
half-shouting, defiant tone. Each combatant approached the other,
trying to make the audience think that he considered his antagonist so
far beneath his notice that he only needed to move his arm and the
match would be over. Thus in lordly dignity they ignored each other
until, standing side by side, each made a sudden movement as if
expecting to find the other off his guard. In a moment there was a
confused mass of squirming limbs and arms and writhing bodies. A cloud
of sand obscured the struggle. For a time there was no motion, and
people saw the champions bending around each other with strained
muscles, neither having any advantage, but each apparently exerting all
his strength to make the other give way in response to brute strength.
Each endeavoured to learn the trick by which his antagonist would
change the order of battle. The least loosening of muscles on the part
of one was interpreted in a moment by the other, and neither one
hastened to carry out a move which might place him at the other’s
mercy. It was a splendid exhibition of statuesque athletics. Doing his
very best to prevent betrayal by any loosened grasp in any direction,
Opale suddenly swept one foot with terrific force against his
antagonist’s leg, at the same time pulling him to one side; but the
half second’s unconscious loosening of the muscles preparatory to
Opale’s action gave Makima notice, and even as Opale’s foot struck him,
he raised the unbalanced chief and whirled him over his head, at the
same time by a whirlwind motion preserving his own equilibrium. Opale
lay for a moment unconscious, while Makima received the applause of the
multitude.

Then followed match after match, sometimes interspersed with boxing. In
the boxing contests severe blows were given until one of the boxers was
stricken senseless to the earth or an arm was broken. Sometimes both
wrestling and boxing contests resulted in the death of a chief. At such
times the chief’s retainers quietly carried away the body, while the
shouts which greeted the victor filled the air. Such deaths were taken
as incidental, and no wailing showed the grief of stricken friends.

In this way the forenoon passed, and at last a few noble chiefs,
exquisite in the beauty of perfect muscular manhood, stood before the
king, chosen to be the special bodyguard of Ulu in the mysterious
journey of the coming days. In the afternoon the followers of Nanaulu
were tested and a like bodyguard selected for this young prince.

During that night a heavy wind tossed the sea waves into foam, but as
the morning broke the wind died away, leaving ideal surf waves rolling
in from the far-off coral reef, through the harbour, up to the beach.

A number of chiefs, taking long boards, thinned and smoothed by stone
knives and polished with the rough skin of the shark, swam far out into
the ocean. There where the surf waves began to form as the tide rolled
landward each chief turned his surf board to follow the tidal pathway.
Canoes were stationed at the point from which the older chiefs had
decided that the swimmers must start. Groups of ten or fifteen
contestants were allowed to start together. The rider with the swiftest
and most skilfully managed surf board was chosen from each group.
Hundreds of natives having any kind of claim to chief’s blood had
presented themselves for this contest.

Some of the surf-riders contented themselves by simply lying on the
board, endeavouring by skilful use of hand and foot to hasten their
passage on the crest of the huge surf waves. This was by no means an
easy thing to do. Success consisted in gaining on the surf. Ordinarily
many surf waves passed from beneath the surf-riders before they could
complete the long distance over the sea. To hang to a wave, cling to
its white mane, to have such mastery over it as not to be thrown back
to the next wave, was a trial of strength and judgment, and might
easily bring the sought-for reward. These, of course, were the first to
reach the shore.

Others pushed their boards rapidly through the first waves encountered.
Then, balancing the board on the crest of the largest inrolling waves,
leaped to their feet, and standing upright guided the board by the
swaying of their bodies, adjusting themselves to the changing forces of
the surf. Sometimes a very skilful surf-rider would go through the
motions of fighting a battle—throwing the javelin, pushing with a
spear, striking with a war-club or stabbing with a dagger. This was
seldom attempted without an ignominious overthrow of board and rider as
the undertow from the beach struggled with the incoming surf. Then the
acrobat received the jeers of the people as he and his boat rolled
under the foam. A successful completion of such a ride marked a high
degree of combined courage and training and judgment. During the course
of the entire test of the men of both Ulu and Nanaulu only two men
perfectly performed this difficult task. These were the two young high
chiefs Okela and Taunoa. The highest honours for surf-riding were,
however, given by all to Vai-ta-piha, the inferior chief who had come
to the contest with Taunoa.

Soon after the group of riders in which he was placed started shoreward
a squall broke over them. The surf ceased rolling for a few moments in
continuous waves. The boards and their riders were thrown against and
over one another. Then a large wave swept the confused and struggling
company toward the beach. Vai-ta-piha easily extricated himself, and
balanced upon his surf board was about to dash to land, but he saw in
front of his board the body of an insensible chief roll from between
two boards and begin to sink. In a second he leaped ahead of his board,
caught the chief with one hand and with the other secured the
surf-board floating by. He drew the chief and himself up until he
rested upon the board. Leaping to his feet he held the body in his
hands, balancing himself and guiding his frail craft until the wave was
about to take its final plunge upon the sand, when he dropped off into
the water and carried his burden to the massage or lomilomi women, who
by skilful kneading of the body soon restored the injured chief to his
friends. The unselfish rescue as well as the skill displayed in
bringing the body to land, all in a few moments, won the approval of
the judges.

The fourth day the chiefs rested and the common people gave an
exhibition of their attainments, and a sufficient number of
canoe-makers, house-builders, fishermen and other helpers were easily
secured. These were to be the oarsmen of the expedition.

The fifth day brought a new order of contestants. Around Papeete Bay
are some beautiful hills, with sloping, grassy sides. Here the chiefs
gathered with sleds which were from six to twelve feet long. These were
made by taking finely polished hardwood for runners, usually about
twelve inches apart.

Long sticks were placed lengthwise over these runners and fastened
tightly to cross pieces. Frequently a board was tied between the sticks
and a piece of matting laid upon it for the benefit of the rider. Holes
were bored through these boards with sharp-pointed bones or shells, and
they were strongly tied to the runners.

The riders of shorter sleds would grasp the sticks along the edges,
using them as handles, raise the sled and run along the brow of the
hill, giving the sled a hard push down the declivity as they threw
themselves flat on the narrow board. Sometimes this resulted in a
mortifying overthrow of the rider at the first leap of the sled
downward. The rider with the longer sled was content to push his sled
rapidly a few feet and then dash down the hillside. The slides or paths
for the sleds were so well worn that little ridges formed along the
sides, sometimes keeping the sled in the path, and just as often
catching a runner and causing an overthrow of the rider.

The slides were frequently well covered with cut grass or leaves. Often
the chiefs preferred the carefully kept, grass-covered, smooth hillside
where but few marks of sleds appeared.

This was an exciting and sometimes dangerous sport. Fearful velocities
were sometimes attained. Sleds swerved against slight unevennesses
almost imperceptible until struck by a runner on one side or the other.
The sudden shock swept the sled out of its course against the sled or
in the pathway of an opponent, and in a moment a confused mass of
broken sleds and stunned riders would be dashed down the hillside. Many
times a sled thus turned spilt its runner on one side. It was
considered evidence of great skill when a rider instantaneously
adjusted himself to a broken sled, kept it in its course and finally
landed safely in the smooth plain below.

Where the slopes were sufficiently gradual some of the chiefs chose the
slower ride, but took it in a standing position, when the dangers would
be intensified, a broken sled being accompanied by broken limbs or a
broken neck.

During the day messengers of the chiefs competed for a place in the
expedition. The contest required the men to go around the mountain
which formed the larger part of the Island of Tahiti, usually a two
days’ journey, with allowance for a few hours’ rest along the way. The
first and second runners to win in this race were to go as the
messengers of Ulu and Nanaulu.

The contests among the chiefs had resulted in the selection of a much
larger number of chiefs than could possibly go with the two young
princes. New trials of skill were instituted to sift out the least
skilful or the most unlucky.

The first test applied was that of javelin throwing. The high chiefs
had prepared for their own sport a long, smooth path, beaten down until
it was hard as a rock. Here they were accustomed to throw heavy
hardwood darts, which, sliding along the path, would either pass
between two marks at a given distance from the thrower or sometimes
strike a small stick set upright at the end of a straight line drawn
along the centre of the path. This was called the Pakee or the play
with the darts or javelins.

A second test was made along the same beaten track in the game called
Ulu-maika. In this contest were used circular stones, flat-sided, of
different sizes, according to the pleasure of the contestants. The
smaller stones were about an inch thick and about six inches in
circumference. The larger maika-stones were frequently two inches thick
and a foot and a half in circumference. The ordinary stone used by most
of the chiefs was an inch thick and about ten inches in circumference.
These stones were smoothed and polished to a very high degree.

Those who had stood the test of javelin-throwing were formed in line
that each one might, without delay, step to the head of the track and
roll his disc, pass on and permit another to take his place.

This trial was, by virtue of a suggestion of Nanaulu, made a triple
test. The stone was to be rolled more than the ordinary distance, made
to pass between two upright sticks, then between two more posts, and
then some distance beyond strike a mark set up in the centre of the
track. Those accomplishing the entire feat would not be required to
stand further trial in order to secure the coveted membership in the
expedition. Those passing the posts should be entitled to another
trial. It was not very difficult to roll the stone between the posts,
but very few were able to keep the disc in the centre of the track and
strike the far-distant mark.

The spear-catching contest was instituted as one of the final
struggles. A difficult condition was attached to this spear-catching.
Six spears were to be hurled at once by six chiefs not over sixty feet
distant from the catcher. He was required to catch or stop at least
four of these spears, not permitting more than two to pass by him.

Thus the contests ended, and thus by a skilful use of Polynesian games
companions were selected for the sons of Kii in their long journey to
Hawaii.

The wives of the young princes and some of the chiefs and warriors and
boatmen were given places by the side of their husbands.

So from Tahiti, in the long ago, a voyage of many days to many lands,
through many strange experiences, was undertaken by brave men and women
in a small fleet of the larger kind of Polynesian boats. So the sons of
Kii sailed away toward the west to find the home from which their
ancestors had come to found the dynasty of Tahitian kings which held
rule over Tahiti until the white man controlled the beautiful islands
of the Pacific. Instead of the original home of the Polynesians on the
coast of Asia, the sons of Kii probably made their way to the new
Hawaii and there founded two races of kings. The descendants of Ulu
ruled the larger southern islands until overthrown in the eleventh
century by Paao on the Island of Hawaii. The descendants of Nanaulu
ruled the northern islands until a few years after Captain Cook
discovered the Hawaiian group and called it “The Sandwich Islands.”








VII

PAAO FROM SAMOA


Ka-meha-meha is the chief name around which Hawaiian history gathers.
It is the nimbus of a cloud of stories, legends and chants. Hawaiians
never reckoned history by dates, but by genealogies—as did the Hebrews.
They measured time not by the years but by the lives of men; not by the
days passed, but by the deeds done. These genealogies formed the most
essential part of Hawaiian literature. They proved the royal descent of
the high chiefs.

When Ka-meha-meha became king of “The Rainbow Islands,” his royal chant
took the supreme place. Other genealogies lost their importance except
as they blended in that of the great king. He traced his royal blood to
Pili, “from a foreign land,” and through Pili back to Wa-kea, a
Polynesian chief of perhaps the second century; and thence back through
a series of hero-gods to Kumu-Honua, “the first created.” It is a
remarkable genealogy and worthy of study.

In November, 1736, he was born in North Kohala, Hawaii. Pili had
settled in North Kohala about thirty generations preceding. A quarter
of a century is accepted as the average life of a generation. Pili,
therefore, landed in Hawaii in the early part of the eleventh century.

The story of Pili depends upon another story which must be told first.
In fact the Hawaiian traditions tell a great deal more about Paao, the
founder of the high-priest family of Hawaii, than about Pili, the
ancestor of kings.

Not far from the year 1100 A.D., two priest brothers were living on
Upolu, one of the Samoan Islands. Lonopele, the elder, lived in one of
the luxurious valleys opening upon the seacoast. Paao, the younger, was
a seaman as well as a priest. He lived near the beach, where he kept a
small fleet of canoes.

In some way bitter feeling arose between the two households, making
them jealous and suspicious of each other. One day Lonopele came to the
temple where his brother was making ready to sacrifice a sacred black
hog.

“Where are you, O Paao,” he cried, “that you prepare a sacrifice for
the favour of the gods, when you do not watch your oldest boy?”

“What is your thought?” asked Paao.

“Some of my choice fruits, brought from Tahiti, are beginning to ripen;
and each night Kaino, your son, creeps under the low branches, and
gathers whatever is good.”

“It is false!” angrily replied the father.

Theft was considered the greatest of crimes among the Polynesians.

“No! It is true. He is coming even now from his feast. If he touches my
fruit again he shall die. It is tabu” (sacred).

“E! Kaino!” called the father.

The boy came near, evidently having just been eating.

“Have you taken fruit from Lonopele in the night?”

“No. I have fruit at home, but better are the baked dog and fish. I
would not eat his fruit.”

Lonopele became angry, and cried out: “May the god, Kanaloa, curse you
and break your body into fragments, for your falsehood.”

“Cut open my stomach, O my uncle, and I shall be proved innocent.”

The ancient days had little of the modern care for children. Fathers
and mothers readily gave away their babes, or slew them with their own
hands. Paao determined to substitute his son for the sacrifice he was
preparing, and thus prove his guilt or innocence. No trace of fruit was
found in the body.

Lonopele bowed his head in shame and hastened away. When the flush of
indignant anger had passed, Paao grieved over the body which lay
decomposing upon the altar. The Hawaiian traditions say that after this
act he determined to leave Upolu. He called together a few of his
trusted friends and told them his purpose. They agreed to prepare their
large canoes, and go with him, seeking the “Burning-Java,” or Hawaii,
somewhere toward the north.

The sides of the boats were to be built two or three feet higher. This
was done by hewing boards with stone axes, and sewing them to each
other through holes, drilled by bones, using cords of cocoanut fibre
for thread. Thus canoes were prepared capable of carrying thirty to
sixty persons.

Dried bananas, pigs, fish, and pounded taro were made ready.

One day Paao saw his brother’s son coming near the boats.

In a fit of anger he rushed upon the boy and slew him.

Lonopele soon discovered the murder, and made war upon Paao.

Paao and his friends launched their canoes as fast as possible, placing
in them their families and such provisions as were at hand. His
warriors, defeated by Lonopele, hastened to the canoes, and shoved out
into the deep waters.

The battle was evidently fierce, for the legends say that some of the
prophet friends who could not escape to their canoes, leaped from the
precipitous cliffs to “fly” to the boats, and were dashed to pieces on
the rocks below. Lonopele probably drove them over the brink of a
precipice. One of the priest-friends leaped into the water, calling for
Paao to return and rescue him. “Not so,” answered Paao, “we have left
the shore. It would be an evil omen to turn back. We will wait for you
where we are.” The legends say, “The priest flew like a bird to the
canoes” and was warmly received by Paao. Lonopele sent a storm to
destroy the canoes. Probably he launched his own fleet and made
pursuit. Two great fish aided the fugitives. The Aku pushed the boats.
The Opelea hindered the storm waves by opposing his great body and
breaking their force. Lonopele ordered his magic bird to take up great
waves of water and pour them from the sky, overwhelming the fugitives.
The canoe-men hurriedly arranged mats covering the boats, and the water
was turned into the sea. Thus they escaped.

The days passed. Sometimes showers fell upon the mats arranged like
funnels, filling the water calabashes afresh. Sometimes they passed
through a school of fish, and caught all they could, drying them for
future use. Some died and descended to the “bountiful islands in the
world under the waters.” Some of the canoes were abandoned. And they
sailed on almost hopelessly, still moving northward.

One day Paao said: “I was watching the stars last night and my thought
is that some water-god has put his hands under out boats and moved us
away from Hawaii.”

An astrologer said: “I have heard the pilots from the burning islands
talk about the water-gods and one of them claimed that sometimes a
strange god had turned their boats from a straight path.”

The action of the ocean currents was supposed to be the malicious work
of some strange deity.

That night Paao could not sleep. He studied the stars. He felt a breeze
that seemed to him in some way different from the ordinary sea-breezes.

“Do you feel the new wind from the eastern star?” he said softly to his
steersmen.

“Aye!” they replied. “We have to hold the steering paddles more
firmly.”

Paao awakened his prophet and whispered: “Does the new wind have a
voice for you?”

The prophet sniffed the air, then stepped upon the high prow and
breathed again.

“Aye, the wind has the voice of smoke, perhaps the smoke of the
burning-mountain.”

“Say nothing about the voice. We will change our course and sail toward
the bright star.”

During the day the men said, “this is a new wind and it has the storm
voice.”

The next day came, and then the next. Paao and his prophet alternated
between hope and fear. The awful suffering of hunger and thirst was
among them. If a mistake had been made there was no possible escape
from starvation. In the very early morning of the third day, as Paao
was restlessly looking eastward, his wife crept to his side.

“O my Paao,” she said, “I am about to die. I have just dreamed of the
green-walled paradise. I smelled the sweet Maile blossoms and the
leaves of our marriage wreath. I saw the spirits of my sons stand by
the cocoanut tree. The vision is from the gods, I must surely die.”

“Hush,” said Paao quickly, “I too have heard the voice of the Maile
born on the winds but I was awake. You shall not die. Call the
astrologer, and then listen to his words.”

The astrologer came quickly.

“Take breath strong and deep and tell me what the winds say.”

“I hear no voice,” was the reply.

Paao handed his friend a calabash with a little precious water, bidding
him bathe his parched mouth and nostrils.

“Now what do the winds say?”

“Hawaii! Hawaii!! and the strong voice of the Maile blossoms, and the
gentle voice of the sugar-cane. I can hear the bread-fruit call ‘Come
and eat.’ The Lau-hala’s voice comes over the sea. Awake, awake, oh
canoe-men! The fingers of the morning touch the mountains of Hawaii.
The morning is raising its hand to beckon us on. O friends of the
canoes, awake! Hear the land voices. Hear the wind that has no salt in
it. Awake and hear Hawaii.”

In a moment shouts and songs of gladness were heard from all the
canoes. When hope begins to grow, it ripens rapidly. New life, new
strength, pervaded the weakened wanderers. The steersmen unconsciously
changed the course of the boats toward the blue haze of land outlined
by the dawn.

Thus the day passed. There was no longer any need to husband food. They
ate the last morsels. They drained the water from their calabashes.
They cheered each other from boat to boat. They toiled hard in rowing,
and as the night dropped its shadows around them, they made
preparations for landing in this new home.

Bundles of feather robes were unrolled. Native cloth, brilliantly
coloured, was taken from its wrappings. Paao robed himself in a
high-priest’s tabu mantle of black feathers, wearing a white helmet
ornamented with black plumes. Around the short masts they placed new
mats as sails, inscribed with strange and mysterious emblems. All the
people put on their most gorgeous and costly apparel.

Thus, as the new morning dawned, they came to Hawaii. Thus they landed
as if their journey had known nothing of starvation and death. Thus
they met the wondering natives who hastened along the beach to the spot
where the boats must land.

Greetings were given. The language of the newcomers was almost
identical in meaning and pronunciation with the native tongue. The
priests with new gods were received with offerings. Food and clothing
in abundance were given. Land in Puna, near Hilo, was set apart for
their dwelling-place. Paao, aided by the Hawaiians, at once built a
temple at Wahaula, which after being twice restored, was destroyed in
1820. From Paao, the high priest’s family, highest in priestly rank of
all dwelling in the islands, was perpetuated, until Ka-meha-meha’s high
priest, Hewa-hewa, a lineal descendant of Paao, in 1819, aided in
destroying the temples of the gods. With his own hands Hewa-hewa set
fire to shrines and idols, overthrowing the system of worship and
sacred tabu which Paao had established nearly 700 years before. Some
years later Hewa-hewa became a devoted adherent to Christianity.

Some time during the fifth or sixth centuries two Polynesian brothers,
sons of Kii, came to the Hawaiian group with a number of followers.
They belonged to a high chief family and appeared to have assumed
authority without opposition. They divided the islands. Ulu took Maui
and Hawaii. Nanaulu settled on Oahu, taking possession of Oahu, Kauai
and Molokai.

Kapawa was the last high chief of unblemished blood in the Ulu line on
Hawaii.

The Nanaulu line maintained its independence through all the centuries,
until it was finally absorbed by the Ka-meha-meha family. The Ulu line
in Hawaii was replaced by a Samoan family of high chiefs brought into
Hawaii by Paao, in connection with the overthrow of Kapawa.

The high chiefs of “the good old days of Hawaii” had certain
prerogatives which were never questioned. They were his by “divine
right.” He visited the inferior chief of any district at pleasure. He
was readily supplied with all the available kapa cloth of the district
for clothing and sleeping mats for himself and followers. The hunters
of the district were required to search the mountain forests for birds
of rare plumage, whose feathers the women were required to weave in
mantles and helmets. All the food of the district was subject to his
command. He levied upon any canoe attracting his fancy. Food and cloth
and canoes were the wealth of the islands. The high chief usually left
each district impoverished. There was no complaint against Kapawa on
this score, although he had used his “divine right” in the most
burdensome manner. The idle, the dissolute, the depraved and the
reckless among the sub-chiefs of the various islands flocked to Kapawa
and became his “eating companions”—those who received from his bounty
their food and clothing. The atrocious lives which such men lived in
any community can be imagined. But this was not criminal.

When the Hawaiian legends say “The Ulu line of high chiefs became
extinct on account of the crimes of Kapawa,” something must be
considered besides property, morality or human life. It was not until
the sanctity of the temples was attacked that the chiefs decided that
even royal blood of many generations might become too impure for a
ruling chief.

One day the district chief of Hilo came to the temple, asking to see
“the priest of the brother tongue, who worshipped the two round white
gods.”

When he was brought before Paao he said:

“I speak to you as to a brother. But I must first ask if the priest
from afar will make his home by the burning mountain?”

“Aye,” said Paao.

“The priest is wise and knows the genealogies of the chiefs, the sons
of the gods. He knows the chant of the royal line of Hawaii.”

Paao bowed his head.

“The priest understands that our high chief, Kapawa, is descended from
Ulu. Is the priest aware that Kapawa is cruel and evil, that he
tramples the life out of the land and that he violates the temples and
drags out of the city of refuge the man who has safely entered therein?
Does the priest know that the high chief is already planning to visit
him, to examine his stores and secure whatever new ornaments have been
brought from Samoa?”

“I fear no king. I am the voice of the gods. I am the friend of ‘Lono,
who walks on the sea.’ I fear no man,” replied Paao, quietly.

“True,” said the chief. “Nevertheless the gods aid the man who crosses
the channel in a canoe a little more than the man who tries to cross by
swimming. We must plan together and hew out our canoe. We want you to
consult the gods and tell us their will.”

Paao was practical. He knew that by becoming the high priest of the
chiefs he would establish his position in Hawaii. He knew the value of
advice that comes through mysterious channels.

He went into the temple. After some time he returned and said to the
chief:

“The gods answer slowly. They show that you must gather the chiefs upon
whom you can depend and have the hard wood prepared for making spears.”

“The bird that speaks” flew to Kapawa with the news that the priest
from afar was seeking the wisdom of the gods to use against him, and
that the chiefs were organising a rebellion.

Several weeks of weary warfare followed.

Kapawa was driven from refuge to refuge. All the district chiefs
finally deserted him, and gave adherence to Paao.

The defeated king fled across the channel between the Islands of Hawaii
and Maui.

He sought the Maui branch of the Ulu descendants, a discouraged and
ruined king.

The legends say that here he died. His body was placed in the royal
burial cave, in Iao Valley, back of the village Wailuku. The native
custodians of this cave guard its secrets jealously. Probably none of
the white residents have seen its mysteries.

Thus the old royal family of Hawaii was overthrown, and the way
prepared to introduce “Pili, the king, from a foreign land.”

Paao was afraid that the district chiefs would ask him for a high chief
as soon as they should come together. Some of the chiefs had already
said, “It may be the will of the gods that the high priest become the
high chief also.”

But Paao knew the inherent reverence of the Polynesians for
blood-royal. He knew his own power. He felt that his position as high
priest was unassailable. He wanted no civil entanglements. He had
managed through all the campaign, to surround himself with mysteries,
and had gained unbounded influence through arousing superstitious fears
as well as through warlike deeds.

The Hawaiian legends tell us Pili, a very high chief of Samoa, was
persuaded by messengers from Paao to move to the islands of the north.

Pili journeyed with, what the legend called, a “cloud of boats.” It was
an eleventh century migration of a small nation to a distant home.

Thus was Pili set apart as King of Hawaii.

From Hilo, the eleventh century king went to the beautiful Waipio
Valley, taking Paao with him. Later he moved to the Kohala district.
Here Paao built the Mookini temple, in a place to which he gave the
name it still bears—Lae Upolu, the Cape of Upolu.

Here, in Kohala, from the eleventh century to 1819, the high priests
and the chiefs of Hawaii made their home. The priest and the king stand
out from the mists of the past, representing two great forces of
Hawaiian government—the religious and the civil. Independent of each
other, the rights of each were jealously guarded.

Paao gave Pili no chance for choice. While he granted to the king civil
authority, he retained absolutely independent control over the minds of
the chiefs and the people in religious matters.

Ka-meha-meha, the most noted person of all Hawaiian history, was a
descendant in a straight genealogical line from Pili, and Hewa-hewa,
the Christian, was the last high priest of the Paao line.

This is the story of the founding of the Ka-meha-meha family. The
legends have been shorn of the fabulous element which naturally
gathered around them, in order that the true names and customs of the
time might be delineated.

One of the most important results was the establishment of an
Aha-alii—council of chiefs—or herald’s college, which demanded the
genealogy and proof of high birth, before admission was granted to the
privileges of rank. In meeting this demand genealogies became of great
importance. The separation between chiefs and common people became a
gulf fixed by custom.








VIII

MOI-KEHA, THE RESTLESS


Folklore is sometimes the outgrowth of a sympathy with nature,
resulting in nature myths and sometimes it is an outgrowth of sympathy
with history. The imagination loves a truth in nature or in history and
weaves around it a web of thoughts of things which might have been.

The story of Moi-keha, the restless, is an historical myth. There are
some unquestioned facts and much which was impossible.

Fornander, the omnium-gatherum of Hawaii, thinks Moi-keha lived in the
thirteenth century.

The two boys, Moi-keha and Olopana, were born on the island of Oahu.

Their boyhood was like that of other Hawaiian youths of high chief
blood. They studied the spear and surf-board exercises. They gambled
with hidden stones. They sported with discus and javelin throwing. They
raced down green hillsides with their long coasting sleds. They
wrestled and fought with their companions and listened to the tales of
the sea rovers of the Pacific. They learned the routes to the southern
and southeastern islands and heard with fired imaginations the
descriptions of Tahiti and Samoa. If the Romans believed that an ocean
of thick mist, peopled with all imaginable terrors lay to the north of
Europe, we can well accept the fact that strange fascinations and the
hope of marvellous adventures in the South Pacific might stir the
restless minds of young Hawaiian chiefs.

Moi-keha and Olopana gathered a strong band of brave retainers and,
bidding farewell to Oahu, as their ancestors had done before them,
sailed toward the South.

For some reason the brothers took with them a young chief of high
position, whose ancestor, Pau-makua, had made renowned voyages to
far-off lands. The story of Laa, who, in late life, was known as “Laa
from Tahiti,” must be reserved for later record. Moi-keha, however,
seems to have taken this young man under his own especial protection as
his foster son.

The company from Kauai stopped at Waipio Valley, on the island of
Hawaii, one of the most beautiful and inaccessible valleys of the whole
Hawaiian group.

Here Olopana was set apart as ruler of the district.

The days and nights were filled with fishing and feasting, ruling and
revelling. Olopana soon found a beautiful young chiefess, who was in
full sympathy with his ambitions, whom he took from her home as his
life-companion. This woman, Luu-kia, was said to be a descendant of the
Nanaulu line of chiefs, originally coming to Hawaii from Tahiti.

Storms, floods and freshets swept Waipio Valley. The people fled from
the scene of disasters. The young chiefs found themselves homeless.
Again the love of adventure excited them. They prepared provisions for
a voyage of many days. They selected the wisest students of the stars.
They plotted their proposed route over the ocean. We are not told that
they had any one with them who had already been to Tahiti. It is
probable, however, that some of the old prophets and astrologers of
their fathers were with the young people as their priestly guardians.
They never seemed to doubt their ability to find their way. With their
selected companions the two brothers sailed for Tahiti.

Olopana and his wife, Luu-kia, occupied one of the large ocean-going
canoes and Moi-keha with Laa sailed in another. Some of the legends say
that they went away with a fleet of five large canoes.

The Hawaiian story says that the brothers arrived safely in Tahiti,
where Olopana soon became chief of a district known in the legends as
“The-open-great-red-Moa.” One of the harbours of Raiatea of the
Tahitian Islands was known as Ava-Moa, the Moa Harbour, or “The Sacred
Harbour.” Fornander justly argues that there is little doubt that this
was the place selected by Olopana as his permanent home.

Moi-keha appears to have been the priest of the family, for it is said
that he built a temple and called it Lanikeha or “the heavenly
resting-place.”

After a time Moi-keha found that life with his brother was not so
pleasant as might be desired, therefore he again prepared for a new
voyage, this time returning to his native land. He left Laa with
Olopana.

Two of the companions of Moi-keha on this return voyage became famous
in the annals of Hawaii. Kama-hua-lele was known through all the ages
by his chant in honour of Moi-Keha.

He superintended the building of the strong canoes. He was a kilokilo,
an astrologer who understood the places of the stars in the heavens and
the proper course to steer, guided by the sun by day and the stars by
night. He was the poet and seer and kahu or guardian of his chief
Moi-keha. The expedition was practically subject to his directions.

Laa-mao-mao, who aided Moi-keha as priest of the gods of the winds,
later dropped out of the story and moved to the island Molokai, where
he was supposed to have made his home near a place known as House of
Lono, a well-known hill on that island. Here he took his calabash of
winds and became the god of the winds, opening his calabash and letting
breezes or storms escape according to the wishes of the one seeking his
aid. He controlled the direction in which the winds should travel, by
lifting the cover on one side of the calabash. Then the imprisoned
winds burst forth and sped away in the desired direction.

It is said that when Moi-keha came back to the Hawaiian Islands he
visited all along the island coasts until he came to Kauai. Whenever he
landed he seems to have given prominence to one after another of the
companions of his long voyage. Places were named after some of them and
other places given to others for their future residence.

At last they came to Kauai, the most northerly island of the group.
They timed their approach so that the shadows of the night were around
them. Then as the light of the morning rose over sea and shore, with
his canoes flying the royal banners of a high chief, he drew near.

Kama-hua-lele, standing by the mast which bore the royal colours, sang
the chant of Moi-keha. The closing part of the chant is thus translated
by Fornander:


        “O, Moikeha, the chief who is to reside.
        My chief will reside on Hawaii.
        Life, life, O buoyant life!
        Live shall the chief and the priest.
        Live shall the seer and the slave,
        Dwell on Hawaii and be at rest,
        And attain to old age on Kauai.
            O Kauai is the island
            O Moikeha is the chief.”


This chant had been clearly recited wherever Moi-keha had visited any
of the islands, and now fell for the first time on the ears of the
curious inhabitants of Kauai. The warm welcome was given to Moi-keha
and his companions, which was always extended to high chiefs.

King Kalakaua adds a romantic incident to the coming of Moi-keha to
Kauai.

Puna, the king, had a daughter who belonged to the fairy tale period of
Europe rather than to the free giving and taking in marriage of the
Hawaiians. She had many suitors among the young chiefs, but could not
decide upon the one highest in her esteem.

Her father at last had decided that the only way to keep her suitors
from always living at his cost was to have a contest. This had been
agreed upon before the coming of Moi-keha. When Moi-keha saw Hooipo,
the daughter of the king, he determined to have her for his wife and
planned to enter into the contest.

The king had sent a human hair necklace and whale tooth ornament to be
placed on one of the small islands some distance from Kauai. The first
chief to secure the necklace should have the king’s daughter.

The fine large canoes of the various chiefs with their strong crews of
oarsmen were drawn up in line. Moi-keha had only a small canoe prepared
which still lay on the shore under the care of one of his comrades from
Tahiti.

At the given signal the canoes sped on this journey, but Moi-keha
lingered. The young princess had now decided that Moi-keha was the
chief she desired, but she could not urge him to go, and still he
lingered.

After a time, when the other boats were almost lost to sight, he
launched his little canoe, and with his companion, paddled out into the
ocean. Then he raised his mast and fastened to it his mat-sail.

Soon the boat leaped through the waters. No paddle was needed save for
steering. Laa-mao-mao was in the canoe with him, holding strong winds
in his calabash. He let loose these servants just behind the sail and
they pushed the canoe forward with incredible rapidity. Long before the
other chiefs came in sight of the island Moi-keha had found the
necklace and had sailed away to Hooipo.

In time Moi-keha became the king of Kauai.








IX

LAA FROM TAHITI


When history is told by genealogies, rather than by cycles of years,
the time-problem is difficult to solve. But in the story of
Laa-mai-Kahiki [2] the stories and genealogies of two widely separated
groups of Pacific islands produce a certain degree of apparent
accuracy. The Society Islands have the story of Raa who became a ruler
and established a line of rulers which has continued to the present
day. The genealogy of this Raa family coincides very closely in extent
with the number of names given in the Hawaiian genealogies from the
time of the visit of Laa from Tahiti to his uncle Moi-keha the Restless
and his subsequent return to Tahiti. This places the time of Laa in the
thirteenth century.

Moi-keha sailed away from the Hawaiian Islands with his brother Olopana
and his nephew Laa. He returned alone, and won the island Kauai as his
kingdom. Olopana and Laa remained in the “wide spreading” valley under
the shadow of what the Hawaiians called the mountain Kapa-ahu the Tapa
Cloak in far away Tahiti.

The mountains of Tahiti have been built upward from the floors of the
ocean until their rugged ravines rise several thousand feet above the
surf-washed beach. The centuries have softened the harsh mountain
outlines and swept vast masses of debris down into the valleys, until
at last tropical luxuriance dominates mountain slope and level plain.
Here Laa’s youth was spent, and his manhood gained. Here he proved his
superiority over the Tahitian chiefs among whom he had found his
permanent home. Laa’s record is that of a Polynesian viking. He was
born on the island Oahu. He went to Hawaii with his uncles and spent a
part of his boyhood in the royal valley of Waipio. With these same
uncles he sailed the many hundred miles to Tahiti.

It has always been the ambition of Hawaiian chiefs to excel in all
athletic sports and warlike exercises. This was a course of training
well fitted to make Laa high-spirited, courageous and ever ready to
take the leadership among his fellow-chiefs in the new land where he
made his home.

Years passed by. Moi-keha was held back from longed-for sea journeys by
the cares of his kingdom and the restful delights of a prosperous home.
Children whose names became noted in Hawaiian legends grew to manhood
and womanhood around him. Kahai, the sea-rover, a grandson of Moi-keha,
is said to have sailed to Upolu in the Samoan Islands and there found a
new species of breadfruit which he thought might well be placed by the
older Hawaiian breadfruit. This he brought back with him and planted at
Pearl Harbor.

Kila, the third son of Moi-keha, was made a messenger to Tahiti by his
father. A great longing had taken possession of Moi-keha to see the
foster son whom he had carried away many years before. Kila was said to
be very careful and courageous with a strong desire to emulate the
deeds of his ancestors. The call to the sea was hereditary and with
eagerness he grasped the opportunity. The largest double canoes were
selected, their mat sails were made from new and strong hala leaves and
they were equipped for the long voyage. Fornander says that some of
Kila’s brothers went with him. The old astrologer and sailor,
Kama-hua-lele, who had come from Tahiti with Moi-keha, was selected to
be the guardian of the young chiefs and pilot of the expedition.

Kila sailed from island to island until at last he left the high
mountains of the island Hawaii and sailed away to the South. The
Kalakaua legends say that Kila bore with him a brilliant royal mantle
made from the rare feathers of the mamo, and that Moi-keha had been
many months in the manufacture of the mantle, assisted by hundreds of
bird hunters and skilled workmen. This was an especial offering to Laa,
a reminder of the high esteem in which his foster father still held
him, and a proof of the intense desire for him to visit his native
land.

The long canoe voyage appears to have been blessed with favouring winds
and clear skies. The stars were easily observed and followed until
Tahiti was found. It seems to those who now cross the ocean in great
ships that such a voyage is almost incredible, but the Hawaiians were
vikings and were as intrepid sailors as the Norsemen who were sailing
across the Atlantic Ocean about the same time.

At Tahiti they found Laa and his uncle Olopana. Fornander says that one
set of legends gives the story of Laa’s speedy return to Hawaii with
Kila. Another set of legends rehearses the age of Olopana and his
desire for Laa to remain with him until his life should end. All the
legends agree in stating that Laa returned to the Hawaiian Islands,
that he had with him a large retinue when he visited the home of his
childhood and that he brought the drum known through all the later
years as Ke-eke-eke. It was made by cutting out the pithy heart of a
section of a large cocoanut tree, and thinning the shell as far as
safety would allow. Then the ends were covered with the skin of a
shark. Fornander says that “every independent chief, and every temple
where human sacrifices were offered, had their own drum and drummer
from Laa-mai-Kahiki’s time to the introduction of Christianity.”

The great event by which Laa was indelibly impressed upon the legends
of Hawaii was his triple marriage with three selected chiefesses of the
island Oahu.

The highest chiefs among the Hawaiians were glad to ally themselves
with Laa-mai-Kahiki. Not only did the romance of far-away lands and
mighty deeds attract attention, but his personal appearance and royal
bearing seemed to have conquered all who came near. There was the
general feeling that this powerful chief, who would soon return to
Raiatea, must leave descendants among the Hawaiians.

Offerings were sent to the temples and the priests were consulted. The
most sacred tests were made of the most important auguries known by the
priesthood. The decision was announced that Laa must have wives given
to him from among the young women of highest rank on Oahu, the home of
Laa in his boyhood and still the place where the larger portion of his
nearest relatives resided.

The daughters of the chiefs of the districts Kualoa, Kaalaea and
Kaneohe, all on the island Oahu, were selected and married to him in
the midst of a great round of feasts and games.

It was always known that Laa would return to Tahiti, and yet many
inducements were placed before him to lead him to stay. But he only
waited until each of the three chiefesses gave birth to a son, and then
sailed away to establish a lasting line of rulers in Tahiti, where,
according to Tahitian custom, he was called Raa.

The ancient Hawaiian chants recorded the names of the three sons of Laa
thus:


            “O Laa from Tahiti, the chief.
            O Ahukini, son of Laa.
            O Kukona, son of Laa.
            O Lauli, son of Laa, the father.
        The triple canoe of Laa-mai-Kahiki.
        The sacred first-born of Laa,
        Who were born on the same one day.”


This gift of three sons—a “triple canoe”—to the Hawaiians is one of the
most fully accepted facts of the traditions of long ago. They
established families of great prominence and their descendants were
proud of this distinction as “children of Laa.”

Apparently there was little intercourse later with the southern groups
of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. The vikings passed away and their
descendants failed to conquer the dangers of the seas. It may be that a
prolonged season of volcanic activity discouraged sea roving. It is
probable that many sailed away and were never heard of again. History
seldom records the long list of failures among men. It has been better
to tell of victories.








X

FIRST FOREIGNERS


It is said that the Chinese gave to the clove the name “Thengki”—“the
sweet-scented nail.” When the clove came to Rome, the haughty lovers of
spices exclaimed “clavus”—“a nail.” The English made a slight change
and said “clove.” Solomon, the wise, and King Hiram, the Phœnician,
sent fleets on voyages of long duration. Their ships returned from
these voyages laden with the fragrant products of the spice lands.

Marco Polo rehearsed the abundant aromas of the Orient as well as the
gold and jewels and silks. Columbus, in 1492, went west that he might
find more ready access to these eastern riches. The spice islands lay
somewhere in a great ocean toward the sunset from Spain, provided the
world was round, as Columbus argued.

Balboa must have wished for a Nicaraguan or Panama Canal when he
carried timbers across the isthmus and built a ship on the Pacific
coast to explore the new ocean which he had discovered. In 1513 he
launched his little ship, intending to find the oriental riches, if
possible.

In October of the year 1527, three Spanish ships were “fitted out” by
Cortez. They set sail from Zacatula, Mexico, for the Molucca Islands.
One only, under the command of Saavedra, reached its destination. A
fierce storm drove the little squadron far north of the ordinary route,
and swept two of the ships out of the record of history. Alexander
says: “It seems certain that a foreign vessel which was wrecked about
this time on the Kona coast of Hawaii must have been one of Saavedra’s
missing ships.” From this ship a white man and woman escaped. After
reaching the beach they knelt for a long time in prayer. The Hawaiians,
watching them, waited until they rose, and received welcome. The place
was at once named “Kulou”—“kneeling.” Through all the succeeding years
the name kept the story of the wrecked white chiefs before the Hawaiian
people. The Hawaiians received their white visitors as honoured guests,
and permitted them to marry into noted chief-families. In the Hawaiian
legends the man and woman are called brother and sister. The man was
named Ku-kana-loa. Their descendants were well known, one of them being
a governor of the island of Kauai. These white citizens came to the
islands in the reign of Ke-alii-o-ka-loa, who was born about A.D. 1500,
and became a king of Hawaii about A.D. 1525.

There seems to be scarcely a trace of the Spanish language or of the
Christian religion as practiced by the Spaniards. The nearest approach
to any permanent influence possibly coming from this shipwrecked man is
the statement made to a chief by a native prophet long before the
islands were discovered by Captain Cook, that from his predecessors he
had learned the prophecy: “A communication would be made to them from
Heaven, the place of the real God, entirely different from anything
they had known and that the tabu of the country would be subverted.”

The Hawaiian traditions have several references to foreigners coming to
the islands. Pau-makua, of Oahu, was one of the Vikings of the Pacific
during the twelfth century. He is recorded as visiting many foreign
lands. He brought priests to Oahu. Judge Fornander suggests that quite
possibly these were Indians from the American coast. Professor
Alexander, in his “History of Hawaii,” thinks there is scarcely
sufficient foundation for the suggestion. However, Pau-makua and his
journeys are accepted as part of Hawaiian history.

In the thirteenth century “the white chief with the iron knife” was
wrecked on the coast of the island of Maui, near the village Wailuku.
Three men and two women were saved. Wakalana, a chief, took his
outrigger canoe through the surf and rescued them. These persons are
supposed to have been Japanese. The captain of the ship carried a long
sword which became renowned throughout the islands as “the wonderful
iron knife.” It was a tremendously effective weapon, when matched with
wooden daggers and war clubs. King Kalakaua relates the amplified
legend and chant in his “Myths and Legends of Hawaii,” and in
imagination pictures some of the battles fought and trades made for the
possession of the iron knife. The Hawaiians came from all parts to see
these remarkable strangers. They were astonished to see the women eat
the same kinds of food, and from the same dishes as the men. “Nothing
was tabu to the strangers.” This was entirely new to Hawaiian ideas.
Another legend mentions a foreign ship, called Ulupano, and the captain
was remembered as Malolano. It is supposed that the ship soon sailed
away. Other hints are found of ships having been seen out on the ocean
by fishing parties who had gone far from land. These ships were called
moku [islands], the name used to the present day.

There are undoubted proofs of the discovery of the Hawaiian Islands in
1555 by the Spaniard, Juan Gaetano. This is the first known record of
the islands among the civilised nations. There are evident references
to this group in the legends of the Polynesians in other Pacific
islands.

Gaetano passed through the northern part of the Pacific and discovered
large islands which he marked upon a chart as “Los Majos.” The great
mountains upon these islands did not rise in sharp peaks, but spread
out like a high tableland in the clouds, hence he also called the
islands “Isles de Mesa,” the Mesa Islands or the Table Lands. One of
the islands was named “The Unfortunate.” Three other smaller islands
were called “The Monks.”

Le Perouse, the celebrated Frenchman who visited Hawaii in A.D. 1796,
says that Gaetano saw these islands “with their naked savages,
cocoanuts and other fruits, but no gold or silver.” There was nothing
attractive, and the wealth-loving Spaniard marked the islands on his
chart and never visited them again. So the record lay for many years.
This record, kept in Spain’s archives, is now accepted as marking the
real discovery of the Hawaiian Islands.

Meanwhile, the Hawaiians were as completely ignorant of the rest of the
world as if no civilised eyes had ever seen their mountains. They
offered each other as human sacrifices; they fought for supremacy. They
died at the will of their chiefs. They lived almost as lustfully as the
brutes. They had nothing that could be called a home, with an
affectionate household gathered inside its walls. They ate, and slept,
and died. They entered with zeal into the national sports as well as
into the national quarrels. They chanted their genealogies and personal
prowess. The art of sailing long distances by the aid of the stars had
fallen into disuse. The age of the Western Vikings had passed by. For
three or four hundred years no voyagers had found their way to foreign
lands. Then some time in the early part of the eighteenth century a
king of Oahu involuntarily made a journey which was celebrated as a
part of his genealogical chant. The entire “mele,” or song, stretches
out to about six hundred lines. It is an interesting poem filled with
graphic references to people and places, to winds and seas, and to
birds and fishes.

In this chant the king of Oahu relates his strange experience on the
ocean. Fornander quotes the poem in his “Polynesian Race”:


        CHANT OF KU-ALII (KU—THE CHIEF)

        “O Kahiki, land of the far reaching ocean.
        Within is the land—outside is the sun,
        Indistinct are the sun and the land when approaching.
            Perhaps you have seen it.
            I have seen it.
            I have surely seen Kahiki.

        “A land with a strange language is Kahiki.
        The men of Kahiki have ascended
        The backbone of heaven (mountains)
        Up there they trample down,
        They look down on those below.
        Men of our race are not in Kahiki.
        One kind of men is in Kahiki—the white man.
            He is like a god.
            I am like a man,
            A man, indeed.

        “Wandering about, the only Hawaiian there.
        Days and nights passing by.
        By morsels was the food.
        Picking the food like a bird.
            Listen, O bird of Victory!
            Hush, with whom was the victory?
                With Ku, indeed.”


The chant states that the king was “wandering about,” probably driven
by the winds far south from the islands. He and his oarsmen were almost
starving. The food became “morsels,” or only enough for a bird to “pick
up.” But Ku—the chief—won the victory over the ocean. He went to the
“foreign land.” He found the white man’s home, where the “land was
‘within,’” i.e., lying to the east, with the sun “outside,” i.e.,
westward over the waters, most of the day. Perhaps the misty mountains
concealed the sun until the forenoon was far spent. He saw “the land of
the far-reaching ocean,” and returned in safety to Oahu. “With Ku—the
chief—indeed was the victory.”

Judge Fornander says: “It is probable that some Spanish galleons picked
up Ku and his companions, carried them to Acapulco, Mexico, and brought
them back on the return voyage.”

In 1743, Lord Anson, of the British ship Centurion, captured a Spanish
ship near the Philippine Islands, and found a chart locating a group of
islands in the North Pacific—the same group that Gaetano discovered in
1555. This chart, and the story of Lord Anson’s voyage, were almost
certainly known by Captain Cook, who made three voyages through the
Pacific.








XI

CAPTAIN COOK


In response to an appeal from the British Admiralty, Captain Cook left
England to enter upon his third voyage in July, 1776, with the purpose
of restoring some natives of the Society Islands to their home;
examining islands of the Pacific for good harbours for future English
use; and then to pass along the northwest coast of America to find, if
possible, a sea passage from the Pacific Ocean to Hudson’s or Baffin’s
Bay. During the year 1777 he felt his way from island group to island
group. He recognised the close relationship in language and features,
between inhabitants of many of these island worlds.

On January 18, 1778, he discovered Oahu and later Kauai, of the
Hawaiian Islands. He named the group “The Sandwich Islands,” in honour
of Lord Sandwich, the patron of the expedition.

This name has never been accepted among the Hawaiians. The home name,
the name used for centuries, could not be supplanted by an English
discoverer. The Hawaiians have always called themselves “Ka poe
Hawaii”—“the Hawaiian people.”

There are four different sources of information concerning the coming
to and death of Captain Cook in the Hawaiian Islands. Captain King
wrote the account given in “Cook’s Voyages.”

Ledyard, an American petty officer on one of Captain Cook’s ships,
wrote a story published in America.

The surgeon on Captain Cook’s boat kept a diary which has recently been
published.

The historian must remember that there were thousands of native
eye-witnesses whose records cannot be overlooked in securing a true
history. The following account is almost entirely from the Hawaiians
only:

Captain Cook came to Waimea, Kauai. He was called by the Hawaiians “O
Lono,” because they thought he was the god Lono, one of the chief gods
of the ancient Hawaiians.

The ship was seen coming up from the west and going north. Kauai lay
spread out in beauty before Lono, and the first anchor was dropped in
the bay of Waimea, in the month of January, 1778. It was night when the
ship anchored.

A man by the name of Mapua, and others, were out fishing, with their
boats anchored. They saw a great thing coming up, rising high above the
surf, fire burning on top of it. They thought it was something evil and
hurried to the shore, trembling and frightened by this wonderful
apparition. They had fled, leaving all they had used while fishing.
When they went up from the beach they told the high chief Kaeo and the
other chiefs about this strange sight.

In the morning they saw the ship standing outside Waimea. When they saw
this marvellous monster, great wonder came to the people, and they were
astonished and afraid. Soon a crowd of people came together, shouting
with fear and confused thought until the harbour resounded with noise.
Each one shouted as he saw the ship with masts and the many things,
such as ropes and sails, on them. One said to another, “What is this
thing which has branches?” Another said, “It is a forest of trees.” A
certain priest, who was also a chief, said, “This is not an ordinary
thing; it is a heiau [temple] of the god Lono, having steps going up
into the clear sky, to the altars on the outside” (i.e., to the yards
of the upper masts).

The chiefs sent some men to go out in canoes and see this wonderful
thing. They went close to the ship and saw iron on the outside of the
ship. They were very glad when they saw the amount of iron. They had
known iron before because of iron in sticks washed up on the land. Then
there was little, but at this time they saw very much. They rejoiced
and said, “There are many pieces of pahoa” (meaning iron). They called
all iron pahoa—a tool for cutting, because there was once a sword among
the old people of the Islands.

They went up on the ship and saw “a number of men with white foreheads,
shining eyes, skin wrinkled, square-cornered heads, indistinct words,
and fire in their mouths.”

A chief and a priest tied the ends of their long malo-like sashes and
held them up in their left hands. “They went before Kapena Kuke
(Captain Cook), bent over, squatted down, and offered prayers,
repeating words over and over; then took the hand of Kapena Kuke and
knelt down; then rose up free from any tabu.”

Captain Cook gave the priest a knife. For this reason he named his
daughter Kua-pahoa, after this knife. This was the first present of
Captain Cook to a Hawaiian.

When they saw the burning of tobacco in the mouth of a man they thought
he belonged to the volcano family. When they saw peculiar and large
“cocoanuts” (probably melons) lying on the deck, they said, “This is
the fruit of a sorceress, or mischief-maker of the ocean, who has been
killed.” They saw the skin of a bullock hanging in the front part of
the ship and said, “Another mischief-making sorceress has been killed.
Perhaps these gods have come that all the evil kupuas [monsters] might
be destroyed.”

These messengers returned and told the king and chiefs about the kind
of men they had seen, what they were doing, their manner of speech, and
the death of some of the monsters of the ocean. “We saw the fruit and
the skin hanging on the altar. There is plenty of iron on that temple
and a large amount is lying on the deck.”

When the chiefs heard this report they said, “Truly this is the god
Lono with his temple.”

The people thought that by the prayer of the priest all troubles of
tabu had been lifted, so they asked the priest if there would be any
trouble if they went on this place of the god. The priest assured them
that his prayer had been without fault and there would be no death in
all that belonged to the gods. There was no interruption of any kind
during the prayer.

Hao was another name for “iron” and also hao meant “theft.”

A certain war-chief said, “I will go and hao that hao treasure, for my
profession is to hao” (steal). The chiefs assented. Then he paddled out
to the ship and went on board and took iron and went down. Some one
shot him and killed him. His name was Kapu-puu (The Tabu Hill). The
canoes returned and reported that the chief had been killed by a wai-ki
(a rush of smoke like water in a blow-hole).

Some of the chiefs cried out, “Kill this people because they killed
Kapu-puu!” The priest heard the cry and replied, “That thought is not
right. They have not sinned. We have done wrong because we were greedy
after the iron and let Kapu-puu go to steal. I forbade you at first,
and established my law that if any one should steal, he shall suffer
the loss of his bones. It is only right that we should be pleasant to
them. Where are you, O Chiefs and People! This is my word to you!”

That night guns were fired and sky-rockets sent up into the sky, for
the sailors were glad to have found such a fine country. The natives
called the flash from the guns “Ka huila” (lightning) and “Kane-hikili”
(thunder of the god Kane). The natives thought this was war.

Then a high chiefess, Ka-maka-helei, the mother of Kaumu-alii, the last
king of Kauai, said: “Not for war is our god, but we will seek the
pleasure of the god.” So she gave her own daughter as a wife for
Lono—Captain Cook. After this there was promiscuous living among the
men of the ship and the people of the land, with the result that the
vile diseases of the white people were quickly scattered over all the
islands.

A boat came to Oahu from Kauai with a chief. The Oahu people asked him,
“What kind of a thing was the ship?” The chief said “it was like a
heiau (temple) with steps going up to the altars, masts standing with
branches spread out each side, and a long stick in front like the sharp
nose of a swordfish, openings (portholes) in the side and openings
behind. The men had white heads with corners, clothes like wrinkled
skin, holes in the sides (pockets), sharp-pointed things on their feet,
fire in their mouths, and smoke with the fire like a volcano coming
from their mouths.”

Kalaniopuu, king of Hawaii, was at Koolau, Maui, fighting with the
people of Kahekili, king of Maui. Moho, a messenger, told Kalaniopuu
and the chiefs the news about this strange ship. They said, “This is
Lono from Kahiki.”

They asked about the language. Moho, putting his hand in his malo, drew
out a piece of a broken calabash and held it out like the foreigners,
saying: “A hikapalale, hikapalale, hioluio, oalaki, walawalaki, waiki,
poha, aloha kahiki, aloha haehae, aloha ka wahine, aloha ke keiki,
aloha ka hale.” Of course, this was a jumbled mass of words or sounds
with but very little meaning.

The natives relate how, with veneration, they received the white man.
They robed Captain Cook with red native cloth and rich feather cloaks.
They prostrated themselves before him. They placed him in the most
sacred places in their temples. When he despoiled a temple of its
woodwork and carried off idols for firewood to use upon his ships, the
natives made no protest. They supposed that Lono had a right to his
own. But afterward, when death proved that Captain Cook was “a man and
no god,” the feeling of resentment was exceedingly deep and bitter.
This was the standpoint from which the Hawaiians welcomed their
discoverers.

On the other hand, when Captain Cook saw the islands in 1778, he was
impressed with the friendly spirit of the people, and with their hearty
willingness to give aid in any direction. There was also an appearance
of manliness and dignity about the high chiefs. There was such respect
and ready service on the part of the people—there were such
prostrations before the kings of the various islands that Captain Cook
accepted the “worship” offered him as the proper respect due to the
representative of Great Britain. He was glad to receive a welcome that
freed him from much anxiety. He was thankful that the chiefs accepted
his superiority. He could easily procure the supplies needed for his
ships. He could prosecute his investigations concerning harbours and
resources without danger to himself or to his men.

After securing such supplies as he needed, in February, 1778, he sailed
for North America. Here he spent the summer and fall, exploring the
coast from San Francisco to Alaska. He consulted the Russians who were
fur-hunting in this region. He became satisfied that there was no
northwest channel across North America, to either Hudson’s or Baffin’s
Bay. He made a chart of the coast. The winter came on suddenly and
severely. He fled to the “Sandwich Islands,” and in November, 1778,
sighted the island of Maui, or, as Captain Cook phonetically spelled
it, “Mowee.” Soon he discovered the large island Hawaii, or “Owhyhee.”
He was surprised to see the summits of the mountains covered with snow.
As he drew near the channel between Maui and Hawaii, Ka-meha-meha  with
several of his friends went on board one of the ships and passed the
night. He was at that time forty-three years of age.

Then for eleven days Captain Cook sailed in the channel between Maui
and Hawaii. On the second day of December he anchored near Kohala, the
northern point of the island Hawaii.

Captain Cook purchased pigs for a piece of iron or barrel hoop, to make
axes or knives or fish-hooks. A pig one fathom long would get a piece
of iron. A longer pig would get a knife for a chief. If a common man
received anything, the chief would take it. If it was concealed and
discovered the man was killed.

They brought offerings—pigs, taro, sweet potatoes, bananas, chickens,
and all such things as pleased Captain Cook.

Lono went to the western bay Ke-ala-ke-kua and the priest took him into
the temple, thinking he was their god. There they gave him a place upon
the platform with the images of the gods—the place where sacrifices
were laid. The priest stepped back after putting on Captain Cook the
oloa (the small white tapa thrown over the god while prayer was being
recited) and the red cloak haena, as was the custom with the gods. Then
he offered prayer thus:

“O Lono! your different bodies in the heavens, long cloud, short cloud,
bending cloud, spread-out cloud in the sky, from Uliuli, from Melemele,
from Kahiki, from Ulunui, from Haehae, from Anaokuululu, from
Hakalanai, from the land opened up by Lono in the lower sky, in the
upper sky, in the shaking bottom of the ocean, the lower land, the land
without hills.

“O Ku! O Lono! O Kane! O Kanaloa! the gods from above and from beneath,
gods from most distant places! Here are the sacrifices, the offerings,
the living things from the chief, from the family, hanging on the
shining cloud and the floating land! Amama (amen); ma noa” (the tabu is
lifted).

Several weeks passed by. Trivial troubles arose. The natives learned to
steal some things from the supposed “heavenly” visitors. The harmony
between the sailors and the Hawaiians was disturbed.

In February, 1779, Lono went on his ship and sailed as far as Kawaihae.
He saw that one of his masts was rotten, so he went back to make
repairs, and anchored again at Ke-ala-ke-kua. When the natives saw the
ships returning they went out again, but not as before. They had
changed their view, saying: “These are not gods; they are only men.”
Some, however, persisted in believing that these were gods. Some of the
men said, “They cry out if they are hurt, like any man.” Some of them
thought they would test Lono, so went up on the ship and took iron. The
sailors saw them and shot at them. Then the natives began to fight. The
sailors grabbed the canoe of the chief Polea, an aikane (close friend)
of the king.

He opposed their taking his boat and pushed them off. One of them ran
up with a club and struck Polea and knocked him down. The natives saw
this and leaped upon the sailors. Polea rose up and stopped the
fighting. Because he was afraid Lono would kill him he stopped the
quarrel.

After this he no longer believed that Lono was a god. He was angry, and
thought he would secretly take one of the ship’s boats, break it all to
pieces for the iron in it, and also because he wanted revenge for the
blow which knocked him down. This theft of a boat was the cause of the
quarrel with, and death of, Captain Cook.

Captain Cook and his people woke up in the morning and saw that his
boat was gone. They were troubled, and Captain Cook went to ask the
king about the boat. The king said, “I do not know anything about it.
Perhaps some native has stolen it and taken it to some other place.”
Captain Cook returned to the ship and consulted with his officers. They
decided they had better get the king, take him on the ship, and hold
him until the boat should be returned, and then set him free. Officers
and men took guns and swords and prepared to go ashore and capture the
king.

Captain Cook tried to persuade the king to go to the ship with him. The
king was held back by his chiefs. They were suspicious, but the king
could not readily give up his confidence.

Meanwhile, a chief living across the bay saw Captain Cook going ashore.
He and another chief launched a double canoe and sailed quickly across.

Sailors saw these men in red cloaks, fired upon them from the ships and
killed one of them. The other hurried his boatmen and escaped to the
king’s house. Captain Cook had issued an order forbidding canoes to
come near the ships. When the chief saw the king by the side of Captain
Cook he cried out: “O Kalani! O the sea is not right—Kalimu has been
killed! Return to the house!” He told how the sailors had fired upon
his friend and himself.

Kalola, wife of Kalaniopuu, heard the death-word, and that the chief
had been killed by the gun of the foreigners, so she ran out of the
woman’s house, put her hand on the king’s shoulder and said, “O Kalani,
let us go back.”

The king turned, thinking he would go back, but Captain Cook seized his
hands. A chief thrust his spear between them, and the king and some of
his chiefs went back to the house.

Then the battle commenced. When Lono (Captain Cook) saw the spear
pushed between the king and himself he caught his sword and struck that
chief on the head, but the sword slipped and cut the cheek. Then that
chief struck Lono with his spear and knocked him down on the lava
beach.

Lono cried out because of the hurt. The chief thought, “This is a man,
and not a god, and there is no wrong.” So he killed Lono (Captain
Cook). Four other foreigners also were killed. Many daggers and spears
were used in killing Captain Cook.

When the officers and men saw that Captain Cook and some others had
been killed, they ran down, got on the boat, fired guns and killed many
of the natives. Some natives skilled in the use of sling-stones threw
stones against the boat. When the sailors saw that Captain Cook was
dead, they fired guns from the ship. The natives held up mats as
shields, but found they were no protection against the bullets.

The king offered the body of Captain Cook as a sacrifice. This
sacrifice meant that the body was placed on an altar with prayers as a
gift to the gods because the chief and his kingdom had been saved by
the gods. When the ceremonies of the sacrifice were over, they cleaned
off the flesh from the bones of Lono and preserved them. A priest
kindly returned a part of the body to the foreigners to be taken on
their ship. Some of the bones were kept by the priests and worshipped.

Eight days after the death of Lono at Ka-awa-loa the natives again met
those who remained on the ship.

Monday, February 23, 1779, the ship went to Kauai. On the 29th of that
month they secured water and purchased food. Because they wanted the
yams of Niihau, they sailed over to that island and purchased yams,
sweet potatoes, and pigs, and on March 15th sailed out into the mist of
the ocean and were completely lost to sight.

This is the end of Captain Cook’s voyage along the coasts of these
islands.








XII

THE IVORY OF OAHU

KING KAHAHANA, ABOUT 1773


The story of the ivory of Oahu is a tale of treachery and triumph on
the part of Kahekili, King of Maui, and of defeat and death for
Kahahana, the last independent king of Oahu.

Kahahana was the son of Elani, chief of Ewa, one of the most powerful
among the high chiefs of Oahu. While still a child, he was sent to Maui
to pass the years of his young manhood in close contact with one of the
most noted courts among the different island kings—the court of his
relative, Kahekili.

After many years had gone by the Oahu chiefs deposed their king and
drove him away to the island of Kauai. Then they met in a great council
to select a new king from the high chief families. After careful
consideration, it was decided that Kahahana was the most available of
all who could be accepted for their future ruler, and an embassy was
sent to Maui to recall him and inform him of the exalted position for
which he had been chosen by his fellow-chiefs of Oahu.

The Maui king was wise in his own generation and determined to make all
the use possible of this selection. Therefore, he objected to the young
chief’s acceptance of the place of ruler of the neighbouring island.
When this objection had been overruled by the high chiefess, who had
been sent from Oahu to bring back the young king, Kahekili again
delayed proceedings by refusing to permit the young wife to go with
him. Then there came another season of councils and consultations. It
was easy for the King of Maui to control the line of thought as
advanced by his chiefs. It seems that they argued that it was best for
the wife to go if a suitable return should be made in some way by the
new King of Oahu. Then again it was conceded on all sides that Kahahana
was very deeply in debt to his relative for the protection afforded him
and the careful and royal attention bestowed upon him in the court of
Maui.

Kahekili and his chiefs were pronounced worshippers of the various
Hawaiian gods, therefore they argued that they should receive a place
on the northeastern shores of Oahu where a noted heiau or temple was
located. The cession of the Kua-loa lands, with this temple, would be a
very satisfactory partial recompense. The young king thought that this
was a small part of his kingdom and would scarcely be missed, hence he
readily promised to grant the Kua-loa district to his friend.

There were certain gifts of the sea which were very highly prized by
all the chiefs of the Hawaiian Islands. Among these, whalebone and the
very scarce whale’s teeth were most prominent. These were “the ivory”
of the Islands. The whalebone and the teeth were called palaoa. The
“ivory” was usually made into a “hooked ornament” with a large hole
almost in the middle, through which was passed a large number of
strings of human hairs, thus forming a necklace unique and costly.
Small portions of the ivory were pierced and fashioned into beads.
These were strung together and also used as necklaces. It was a burial
custom to place the palaoa in the burial cave in which the bones of any
dead chief might be secreted.

Kahekili and his ready followers argued that as a slight return for the
royal favour which had been shown to Kahahana in caring for him at
court and in permitting his wife to go with him, he could very readily
covenant to bestow upon Kahekili all the ivory which might be found on
the shores of Oahu. Probably this matter was not presented as the
payment of tribute, but as a recognition of benefits received, and
Kahahana again readily promised the ivory—the gift of the seas.

This was as far as Kahekili dared to go in his demands. Apparently the
two kings then discussed the continuance of the friendly relations
which had bound them together so many years, and entered into some kind
of an alliance by which Kahekili might receive assistance in his wars
with the chiefs of the large island of Hawaii. Two, or perhaps three,
years after this consultation, Kahahana sent heavy reinforcements from
Oahu to Maui, which aided Kahekili in the complete annihilation of the
Alapa Regiment, about eight hundred chiefs, from Hawaii, in the noted
“Battle of the Sand-Hills,” near Wailuku.

Soon the morning came for sailing to Oahu. Kahahana, his wife, and the
high chiefess who had come from Oahu to bring the news of his election,
and a large retinue of retainers left Maui in regal state, while the
good-bye “aloha” rang out over the waters from crowds of friends.

When the Oahu priests in the heiaus on the slopes of Leahi or Diamond
Head saw the fleet of canoes coming from Maui, swift runners were
despatched to all the high chiefs of the island that they might
assemble at Waikiki and give welcome to their new king. It is not
difficult to imagine the barbaric splendour of the royal canoes and
their occupants as they crossed the outer coral reefs and drew near to
the white sands of the most famous beach in Hawaiian history. The
canoes were fitted with triangular sails made from the leaves of the
hala tree, while brilliant pennants floated from every mast head. The
king and high chiefs wore the feather cloaks and helmets betokening
their rank. From these the sunlight flashed in gold and crimson fire.
The retainers wrapped their garments of richly coloured tapa around
them, while the boatmen, whose bronzed bodies glistened with freshly
applied oil, formed a pleasing background to the gaudy display of those
highest in rank. Thus Kahahana came to his own.

The Oahu chiefs made a display no less gorgeous along the sands of
Waikiki, as they received their king. Nights were spent in revelry and
days in feasting until the ceremonies of installation were completed.

At last Kahahana called the high chiefs and those belonging to the
highest priesthood together for consultation concerning the affairs of
the kingdom.

At this time he broached the agreement he had entered into with
Kahekili concerning the ivory of Oahu and the temple lands of Kualoa.

Kahahana was an elected, rather than a hereditary, king of Oahu.
Therefore, when, in 1773, he came from Maui to take the reins of
government in his hands, it was very important for him to keep the
friendship of the high chiefs who had given him the position. He could
not assume any self-sufficient aspect and not care whether the other
chiefs were well pleased or not. His power to fulfil his agreement
depended upon the willingness of the council of high chiefs to ratify
what he had promised.

Kahahana gave in full his reasons for agreeing to the demands. He spoke
of the experience gained in the wars between the kings of Maui and
Hawaii, and stated that the bestowal of the ivory and the temple lands
upon Kahekili might readily be granted as an honourable return from the
chiefs of Oahu for the training given to their young king.

A number of chiefs at once yielded to this argument. It was a strong
appeal to their honour. They were willing to pay for what they
received. But other chiefs were doubtful of the expediency of this
action. They desired to please their king and do all that honour
required. Yet the wisdom of doing what was asked was not clear.
Moreover, Kahahana was not trained to become a king. He had been kept
at the court of Maui because he was a relative of the king. Perhaps the
king of Maui was asking more than he ought.

Then arose Ka-o-pulu-pulu, the high priest of Oahu, one of the most
far-seeing and statesman-like men in all the islands. He understood the
Maui king and his ambitious designs for the conquest of the islands
Molokai and Oahu.

Ka-o-pulu-pulu carefully pointed out the fact that there was a great
deal to the demands of Kahekili which did not appear on the surface.
The surrender of the temple and the ivory was practically accepting
Kahekili as sovereign. It was the same as yielding the independence of
Oahu. Kua-loa with the temple and the lands surrounding it was, in
reality, one of the most sacred places in the islands. Here were kept
the two war drums sacred from ancient times. The high priest argued
that the chiefs could not afford to give these war drums to Kahekili
because the favour and protection of the war gods belonged to the king
who could call them by the beating of the drums. Moreover, their anger
would be against those who had lightly given away the drum-voices.

Then again the chiefs must remember that the consecrated hill of
Ka-ua-kahi would go as a part of the temple lands. This would give to
Kahekili a basis for invasion, a powerful influence over the gods of
Oahu, and would make it still more difficult for the Oahuans to
maintain this independence.

The high priest reminded the chiefs also concerning the ivory of Oahu,
that this, too, was a proof of the favour of the gods. This time it
meant the gods of the sea. To surrender the ivory would turn away the
favour of the gods whose assistance was prayed for in all things
connected with the great waters. They must not give to Kahekili the
gods of both land and sea.

Again Ka-o-pulu-pulu, the high priest, argued that if Kahahana, this
new king, had come with warriors and subdued Oahu, the chiefs of Oahu
could have nothing to say concerning the disposition of anything
belonging to the island. The conqueror could do as he wished with the
people or the land. Inasmuch as the chiefs had called Kahahana to the
throne, however, “it would be wrong for him to cede to another the
national emblems of sovereignty and independence.”

This rather full argument from the lips of the high priest shows the
exceedingly strong hold which the tabus and worship of the gods had
upon the most enlightened and upright men of the days immediately
preceding the discovery of the islands by Captain Cook. The chiefs had
deeply rooted principles of loyalty and honour toward each other, and
yet the reign of the gods was supreme even while accompanied by a host
of burdens such as continual human sacrifices and tabus extremely hard
to bear.

Kahahana and the chiefs of Oahu readily accepted the views of the high
priest and decided that they could not accede to the demands of
Kahekili. One thing, however, remained which they could do for the Maui
king, which would abundantly repay him for all the aid he had ever
given to this young king. They would offer fleets of canoes filled with
warriors to aid him in his battles with the king of Hawaii. In this way
friendly relations and a state of peace would be maintained between the
islands of Oahu and Maui.

Kahekili was greatly disappointed by his failure to secure the ivory,
the gift of the gods, and the sacred lands with the all-powerful war
drums, but he covered his chagrin as best he could by accepting the
offer of warriors, for his spies assured him that his powerful
brother-in-law, the king of Hawaii, was preparing an immense army with
which to conquer the whole of Maui. He heard of the organisation of the
two powerful bodies of young chiefs known in Hawaiian history as “the
regiments called Alapa and Pii-pii.” The Alapa regiment alone numbered
about eight hundred of the finest and bravest chiefs of the island of
Hawaii.

He felt his inability to meet his Hawaiian enemies alone, therefore he
called for aid from Oahu. Then came the “Battle of the Sand-Hills”
below Wailuku and the defeat of the forces of the king of Hawaii. It
was a dearly purchased victory which he never could have won without
the aid of the Oahu warriors, and yet he was not profuse in thanks for
the assistance given. The failure to win the desired grant rankled in
his heart and he still nourished the purpose of securing a foothold on
the island of Oahu. The year after the Battle of the Sand-Hills,
Kahekili found an opportunity for making his next move.

Kahahana went from Oahu to Molokai to consecrate a temple. Oahu had
maintained sovereignty over Molokai for some time, therefore the
dedication of a heiau of any importance was in the hands of the king as
the person of highest and most sacred rank. On Molokai there was also a
large taro patch. This needed attention, and some time was to be
devoted to the oversight of the repairs called for.

Kahekili and his advisers thought this was an excellent opportunity to
renew influence over Kahahana. The two kings met on Molokai and spent
days in royal entertainments.

At the advice of his high priest, the Maui king craftily set to work to
undermine Kahahana’s faith in the Oahu priesthood. While the kings
visited and feasted together, Kahekili, from time to time, introduced
remarks concerning the way he was treated in the matter of the ivory of
Oahu. At one time, apparently as an offset to the sacred lands which he
did not get, he asked for the large and fertile tract of land on
Molokai known as the lands of Halawa. This Kahahana readily gave to him
as land that had been conquered and won from its inhabitants,
concerning which there would be small dispute.

Then Kahekili insinuated that the high priest of Oahu, in refusing the
grant of the ivory and the sacred lands, had been very insincere. He
told Kahahana that the prophet, while pretending to be friendly to
Oahu, had at the same time offered the entire government of Oahu to
himself. Thus he began the distrust which was to lead Kahahana to
ultimately destroy this wise and loyal high priest. In the various
conversations he tried to impress the Oahu king with the belief that
the prophet was really a traitor instead of a friend. The king’s utter
lack of principle and his knowledge of the character, of the young king
are shown in the way in which he made Kahahana believe in his personal
friendship. He took pains, in his wily and apparently open-hearted way,
to let it be known that the only reason why he had not become the king
of Oahu as well as of Maui was because of his great personal love for
his young friend. He would not stand in the way of one in whom he felt
so much interest. But this personal kindness must not blind the eyes of
the young king to the fact that his high priest was practically a
traitor.

The young king returned to Oahu with great faith in his enemy and a
likewise great unbelief in his friends. He began a course of action
inspired by his Maui advisers which was thoroughly overbearing and
capricious and finally created dissension throughout his kingdom.








XIII

THE ALAPA REGIMENT

1776


Ka-lani-opuu was the Moi, or king, of Hawaii, at whose feet Captain
Cook was slain in 1779. He had been the ruling chief since 1754. He was
a restless warrior and signalised his reign by bloody battles with the
chiefs of the neighbouring island of Maui. The decimation of the
Hawaiian race began in these inter-island wars before the coming of the
white race.

About 1760 Kalaniopuu attacked the southern coast of Maui and captured
the famous fort of Kau-wiki.

For fifteen years the Maui chiefs were not able to recapture it. During
these years Kalaniopuu had frequently gathered his best company of
warriors and attacked the Maui seacoast. From each invasion he had
returned laden with captives and spoil. At last, in 1775, the king was
the victim of his own ambition. His supreme desire was to rule two
islands instead of one, and he was willing to fight for it.

He carried the war close to the home of Kahekili, king of Maui. A
battle was fought. There was a great destruction of life and property.
This raid received the name “Kalae-ho-hoa”—“pounded on the
forehead”—because, as the records say, “The captives were unmercifully
beaten on their heads with war clubs.” For a time victory was with the
invaders; the Maui forces were not prepared for the onset, but warriors
were hastily assembled from all parts of the island.

There was a bloody hand-to-hand struggle, in which thrusting with
spears and striking with clubs meant almost certain death to those who
were not able to get in the first blow.

It was a terrible defeat for Hawaii. The old king had been taken to the
coast and placed in his royal double canoe ready to escape if his army
could not win the day.

One of the most noted and daring warriors of the time, Ke-ku-hau-pio,
held his place against the Maui men while his comrades were driven
back. Several antagonists crowded around him. When one fell another
took his place. Heavy blows from war clubs and spears beat down the
weapons of the stalwart warrior and rained blows upon his head and
body. Once and again he swept back the circle of his enemies. But they
clung to him. They wearied and wounded him until he began to stagger
under the blows against which he furnished imperfect guard. His
strength was gone, and hands were outstretched to seize him and carry
him as a living sacrifice to the nearest heiau.

Suddenly a giant Hawaiian with a very long and heavy war club scattered
the group around the fainting warrior.

As he beat down the Maui warriors his cry rang out: “E kokua! E
kokua!”—“To the rescue! To the rescue!”

He gave the old chief a moment’s rest while he kept the surrounding
crowd at bay; then he dashed against the wall of warriors and broke it
down. Turning, he caught the old chief and aided him in hurried
retreat, while his terrible war club played with lightning strokes
against his foes. The young giant screamed with joy when he struck to
earth enemy after enemy. With the insane inspiration of battle he made
charge upon charge, as he pushed the confused mass of chiefs and people
into an impetuous flight. Then he hastened back to his friend and aided
him still further in the retreat.

“It is Ka-meha-meha the sacred,” the Maui warriors cried; “the gods are
in him. Kaili, the war god, strikes through his arms. We cannot fight
against the gods.”

So they made way for the whirlwind warrior as he helped his friend to
the sea. In a few moments they were in a waiting canoe making their
escape to Hawaii.

Ka-meha-meha came from this battle an idolised chief. He fulfilled
Carlyle’s definition of “King”—“König,” “the man who can”—the man who,
after the battle, would be “lifted upon his comrades’ shields and
hailed as hero.” From that time the young giant was a recognised
leader. His position was substantially the same as that of the king’s
own sons.

This was a sore defeat for the king of Hawaii. He was humiliated and
angry. His self-love and ambition were sorely stricken, but he did not
pour out his wrath upon his followers. He cheered them and encouraged
them to prepare for new endeavours.

He called upon the high chiefs of the various districts of his island
for a more thorough preparation of men and war supplies, that with a
new and larger army he might make complete subjugation of Maui.

This was in 1775, at the same time that in America the “Boston tea
party” and Battle of Bunker’s Hill were being followed by the struggle
for freedom on the part of England’s colonies. In England, King George
was calling upon Parliament for advice and funds wherewith to subdue
the blood brothers in America. Both King George and King Kalaniopuu
were equally obstinate in the determination to rule the lands across
the waters.

The chiefs devoted all the energies of their districts to the
preparation for the new war.

The warriors went up into the mountains to find the Kauila—the spear
tree—that they might cut down and dry the wood for spears and war clubs
and daggers.

The lava ledges were searched for the hardest pa-hoe-hoe—the
fine-grained, compact lava, well fitted for tools with which to hew out
and smooth the many new canoes needed. The stone age is not so very far
away from to-day—in some parts of the world. The forests were searched
for the best trees from which canoes could be made. The sound of stone
axes and adzes rang throughout the land. Hundreds of workmen hewed and
scraped and other hundreds polished, until at last a large fleet of
canoes and a vast quantity of weapons were prepared.

The fishermen made new offerings to their gods. Large quantities of
fish were caught and dried for the commissary department of the new
army.

The cloth-makers sought eagerly for the bark of the woke—the paper
mulberry tree. They made offerings to their gods, Hia and Lauhuki, of
bark and leaves, with the prayer that the bark might be easily
manufactured into the finest cloth. Then they pounded the bark into
sheets which they stained with vegetable and mineral dyes. Sometimes
they made this paper-cloth into waterproof cloaks and sheets by soaking
it in cocoanut or kukui nut oil.

Every taro field was carefully cultivated, and prayers offered and
sacrifices made to the hideous images of gods placed at some corner of
each field to watch over the growing plants. A large amount of taro
must be ready to be pounded into poi the next season for the warriors’
poi-bowls.

The large number of young chiefs throughout the island was organised
into three bands. The young men of royal blood, the king’s sons and
their cousins, were set apart as the bodyguard of the old king. They
were the Keawe, or “the bearers.” They were the supporters of the king
in whatever move he might make. They were personally responsible for
his safety.

The chiefs who were the boon companions of the royal family, who had
the privilege of eating around the royal poi-bowls, were separated into
two regiments: the Alapa—“the slender”—and Piipii—“the furious.”

The Alapa chiefs were the flower of Hawaiian nobility next to the
highest chiefs. Eight hundred warriors were in its ranks. They were of
almost equal stature, averaging nearly six feet in height. Their spears
were of equal length. The bird-hunters of each chief had scoured the
forests for the rich crimson feathers of the iiwi, which were woven
into glistening war capes. The regimental uniform—light bamboo helmets,
feather-coated and crested with brilliant plumes, added to the majestic
appearance of these stalwart chiefs.

Many were the chants and stories about the prowess of the individuals
belonging to this noble band. They were all members of the Aha-alii, or
“Company of Chiefs.” Their genealogies would give them a welcome and a
position in any court on any island.

Allegiance could be transferred from one king to another, or from
island to island, without loss of rank. Once a chief, always a chief.
There could be no system of degradation from the station conferred by
birth.

Allegiance was usually given for family reasons. The blood relatives
were loyal even unto death to the king of their own blood. Sometimes
for personal reasons, such as intermarriage or friendship, a chief
would be led to espouse the cause of a new king. Sometimes captives
were given the choice between allegiance or death as a human sacrifice
before the gods. If they accepted the new service, they were at once
treated like friends and property and marriage secured for them. Insult
or injury at the hands of a superior chief was always considered good
grounds for a transfer of allegiance.

Chiefs were never made slaves, kauwa hooluki—“wearied servants.” The
common people were in a state of serfdom akin to European feudalism.
Life and property and family were absolutely at the will of the high
chief, but the servant could leave everything and seek another master.

In time of war a captured chief, unless claimed as a “blood brother” by
a friend in the ranks of the enemy, or accepted by the new king, was
sentenced to the heiau, or temple, as a human sacrifice. Each chief of
the “Aha-alii” had the right to wear the beautiful feather lei, or
wreath, and the feather cape, and the niho palaoa, or ivory hook,
suspended from a heavy necklace of human hair. He had the right to sail
a canoe stained red, from the mast of which floated a pennant over a
red sail.

The bond of brotherhood among chiefs was a matter of individual
concern. “Two young men adopted each other as brothers. They were bound
to support each other in weal or woe. If they found themselves in
opposing ranks, and one was taken prisoner, his friend was bound to
obtain his freedom, and there is no record in all the legends and
traditions that this singular friendship ever made default.” The
highest chiefs were called alii-tabu—the tabu chiefs. They were sacred
in the eyes of the people, who prostrated themselves with faces in the
dust when the high chief came near them. “It was said that certain
chiefs were so tabu that they did not show themselves abroad by day.”

Alexander says: “It was death for a common man to remain standing at
the mention of the king’s name.”

While this army was being recruited, great preparations were made for
the purchase of the favour of the gods. Temples were repaired and the
gods reclothed. This was a peculiar ceremony. New kapa, or paper-cloth
garments, were made and consecrated to the god with prayer and
sacrifices. This cloth for the gods was made from the finest bark of
the mulberry tree. It was beautifully coloured and brought to the idol.
Another series of prayers and offerings—and frequently a human
victim—then the ornamented kapa was wrapped around the image as a war
cloak.

Such preparations, on so large a scale, could not be concealed from
Kahekili, king of Maui. He also gathered warriors and weapons as far as
possible from his subjects. But he felt his weakness and sent an
embassy to Oahu. He must have a large body of reinforcements and the
only available army must come from Oahu. He knew of only one priest in
the island group who refused absolutely to acknowledge the superiority
of Holoae, the high priest of Hawaii. Therefore, he had requested the
king of Oahu to send the high priest Ka-leo-puu-puu to combat the
supernatural powers of the high priest of Hawaii. Both of these high
priests were of the highest rank. Priestly prestige and power depended
upon genealogy. Each of these priests could look back through a
straight line of ancestors, to the days of the Vikings of the Pacific
and the sea voyages of the eleventh century.

Holoae was a direct descendant of Paao, the eleventh century priest
coming from Upolu, Samoa, to Hawaii. His prerogatives in Hawaii and
Maui were unquestioned.

Ka-leo-puu-puu was able to prove beyond question that the mantle of
priesthood had never passed out of the family since the days of
Pau-makua of the eleventh century. There was strong rivalry between the
two priestly lines. Kahekili of Maui desired to bring the two priestly
powers into conflict with each other. This was the real beginning of
the new war.

New temples were built and old temples repaired by both kings, and all
were filled with gods and priests and sacrifices. Prayers and
incantations innumerable were used by both parties. Many human
sacrifices were laid upon the altars.

At last the Maui priest informed his king that he was assured by the
gods of final victory. “The warriors of Hawaii should come like fish
into a bay and should be caught in a net.” From this suggestion came
the plan of battle afterward carried out.

The new year dawned—the year known in the civilised world as 1776. It
was the year of the Declaration of Independence in America. It was the
year of increased British effort and many reverses on the part of the
colonies. It was in this year that King George’s dark-skinned brother
in ambition, Ka-lani-opuu, set sail with “a cloud of boats.” Hundreds
of canoes crossed the channel between the two islands and then coasted
western Maui.

They landed wherever any little valley on the rugged slope of Mt.
Hale-a-ka-la—“House of the sun”—afforded soil sufficient to give life
or foothold. They destroyed the villages and drove the terrified
defenceless people up the lava cliffs to mountain hiding-places.

Early one morning a part of the king’s army landed at Maalaea Bay, near
the spot where they had been defeated. The chiefs looked over the sandy
isthmus lying between the two great Maui mountains—Mt. Hale-a-ka-la and
Mt. Iao. On the other side of some sand hills in this isthmus lay
Wai-luku, the home of the Maui king. The cry arose: “On to Wai-luku! On
to Wai-luku!” No strong force had offered opposition so far in the
invasion. It seemed fair to presume that they had completely surprised
the Maui warriors.

Through the Wai-luku lands dashes a swiftly flowing stream of clear,
cold water, breaking through the foothills of Mt. Iao. The banks of
this stream had already been the scene of many a bloody battle, hence
the name Wai-luku—“Water of destruction.”

It was nearly ten miles away—but that would be only a short morning’s
race for the hardy chiefs.

The Alapa warriors shouted, “Let us drink of the waters of Wai-luku
this day!” The king, surrounded by his bodyguard of royal chiefs,
watched the splendid array of warriors as they hastened to surprise the
Maui warriors. The king’s prophet chanted as they passed him:


        “Roll on, roll on, waves of Hawaii!
        You are the surf waves.
        The war god rides on the surf
        To land on the banks of Wai-luku.”


Over the long desert isthmus sped the stalwart chiefs on up the divide
between the two great mountains, until they saw the valley of the
Wai-luku and the ocean waters of the eastern coast. On sped the eight
hundred bronzed and sinewy athletes. It was to them an easy race for
victory. Below Wai-luku lies a sandy tract through which the winds
swept with power. It has long been a tangled group of large rounded
sand hills. As they entered this rough region the first serious show of
force met the exultant Hawaiians. There was obstinate resistance, but
the onset of the Hawaiian chiefs was irresistible. They literally
trampled the warriors of Maui beneath their feet. On into the sand
hills they rushed, chanting their song of victory. Suddenly their Maui
foe disappeared, and in front and rear and on every side rose up
hundreds of warriors from Oahu—strangers to the Alapa chiefs.

The scouts of Maui had faithfully reported the movements of
Ka-lani-opuu and the coming of the Alapa high chiefs, giving the Maui
king time to select and place his allies from Oahu. The wily king had
made thorough preparation to catch his enemies “in a net.” The
ambuscade was not ordinarily a part of Hawaiian warfare. In battle,
dependence was placed upon the strong arm rather than in cunning wit.
Often the beginning of a battle would be delayed by a series of single
conflicts between challenging chiefs, as in the days of European
knight-errantry. Banners were seldom carried. Some giant chief with
marked helmet towered above his fellows and was the centre around which
his followers could gather. Sometimes war gods—images of hideous and
distorted features—were carried by priests and thrust into the faces of
opponents.

This battle of the Alapa regiment was unlike the ordinary contests. The
brave warriors massed their strength and expected to override all
opposition.

But when they were drawn into conflict in the sand hills their ranks
were broken. They were forced to pass around the obstacles or climb
over them.

From every wind-raised hill the Oahu men hurled heavy stones upon the
plumed helmets beneath them, and thrust long spears into those who
stormed the hillsides.

Still up the loose sand the Alapa warriors struggled, putting to death
every foe, as they took possession of one hill after another, while
their comrades forced the Oahu warriors back through the winding sand
valleys.

The conflict continued hour after hour. The blazing tropical sun filled
the struggling warriors with raging thirst, and the waters of the
Wai-luku were still nearly a mile away.

Then the struggle toward the stream was checked. The Oahu warriors were
continually reinforced by fresh, unwearied men. The broken ranks of the
Alapa regiment were met by a constantly increasing host of enemies.
Soon the larger bodies were separated into small bands, each one
hopelessly surrounded by picked warriors.

Broken helmets and tattered feather cloaks lay crushed and trampled
into the sand. Fragments of broken spears, javelins and war clubs lay
in splinters under the feet. Naked and bleeding the chiefs raised
broken arms to ward off descending blows. They died bravely, avenging
themselves to the utmost in their death.

Only one of the large regiment was captured alive. Hundreds of bodies
of his companions marked the progress of the fight. This last warrior,
Ke-awe-hano—“the silent supporter”—noted for his valour, fought to the
last and then was beaten down and captured.

“To the chief! To the chief!” was the cry of the Oahu warriors. The
wounded man was carried at once to the camp of the king. They decided
that he should be sacrificed to the gods, but his wounds were severe
and he died before they could carry him to the temple.

Two other valiant chiefs side by side fought their way through their
enemies and escaped. They evidently left before the regiment had been
annihilated, for they were unnoticed until they had gone so far that
pursuit was useless. They reached the camp of Kalaniopuu at sunset—the
last of the Alapa regiment.

“Into the valley of death rode the six hundred.” Like sacrifices mark
the brave deeds of brave men in all nations.

This battle received the name in Hawaiian history—“The furious
destruction at Kakanilua”—Kakanilua was the name of the sand hills
below Wai-luku.

Great was the wailing among the royal chiefs of Hawaii and throughout
the army. Sore was the heart of the disappointed king. He called a war
council of the powerful chiefs of his bodyguard. It was a night
council. The old king seemed to have a secret feeling that the gods
were fighting against him. Apparently he desired to give up the
invasion. He was surrounded by a turbulent band of fighting chiefs.
They waged war among themselves when they could not attack the
neighbouring islands.

They decided to press on the next day and defeat Kahekili and his
allies. Before day began to dawn the camp was roused for action. The
majestic masses of clouds almost always hanging over Mt. Iao were
glorious in the morning light as the great army drew near the sand
hills. The Maui army crowded up toward the steep sides of the mountain
as if to avoid the scene of the battle of the preceding day. The debris
of battle, the mutilated bodies of hundreds of warriors inspired the
great army to endeavour to avenge the recent defeat.

But the Maui army had the advantage of a well chosen position. The
Hawaiians had to fight up hill or else drift down to the sand hills. In
either case advance was difficult. Each step forward was fully earned.
Each sand hill passed was almost as much of a defeat as a victory.
There was a full day of savage fighting, marked by inhuman acts of
awful brutality. The native account of the battle says: “It was not a
war characterised by deeds of princely courtesy.” Many noted names of
valiant chiefs were never again mentioned in Hawaiian story. The story
and the life ended together in this Wailuku battle.

At last the Hawaiian warriors were forced to retreat to the camp of
their king, where Kalaniopuu and his guard had waited for the result of
the battle.

Kahekili evidently suffered almost as severely as the invaders, for
there was scarcely any attempt at pursuit.

Kalaniopuu had brought part of his household with him. His chief queen,
Ka-lo-la, was the sister of Kahekili. She had come to share in the
victory over her brother and assist in the pacification of her former
friends. The attack had been made, and the ragged remnants of a
vanquished army had come back.

He was too heavily burdened with camp equipage and suffering men for
immediate fight. He proposed that they sue for peace and that his wife,
Ka-lo-la, be the messenger to her brother. The queen utterly refused to
face her brother. There had been too many past personalities between
them, and she had evidently been a vigorous endorser of her husband’s
invasions into her old homeland. Life was too precious to be risked in
that brother’s presence. She proposed that the royal prince, Kiwalao,
her son, be sent as ambassador.

Kiwalao was robed with all the royal elegance of a king according to
the customs of that almost naked, savage life. He wore his finest neck
ornaments, his most costly feather cloak and girdle and helmet. He was
attended by high chiefs carrying the royal kahili, or large feather
banner, and a royal calabash. These chiefs preceded the young prince as
his heralds.

When his name and position were announced to the outposts of the Maui
army, they fell flat on the face in the sand while he passed by. It was
death to stand before a prince or a tabu chief. Kiwalao was one of the
highest sacred tabu chiefs in all the islands.

Runners carried the news of the coming of this prince to the Maui king.
He was lying on a mat in the royal grass house at Wailuku.
Ka-lani-hale—“the heaven house”—was the name of this home of the king.

As Kiwalao drew near the door all the Maui chiefs prostrated themselves
before him, while the king lazily turned over and partly raised
himself, lifting his head in token of friendly greeting. To have turned
away from the prince, letting his face look down, would have been the
sign of immediate death of his visitor. Kiwalao, with slow and
dignified tread, crossed the room and seated himself in his uncle’s
lap. Then both wailed over the troubles which had brought them
together, and over the deaths among their followers.

The embassy was successful, and terms of peace between the two kings
were arranged. Kalaniopuu returned to Hawaii, to begin at once a new
crusade against Kahekili. During the ensuing two years the war
degenerated into a series of petty raids by which he kept his wife’s
brother busy marching warriors from one end of Maui to the other to
repel his attacks. In 1779 the coming of Captain Cook changed the
course of action and gave the people new things to think about, until
Kamehameha secured white men’s arms and conquered all the islands.








XIV

THE LAST PROPHET OF OAHU

IN THE DAYS OF KAHAHANA, 1782


Paumakua was one of the great voyagers among the ocean-rovers of over
eight hundred years ago. Fornander in his “Account of the Polynesian
Race” says: “One of the legends relates that Paumakua, on his return
from one of his foreign voyages, brought back with him to Oahu two
white men said to have been priests A-ua-ka-hinu and A-ua-ka-mea,
afterwards named Kae-kae and Ma-liu, from whom several priestly
families in after ages claimed descent and authority.” These persons
were described as:


        “Ka haole nui maka alohilohi
        (A large foreigner, bright sparkling eyes)
        A aholehole maka aa
        (White cheeks, roguish staring eyes)
        Ka puaa keokeo nui maka ulaula!
        (A great white pig with reddish eyes).”


In the later years of Hawaiian history, two of the most prominent high
priests in all the islands were among the descendants of these
foreigners. Ka-leo-puu-puu had been high priest of Oahu, but on the
death of his king he was superseded by his elder brother,
Ka-o-pulu-pulu. He was angry and jealous and gladly welcomed an
opportunity to go to Maui as the high priest of Kahekili, the king of
Maui. Born on the island of Oahu and belonging to one of the most
famous families of priests, he understood thoroughly the temperament of
the chiefs of that island and was able to give valuable counsel to his
new ruler. He also tried to make as much trouble as possible for his
brother Ka-o-pulu-pulu.

It was said that Kahekili followed his advice in creating a division
between the king of Oahu and Ka-o-pulu-pulu. He made Kahahana believe
that the high priest was secretly hoping to take Oahu from its king and
turn it over to himself. This statement was drilled into the mind of
the Oahu king while visiting on the island of Molokai. When Kahahana
returned to Oahu he did not hesitate to show his enmity toward the high
priest. He refused to listen when the priest attempted to give counsel
in the meetings of the chiefs. He slighted him in all ways possible and
made the fact very evident that he had no confidence in him.

The king not only drove away his high priest, but also estranged his
chiefs. It is probable that some of the chiefs rebuked the king for his
treatment of such a wise priest and prophet. At any rate the king
“became burdensome to the people as well as capricious and heedless.”

After nearly two years of distrust and dissension in the court of the
king of Oahu, the king of Maui decided to attempt the conquest of his
young friend’s kingdom. Internal troubles among the chiefs of the
island of Hawaii had arisen in connection with the destruction of the
Alapa chiefs and Ka-meha-meha’s ascent to rulership. There was
therefore no danger of an immediate attack from that quarter. Oahu was
entirely unsuspicious of danger. The chief difficulty in the way of
conquest was the wise and powerful priest Ka-o-pulu-pulu.

The king of Maui sent one of his most trusted servants to Oahu to bring
to a climax the enmity of the king toward his priest. This servant came
with an appearance of great concern and told Kahahana very
confidentially that the priest had once more sent word to the Maui king
that he was ready to turn over Oahu to him and aid in the overthrow of
Kahahana, but the Maui king felt such great affection for his friend on
Oahu that he could not accept such treachery. His feeling, however, was
that he ought to warn Kahahana against such a deceitful subject.

The poison again entered into the soul of the king and his anger grew
hot within him. He determined that the priest should die. He knew well
that he was king by virtue of the choice of his chiefs and not by blood
descent. He had already found that his word was not the only law in the
kingdom. He could not openly declare war against the priest, but he
could command him to render assistance in worship and sacrifice.
Therefore he announced that he was intending to journey around the
island for the avowed purpose of consecrating certain temples and
offering sacrifices in others. As king he had the right to perform
those duties in person, assisted by his priest.

When he had made full preparation he started on his journey, attended
by the usual large train of servants and companions. He proceeded as
far as the village Wai-anae on the southwestern coast of the island.
From Wai-anae the king sent servants with a command to the priest to
come to him.

Throughout all the Hawaiian Islands no priest had a reputation for
ability to read the signs of the sacrifices, utter oracles and prepare
incantations against enemies greater than that of Ka-o-pulu-pulu. He
was thoroughly skilled in all the deep mysteries of priestly lore. He
understood the dread power of “praying to death,” a power which causes
even the intelligent natives of the twentieth century to tremble.

Ka-o-pulu-pulu was fully aware of the enmity of his king and the danger
which attended his yielding obedience. He knew also that the plea of
the need of omens and sacrifices was well founded. To him the future of
Oahu looked very dark. He felt that he could not refuse attendance upon
the king in this round of public sacrifices. If any opportunity arose
for consulting the omens in regard to the future welfare of Oahu it was
his duty to give the benefit of his wisdom to his people. It was one
more instance of going into the jaws of death for the sake of loyal
obedience.

He took his son, Ka-hulu-pue, with him and went to Wai-anae. There he
was given no opportunity to offer sacrifice, but was attacked by the
servants of the king. The priest’s son was forced backward toward the
sea. The spirit of prophecy came upon the father as he saw the danger
of his son and he gave utterance to one of the oracles for which the
Hawaiian priesthood has been noted. He called out to his son: “I nui ke
aho a moe i ke kai (it is far better to sleep in the sea), no ke kai ka
hoi ua aina” (for from the sea shall come the life of the land).
Fornander says that the servants drove the young man into the sea,
where he was drowned. The seer no longer felt the compulsion of duty
impelling him to seek the king. The king’s purpose was evident to all
the chiefs and Ka-o-pulu-pulu would not be misjudged if he attempted to
escape; therefore he fled eastward toward Honolulu, but was overtaken
at Pearl Harbour and killed.

When Kahekili learned of the death of this great priest he hastened to
gather his warriors together and fit out an immense fleet of canoes in
order to undertake the conquest of Oahu.

The decisive battle was soon fought and Kahekili secured control over
Oahu. Kahahana escaped and for many months wandered over the mountains
back of Honolulu, but was at last betrayed and killed.

The oracle of Ka-o-pulu-pulu uttered at the time of the death of his
son was kept in the hearts of the natives and its method of fulfilment
has been noted. The oracle was easily remembered, although the words
concerning the death of his son are repeated in various forms. The
oracle reads: “No ke kai ka hoi ua aina” (from the sea comes the life
of the land).

When Kahekili landed from his fleet of canoes, and conquered Kahahana,
the people said, “The life of the land has come from the sea.” Then
again when Ka-meha-meha came from Hawaii, conquered Oahu and made
Honolulu the centre of his kingdom, the old natives of the island
repeated the prophecy and considered it fulfilled.

And yet once more the prophecy was remembered when the foreigners came
over the ocean filling the land with new ideas, and with the bustle of
new and enlarged business, beautifying and enriching all the island
life with new homes and new arts.








XV

THE EIGHT OF OAHU


This is a story of one of the most daring deeds in Hawaiian history.
After the death of Captain Cook in 1779 Ka-meha-meha was slowly gaining
dominion over the large island of Hawaii. Meanwhile the king of Maui,
Kahekili, seemed to be far more successful in extending the boundaries
over which he exercised rule. Kahekili had control of Maui and the
adjacent islands and had sent expeditions to harass the followers of
Ka-meha-meha on Hawaii. Oahu was also tempting Kahekili, and he had
already taken steps to weaken the forces of that island.

Kahekili had fomented distrust and bloodshed among the Oahu chiefs and
at last with an immense fleet of canoes filled with warriors had landed
on the beach, south of the crater Leahi, now known as Diamond Head. His
canoes were spread along the beach below Diamond Head, covering the
sands of Waikiki. This was in the early part of the year 1783.

The King of Oahu had been taken by surprise. He was staying for a time
in the beautiful valley back of Honolulu. The Nuuanu stream with its
many falls and sweet waters was a place where kings had always loved to
rest. While revelling there in seductive pleasures the king,
Ka-ha-hana, suddenly was awakened by the report of the coming of the
Maui chief. The uninvited guest was unwelcome because no preparation
had been made for the reception.

Messengers were hurried to all parts of Oahu, and the warriors were
hastily gathered together. Over the mountains and along the arid plains
they came. But the force was woefully inadequate to meet the Maui
invaders.

In this company there were eight famous warriors, who seemed to think
themselves invulnerable. They had often faced danger and returned
chanting victory.

The night shadows were falling around the camp when these eight men,
one by one, crept away from the other chiefs. Word had been passed from
one to the other and a secret expedition partially outlined. Therefore
each man was laden with his spear, club, and javelins. When free from
all chance of interference they encouraged each other to undertake an
expedition, as Fornander says, “on their own account and inflict what
damage they could.”

Those who have known the Waikiki beach of to-day with its splendidly
wooded shores, the luxuriant park inland, the plains covered with
trees, and the lower mountain ridges choked with lantana bushes, cannot
realise the desolate wastes of the past. The tropical luxuriance of the
region around Honolulu belongs to to-day and not to a hundred years
ago.

It was over this arid plain dotted here and there by cocoanut trees and
across a few streams bordered by taro patches that the eight famous
chiefs picked their way. It was not smooth walking. Lava had been
poured out from the craters in the mountains and foothills. The softer
parts of the petrified streams had dissolved and the surface of the
land was covered with the hard fragments which remained. The trail
which they followed led in and out among great boulders until they came
to the sandy slopes of Diamond Head.

With the coming of morning light they found themselves not far from the
old temple, which had been used for ages for most solemn royal
ceremonies, a part of which was often the sacrifice of human beings,
and here, aided by their gods, they thought to inflict such injuries
upon the Maui men as would make their names remembered in the Maui
households.

Fornander says: “It was a chivalrous undertaking, a forlorn hope,
wholly unauthorised but fully within the spirit of that time for
personal valour, audacity, and total disregard of consequences. The
names of these heroes were: Pupuka,  Makaioulu, Puakea, Pinau,
Kalaeone, Pahua, Kauhi and Kapukoa.”

Several hundred warriors from Maui were stationed near this temple at
the foot of Diamond Head. Probably some of them had carelessly watched
the approach of eight chiefs of Oahu. “Into the valley of death rode
the six hundred,” but this was not an impetuous torrent of six hundred
mounted cavalry men sweeping through Russian ranks. It was a handful of
eight against what was said to be a force of at least six hundred.

Into these hundreds the eight boldly charged. The conflict was hand to
hand, and in that respect was favourable to the eight men well skilled
in the use of spear and javelin. Side by side, striking and smiting all
before them, the little band forced its way into the heart of the body
of its foes. The Maui warriors had expected to take these men, as a
fire without trouble swallows up splinters cast into it. They had
thought that this little company would afford them an excellent
sacrifice for their war gods, and had hoped to take them alive, even at
the expense of the lives of a few men. But quickly the formidable
character of the eight fighters was appreciated.

Wave upon wave of men from Maui beat against the eight, but each time
the wave was shattered and scattered and destroyed. Large numbers were
killed while the eight still fought side by side apparently uninjured.

It has been said that this was a fight “to which Hawaiian legends
record no parallel.” Eight men attacked an army and for some time were
victorious in their onslaught.

But the force around them was continually receiving additions, and an
overwhelming body of men was slowly crowding over the dead and dying
and preparing to crush them by weight of numbers. Then came the
whispered call to retreat, and the eight made a terrific onslaught
against the circle of warriors surrounding them. It was a marvellous
escape. After an awful struggle the opposition was broken down and the
eight leaped over the piles of the slain and fled toward the mountains.
One of the eight was short and bow-legged. He could fight well, but
could not run away as swiftly as his comrades. The Maui men pressed
closely after the fleeing chiefs.

The bow-legged man was tripped and thrown. In a moment his spear and
javelin were taken from him and a renowned Maui chief caught him and
placed him on his back with the face upward, so that he could not do
any injury. He started swiftly toward the temple to have his captive
sacrificed “as the first victim of the war.”

The friends of the captive were still near at hand and heard him cry
out that he was captured. They had no hope of being able to rescue him
but turned to see if anything could be done. He saw them and called to
one of them to kill him rather than let him be sacrificed alive. He
urged that a spear be thrown to pierce him through the stomach. “In
hope of shortening the present and prospective tortures of his friend,
knowing well what his fate would be if brought alive into the enemy’s
camp, the chief did as he was bidden.”

The spear came unerringly toward the prisoner, but as he saw the
polished shaft almost piercing him he twisted to one side and it sank
deep into the body of the chief who carried him.

In the confusion attendant upon the death of this great chief the
bow-legged warrior escaped to his friends and soon all the little
company were beyond pursuit.

What became of the eight? Only one lived to perpetuate his name among
the families of Oahu. Pupuka became the ancestor of noted chiefs of
high rank. The others were probably all killed in the destructive
battles which soon followed. Kahekili conquered the Oahu army with
great slaughter and finally received the body of Kahahana, which was
taken to the temple at Waikiki and offered in sacrifice. After this
annihilation of the Oahu army no hint is given of the other members of
the band of the famous eight. They live on the pages of history.








XVI

THE RED MOUTH GUN

(KA-PU-WAHA-ULAULA)


The Red Mouth Gun is the name given by the Hawaiians to the great canoe
battle fought off Waipio, Hawaii, in the year 1791, according to
Fornander. This was the first naval battle in which guns were the
prominent weapons used by the Hawaiian chiefs.

Ka-meha-meha I, in 1789, had gained the adherence of the noted chief
Kaiana, who had already visited China and purchased guns and
ammunition. This was probably the best stroke of diplomacy exercised by
him during all his great work of welding the scattered islands into a
united kingdom. Kaiana’s real relations were with Kauai rather than
Hawaii. In transferring Kaiana’s arsenal from Kauai to Hawaii
Ka-meha-meha secured an advantage over all the other chiefs of the
islands. The man who has material at hand is equipped for any
emergency. The possession of this armament led Ka-meha-meha to seize
the two white men, Isaac Davis and John Young in the year 1790. These
two men were the second great factor in the consolidation of the
islands. With arms and ammunition and men skilful in gunnery and wise
in counsel Ka-meha-meha was practically invincible.

From this time he dated victories instead of defeats. During the year
1790 he overran Maui and Molokai and subdued a serious rebellion on his
own island, Hawaii.

During this conflict at home the high chiefs of the other islands held
consultation concerning their common enemy and the best way to
overthrow him. They had guns and here and there a white man who had
been kidnapped or persuaded to desert from the few ships already
visiting the islands. By combining forces it seemed easy to overthrow
the high chief of Hawaii. The king of Kauai and the king of Oahu were
brothers. Kahekili, the ruler of Oahu, was also the high chief of Maui,
which he had placed under the control of his son, Ka-lani-kupule.
Therefore the entire northern, group of islands was able to combine
against Hawaii. It was Ka-meha-meha and one island against the rest of
the group.

The natives had used large shells for trumpets. They had a famous war
shell known as the “kihapu.” Anything, therefore, which gave out an
explosive noise when blown into was called “pu.” When they saw a white
man holding a gun to the shoulders, with the resulting smoke and
explosion, they gave to the death-dealing magic trumpet the name
“pu-waha-ulaula”—the trumpet with the red mouth. Pu became the name for
a gun.

The chiefs had massed their forces on Maui. Here Ka-eo-ku-lani, the
chief of Kauai, took the leadership of the expedition and, looking upon
Maui as redeemed from the victorious inroad of Ka-meha-meha, assumed
the island as one of his perquisites of the campaign. Fornander
suggests that his older brother, Kahekili, king of Oahu, might have
agreed to give him land or even the island as a reward. But here the
chiefs of Maui interfered. They were not willing to have the island
disposed of in that way. A quarrel arose and the Kauai men attempted to
take by force the lands which their high chief claimed and had promised
them. Spears were seized, war clubs swung and oval, double-pointed
stones dropped into the slings. For a little while there was an
exchange of blows. One of the sons of Kahekili, king of Oahu, withstood
a large number of Kauai men, holding them at bay unaided. Evidently the
quarrel was smoothed over. The Kauai chiefs were never able to again
lay any claim to Maui.

The two brothers separated their forces. One fleet of canoes under the
Kauai king rendezvoused his boats at Hana, an old and well-known
harbour on Maui just across the channel from Hawaii. Hana was the home
of some of the most ancient Polynesian legends when applied to the
Hawaiian Islands. The demi-god Maui is said to have noticed how close
the sky or clouds came to the earth, and then pushed the sky up until
his mother could have room to dry the cloth she was making and the
plants have space in which to grow.

When Ka-eo-ku-lani, chief of Kauai, climbed the hills above the seaport
he carried his war spear. Standing among the ruins of an ancient fort
he threw his spear far up toward the clouds above. Referring to the
legends, he cried: “It is said of old that the sky comes close to Hana,
but I find it very high. I have thrown my spear and it did not pierce
the clouds. I doubt if it will strike Ka-meha-meha. But listen, O you
chiefs, warriors and kindred! Be strong and valiant and we shall drink
the water of Waipio and eat the taro of Kunaka.”

After a little rest the Kauai fleet swept across the channel and passed
down the eastern side of Hawaii. The winds of the ocean climb the
mountains of Hawaii from the northeast. As they touch the cold surface
of the lofty mountain slopes they let fall in heavy showers their
burden of waters borne from the sea. Great gulches, bordered by
enormous growths of tropical luxuriance, are rapidly formed. Waterfalls
hundreds of feet in height shake the falling streams into clouds of
spray. Of all these gulches and noted falls on Hawaii, Waipio stands
supreme. It was the pride of kings, the sacred home of priests, and the
place for the bountiful food supply of royal retinues.

Here the Kauai chief became vandal. He evidently cared but little for
the preservation of this, one of the most ancient places on Hawaii. His
followers ravaged the taro patches and fish ponds. They seized whatever
they wanted for present use and then destroyed the growing plants and
broke down protecting banks and walls. To show their contempt for
Hawaii they were permitted, and probably commanded by their chief, to
tear up and destroy very old and sacred portions of the heiaus, or
temples. The ancient palace of Hawaiian kings was supported by sacred
posts of pepper tree. These were burned. The palace, of course, was
only a large thatched house and could be easily replaced, but the
posts, consecrated by the blood of human sacrifices and cared for
through many generations, were irretrievably lost.

The natives of Hawaii have a special class of deities known as
au-makuas. These are the ghosts of the ancestors watching over the
place known in this earthly life, and the family of which they were the
progenitors. They were supposed to punish severely any injuries
received by those under their care. The people of Hawaii claimed that
the Kauai king suffered sorely for his impiety.

Soon Kahekili, chief of Oahu, with the Oahu and Maui war canoes, was
driven by Ka-meha-meha from the northwestern coast which they had been
devastating. They fled to Waipio and united with the Kauai fleet.
Ka-meha-meha had been able to secure some small cannon, which he placed
on some of his larger canoes. Isaac Davis and John Young took charge of
this portion of battle array. The other canoes were well supplied with
firearms. The fleet of the invading army formed in battle array out in
the deep waters off the Waipio coast. Here the canoes of Ka-meha-meha
found their foes.

In former years a naval battle meant the clash of canoe against canoe,
the heavy stroke of war clubs against war clubs and clouds of hurled
javelins and spears. The conflict was largely a matter of taunts and
shouts, broken canoes and drowning warriors. But in this fight the
opposing parties combined the rattle of firearms and the roar of small
cannon with the usual war of words. Boats were shattered and the sea
filled with swimming men.

The people on the bluffs saw the red flashes of the guns and noted the
increasing noise of the artillery until they could no longer hear the
voices of men. As the clouds of smoke crept over the sea the battle
became, in the view of the watchers, a fight between red mouth guns,
and they shouted one to another the news of the progress of the
conflict according to the predominance of flashing muskets and cannon.
It was soon seen that the invaders were being defeated. The man who had
the best arms and the best gunners won the victory.

The Kauai and Oahu kings fled with their scattered fleets to Maui.
Ka-meha-meha soon followed them, and during the next three years, step
by step, passed over the islands until the kingdom was his.

The death rate during these years of devastating warfare was beyond all
calculation and thus came a tremendous decrease in the Hawaiian
population.

In the eyes of the old Hawaiians the ghost-gods had avenged themselves
in the battle of “the red mouth guns.”








XVII

THE LAW OF THE SPLINTERED PADDLE


Would you know the story of the Splintered Paddle? It came to pass on
the island of Hawaii in the year 1783. It is a true incident in the
life of Ka-meha-meha, the great consolidator of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

There are slightly different versions of the tale as frequently occurs
when handed down verbally through different channels. The main points
are substantially the same. The stalwart king descended to the plane of
a highway robber and received his punishment. As a native writer says:
“The foundation of the law of the splintered paddle was the greed and
shame of a chief dealing with a common man.” But, like a true man,
Ka-meha-meha made this incident the occasion of a decision to neither
commit nor permit any more highway robbery in his kingdom. This then is
the outline of the incidents which changed a king into a
self-respecting and somewhat law-abiding citizen.



Two Hawaiian chiefs of splendid physique were hurriedly climbing a
zigzag path up the face of an exceedingly steep bluff bordering the
little bay of Lau-pa-hoe-hoe. The moment they reached the summit they
hastened to the edge that broke in a sheer precipice to the ocean’s
brink. Eagerly they gazed over the far-reaching waters southward along
the banks of the island. “There is no pursuit,” said the younger man.
“No,” replied the elder chief, resting on his spear, “the men of Hilo
have crawled back to their homes to heal their wounds. Their war canoes
are not among the shadows on the water. Nor do their warriors move
along the side of the white mountain (Mauna Kea). Our watchmen do not
send the banner of smoke to the sky.”

The two chiefs were of high rank. They could both trace their high
chief blood through more than a thousand years of royal ancestors.
However, the elder chief was of lower rank than the other, because his
ancestry had not been guarded with the same jealous care that
surrounded the birth of his friend. Among the Hawaiians the “Ahaalii”
or “council of nobles” guarded the rank of each chief and assigned to
him a place according to the purity of his blood-royal. The younger
chief covered his face with his hands and uttered the Auwe—the Hawaiian
wail for the dead. After a time he raised his head and spoke to his
companion, whom we will call Kahai.

“O my Kahai,” he said, “yesterday and the defeat at Hilo make my
thoughts burn! How do the prophets chant the death of my chiefs and
warriors?”

“The singers in the war canoes sang softly, O King, while the boats
were hurried along through the night. They sang of our friends whose
bodies lie in the ferns. They pronounced curses upon the Hilo chiefs.
They called the struggle ‘the bitter battle’ and that shall be its name
in the coming days.”

A shudder passed over the young man as he said: “My chiefs no longer
lie in the ferns. In my thought I see the temple servants carrying the
bodies of my friends to the altars of the gods. It is almost the hour
for the evening sacrifice. The hands of the priests are red with blood.
The bones of my choice companions will be used for fish hooks.
Auwe-Auwe-e-e! Woe to me. My name is indeed The Lonely-one—The
Desolate!”

“O King! thou art Ka-meha-meha, ‘The Lonely One,’ the one supreme in
royal genealogy, but not ‘The Desolate.’ Your friends are with you.
To-night your war chiefs would die for you. Your prophet has said: ‘The
cloud of Ka-meha-meha shall rest on the mountains of all the islands.’
So shall it be. The gods have said it. Your friends believe it.”

Ka-meha-meha (The Only-Only) was an ideal chief. He was over six feet
in height, strong and sinewy, excelling all other chiefs in athletic
exercises, cruel to enemies, ruling his own household with a rod of
iron, generous and brave among his friends, and filled with a
fatalistic belief in his own destiny. At heart he was devoted to the
interests of his country as far as he understood them. He believed that
he knew best, therefore in after years when he became ruler over the
group of islands he was thoroughly autocratic. The king’s will was to
be the people’s will. His was a savage face, large-featured, often
ferocious and repulsive. On the other hand it was capable of a vast
range of playing passions.

His uncle, Ka-lani-opuu, who ruled the large island of Hawaii at the
time of the death of Captain Cook, had died in 1782. Ka-meha-meha had
been chosen king by a number of influential chiefs in opposition to his
cousin Kiwa-lao, the son of Ka-lani-opuu. War arose between the
cousins. Kiwa-lao was slain in one of the early conflicts. Other
chiefs, of the southern part of the island, refused to swear allegiance
to Ka-meha-meha, and had continued the war. The favors of the war gods
had been almost equally distributed. The last battle had been fought at
Hilo. At the time when our story opens Ka-meha-meha’s attack had been
repulsed with fearful loss on the part of his followers. At this time
he was forty-seven years of age and just commencing the life work of a
king and savage statesman.

The king looked thoughtfully down into the valley where the wounded and
wearied warriors were drawing the war canoes out of the inrolling surf.
In the village could be heard wailing as the scanty news of the battle
was hastily reported, and the people realised that some loved chief or
friend would never return again to their homes.

The king’s heart grew warm toward his faithful friends as he want down
into the valley to tell them there was no pursuit, and they could seek
rest and healing. While the chiefs were around the poi-bowl that
evening he was very quiet. He was thinking of the bodies of his
warriors laid on the altars before the gods of the southern districts
of the island. He thought of the naked altars of his own Waipio temple,
to which he had brought no captives to be slain in sacrifice. He
imagined that he might go alone and do some daring deed, perhaps make a
hurried raid upon some unsuspecting point of his enemy’s territories.
He rose from his mat and quietly passed out into the darkness. He
called a few strong boatmen and his favourite canoe steerer, launched
one of the war canoes, and with sail and paddle sped southward.

That night was rough for Hawaiian seas. Thunder reverberated in
oft-repeated echoes from the sea cliffs. Thunder and lightning are rare
in this part of the great Pacific. Heavy winds blew and dashed the
waves high around the canoe. The natives say, “The chief was not in
danger, because his steersman was skilful and watchful. The sea did not
break over the boat, nor were they wet. Like a dolphin the boat ran
over the waves.”

It was a misty morning as he passed Hilo Bay, where the greater part of
his enemies was encamped. His boat, far out in the shadows, was not
noticed. He passed around a corner of the island and planned to
surprise the natives of a noted fishing-ground, hoping to make captives
and secure booty from some of the warriors against whom the recent
battle had been fought.

The morning light was touching the inland mountain tops. It rested, a
silver star, on the snowy summit of Mauna Kea. It made a golden glory
of the fire clouds of the volcano Kilauea. It glistened over the black
beds of pa-hoe-hoe, or smooth, shining lava. It began to bring into
strong relief the uplifted heads of the cocoanut trees of a century’s
growth. The white foam of ocean waves began to be visible along the
outer reef.

The natives of Papai, a bay on the Puna coast, hastened into the sea to
gather the delicacies which are usually found among the shell-fish
along the reef, and also to set nets and snares for fish.

As the mists rose from the waters, the oarsmen entered into the spirit
of the adventure. Like a shark the war canoe dashed toward the
fishermen.

The people of Puna, looking toward the dawn on the sea, had noticed the
boat far out. They asked each other, “What boat is this of the early
morning?” After a little they counted the number of oarsmen. They saw
that the newcomers were strangers. Then they asked a native who was
visiting them, whose home was on the other side of the island: “O
Paiea, do you know who this is?”

Paiea looked, recognised his ruling chief and called out: “It is
Ka-meha-meha!” Then the people were filled with fear, for the prowess
of the chief was well known and greatly feared. They seized paddles and
nets and snares and with the screaming women and children fled, rushing
along the reef, falling into the deep holes, swimming and stumbling
toward the mainland.

The king, commanding the others not to follow, leaped from the canoe to
attack two stalwart natives who had been aiding the weak to escape.

The story, related by Kukahi, is that Ka-meha-meha did not succeed in
overtaking any of the Puna people before they gained the shore and fled
inland. Closely pursuing he called on them to stop; but with greater
terror they continued their flight. Then he became angry and quickened
his pace. A fisherman turned and threw his fishnet over the pursuing
chief, causing him to fall down upon the sharp lava. “Blood crawled
over the stones around the fallen body.” Then he tore the nets which
entangled him and again rushed heedlessly on. While straining himself
to see where the men were running, his foot broke through a thin shell
of lava into a crevice. To pull it up was impossible.

The men turned back and struck at him with their paddles, but after a
few blows the paddles were destroyed. He managed to grasp a large piece
of lava. The men ran away. “The thrown stone struck the trunk of a Noni
tree, broke it off and with the tree fell to the bottom of a small
ravine, and the spot is shown to this day.”

The steersman became anxious concerning his chief and came up from the
boat. Meantime the fishermen had secured spears and were returning to
kill Ka-meha-meha. The steersman broke the sharp edges of lava away
from the imprisoned foot, but did not succeed in liberating his chief
before the natives began to thrust at him with their spears.

The agile chief, fettered as he was, avoided the thrusts, but the
steersman was awkward. One of the spears pierced him. Ka-meha-meha
seized this spear and quickly broke it near the body. When the men saw
that he had a weapon they ran away.

When Ka-meha-meha had freed himself he and his companion came down to
the shore. He warned the men not to repeat the story of the injured man
and the battle between himself and the flying fishermen of Puna. He did
not want his high chiefs to know that he had been struck and hurt by a
common man. The chiefs were very strenuous in upholding the dignity of
their caste. They thought but little of putting to death their
servants. That some of the lower classes should have struck their
highest chief was sufficient ground for killing any of his companions
who had failed to protect him even at the cost of their own lives.

Ka-meha-meha knew how unreasonably wilful he had been in forbidding his
steersman to join in the pursuit, and therefore felt the injustice of
permitting him to be punished. It was a weary journey for the defeated
king and his wounded steersman.

The spear-head and part of the shaft still rested in the side of the
wounded man. The king could not have the spear removed without great
danger, so waited, thinking to have the wound well cared for after
reaching Lau-pa-hoe-hoe. However, it was impossible to keep the boatmen
from telling the story of the splintered paddle and the wounded
steersman. The chiefs soon heard the particulars and called the council
of chiefs. There they grimly voted to “heal” the wounded man.

Ka-meha-meha appealed to them:

“O chiefs! The night of our going away was a very evil night. There was
storm and wind and thunder; yet I received no injury, nor was I even
wet by the sea. Nor was I permitted to feel the least fear. My
steersman was wise and skilful. He was my close friend on the deceitful
and dangerous sea. Therefore I ask you, if you wish to see him healed,
have him brought before my eyes for the treatment.”

But some of the chiefs went out and instead of bringing the wounded man
into the council took him and twisted the spear-point, pulling it back
and forth, until he died.

After Ka-meha-meha returned from his Puna excursion he rested for a
time. His adventure was not encouraging. He decided that he could not
hasten the plans of the gods. The ancient Hawaiian was very much of a
fatalist. So also is the Hawaiian of to-day. What has to be is accepted
without rebellion.

Ka-meha-meha realised that he was too weak, both in personal strength
and in the number of warriors, to make further effort for the time
being. Therefore, he sent his warriors home to cultivate their fields
and prepare new war material for future conflicts.

While this preparation was going on, a new element entered into
Hawaiian warfare. The white man’s ships and the white man’s weapons
were becoming familiar to the great king.

White men were secured to take charge of small cannon, and to drill
squads of warriors equipped with the rude firearms of a century ago.

Some of these white leaders and their muskets found their way into the
service of almost all the important chiefs throughout the islands.

Ka-meha-meha owned the best harbours and offered the best inducements
for trade with the foreigners. He secured the best equipment of arms
and men. This gave Ka-meha-meha a vast advantage over the antagonistic
kings and chiefs of his own and other islands. He had large boats built
and armed with small swivel cannon. He had sixteen foreigners in his
service. He led his victorious warriors from island to island. In his
last campaign it is said his fleet of canoes lined the beach of one of
the islands for a distance of four miles.

In a few years his friends saw the prophecy fulfilled. “His cloud was
resting on the mountains of all the islands.” He had unified the group
under one autocratic government, and had established the Ka-meha-meha
dynasty.

Then came the memory of that excursion made in 1783 to Puna for the
sake of robbery and possible murder. The king wondered what had become
of the men who had attacked him. He had gone to Hilo and was having a
fine fleet of wide and deep canoes made in the splendid koa forests
back of Hilo. While waiting here, some time between the years 1796 and
1802, he determined to find the men of the splintered paddle. He knew
that these men might have changed their residence from the Puna
district to Hilo. So he sent messengers throughout both districts
summoning all the people to a great meeting in Hilo. Certain large
grass houses were set apart for the large assembly. The Hilo people
were separated from the families of the other district. When the people
were thus gathered together they found themselves prisoners. They
feared wholesale destruction. The days of human sacrifices among the
Hawaiians had not passed by. The new king, against whom they had at one
time fought, might intend their sacrifice in numbers. They were his
property to be burned or cut to pieces and placed in the temples of the
gods. No one could dispute the will of the chief. It was a political
condition which the Hawaiians of a hundred years later could scarcely
begin to realise. That man is very ignorant who thinks the old days
best.

The king passed through the houses allotted to the Hilo people. It must
have been an anxious time for the prisoners. Wholesale destruction,
possibly because of the bitter war of 1783, stared them in the face.
But the chief touched them not and passed through their lines out to
the houses in which the Puna people were confined.

A suspicion at least of the reason for their imprisonment must have
come to the guilty men. The story runs that when they saw Ka-meha-meha
they bowed their heads, hoping to escape recognition. But this revealed
them at once to Ka-meha-meha, and he approached them with the command
to raise their heads. It was an interesting scene when these common men
were brought before the chiefs for final judgment. It is said the chief
asked them if they were not at the sea of Papai. They assented. Then
came the question to two of them:

“You two perhaps are the men who broke the paddle on my head?”

They acknowledged the deed.

“To the death, to the death!” cried the chiefs around the king.

“Down the face!” “Command the stones!” “Let the man and his friends be
stoned to death!”

The king listened to the suggestions of his companions. Then he said:
“Listen! I attacked the innocent and the defenceless. This was not
right. In the future no man in my kingdom shall have the right to make
excursions for robbery without punishment, be he chief or priest. I
make the law, the new law, for the safety of all men under my
government. If any man plunders or murders the defenceless or the
innocent he shall be punished. This law is given in memory of my
steersman and shall be known as ‘Ke Kana-wai Ma-mala-hoa,’ or the law
of the friend and the broken oars. The old man or the old woman or the
child may lie down to sleep by the roadside and none shall injure
them.”

The law with the name Ma-mala-hoa is still on the statute books of
Hawaii. It has been greatly modified and enlarged, but the decree
against robbery by any man, and especially the plunder of the weak by
the powerful, had its beginning for Hawaii in the days of Ka-meha-meha.

Alexander says in his history of the islands: “During the days of
Ka-meha-meha energetic measures were taken for the suppression of
brigandage, murder and theft throughout the kingdom.”

“The Law of the Splintered Paddle” marked the awakening of a pagan
conscience to a sense of just dealing between the strong and the weak.








XVIII

LAST OF THE TABU


To-day the thatched house is a curiosity in the Hawaiian Islands. In
the time of our story the grass roof was the only shelter from the rain
and heat, except the thick-leaved tree or the insecure lava cave. The
long rushes and grasses from the sea marshes and the long leaves of the
pandanus tree made a very good if not a very enduring home. There the
chiefs and common people alike were born, and out of such grass houses
their bodies were carried when life was over.

It was the same story told over again on islands or continents. The
chief’s house might have a few more mats of a little finer texture, or
calabashes of wood with markings a little more unique, but birth nights
left fully as many beautiful children, and the hours of death took away
fully as many noble men and women from the poor hut built by the taro
patch as from the better-apportioned home under the silver-leaved kukui
or candle-nut tree. Out of the ranks of the unappreciated have come
some of the best people of the earth, and some of the strongest
influences changing nations.

There was a modest grass house in one of the upland valleys of Kailua,
Hawaii. Tall cocoanut trees bent over it. Near it grew the ohia, or
native apple tree, luxuriant in crimson tassel-like blossoms. The
sacred ohelo berries ripened in the iliahi or sandalwood forest above.

One bright afternoon a tall, finely formed woman broke through the
arching branches which obstructed the path and approached the door
where an old woman sat crooning to a child resting in her arms. The old
woman looked up, and then fell on her face, crying:

“Oh! my chief! my chief! My Ka-ahu-manu!”

The queen gently raised the old woman, calling her “mother,” as was the
Hawaiian custom when speaking to favourite retainers.

“Where are Oluolu and her husband?” asked the queen.

“Coming soon with the pink taro you so dearly love,” was the reply.

While the favourite queen of Ka-meha-meha was visiting with her old
nurse, a happy young couple came from the near-by taro patch. The young
man carried a bunch of rare bananas. When he saw the queen he
prostrated himself at her feet and, without thinking, gave the bananas
to her.

Ka-ahu-manu laughed gaily, saying: “O my thoughtless one, you have
tempted your queen to break tabu.”

A horrified expression crossed his face and he hastily started to
withdraw the bananas. But the queen was wayward and self-willed. Her
hand was on the bunch as she said:

“This is mine. It is your offering to your chief. I will eat of these
bananas.” In a moment she was eating the delicious fruit.

Then the old woman began to wail: “Auwe, auwe! The queen must die and
we shall all be destroyed!”

“Hush, mother,” said the young man, as he glanced significantly over to
Oluolu, who had evidently some secret knowledge of the way to violate
tabu. “Many people think that the tabu is not right, and that the
threatened punishments come not from the gods, but from the priests
themselves. The white men in Ka-meha-meha’s court do not keep tabu, nor
do they die. Even the king does not require human sacrifices. Old
things are passing away.”

“But the gods will punish the people for the growing unbelief,”
murmured the grandmother.

“Not if the belief is false,” said Oluolu.

Ka-ahu-manu listened in astonishment. She had done many things secretly
which she did not care to have come to the ears of the priests, but she
could scarcely believe that the common people did the same. She said:

“Is this the talk of the common people?”

“No,” answered Oluolu. “Only a few speak freely one to another. The
dread of the priest is over the land.”

When Ka-ahu-manu returned to the king’s houses she kept these things in
her heart. She saw the priests and their spies becoming more vigilant
and more violent. She realised that the foreigners were exerting a
strong influence against the tabu system. Her outspoken speeches, for
which the priests did not dare to punish her, were bearing fruit. The
indignation of the queens of Ka-meha-meha was aroused when a priest
commanded that a little girl who had been caught eating bananas should
have one of her eyes gouged out. Then came a carousal, after which a
tipsy woman stumbled into her husband’s eating-house and was put to
death for violating the tabu. Ka-ahu-manu talked these and many other
similar experiences over when she visited the old grass house, gaining
new ideas and new confidence from her loyal retainers; but the old
woman, with aching heart, sat in the door, muttering incantations to
keep her queen and her children from the danger which their words
seemed to invite.

Ka-meha-meha died about 2 o’clock in the morning of May 8, 1819. When
he knew that his illness was serious he gave the kingdom jointly to
Ka-ahu-manu and his son, Liho-liho.

The very morning of Ka-meha-meha’s death some chiefs came to
Ka-ahu-manu with the proposition that she use her authority and declare
the tabu at an end. But there was an indescribable scene of riotous
confusion and revelry and lust. Even the ordinary restraints of savage
society were laid aside. Priests were occupied with signs and
incantations to discover some one who might have prayed the great king
to death. Ka-ahu-manu’s party of practical unbelievers were under
suspicion. Therefore the queen decided that the time had not yet come
to take such an eventful step. However, some of the people violated
different tabus and suffered no injury. Kee-au-moku, the queen’s
brother, broke the tabu staff of the priests, and Hewa-hewa, the high
priest, later gave his influence not only toward the suppression of the
tabus, but also toward the destruction of the idols and their temples.

After a few days Liho-liho, the young king, and Ka-ahu-manu, in their
most regal apparel, met and together assumed the government of the
Hawaiian Islands. At that time Ka-ahu-manu proposed that they
henceforth disregard the tabus. But the king, although under the
influence of liquor, was not quite ready to take this step. Some of the
chiefs also opposed such action. Keopuolani, one of the queens, asked
the king to eat with her. But Liho-liho delayed the answer. Then she
took his little brother (afterward Ka-meha-meha III) and induced him to
eat with her. This gave an example of the most sacred tabu chief in the
land violating tabu with her little son. Soon the king yielded and
openly ate and drank with the queens at a feast in which many tabu
articles were placed. The word passed rapidly from island to island,
and was hailed with joy by the mass of the people.

But the guardian of the war god, Kaili, felt responsibility placed upon
him by the dying charge of Ka-meha-meha. He felt that it was his high
trust to protect the tabus and the worship of the gods. He was strong
and fearless. The priests and chiefs who wished to perpetuate tabu
gathered around him and a rebellion was instituted.

The story of the “battle of Kua-moo” must be told very briefly. It was
the death struggle of the fanatics. It was the attack of the handful
upon the better armed and larger army. It was a long drawn-out
conflict. At last the guardian of the war god, wounded and bleeding,
fought, seated upon a block of lava. By his side his wife stood, also
fighting bravely. As he, struck by a musket ball, fell back dead, she
cried out: “I surrender!” But at that moment a ball struck her in the
temple and she fell dead by the body of her husband.

How the tabus were laid aside, the idols destroyed and the temples
burned—all this is a matter of history. But no writer has chronicled
how the young husband carried the news from Kailua to the grass house
under the cocoanut trees. No one has written of the joy of Oluolu in
the life of broader privileges secured by abolishing the tabu system.
And no one has described the old woman who could not understand the new
order of things, but sat in the door of the grass house in the valley
and grieved over the shattered doctrines of her forefathers.








XIX

FIRST HAWAIIAN PRINTING


Foreigners from all over the world called on the Hawaiians and remained
with them forty years before the missionaries came. Their influence was
negative. They did not study the people or help them to study. John
Young, Don Marin and Isaac Davis were notable exceptions in a few
things, but the fact remains that no earnest effort was made by any one
to help the natives intellectually until the missionaries came.

Alexander Campbell, who, in 1809, was left in Honolulu by a whaling
ship on account of frozen feet, revealed the situation. The king
Tamaah-maah (Ka-meha-meha) ordered Boyd, his carpenter, to make a loom
for Campbell to use in weaving cloth for sails. Boyd declined, saying,
“The natives should be taught nothing that would render them
independent of strangers.”

Campbell places on record the feeling among the foreigners. “When a
brother of the Queen’s, whose name I do not remember—but who was
usually called by the white people John Adams—wished me to teach him to
read, Davis would not permit me, observing, ‘They will soon know more
than ourselves.’” It is interesting to note that Gov. Adams, whose
native name was Kuakini, did learn to read and write under the
missionaries and has left two short letters, in both of which he
presents a request for saws.

In one he says, “My wife is going away to Hawaii. If perhaps she can
carry, give you to me sahs tools,” signed “Gov. Adams.” In the other
letter he says he is building a house and wants a “sah tool” which he
will return when the work is done.

The missionaries landed at Kailua on the island Hawaii, April 4, 1820,
and there divided their party, the larger number coming to “Hanaroorah,
Honolulu, April 19.”

Mr. Bingham says, “They began at once to teach.—The first pupils were
the chiefs and their favourite attendants and the wives and children of
foreigners.” The first instruction was necessarily in English, but the
missionaries used every opportunity to become acquainted with the
speech of the people and make it a written language. They wrote down as
carefully as they could every new word which came to their ears. This
was no small task and was absolutely necessary as the foundation of a
written language.

As soon as the missionaries were sure of the orthography and
pronunciation of a number of words they prepared a primer or spelling
book to be printed for the schools they were carrying on. Mr. Bingham
says: “On the 7th of January, 1822, we commenced printing the language
in order to give them letters, libraries and the living oracles in
their own tongue. A considerable number was present, and among those
particularly interested was Ke-au-moku (Gov. Cox) who after a little
instruction by Mr. Loomis applied the strength of his athletic arm to
the lever of a Ramage press, pleased thus to assist in working off a
few impressions of the first lessons.”

Although these impressions were merely proof sheets, probably, of the
first half of the spelling book, yet the large number printed and put
in use, nearly 100 in all, would make this the first item printed.

This was the first printing done in the Hawaiian islands and along the
North Pacific coast west of the Rocky Mountains. These first sheets
created a new interest among the chiefs. King Liho-liho (Ka-meha-meha
II) visited the press, saw a sheet of clean white paper laid over the
type, then “pulled the lever around and was surprised to see the paper
instantly covered with words in his own language.”

While the chiefs were awakened by these proof impressions to
intellectual desires never before experienced, the work was being
pushed of finishing the second “signature” and the complete book of
sixteen pages was printed in an edition of 500 copies. Gov. Adams
(Kuakini) secured one of the first copies of these lessons “and was
quickly master of them.”

Liho-liho was glad to have the chiefs instructed and took 100 copies of
the first primer for his friends and attendants. Ka-ahu-manu took 40
for her friends. These probably came from this printing of 500 copies.
In the latter part of September, another printing of 2,000 copies was
made from the same type.

Liho-liho felt a little like the foreigners who did not want the
natives instructed. He wanted the education reserved for the chiefs
because, according to Mr. Bingham, “he would not have the instruction
of the people in general come in the way of their cutting sandalwood to
pay his debts.”

Nevertheless, the flood could not be held back and the privilege of
reading and writing rapidly spread among the people. In six years there
was the record—

“Oahu: Mission Press, Nov. 1828; 5 Ed.; 20,000. Total, 120,000.”

Meanwhile a great deal of other printed matter had been issued from
that first press.

March 9, 1822, at the request of the king and high chiefs a handbill,
entitled, “Port Regulations,” was printed, probably to aid the rulers
in quieting the differences which were continually arising with sea
captains. The fourth item recorded as issued in these islands was in
December, 1823, and is the very rare and unique little book of 60 pages
of Hawaiian hymns prepared by Rev. Hiram Bingham and Rev. William
Ellis, an English missionary from Tahiti who resided in Honolulu at the
time, heartily allying himself with the American missionaries. His
previous knowledge of the similar language of Tahiti made it easy for
him to learn Hawaiian. The edition of this hymn book was 2,000 copies.

The most interesting part of the story of printing in the Hawaiian
Islands belongs to the greatest work accomplished for the good of the
people—the printing of the Bible in the Hawaiian language. This article
has space for only a few facts. The first printed Bible passage was in
a revised spelling book published April, 1825. This was John 3, 16–21.
Then in June, 1825, a booklet, 4 pages, called—“He olelo a ke Akua,” or
“Selected Scriptures,” was probably printed on the same demy with “He
ui,” or “A catechism,” 8 pages—each 7,000 copies. In November, 1825,
the hundredth Psalm was “printed on a card for the opening of the
church built by Ka-lai-moku at Honolulu,” then in December, 1825, the
Ten Commandments and the Lord’s Prayer; in July, 1826, the Good
Samaritan, and in January, 1827, the Sermon on the Mount.

In December, 1827, came the first systematic attempt toward printing
the Bible. Twelve pages of the Gospel of Luke were struck off—10,700
copies. Later the entire book of Luke was printed in Honolulu. The
other gospels, Matthew, Mark and John, were printed in 1828 in the
United States. A copy of these three gospels, bound in an elegant and
substantial cover, was presented to Ka-pio-lani, the high chiefess who
defied Pele on the brink of the pit-crater of Kilauea in 1825. This
volume now lies in the archives of the Hawaiian Board. The entire Bible
was completed and “the finishing sheet was struck off May 10, 1839.”

An interesting prophecy concerning the completion of the Bible is found
in a writing book, where, under the date April 30, 1827, is the record
of a conversation. Mr. Bingham says that it is the duty of the mission
to complete a translation of the Bible in five years from this time and
thinks that with circumstances as favourable as they now are it will be
done.

Mr. Whitney says: “I say if the whole Bible is in print in the Hawaiian
language in ten years from this time it is as much as I expect, and I
think will be a progress exceeding that of any other mission to any
heathen country having a language not previously written or reduced to
order.” It was a little over twelve years after the first pages were
prepared before the complete Bible was in print.








XX

THE FIRST CONSTITUTION


Many subtle influences were at work in the evolution of Hawaiian
civilisation. Between the years 1835–1840 there was a culmination of
several forces, each one important in itself and all uniting to bring
about the exceedingly interesting series of events which marked the
Hawaiian history of that time. Missionary instruction commenced in
1820. The work of translating the Bible into the Hawaiian language was
completed and the book published in 1839. For several years the
thoughts of the Bible had been studied and preached with great
clearness and power as the result of the labour of translating and
criticising the different books. Then came one of the most remarkable
religious revivals in history. These years of religious instruction,
with their resultant awakening of conscience and yearning for a better
life, could not escape a close connection with the contemporaneous
demands of civilisation. The double development could not be separated.

During these same years there came a new relation to the larger nations
of the world. International complications succeeded each other with
great rapidity. A controversy with Roman Catholic priests, much as it
was deprecated by the missionaries, was nevertheless a very useful
factor in making the king and chiefs realise that they must be better
prepared to deal with foreign interference. There was plain necessity
for a knowledge of law and government. Schools and churches and the
first newspapers published in the Pacific Ocean were all enforcing the
demand for better government.

In 1833 King Ka-meha-meha III was thinking seriously of holding
unbridled sway over his people. Alexander says that he “announced to
his chiefs his intention to take into his possession the land for which
his father had toiled, the power of life and death, and the undivided
sovereignty.” His purpose was to have no government distinct from the
will of the king.

The earthquake changes in civil conditions occurring at that time
throughout the islands speedily made the king and the chiefs conscious
of their ignorance of methods of government, and in 1836 they applied
to the United States “for a legal adviser and instructor in the science
of government.” This was a request difficult to grant speedily. In 1838
the right man for the place was selected from among the American
missionaries in the islands. His name was William Richards. Under his
instruction an outline of forms of civil government was rapidly given
to the leading men of the kingdom. Ka-meha-meha III determined to put
the lessons into practice, and in 1839 issued what he called “A
Declaration of Rights—Both of the People and the Chiefs,” and in
October, 1840, promulgated the first Constitution of the Hawaiian
Islands, quickly following these documents with a code of laws agreed
to unanimously by the council of chiefs and signed by both the king and
his premier.

These laws and the Constitution and Declaration of Rights were first
published in English in 1842. The Declaration and Constitution owe much
of their remarkably clear and broad conceptions of the relation of
ruler and subject to Mr. Richards. Nevertheless, it is a somewhat
remarkable fact that men of such limited civilisation as the king and
chiefs should have been willing to voluntarily give up so large a use
of power as is marked in the adoption of such a radically new form of
government as arose in 1839–1840. It was a revolution of ideas and
purposes and customs remarkable in its extent and thoroughness.

Laws had been made by kings and chiefs as far back as the year 1823.
Many difficulties had been decided according to the tabu, or practices
of the chiefs, or according to the general principles of common law.
The established customs of civilised nations had considerable force in
disputes between natives and foreigners. But at last the rulers of the
land began to put their government into permanent shape. Mr. Richards
had much to do in the preparation of the new system of rule. The
foreign consuls assisted and even wrote some of the earlier laws.
Commanders of warships made suggestions. Missionaries were consulted.
David Malo, John and Daniel Ii and other pupils of the early
missionaries wrote some of the original laws. The king and the high
chiefs ratified these laws, explained them to the people and put them
in force. This is in brief the situation immediately preceding and
accompanying the peaceable and yet irreclaimable establishment of
constitutional rights and privileges in Hawaii.

Three steps are to be noticed in the growth of the recognition of the
rights of the common people. The Declaration of Rights, the
Constitution, and the Enactment of Laws by an elected legislature. Once
taken, no royal will could ever retrace these steps. The king and his
chiefs made a gulf between their past and their future history and
could not bridge it or re-cross it. The Hawaiian Magna Charta, like
that of King John Lackland, was irrevocable, because, like the great
charter of England, it was a step in the evolution of human liberty. It
is interesting to note the similarity of thought and language when the
leading principle of the Magna Charta is placed beside the supreme gift
of the king granted in the Hawaiian Declaration of Rights.

What has been called “The essence and glory of Magna Charta” reads as
follows: “No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or dis-seized, or
outlawed, or banished, or anyways injured, nor will we pass upon him,
nor send upon him, unless by the legal judgment of his peers or by the
law of the land.”

The Hawaiian Declaration of Rights, issued June 7, 1839, stated first
the principle upon which the American Declaration of Independence was
founded, viz.:

“That God has bestowed certain rights alike on all men, and all chiefs,
and on all people of all lands.”

Then the further fundamental principle was outlined that:

“In making laws for the nations, it is by no means proper to enact laws
for the protection of the rulers only, without also providing
protection for their subjects.”

Then came the necessary conclusion, which is very similar to the crux
of Magna Charta:

“Protection is hereby secured to the persons of all the people,
together with their lands, their building lots, and all their property
while they conform to the laws of the kingdom, and nothing whatever
shall be taken from any individual, except by express provision of the
laws.”

In order to carry out this Declaration of Rights Ka-meha-meha III and
his high chiefs were led irresistibly to the promulgation of a
Constitution which should differentiate the functions of the different
branches of government and provide for a proper presentation of the
needs of the people. As surely as the sunlight follows the morning star
so certainly came the provision for a House of Nobles representing the
chiefs and a House of Representatives representing the people.

The Constitution was promulgated October 8, 1840. After reiterating the
Declaration of Rights the king defines the legislative, executive and
judicial branches of government and establishes the legislature and
bestows upon it the power of enacting laws. Previously he had enacted
law with the advice of his council of high chiefs.

The laws which were passed after this Constitution was promulgated are
both curious and instructive. There is a very large concession on the
part of the king and the high chiefs who constituted his advisers, and
a correspondingly large increase of privileges on the part of the
common people. This is especially noticeable in the enactment of laws
concerning taxation. Before the days of the Constitution and
legislature the king held all power in his own hands, although the
Aha-alii, or Council of Chiefs, was a factor with which he continually
reckoned. The common people were not taken very much into account
before the influence of Christianity was felt by both king and chiefs.

In the act of the Legislature and House of Nobles signed by the king
November 9, 1840, three forms of taxation are specified—the poll tax,
the land tax, and the labour tax.

The poll tax could be paid in arrowroot, cotton, sugar or anything
which had a specific money value. The most important exemption looked
toward the preservation of large families. “If any parents have five,
six, or more children, whom they support ... then these parents shall
by no means be required to pay any poll, land or labour tax until their
children are old enough to work, which is at fourteen years of age.”

The land tax was to be paid in swine.

If lands were forfeited they were to go back into the hands of the
king, “and he shall give them out again at his discretion, or lease
them, or put them into the hands of those who have no lands, as he
shall think best.”

The labour tax would be considered an exceedingly heavy burden by the
public of the present time and yet that labour law was very much less
oppressive than the semi-civilisation which preceded it. The native who
sighs for the return of the days of the olden time would speedily try
to get back out of the fire into what he considers a frying pan. Twelve
days’ public labour out of every month would be considered exceedingly
oppressive if exacted by the government of to-day. Yet thus reads a
part of the enactment of 1840:

“When public labour is to be done of such a nature as to be a common
benefit to king and people, and therefore, twelve days in a month are
devoted to labour; then all persons, whether connected with the land or
not, and also all servants shall go to the work or pay a fine of half a
dollar a day.”

Fines were exacted from the late and lazy. The man coming after 7
o’clock in the morning was fined an eighth of a dollar, and after
dinner a fourth of a dollar. While the man who was lazy and idle one
day was fined two days’ extra labour. There were, of course, exemptions
for infirmity, large families and other good reasons.

There was enacted a special law for the lazy and worthless element of
the community.

The words of the law seem to come from the lips of the king. “As for
the idler, let the industrious man put him to shame, and sound his name
from one end of the country to the other.” The chiefs were exhorted “to
disperse those lazy persons who live in hordes around you, through whom
heavy burdens are imposed upon your labouring tenants.” “Treat with
kindness those who devote their strength to labour, till their tattered
garments are blown about their necks, while those who live with you in
indolence wear the clean apparel for which the industrious poor have
laboured.”

It is well known that laws are applied sermons, but these laws are
sometimes primarily sermons, as the introduction to Act III well says:
“A portion of this law is simply instruction and a portion is direct
law. That part which simply disapproves of certain evils is
instruction. If a penalty is affixed that is absolute law.” Hence the
following exhortations are made to the chiefs: “That the land agents
and that lazy class of persons who live about us should be enriched to
the impoverishment of the lower classes, who with patience toil under
their burdens, is not in accordance with the designs of this law. This
law condemns the old system of the king, chiefs, land agents and tax
officers. That merciless treatment of common people must end.”

It is worthy of notice that the fourth act of these early laws
practically recognised the New England system of “local” or “town”
government. The words are peculiar, “If the people of any village,
township, district, or state consider themselves afflicted by any
particular evils in consequence of there being no law which is
applicable ... then they may devise a law which will remedy their
difficulties. If they shall agree to any rule, then that rule shall
become a law for that place, but for no other.” This was to apply
especially to any community’s desire concerning fences, animals at
large, and roads. “Though no such law can be at variance with the
general spirit of the laws of the nation nor can there be any
oppressive law nor one of evil tendency.”

In 1842 an act was signed by the king and the premier, in which the
evident intent is a lesson for the common people—a lesson to be
enforced by contrasts. “The people are wailing on account of their
present burdens. Formerly they were not called burdens. Never did the
people complain of burdens until of late. This complaint of the people,
however, would have a much better grace if they with energy improved
their time on their own free days; but lo! this is not the case. They
spend their days in idleness, and therefore their lands are grown over
with weeds and there is little food growing. The chiefs, of their own
unsolicited kindness, removed the grievous burdens. The people did not
first call for a removal of them. The chiefs removed them of their own
accord. Therefore the saying of some of the people that they are
oppressed is not correct. They are not oppressed, but they are idle.”

For that reason a new law was enacted stating that it “shall be the
duty of the tax officer whenever he sees a man sitting idle or doing
nothing on the free days of the people (i.e., the days, when they were
not required to work for the king or chiefs) to take that man and set
him at work for the government, and he shall work till night.”

Accompanying this act compelling idlers to toil there was a clear
statement of the strong contrast between the burdens of the time
immediately preceding and those after the passage of the new laws.
These changes are worth noting because of their historical bearing upon
the past and present condition of the native Hawaiians.

“Formerly if the king wished the property of any man he took it without
reward, seized it by force or took a portion only, as he chose, and no
man could refuse him. The same was true of every chief and even the
landlords treated their tenants thus.” This was so changed that if a
chief should attempt it “he would instantly cease to be a chief on this
archipelago.”

“Formerly the chief could call the people from one end of the islands
to the other to perform labour.” “If the king wished the people to work
for him they could not refuse. They must work from month to month. So
also at the call of every chief and every landlord.”

“Formerly if the people did not go to the work of the king when
required, the punishment was that their houses were set on fire and
consumed.” The fact must be recognised that before the adoption of this
Constitution under the influence of the American missionaries the
common people never owned any land or had any especial rights.

The power of the king and chiefs up to the time of their freely giving
this constitution and new set of laws was practically unlimited. The
fact that they voluntarily limited themselves for the benefit of the
people must be noted to the credit of an awakened conscience under
missionary guidance.








XXI

THE HAWAIIAN FLAG


The flag which has floated over the Hawaiian Islands for more than a
century is a combination of the “Union Jack” and stripes rather than
the “Stars and Stripes,” to which it now gives precedence. The Union
Jack in the upper or “halyard” corner, and eight stripes, red, white
and blue, constitute the old flag of Hawaii.

This flag has a story worth hearing.

Vancouver visited the “Sandwich Islands” with Captain Cook. Nearly
fifteen years later he returned in command of an expedition. February
21, 1794, he entered into an agreement with Ka-meha-meha I and his
Council of Chiefs to receive the islands under the protection of Great
Britain. February 25, with great ceremony, the English flag was raised
over Ka-meha-meha’s royal home on the island of Hawaii. Probably this
flag was the first “Union Jack” adopted by King James, 1603–1625, on
the political union of England and Scotland.

This flag was succeeded in 1801 by the present Union Jack, which is
made by placing three crosses upon a blue field—St. George’s of
England, a red cross; St. Andrew’s of Scotland, a white cross, and St.
Patrick’s of Ireland. The Irish addition to the flag consisted of St.
Patrick’s red cross laid upon St. Andrew’s white cross, and half
covering it. This was the second Union Jack. The name “Jack” is said to
have come from the red cross on the “jacque”—the coat of mail or outer
coat of the soldiers of England.

The second Union Jack was the second flag to float authoritatively over
the Hawaiian Islands. The fact that Ka-meha-meha placed the English
flag over his government has sometimes been construed as a technical
“cession of the islands to the English crown.” But the astute
Ka-meha-meha, while looking for English protection from the greed of
other nations, stipulated that the Hawaiians should “govern themselves
in their own way and according to such laws as they themselves might
impose.” The action of Vancouver was not ratified in England, owing to
more important European questions, and a real protectorate was never
established. Nevertheless, there was a nominal guardianship afforded by
the presence of the English flag floating over the Hawaiian grass
houses and fleets of boats.

It should be said that during preceding centuries each high chief had
carried a pennant of coloured native cloth at the masthead of his
double war canoe, but these were individual and family rather than
national banners.

At first the English flag was established only upon the island of
Hawaii. Then it passed with Ka-meha-meha from island to island as he
conquered the high chiefs and became the sole ruler of the group. When
the king made Honolulu his chief royal residence the flag floated over
his house near the seashore. On Kauai, the island farthest north of all
the group, there was a strong Russian influence. The Russians built a
fort at the mouth of one of the rivers. Against their armed possession
of any part of the islands King Ka-meha-meha made strong objection,
but, according to the statements of sailors, the Russian flag was used
by the high chief of Kauai until finally displaced by the Hawaiian
flag.

The English flag over Honolulu was a warning to other nations, and also
to lawless individuals. No man could tell exactly how far to go in the
presence of that flag. The sailors of those days unquestionably ran
riot in wickedness, and the early influences of white civilisation were
absolutely awful. But there was a limit beyond which the lawless
element did not dare to pass. The flag would permit England to advance
whatever claim might be desired in case of any great trouble.

This continued from 1794 to 1812. Then war broke out between England
and the United States. Alexander, in a report to the Hawaiian
Historical Society, says that upon the outbreak of this war a friendly
American persuaded Ka-meha-meha I “to have a flag of his own.”

An English Captain (George C. Beckley) some time near the beginning of
the century brought a small ship to the islands and sold it to the
chiefs. He then settled in Honolulu and became a friend of the king,
who made him a “tabu-chief.” He married an Hawaiian woman of high
priestly family. Nevertheless, “she had to kolo-kolo or crawl on her
hands and knees whenever she entered the house of her husband, the
tabu-chief.”

To Captain Beckley was entrusted the task of designing and making the
first Hawaiian flag. The pattern flag, the first one made, was
afterward “fashioned into a child’s frock and worn on special occasions
by each one of the children in succession, and was long preserved as an
heirloom in the family.”

This was apparently a compromise between the flags of the two
antagonistic English-speaking nations. The Jack was retained to show
the king’s friendship for England. The stripes were said to represent
the red, white and blue of the American flag. They were eight in
number, to represent the eight principal islands of the group. It was a
combination of Hawaiian with European and American interests.

The old king was very proud of his beautiful new flag, and displayed it
from his palace and over the royal homes in other islands. It
superseded the Russian flag on Kauai. He built a new coral rock fort,
300 × 400 feet dimensions, with walls twelve feet high and twenty feet
thick. In it he placed forty guns, six, eight and twelve pounders, from
which thundering salutes were fired on every possible occasion. He gave
command of this fort to Captain Beckley, and over it flung his new flag
to the breeze.

He sent his flag to China at the masthead of a ship he had purchased
for the sandalwood trade. The captain of this ship, Alexander Adams,
found trouble waiting for him at Canton, “because the Chinese
authorities refused to recognise the Hawaiian flag, which had never
before been seen in that port.” We have the statement on good authority
that Captain Adams had to pay such heavy harbour dues that the report
thereof to Ka-meha-meha taught the Hawaiian king one of the principles
of civilised business, i.e., to charge fees for every boat entering his
harbour. He lost about $3,000 in this voyage to China, “chiefly owing
to the new flag.” The lesson learned concerning the harbour dues was
probably worth all that was lost, although the king lived less than two
years afterwards to enjoy his new source of income.

The flag has figured prominently in several international episodes.

The Hawaiian Islands were fertile fields to greedy land-loving rovers
of the seas. In 1842 and 1843 Mr. Charlton, an English consul, made
trouble for the Hawaiian chiefs by laying claim to a very valuable
piece of land in Honolulu, which the chiefs claimed could not possibly
have been given to him by the rightful owners. This was the foundation
of a series of disagreements. The consul was an open advocate of
English annexation, and reported a dangerous state of affairs to
England. Finally, leaving his consulate in the hands of a friend, he
went to England to present his own claims. Meanwhile, a captain of an
English frigate, Lord George Paulet, was sent to Honolulu. He seized
upon every pretext for advancing his intention of seizing the islands
in the name of the English crown. The king, Ka-meha-meha III, meanwhile
made earnest protest and planned resistance, but his wise counsellors
persuaded him not to give Lord Paulet any pretext for action, but to
forestall him by making a provisional cession of the kingdom pending
the appeal to the protection of the United States and England. On
February 25, 1843, the Hawaiian flag was hauled down and the Union Jack
was once more raised over a part of the islands. On February 25, 1794,
forty-nine years before, Vancouver’s flag-raising ceremony had taken
place. Like Vancouver, Lord Paulet evidently had little doubt about
England’s glad welcome of a new colonial possession.

Ka-meha-meha III made a short speech of protest, closing with the
words: “I have hope that the life of the land will be restored when my
conduct shall be justified.” Lord Paulet then took possession of the
fort, confiscated Hawaiian ships, compelled natives to enlist to form
an English army, and began to increase taxes to meet the expenses of
his new government. The king withdrew to another island, and, with his
cabinet, disclaimed the authority of Lord Paulet, and continued to
appeal to England.

This triumphal flight of the English flag was not at all permanent. In
the first part of July, about four months and a half after Lord
Paulet’s seizure of the islands, Commodore Kearney, in the old U. S.
frigate Constitution, entered Honolulu harbour. The native chiefs
visited his ship. Lord Paulet had collected all the Hawaiian flags and
destroyed them, but a new flag was hastily made and raised over the
visitors, and a salute fired in its honour—to Lord Paulet’s helpless
indignation.

However, in the new flag the colors of the bars were permanently
reversed. In this respect the modern Hawaiian flag is different from
the flag first made.

A few days later Admiral Thomas, commander of the English navy in the
Pacific, arrived in Honolulu, and “in most courteous terms solicited a
personal interview with the king.” In a few hours it became known that
he had come to restore the independence of the islands.

On Monday morning, July 31, 1843, the admiral issued a proclamation
restoring the islands to their king, and incidentally mentioning in
high terms the work of the American missionaries. Monday forenoon, “a
parade of several hundred English marines appeared on the plain of
Honolulu (now known as Thomas Square), with their officers, their
banners waving proudly and their arms glittering in the sunbeams.
Admiral Thomas and the suspended king proceeded thither in a carriage,
attended by the chiefs and a vast multitude of people. The English
standard bearers advanced towards his majesty, their flags bowed
gracefully, and a broad, beautiful Hawaiian banner, exhibiting a crown
and olive branch, was unfurled over the heads of the king and his
attending chieftains. This was saluted by the English troops with field
pieces, then by the guns of Lord Paulet’s ship, whose yards were manned
in homage to the restored sovereign. Then succeeded the roar of the
guns of the fort, Punchbowl battery, the admiral’s ship, the United
States ships and others.”

“Thomas Square” was so named and set apart as a perpetual park near the
heart of the city, in honour of this action of Admiral Thomas. Monday
afternoon the king and chiefs and several thousand people gathered in
the new native stone church, Kawaiahao, and held an enthusiastic praise
meeting. The king in an eloquent speech uttered a motto worthy of the
highest statesmanship. This was later adopted as the national motto and
inscribed on all Hawaiian coins: Ua mau ke ea o ka aina i ka
pono—“Perpetuated is the life of the land by its righteousness,” or
“The perpetuation of the life of the land depends upon the
righteousness thereof.” The church was beautifully decorated and on the
pulpit was the restored Hawaiian flag. The “army” enlisted by Lord
Paulet gladly renounced allegiance to England. The ships were restored
and the king’s cabinet again took the reins of government. It was not
long before word came that Europe and America had, as early as April,
recognised the independence of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Undeterred by this English experience, a Frenchman thought it worth his
while to secure the little kingdom. In 1849 Admiral Tromelin sailed
into Honolulu harbour and made some emphatic demands, alleging that the
king had unlawfully fined a French ship. The king replied that the ship
had violated his laws and was necessarily held responsible. The admiral
at once landed an armed force with field pieces and scaling ladders and
captured the fort. The king, however, had withdrawn his troops, leaving
an empty fort with the Hawaiian flag flying from its staff. The
Frenchman did not quite dare to pull that flag down in the face of very
earnest protests from both the English and American consuls. The French
smashed calabashes, spiked the guns, poured powder into the harbour,
wrote on the walls of the fort that they were “Les Braves” and then
withdrew, turning their trouble over to their home government. For
nearly two years the French made trouble. At last the king,
Ka-meha-meha III, became tired and placed his kingdom “provisionally
under the protection of the United States,” declaring that the
protectorate should be “perpetual” if the relations with France were
not placed on a better footing. The Frenchmen soon discovered that the
difficulties could be easily settled, and the long list of grievances
“were reduced to two points, viz., the liberty of Catholic worship and
the trade in spirits.” This last meant the abundant entrance of French
brandy. “Nothing more was heard of the rest of the demands.”

Flag episodes after these experiences were limited to ordinary affairs
of government. Sometimes it floated proudly over fort and palace, while
salutes were fired from men-of-war entering the harbour. Sometimes it
hung at half mast over the palace while the body of some member of the
royal family or some one of high chief blood lay in state. Sometimes
its absence from the palace marked the king’s departure for some other
island. Its reappearance was the signal of the king’s return. It
floated over ministers’ and consuls’ offices in different parts of the
world and fulfilled its modest duty as the representative of one of
“the little kings.”

Then came the turbulent times of internal dissension through the reign
of Kalakaua and that of his sister, Liliuokalani, resulting in the
overthrow of the monarchy in 1893. January 14, 1893, the queen thought
herself strong enough to abrogate the Constitution of the islands and
promulgate a new Constitution suited to her own wishes. She found that
she had opened a volcano under her feet. She prorogued the Legislature
in the forenoon and attempted to install her new Constitution. Her
cabinet objected. A group of prominent citizens strengthened the
cabinet. An impromptu mass meeting was held in the afternoon and a
committee of public safety of thirteen was appointed. This was
Saturday. Sunday was a day of suppressed excitement. Monday, January
16, over 1,300 citizens gathered in the armory and authorised this
committee of public safety to take such steps as might be necessary.
That afternoon at 5 o’clock 300 United States marines and sailors were
landed. The marines were stationed at the American legation and the
sailors at Arion Hall.

The next day, January 17, the committee of public safety issued the
following proclamation:

“First—The Hawaiian monarchial system of government is hereby
abrogated.

“Second—A Provisional Government for the control and management of
public affairs and the protection of public peace is hereby
established, to exist until terms of union with the United States of
America have been negotiated and agreed upon.”

This Provisional Government, with President Dole at its head, under the
old Hawaiian flag, was at once recognised, under date of January 17, as
the “de facto government of the Hawaiian Islands,” by Minister Stevens
of the United States. January 18, ministers and consul-generals from
several nations hastened to hand in their recognition of the new
government, and on the 19th English and Japanese ministers practically
completed the list.

This continued until February 1, 1893, when negotiations had progressed
so far that United States Minister Stevens felt safe in raising the
Stars and Stripes over the government buildings and declaring a
protectorate. This was the fourth time that a far-away representative
of a foreign power had felt certain that his annexation of Hawaii would
be joyfully received by his home government. And this fourth act was
subject to reversal. Five prominent men went to Washington, empowered
to make a treaty of annexation with the United States. March 4, 1893,
President Cleveland was inaugurated. He withdrew the treaty from
consideration by the Senate. Then came the visit of “Paramount Blount,”
who arrived in Honolulu March 29.

The Provisional Government was strongly entrenched, and Mr. Blount
found that the only thing he could do was to withdraw United States
protection.

April 1st the announcement was made in the morning papers that the
United States flag would be lowered at 11 o’clock, and the Hawaiian
flag restored as the emblem of the Provisional Government. For the
brief space of almost two months the Stars and Stripes had floated over
Hawaii.

Hundreds of people flocked to the spacious grounds around the
government buildings. It was a curious crowd—Orientals, Europeans,
Africans and Americans—mingling together. The Stars and Stripes slipped
down the rattling lines from the flagstaff when the bugle call was
sounded. “There was another gleam of colour and the Hawaiian flag
crawled up the now taut ropes and shook itself free, its blue, white
and crimson bars floating in their accustomed place. The silence was
undisturbed. The troops of the Provisional Government presented arms,
but the American men-of-war in the harbour did not salute the restored
flag.”

As time passed, President Cleveland’s desire to restore the monarchy
became more and more apparent, and under the same old Hawaiian colours,
“on July 4, 1894, the Constitution of the Republic of Hawaii was
promulgated,” and all designs for United States interference were
thwarted. The beautiful and loved flag of Hawaii, the royal flag from
the times of Ka-meha-meha I, the ensign of the Provisional Government,
unchanged, became the banner of the first Republic of the Pacific
Ocean.

It remained the flag of the Republic until the news reached Honolulu
that President McKinley, on July 7, 1898, had signed the joint
resolution of annexation adopted by both houses of Congress.

It was necessary that the officials of the newly annexed islands should
take the oath of allegiance to the United States, and that the final
change of government should be marked by a new and authorised
flag-raising ceremony. Great preparations were made for the solemn
exercises attending the transfer of the Republic of Hawaii to the
Republic of the United States. On August 12, 1898, thousands of people
again crowded into the government grounds. The National Guard of Hawaii
and companies of United States marines were drawn up around the former
palace. In front of the palace, now the Capitol Building, was a
grandstand, about which the Hawaiian and United States colours were
intertwined.

The Hawaiian and United States officials, the diplomatic corps and a
few friends filled the grandstand. After prayers came the formal
transfer of sovereignty.

The final salute to the Hawaiian emblem of an independent nation was
fired. As the last report died away in echoes among the surrounding
hills, the Hawaiian national anthem, “Hawaii Ponoi,” in solemn
grandeur, stirred the hearts of the multitude. Mrs. Garland, an
eye-witness, said: “The music ceased and for one instant the Hawaiian
flag still floated, then as it was slowly lowered, utter stillness held
every one mute. A great wave of intense feeling seemed to flow over the
people. For the moment we were in a country without a flag. There were
few who did not weep. Then a clear sounding call from the bugles of the
s. s.  Philadelphia, a sudden stir through all the throng, and then
with the triumphant ringing strains of the ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ up
rose majestically our own dear flag, reaching the truck with the last
grand chord. Three mighty cheers burst forth. Men grasped each other by
the hand, and hats and handkerchiefs waved. A group of Hawaiian young
women stood behind us. As the Stars and Stripes went up, from one came
the repressed exclamation, ‘Oh, you beautiful thing.’”

Then President Dole and his cabinet took the oath of allegiance to the
United States. The soldiers marched to their barracks to be sworn into
their new service. The crowd dispersed, while salutes were fired from
the ships in the harbour. The American flag floats in its own
influential place over the palace, not as a kingly, but as a republican
flag. The Hawaiian flag still floats over many a home in the islands,
as well as over the corner posts of the old palace under the American
flag, as the permanent flag of the Territory of Hawaii.

The Hawaiian flag is surrounded by many historical memories which mean
much to residents of both native and foreign descent, and they rejoice
that the dear old flag is not lost from the nation’s history. As one
writer says, this feeling shows that “the flag does not represent so
much a particular form of government as it does the great heart of the
people which throbs beneath.”








NOTES

[1] This is one of the most ancient legends in Hawaiian annals.

[2] Laa-mai-Kahiki means Laa-from-Kahiki in the Hawaiian language, or
Raa-from-Tahiti in the Tahitian dialect. In the Hawaiian stories he was
always known as Laa-mai-Kahiki. He was a very high chief from Hawaii
absorbed in the royal line of Tahiti. The letter “r” being used for “l”
and “t” for “k” explains the slight difference in the names, Laa and
Raa-Kahiki and Tahiti. This is simply such a change as is found in
dialects everywhere.