The Story of Hawaii: History, Customs, Mythology, Geography & Archaeology. Fowke Gerard

Tahiti or Samoa, the voyagers travelling in fleets of canoes and steering by the stars. The canoes were probably built of planks, decked over, and large enough to carry a certain amount of live stock. For some unknown reason the period of this intercourse was very short. During the next five hundred years there ;are no legends of distant voyages, and ideas of any country beyond the Hawaiian group became indistinct. This time of isolation brought about, naturally, fixed national customs and a very definite and individual national religion.

      In ancient times the people were divided into three distinct classes, the nobility, the priests and sorcerers, and the common people, and between these classes were absolute and unalterable lines of demarcation. The chiefs, or "alii," were supposed to be descended from the gods and their office was, therefore, religious as well as political. So sacred were the highest chiefs considered that when they walked about the people all had to prostrate themselves. The courts comprised personal attendants of the chief,—men of high rank only on the father's side,—priests, diviners, storytellers, and dancers, who were trained to the art from infancy. The chief owned all the land and parcelled it out among the nobility, who, in turn, distributed it among the common people. As often as a chief died the land was redistributed. It was the feudal system in its most literal and oppressive form, the only check on the power of the nobles being that the people were not fixed to the soil, but might move from place to place at will, thereby entering the service of some other chief.

      The priests, or "kahunas," were also a hereditary order exercising great power, not only because they were the medium of communication with the gods, but because they, only, knew anything of astronomy and medicine. The lower ranks of priests were sorcerers, able to pray people to death—one of the few ancient beliefs still held by many Hawaiians. As to the religion itself, four great gods were worshipped in different ways by all Polynesians. According to the Hawaiian interpretation, which does not differ materially from others, the most powerful of these gods was Kane, the creator of the world. He with his brother Kanaloa once lived on the Island of Hawaii, where they made miraculously many of the springs; they also introduced the banana and other useful trees. Ku was a cruel god, delighting in suffering and human sacrifice. Lono, of a slightly lower rank, controlled the rains and had his own particular order of priests. In addition to these highest gods, all the forces of nature were deified; the air, the rocks, the trees, were the expression of invisible beings to whom reverence was due and who must at all times be propitiated. There were also gods of different localities, gods of different professions, gods living in sharks and lizards and owls. Most powerful among the minor deities, as might be expected in a volcanic country. Was Pele, the goddess of fire. Near the volcanoes on Hawaii she was most feared, and constant propitiation was therefore necessary. She, with her sisters and her brother, lived in the volcano; " The roaring of the furnaces and the crackling of the flames were the music of their dance and the red fiery surge was the surf in which they played." There were malignant and friendly elves in the woods; there were demigods of every kind; there were deified ancestors. Not an act of daily life could be performed without reference to one or more of these divine beings. It was this far-reaching superstition that gave rise to the tabu system, one of the most elaborate devices of any heathen race.

      This system was made up of minute regulations, infringement of any one of which was considered both as a sin against the gods and as a political offence, since the office of the chiefs was religious as well as secular. The following are a very few of these tabus, which are enough to indicate their general character: Men and women were compelled to eat in separate houses and women were not allowed to eat with men or to enter men's eating-houses on pain of death. For women, also, certain food, such as bananas, coconuts, and pork, was forbidden. A commoner was prohibited on pain of death from crossing the shadow of a chief—a law which must have been difficult to obey in the early morning or late afternoon. Certain nights of the month were tabu—the king spent the time in the temple, which was closed to all other persons, nor during those nights could women step into canoes. At certain tabu periods no sound could be heard, no fire could be lighted; dogs were muzzled and fowls tied up in calabashes. For four days after the dedication of a temple there could be no fishing, no bathing, no pounding of poi, no work of any kind in the locality.

      All this system was elaborated by the priests on the basis of tradition and was enforced by the chiefs. Connected with it was an equally complicated religious ritual. The more important temples consisted of great stone platforms surrounded by thick stone walls. The interior was often terraced and occasionally there was an inner court in which stood the principal idol. In the centre of the main court was the oracle, an obelisk of wicker work, within which the priest stood when acting as intermediary with the gods. In this court also were sacred houses in which the king and priests lived during periods of tabu. On the outer walls of the temple stood innumerable hideous images, probably intended as human scarecrows to frighten away the over-inquisitive. In addition to the temples were houses of refuge, to which criminals of any grade could flee and receive protection until the time of purification was passed, when they could go out under the care of the gods. The idols, after having certain ceremonies performed over them, became representatives of the gods and were reputed to have definite powers imparted by their respective deities.

      Every family, moreover, had its private idol, the power of which was very limited as compared with that of the temple idols. The prayers composing the temple ritual were, like the songs, handed down orally through many generations. They were in reality charms rather than prayers, and had to be recited accurately to be effective,—a very difficult task, since they were so long that they often took hours to repeat and were in an ancient dialect not much more understood by the common people than in Russia is the old Slavonic tongue of the Orthodox ritual. Human sacrifice, the supreme act of worship, was reserved for the most solemn occasions only, such as the dedication of a temple, the funeral rites of a chief, or the launching of a war canoe. The victims, who were secretly slain by the Mu, the official executioner, were either prisoners of war or men who had infringed the tabu. Women, being inferior and therefore not worthy to be offered to the gods, were, in this instance at least, safe.

      The common people, who were hardly more than serfs, had little to make life happy unless they were fortunate enough to be attached to a benevolent chief. All were liable to military service, and wars, after the beginning of the fifteenth century, were nearly continuous. Weapons consisted of long and short spears, daggers, clubs, and slings. There were no shields, but trained warriors be came very expert in warding off attack. Vancouver says that in a sham battle he saw "six spears cast at once at Kamehameha I, of which he caught three, parried two, and avoided the sixth by a quick movement of the body." After a battle it was customary to give no quarter to the defeated enemy. In spite of the wars, however, much time was of necessity given to peaceful pursuits. As there was no metal, tools were made of stone, or sharks' teeth, or wood, yet with these rude implements the people carried on extensive agricultural works, terraced the land when necessary, built irrigation ditches and tunnels, and constructed fields for the growing of taro. This was their principal crop, as it was, and is, the staple food. The best of it, and indeed the larger proportion, grows in fields which must be covered with water to the depth of a few inches and which must, therefore, be very carefully laid out. The root is boiled or steamed until soft, pounded with stone pestles into a paste, mixed with water, and allowed slightly to ferment. This is poi, the national food, very healthful, and, to those who are accustomed to it, very good. (It may be noted that the glutinous qualities are such that it is used also as a paste in hanging wallpaper.) In addition to taro, the ancient Hawaiians cultivated sweet potatoes, yams, and bananas. Of animal food they had only pork. Fishing was, therefore, a most important industry, and the fishermen, who formed a class by themselves, were expert in the use of hook and line, net, and spear. Fish, too, were preserved in huge fish ponds, which were made by building rock walls, sometimes a mile or more in length, in rude semicircles into the sea, each end resting on the shore. These walls were built close enough to prevent the fish from escaping, while the tide water could still pass through them. Some of these fish ponds are still in use, but the most interesting are the ancient ones, now, owing to the subsidence of the land, many feet under water, which one sees from the hills of Molokai. Both fish and vegetables were prepared in underground ovens. They were wrapped in leaves and laid on heated stones; water was then poured into the cavity and the whole covered, the food being cooked by the steam.

      Houses, varying in size according