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

the rank of the owner, consisted of rough wooden frames, tied together, and thatched over with grass or ti leaves. The doors were low and narrow and there were usually no windows. There was little or no attempt at ornamentation. To some extent the same style of house is used at the present day, and, like the peasant cottage of Brittany, seems the real expression of the land and of the native character. As one finds them occasionally on the southwest coast of the Island of Hawaii, nothing could be lovelier than one of these gray-brown huts, with tapering coconuts at one side, a great mass of vivid green banana trees on the other, and behind, the red foothills. Civilisation seems to slip away and one is conscious only of the old man and the old woman sitting cross-legged in the sun, busy with the same primitive tasks that occupied their ancestors hundreds of years ago. For furniture they had only mats, those of finer quality spread over the sleeping-platform at the end of the room; calabashes and water bottles made of gourds, which were sometimes decorated by burning; and bowls and platters of polished wood. At night they burned kukui nuts (Aleuritis molucana) for light. Their clothing was made of kapa, or, as it is usually called, tapa, a kind of paper cloth manufactured by the women from the bark of certain trees. This kapa was of different grades, some as heavy as leather, some as fine as linen. The women wrapped strips of it about three feet wide around the waist, and the men used it as a "malo" or loin cloth. It was also sometimes worn as a mantle by both men and women. This simplicity of dress was more than compensated by the national love of ornament. Both men and women wore wreaths of flowers or of brightcoloured feathers, or strings of orange-coloured pandanus fruit on head and neck. The chiefs wore also hooks of walrus ivory suspended from the neck on braids of human hair. No costume could have been, after all, more appropriate than this brightly-dyed kapa and these brilliant flowers against the bronze skin, which seems in itself a dress.

      The Hawaiians were a sport-loving people. Boxing, wrestling, foot racing, and bowling with polished stone discs were among the favourite amusements. Still to be seen, also, are the long slides on steep hillsides, down which they darted on wooden sleds. Swimming and diving were the delight of all, chiefs and common people, and surf riding remains to this day one of the favourite sports. It is this surf riding, as popular now with foreigners as with the natives, which makes Waikiki, near Honolulu, unique among bathing resorts. The surf rider takes a long, smooth, polished board and with it swims out a half-mile or so from the shore. He then lies flat on his board and swims rapidly toward shore until a roller catches the board and carries him on its crest to the beach. Expert surf riders can raise themselves to a standing position after the wave takes them and so ride, standing, for hundreds of yards, or as far as the wave will carry them. The game has all the excitement of tobogganing without the effort of dragging the toboggan uphill again, because the swim out to sea, diving under the waves as one goes, has almost the fun of the ride back. For those who cannot swim the tamer sport of surf riding in long Hawaiian canoes, the outriggers of which make an upset next to impossible, is a good substitute.

      Like this sport, Hawaiian dancing and music remain to recall the ancient times. The primitive flute can be heard only sls it is played by the pensioners at Lunalilo Home, and even the ukulele, a tiny guitar, is an improvement almost beyond recognition over the old "ukeke," although its use as a metrical accompaniment is much the same. The songs still have the old melody, with minor cadences and a haunting sadness that sets them off from all other songs. And when a chief dies the wailing is still heard,—a piercing rhythmical lamentation lasting for hours or even days within and around the house of the dead. It can never be forgotten, and somehow, after one has heard it, one can recognize always, even in the love songs that are chanted in the moonlight outside of hotel windows, a strain of the same hopeless sadness which is so fully expressed in the dirges and which is perhaps a note of the passing Hawaiian race.

      For a passing race it surely is. No one knows when the number of inhabitants was greatest, but it is certain that the continuous wars which ravaged the country for two centuries and over before its discovery by Captain Cook had already reduced the population by a large proportion. Foreigners —even Captain Cook's own crew—Introduced diseases unknown before. The people had never been moral according to Anglo-Saxon standards, the marriage tie being of the loosest, polygamy a common practice, and fidelity an unknown virtue. This meant that the diseases of civilisation could do their worst. What made the situation even more deplorable was the almost complete lack of medical knowledge. It is true that the uses of certain herbs were understood, but sickness, according to the common belief, was caused by evil spirits and its cure was in sorcery. Relatives of the sick man made offerings for him. If this did not prove effective the sick man himself, whatever his disease, was given a steam bath and then dipped in the sea, or was made to eat pieces of squid. The sorcerers, however, were more often employed to make men sick than to relieve suffering, and so absolute was the belief in evil spirits, so powerful the imagination, that they were always successful. A man who knew that a kahuna was praying him to death promptly died. The wonder is, not that the population declined, but that it did not decline even more rapidly.

      At the time of the discovery of the Islands the native population numbered, according to Cook, 438,000, but on what he based his data is not known; 860,000 is probably nearer the truth. To-day there are not 30,000 pure-blooded Hawaiians, about 40,000 including the part-Hawaiians. The race, already decimated by war, decreased rapidly under the scourge of measles, smallpox, venereal diseases, and strong drink. Now that there is adequate medical knowledge, and with the protection given to the Hawaiians by the better class of white people, the race might again increase were it not for intermarriage with foreigners. So general is this intermarriage that, although the number of those with Hawaiian blood is greater with every census, the number of pure blooded natives proportionally decreases. It is a question of only a few generations before the Hawaiians, as a people, will be only a memory, just as their language will soon be extinct as a pure tongue.

      And in many ways this disappearance of the race is sad, for the Hawaiians are a people with a past that is often noble. In spite of their weaknesses and their follies they are very lovable. The best of them are physically admirable, tall, wellformed, with high foreheads, good features, deep chests, slender limbs. In colour they are something like the American Indian, although not as red, and their high cheekbones and straight hair accentuate the resemblance. There is nothing about them to suggest the negro, and they themselves consider him as an inferior being. Their manners are excellent, their motions graceful. Among the higher ranks, of whom the Queen is a good example, there is a courtliness of demeanour which recalls the salons of the old European aristocracy. They carry themselves well, walk firmly and lightly. Nothing could be more physically beautiful, more harmonious in line, than a Hawaiian fisherman, naked except for his loin cloth, as he stands poised on a rock ready to cast his net. He is classic in the moulding of his form, in the perfection and symmetry of his muscular development, insistently reminiscent of some Greek bronze of an athlete stripped for the games.

      The Hawaiians are also an intelligent people, so that teaching them is a pleasure. Nor are they merely imitative. They make good teachers in the schools, good overseers on the plantations. They never steal. They are honest and trustworthy. They are affectionate and grateful for kindness. Like children, however, they are emotional and easily led, voting often, for example, against their principles on the advice of some unscrupulous agitator and keenly regretting afterwards what they have done. They are now, as they always have been, abnormally fond of games of chance, and in the excitement of the moment will wager everything they possess, which, fortunately for them and unfortunately for "beasts of prey," is usually very little. Their most besetting sin is what might be called moral laziness. On the plantations, for instance, they make splendid workmen, accomplishing in a day twice the amount of hard labour that a Japanese is willing to do, but when pay day comes they go home and, forgetting to return in the morning, fish a little, sleep and eat a great deal, until their money is exhausted and their credit gone. Then, with perfect cheerfulness, they go back to work. According most satisfactorily with this habit is the ancient custom, loyally adhered to even at present, of dependence on a chief. The Queen has very many who look to her for food and shelter because their ancestors looked to her ancestors, and she, as loyal to custom as they, supports them out of her meagre resources. The same is true in greater or less degree of all the remaining chiefs.

      Except in the case of intermarriage with the Chinese, the mixture of Hawaiian with foreign blood does not usually result well. There are notable exceptions of part-Hawaiians