It is quite possible that the events related in the cave-story did
occur; but a Hawaiian, untouched by missionary influences, would have
told them very differently. It is very much more likely, however, that
if a Hawaiian had found himself in the predicament of Kaaialii, he
would have sympathized with the king's contemptuous speech: "What!
would you throw your life away for a girl? There are others as fair.
Here is Ua; she shall be your wife." This would have been much more in
accordance with what observers have told us of Hawaiian
"heart-affairs." "The marriage tie is loose," says Ellis (IV., 315),
"and the husband can dismiss his wife on any occasion." "The loves of
the Hawaiians are usually ephemeral," says "Häolé," the author of
_Sandwich Island Notes_ (267). The widow seldom or never plants a
solitary flower over the grave of her lord. She may once visit the
mound that marks the repose of his ashes, but never again, unless by
accident. It not unfrequently happens that a second husband is
selected while the remains of the first are being conveyed to his
"long home." Hawaiian women seem more attached to pigs and puppies
than to their husbands or even their children. The writer just quoted
says whole volumes might be written concerning the "silly affection"
of the women for animals. They carry them in their bosoms, and do not
hesitate to suckle them. It is one of their duties to drive pigs to
the market, and one day "Häolé" came across a group of native women
who had taken off their only garments and soaked them in water to cool
their dear five hundred-pounder, while others were fanning him! As
late as 1881 Isabella Bird wrote (213) that
"the crime of infanticide, which formerly prevailed to
a horrible extent, has long been extinct; but the love
of pleasure and the dislike of trouble which partially
actuated it are apparently still stronger among the
women than the maternal instinct, and they do not take
the trouble necessary to rear infants.... I have
nowhere seen such tenderness lavished upon infants as
upon the pet dogs that the women carry about with
them."