Although barbarous to the extent to which a brave, warm-hearted and
hospitable people were capable of becoming, every social, political
and religious circumstance preserved by tradition tends to show that at
no period of their history did the Polynesians proper--or the Hawaiian
branch of the race, at least--practise cannibalism. In their migrations
from the southern coasts of Asia to their final homes in the Pacific,
stopping, as they did, at various groups of islands in their voluntary
or compulsory journeyings, the Polynesians must have been brought in
contact with cannibal tribes; but no example ever persuaded them into
the habit of eating human flesh, or of regarding the appetite for it
with a feeling other than that of aversion and disgust. In offering a
human sacrifice it was customary for the officiating priest to remove
the left eye of the victim after the lifeless body had been deposited
upon the altar, and present it to the chief, who made a semblance of
eating it. Even as learned and conscientious an inquirer as Judge
Fornander has suggested that this custom was possibly the relic of
a cannibal propensity existing among the Polynesian people far back
in the past. The assumption is quite as reasonable that the rite was
either a simple exhibition of bravado, or the expression of a desire
on the part of the chief to thereby more strictly identify himself
with the offering in the eyes of the gods.
Several traditions have come down the centuries referring to the
existence of cannibal tribes or bands at one time or another in
the Hawaiian archipelago, particularly on the islands of Oahu and
Kauai, and harrowing stories of their exploits are a part of the
folk-lore of the group. But in every instance the man-eaters are
spoken of as foreigners, who came from a land unknown, maintained
local footholds for brief seasons in mountain fastnesses, and in
the end were either exterminated or driven from the islands by
the people for their barbarous practices. It is difficult to fix,
even approximately, the period of the earlier of these occurrences,
as they are mentioned in connection with ruling chiefs whose names do
not appear in the chronological meles surviving the destruction of the
ancient priesthood. Instead of being foreigners, it is not improbable
that the cannibals referred to in some of the traditions were the
remnants of a race of savages found on one or more of the islands of
the group when the first of the Polynesians landed there. This, it
may be presumed, was somewhere near the middle of the fifth century
of the Christian era.
It has generally been assumed by native historians that the ancestors
of the Hawaiian people found the entire group uninhabited at the time
of their arrival there. The bird, the lizard and the mouse, with an
insect life confined to few varieties, were the sole occupants of
that ocean paradise, with its beautiful streams, its inviting hills,
its sandal forests, its cocoa and ohia groves, its flowering plains,
its smiling valleys of everlasting green. But the interval between the
fifth century and the eleventh--between the first and second periods
of Polynesian arrival--is a broad blank in the legendary annals of
Hawaii, and the absence of any record of the circumstance cannot be
satisfactorily accepted as evidence that, on arriving at the group
from the southern islands, the Polynesians of the fifth century did
not find it sparsely occupied by an inferior and less capable people,
whom they either affiliated with or destroyed. In some of the meles
vague references are made to such a people, and ruins of temples are
still pointed out as the work of the Menehunes--a half-mythical race
or tribe, either from whom the Hawaiians descended, or with whom they
were in some manner connected in the remote past.
To whatever period, however, many of these stories of cannibalism may
refer, circumstances tend to show that the legends connected with the
man-eaters of Halemanu are based upon events of comparatively recent
centuries. The natives, who still relate fragments of these legends to
those whom curiosity prompts to visit the cannibals' retreat near the
northern coast of Oahu, generally refer the adventures described to
the early part or middle of the eighteenth century, and a half-caste
of intelligence informed the writer that his grandfather had personal
knowledge of the cannibal band. Although the sharpness of the details
preserved indicates that their beginning could not have been very
many generations back, the occupation of Halemanu by Aikanaka and
his savage followers could have occurred scarcely later than the
latter part of the seventeenth century--probably during the reign of
Kualii or his immediate successor, somewhere between the years 1660
and 1695. At that time Oahu was governed by a number of practically
independent chiefs, whose nominal head was the governing alii-nui of
the line of Kakuhihewa, of whom Kualii was the great-grandson.
It will therefore be assumed that it was near the close of the
seventeenth century that Kalo Aikanaka, with two or three hundred
followers, including women and children, landed at Waialua, on the
northern coast of Oahu, and temporarily established himself on the
sea-shore not far from that place. Ten years before, more or less,
he had arrived with a considerable party at Kauai from one of the
southern islands--which one tradition does not mention. The strangers
came in double canoes, and, as they were in a starving condition, it
was thought that they had been blown thither by adverse winds while
journeying to some other islands. They were hospitably received and
cared for by the people of Kauai, and for their support were given
lands near the foot of the mountains back of Waimea. In complexion
they were somewhat darker than the Kauaians, but otherwise did not
differ greatly from them either in dress, manners, modes of living
or appearance. They knew how to weave mats, construct houses of
timber and thatch, make spears and knives, and hollow out canoes of
all dimensions. They were familiar with the cocoanut and its uses,
and required no instruction in the cultivation of kalo or taro. They
were expert fishermen, and handled their weapons with dexterity. Their
language, however, was entirely different from that of the Kauaians;
but they soon acquired a knowledge of the latter, and in a short time
could scarcely be distinguished from the natives of the island.
Although known as Kalo Aikanaka by the natives, the real name of
the chief of the strangers was Kokoa. The name of his principal
lieutenant or adviser, which is given as Kaaokeewe by tradition,
was Lotu, or Lotua. Kokoa was of chiefly proportions, and his
muscular limbs were tattooed with rude representations of birds,
sharks and other fishes. His features were rather of the Papuan
cast, but his hair was straight, and the expression of his face was
not unpleasant. The appearance of Lotu, on the contrary, was savage
and forbidding. His strength was prodigious, and he made but little
disguise of his lawless instincts. The wife of Kokoa had died during
the passage to Kauai, leaving with him a daughter of marriageable
age named Palua. Tradition says she was very beautiful, and wore
necklaces and anklets of pearls. Her eyes were bright, her teeth were
white, and the ends of her braided hair touched her brown ankles as
she walked. Lotu was married, but without children. He did not like
them, and more than one, it is said, had been taken from the breast
of Kaholekua and strangled.
The strangers brought with them two or three gods, and made others
after their arrival. They knew nothing of the gods of the Kauaians,
and preferred to worship their own. To this the natives did not object;
but in the course of time they discovered that their tabu customs,
even the most sacred, were not observed by the strangers. Their
women were permitted to eat cocoanuts, bananas, and all kinds of
flesh and fish, including the varieties of which native females were
not allowed to partake. Fearing the wrath of the gods, the chief of
the district visited Kokoa and requested him to put a stop to these
pernicious practices among his people. He promised to do so, and for
a time they ceased; but the offenders soon fell back into their old
habit of indiscriminate eating, and the chief again visited Kokoa,
prepared to put his previous request into the form of an order. The
order was given, but not with the emphasis designed by the chief in
making the visit, for he then met Palua for the first time, and found
it difficult to speak harshly to the father of such a daughter. In
fact, before he left the chief thought it well to leave the matter
open for further explanation, and the next day returned to make it,
and to ask Kokoa, as well, to give him the beautiful Palua for a
wife. Father and daughter both consented, and within a few days
Palua accompanied the chief home as his wife. There, at least, it
was expected that Palua would respect the tabus she had violated
before her coming, and the chief appointed a woman to instruct her
thoroughly in the regulations applicable to her changed condition. She
promised everything, but secretly complied with no requirement. The
chief implored her to obey the mandates of the gods, and sought to
screen her acts from the eyes of others; but her misdemeanors became
so flagrant that they at last came to the knowledge of the high-priest,
and her life was demanded. Her husband would have returned Palua to her
father, but the priest declared that her offences had been so wanton
and persistent that the gods would be satisfied with nothing short
of her death, and she was therefore strangled and thrown into the sea.
Learning of the death of his daughter, Kokoa in his rage slew a near
kinsman of the chief and made a feast of his body, to the great delight
of his followers. They were cannibals, but the fact was not known to
their neighbors, as they had thus far restrained their appetites for
human flesh, and avoided all mention to others of their propensity
for such food. Their relish for it, however, was revived by the feast
provided by the wrath of Kokoa, and they were not sorry to leave the
lands they had been for some time cultivating back of Waimea, and
find a home in the neighboring mountains, where they could indulge
their savage tastes without restraint.
Locating in a secluded valley in the mountains of Haupu, Kokoa and
his people remained there for several years. They cultivated taro and
other vegetables, and for their meat depended upon such natives as
they were able to capture in out-of-the-way places and drag to their
ovens. Suspected of cannibalism, they were finally detected in the
act of roasting a victim. Great indignation and excitement followed
this discovery, and the chief of the district called for warriors to
assist him in exterminating the man-eaters. But Kokoa did not wait
for a hostile visit. His spies informed him of what was occurring
in the valleys below, and he hastily dropped down to the opposite
coast, seized a number of canoes at night, and with his followers
immediately set sail for Oahu. The party first landed at Kawailoa;
but a Kauaian on a visit to that place recognized one of their canoes
as the property of his brother, and was about to appeal to the local
chief, when they suddenly re-embarked and coasted around the island to
Waialua, where they found a convenient landing and concluded to remain.