“Yet human spirit! bravely hold thy course,
Let virtue teach these faintly to pursue
The gradual paths of an aspiring change:
For birth and life and death, and that strange state
Before the naked soul has formed its home,
All tend to perfect happiness.”
QUEEN MAB.
In my opinion, I should stop here. Each reader, so it seems to me, can
readily conjecture the subsequent fate of the survivors. But a voice over
my shoulder whispers, No. We are still curious and quite unable to trace
their after history without your aid. Recollect, you are familiar with
the locality, customs, and above all the traditions which first brought
the actors to your notice. Where everything varies so greatly from our
experiences, the result must be more or less of an enigma.
And why should it not be? Mystery will give the story a charm beyond the
power of my pen. Beatriz has gone up to heaven, not in chariots of fire,
but in the arms of love. Well would it be if we could there follow her
and partake of her felicity. “A little while,”—yes, in a little while the
call of each of us will be heard. May our welcome be like hers.
As I cannot follow her into the scenes of her new duties and joys, I
leave them to the imagination. To gratify any lurking curiosity as to the
others, I will briefly relate all that came to my knowledge after that—to
her—great gain.
[Illustration]
Kiana proved a sincere mourner. The character of Beatriz had so impressed
him that he never after sought companionship among the females of his
race. He grew to be a silent, reserved man, kind to all, but indisposed
to interest himself in the usual duties of his station. Much of his time
he passed alone, so that his people, in their poetical fancy, in speaking
of him among themselves, called him Kamehameha, “the lonely one.” To
Olmedo he particularly attached himself, and as he soon neglected the
religion of his ancestors more than ever, it was supposed that he
had imbibed many of his views. When he died, which took place at the
expiration of ten years, there was a wailing over all Hawaii, such as
had never been heard before. The people all grieved for him as for one
they deeply loved. At his dying request they abstained from the usual
barbarous demonstrations, by which they were wont to mark their sorrow.
There were no sacrifice of property, no shaving of heads, no knocking out
of teeth, or self-inflicted wounds. Above all, his memory was honored
by a strict abstinence from the usual saturnalia, allowed on the death
of a chief of the highest rank, during which sensuality and the darkest
passions were permitted to riot unchecked. A decorous funeral took place,
at which all the people assisted, with a solemn state heretofore unknown
in their annals.
Hewahewa became a powerful and sagacious ruler. By the influence of
Olmedo he was induced to mitigate many of the cruel rites of his
mythology, though the belief of his people in Pele remained unshaken.
The good monk had therefore the satisfaction to see that humanity gained
by his presence in Hawaii, though his opinions affected but a few of the
most intelligent minds. Indeed, so satisfied had he himself become of the
inefficiency of strictly dogmatic teachings, that he seldom attempted to
expound the mysteries of the Roman creed, but confined his discourses to
such general ideas of the nature of divinity and the absurdity of idol
worship, as might be comprehended by the simplest mind. The seed which
he thus sowed was not without fruit. It slowly ripened during rather
more than two centuries, gradually weaning the masses from their belief
in demonology, until a short time before the advent of the American
missionaries, in 1820, the nation discarded paganism and destroyed
their idols. Hewahewa, the then high-priest, had inherited much of the
inquiring, skeptical spirit of his ancestor. Publicly resigning his
office, he was the first to apply the torch to the temples and their
sacred contents. The accumulated gifts of national piety through the
long centuries of heathenism were consumed in a day, while he and others
proclaimed their belief in “one only Great God, dwelling in the heavens.”
Juan’s grief was violent, but he recovered before long his natural tone.
As he could not recall the dead, he interested himself in the living, and
was ever the same adventurous, impetuous being, admired for his gallantry
and beloved for his generosity. Before his sister died, Liliha’s artless
sympathy had touched his heart. After that event, he was more than ever
drawn to her, and she to him. There was something in her youth and
character so different from the wanton beauty and unrefined minds of
Hawaiian women in general, that it commanded his respect. He must have
some one to love, now his sister was gone, and he loved her. She returned
his love as freely, and truly as the wood-dove returns its mate’s. There
was no coyness or affected reserve. His manly qualities had now won her
heart, still warm with its devotion to Beatriz, and she told him so, and
gave it to him with her all. Juan asked of Olmedo the Roman Catholic
rite to sanctify their union. Liliha assented, much wondering at first
why the words of another were requisite to bind them closer together.
They loved each other faithfully. How then could the bond be made dearer
or truer? It was difficult to make her understand the necessity of the
ceremonies and pledges with which Christians wed. With or without it,
however, she was the same faithful, sincere, joyous creature, right in
her instincts and quick in her perceptions. From their mingled blood
descended several noted chiefs.
What of Olmedo? He lived long and usefully. The dying vision of Beatriz
was never absent from his thoughts. It had become a holy message to
him. Never did the good man let go by an opportunity for a kind act or
comforting word. His counsels and instruction were freely given to all
who applied. He lived apart from all others as he had always done, the
same solitary chaste man of God. So wrapt was he ever in his reflections,
inwardly conversing with his spirit-bride, that among the natives he was
known as Kapiolani, “the captive of heaven.”
Beatriz was buried on the spot where she died. Olmedo erected a cross
over her remains with the simple inscription in Spanish, “_She is not
here._” He had consigned her dust to its mother earth, but the spirit
had gone back to the God who gave it. Daily at sunset he prayed over the
grave. Often that dear face came back to greet and cheer him, and as he
gazed, the same lowly whispered words, “for a little while,” fell on his
ear. He would then go back with fresh courage and hope to his earthly
home, fulfilling its duties as a sacred trust. When he died the tradition
does not tell. The last it says of the strange priest is, that he was
“the captive of heaven.”
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] An exception in one instance to this fact, so creditable to the
Hawaiians, is said to have occurred to one of the American missionary
ladies, to whom a native behaved with so much rudeness that the king,
Liholiho, only spared his life at the intercession of her husband. The
contemplated punishment for a breach of their national hospitality, shows
in what abhorrence they regarded a wanton insult to a white woman!
[2] This is not fiction. A large party of warriors once met their death
in this way, while others of their company, encamped not far off, escaped.
[3] _Lomilomi_, as this process is called, is peculiar to Polynesia,
for the Asiatic shampooing is but a rough substitute. In Hawaii it was
an art, and as much a necessary rite of hospitality to the fatigued
traveller, or even of luxurious pleasure, as the wine cup in Europe.
By it, commencing with almost imperceptible pressure, from the softest
hands, every part of the body was gradually submitted to gently
increasing force, until each muscle was kneaded and each joint stretched
and cracked, and the whole frame, with fatigue removed and endowed with
fresh vitality, was lulled into slumber or recruited for fresh exercise.
The Hawaiian Sybarites had invented a pleasure unknown to the Roman. The
latter, to have the greater capacity for gorging at their feasts, were
wont to prepare themselves by emetics, but the more ingeniously sensual
savage first eat his fill, and then resigned himself into the hands of
skilled and meretricious women, who, by their ingenious substitute of
artificial action of the muscles for natural exercise, hastened digestion
without the trouble of locomotion to the effeminate Hawaiian, and by a
most deliciously sense-exciting and restoring process, prepared him for
fresh gratification of his appetites. In this respect we need not regret
that the refinement of the art has departed from Hawaii, but the voyager
who has once experienced it in its genuineness, cannot but prize its
virtues.
CONVERSATION: ITS FAULTS AND ITS GRACES;
OR, THE BEST MANNER OF SPEAKING, WRITING, AND PRONOUNCING THE ENGLISH
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COMPILED BY
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“WHY AND WHAT AM I:”
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KIANA: A TRADITION OF HAWAII.
BY JAMES JACKSON JARVES,
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WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
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_Extracts from the Preface._
“In my youth I spent several years in different parts of the
Pacific Ocean, but chiefly at the Sandwich or Hawaiian Islands.
While engaged in procuring materials for their history,—first
published in 1843,—I was much struck with a tradition relating
to their discovery by Europeans, two and a half centuries
before Cook so accidentally stumbled upon them. Briefly it was
this—
“Eighteen generations of kings previous to Kamehameha I.,
during the reign of Kahoukapa, or Kiana, there arrived at
Hawaii, a white priest, bringing with him an idol, which by
his persuasion, was enrolled in the calendar of the Hawaiian
gods, and a temple erected for its service. The stranger priest
acquired great influence, and left a reputation for goodness
that was green in the memories of the people of Hawaii three
centuries later. Another statement adds that a vessel was
wrecked on the island, and the captain and his sister reached
the shore, where they were kindly received and adopted into the
families of the chiefs.
“Without enlarging here upon the tradition, and the light my
subsequent researches threw upon it, I will simply state that I
became convinced that a Spanish priest, woman, and several men
were rescued from a wreck, landed and lived on Hawaii, acquired
power and consideration from their superior knowledge, and for
a while were even regarded as gods. Some of them intermarried
with the aborigines, and their blood still exists (or did
recently) among certain families, who pride themselves greatly
upon their foreign origin.
“Other traces of their existence are perceptible in the
customs, ideas, and even the language of the natives, which
last has a number of words strikingly analogous to the Spanish
of the same meaning. Captain Cook found among them a remnant of
a sword-blade and another bit of iron. They were not strangers
to this metal, and as no ores exist in their soil, they could
have derived their knowledge solely from foreign intercourse.
“Soon after the conquest of Mexico, Cortez sent three vessels
upon an exploring expedition to California. After sailing as
far as 29° north, one was sent back to report progress. The
other two held on and were never heard from. Why may not one
of these be the vessel that was wrecked on Hawaii? The winds
would naturally drive her in that direction, and the date of
the expedition agrees, so far as can be made out from Hawaiian
chronology, with the time of the first arrival of white men
on that island. Indeed, at that period of maritime discovery,
white men could come from no other quarter. For my part, I
believe that a port of Mexico was the starting point of the
wrecked party; a conjecture which derives some plausibility
from the fact, that, when the natives offered the whites
bananas and other tropical fruits, they were familiar with
them, which would be the case, if they came from Tehuantepec,
whence Cortez fitted out his vessel.
“To absolutely identify the white strangers of Hawaii with
the missing ships of Cortez, it is not now possible. But the
interest in them, left thus isolated from civilization amid
savages, upon an island in the centre of the then unknown ocean
is peculiar. Especially have I always been curious to trace the
fate of the solitary white woman,—a waif of refinement cast
thus on a barbarous shore,—and of the priest too,—to learn how
far their joint influence tempered the heathenism into which
they were thrown, or whether they were finally overcome by
paganism.
“Twelve years ago while amid the scenery described in this
volume, and the customs and traditions of the natives were
fresh in my mind, I began to pen their history; but other
objects prevented my going on, until the past winter, when
leisure and the advice of friends, pleased with the subject,
prompted its completion. The descriptions of the natural
features of this remarkable island, of the religion, customs,
government, and conditions of its aborigines, as well as the
events in general, are as faithful transcripts, in words, of
the actual, to my personal knowledge, as it is in my power to
give.”