THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE HAWAIIANS
Sec. 1. _The Sandwich or Hawaiian Islands_
The Sandwich or Hawaiian Islands form an archipelago lying in the North
Pacific Ocean just within the northern tropic. They stretch in a
direction from north-west to south-east for more than four hundred miles
and include eight inhabited islands, of which the most important are
Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, and Kauai. Of these Hawaii is by far the largest;
indeed it is the largest island in Polynesia with the exception of New
Zealand. The islands are all mountainous and of volcanic formation. In
Hawaii two of the mountains are between 13,000 and 14,000 feet in
height, and two of them are active volcanoes; one of them, named
Kilauea, possesses the greatest active crater in the world, a huge
cauldron of seething lava, which presents a spectacle of awe-inspiring
grandeur when seen on a moonless night. The other and much loftier
volcano, Mauna Loa, was the scene of a terrific eruption in 1877 and of
another in 1881. Craters, large and small, hot springs, and other
evidences of volcanic activity, abound throughout the archipelago. One
of the craters on the island of Maui is said to be no less than fifteen
miles in circumference and about two thousand feet deep. The islands
appear to have been known to the Spaniards as early as the sixteenth
century; but they were rediscovered in 1778 by Captain Cook, who was
afterwards killed in a fight with the natives in Hawaii.[1]
[1] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv. 4 _sqq._; J. J.
Jarves, _History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands_ (London,
1843), pp. 1 _sqq._; J. Remy, _Histoire de l'Archipel Havaiien_
(Paris and Leipzig, 1862), pp. vii _sqq._; C. E. Meinicke, _Die
Inseln des Stillen Oceans_, ii. 271 _sqq._; _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_, Ninth Edition, xi. 528 _sqq._; A. Marcuse, _Die
Hawaiischen Inseln_ (Berlin, 1894), pp. 1 _sqq._; F. H. H.
Guillemard, _Australasia_, ii. 533 _sqq._
Viewed from the sea the islands are apt to present an appearance of
barrenness and desolation. The mountains descend into the sea in
precipices often hundreds of feet high: their summits are capped with
snow or lost in mist and clouds; and their sides, green and studded with
clumps of trees in some places, but black, scorched and bare in others,
are rent into ravines, down which in the rainy seasons cataracts rush
roaring to the sea. With the changes of sunshine and shadow the
landscape as a whole strikes the beholder now as in the highest degree
horrid, dismal, and dreary, now as wildly beautiful and romantic with a
sort of stern and sombre magnificence.[2] Inland, however, in many
places the summits of the ridges crowned with forests of perpetual
verdure, the slopes covered with flowering shrubs or lofty trees, the
rocks mantled in creepers, the waterfalls dropping from stupendous
cliffs, and the distant prospects of snowy peaks, bold romantic
headlands, and blue seas, all arched by a summer sky of the deepest
azure, combine to make up pictures of fairy-like and enchanting
loveliness.[3]
[2] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 94; W. Ellis, _Polynesian
Researches_, iv. 34, 379; C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the
Sandwich Islands_, Fifth Edition (Boston, 1839), pp. 69 _sqq._,
140; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _Journal of Voyages and Travels_,
i. 366, 391; Ch. Wilkes, _United States Exploring Expedition_,
New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 373.
[3] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 13 _sq._; C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._
pp. 213 _sqq._, 229 _sqq._; Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._ i.
426 _sqq._; J. Remy, _op. cit._ pp. xiv _sq._; Ch. Wilkes, _op.
cit._ iii. 390 _sq._; F. D. Bennett, _Narrative of a Whaling
Voyage round the Globe_ (London, 1840), i. 198 _sqq._ The vale
of Anuanu, which runs up into the mountains from the plain of
Honululu in the island of Oahu, is especially famed for its
natural beauty.
The climate naturally varies with the height above the sea. On the
coasts, though warm, it is remarkably equable, and perhaps no country in
the world enjoys a finer or healthier climate than some parts of Hawaii
and Maui. On the mountains all varieties of climate are to be found,
from the tropical heat of the lowlands to the arctic cold of the two
great peaks of Hawaii, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa with their perpetual
snows, which are not, however, always visible from the sea or from the
foot of these giants. In the lowlands frost is unknown. The fresh
breezes, which blow from the sea during the day and from the mountains
at night, temper the heat of the sun, and render the evenings delicious;
nothing can surpass the splendour and clearness of the moonlight. Rain
falls more abundantly on the windward or eastern side of the islands
than on the leeward or western side. Thus at Hilo, on the eastern side
of Hawaii, it rains almost every day, whereas in Kena, on the western
side, rain hardly ever falls, and along the coast not a single
water-course is to be seen for many miles. In general it may be said
that the archipelago suffers from drought and hence occasionally from
dearth.[4]
[4] J. Remy, _op. cit._ pp. xvi _sqq._ Compare J. Cook,
_Voyages_, vii. 99 _sq._; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 21 _sq._; Ch.
Wilkes, _op. cit._ iv. 283 _sq._; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp.
12 _sqq._; _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 9th edition, xi. 530.
Sec. 2. _The Natives and their Mode of Life_
The natives of the Sandwich Islands are typical Polynesians. In general
they are rather above the middle stature, well formed, with fine
muscular limbs, open countenances, and features frequently resembling
those of Europeans. The forehead is usually well developed, the lips
thick, and the nostrils full, without any flatness or spreading of the
nose. The complexion is tawny or olive in hue, but sometimes reddish
brown. The hair is black or brown and occasionally fair or rather ruddy
in colour, in texture it is strong, smooth, and sometimes curly. The
gait is graceful and even stately. But in these islands, as in other
parts of Polynesia, there is a conspicuous difference between the chiefs
and the commoners, the superiority being altogether on the side of
the chiefs. "The nobles of the land," says Stewart, "are so strongly
marked by their external appearance, as at all times to be easily
distinguishable from the common people. They seem, indeed, in size and
stature to be almost a distinct race. They are all large in their frame,
and often excessively corpulent, while the common people are scarce of
the ordinary height of Europeans, and of a thin rather than full
habit."[5] And the difference between the two ranks is as obvious in
their walk and general deportment as in their stature and size, the
nobles bearing themselves with a natural dignity and grace which are
wanting in their social inferiors. Yet there seems to be no reason to
suppose that they belong to a different race from the commoners; the
greater care taken of them in childhood, their better living, sexual
selection, and the influence of heredity appear sufficient to account
for their physical superiority. The women are well built and "beautiful
as ancient statues" with a sweet and engaging expression of countenance.
Yet on the whole the Hawaiians are judged to be physically inferior both
to the Tahitians and to the Marquesans; according to Captain King, they
are rather darker than the Tahitians, and not altogether so handsome a
people. On the other hand they are said to be more intelligent than
either the Tahitians or the Marquesans. Captain King describes them as
of a mild and affectionate disposition, equally remote from the extreme
levity and fickleness of the Tahitians, and from the distant gravity and
reserve of the Tongans.[6] They practised tattooing much less than many
other Polynesians, but their faces, hands, arms, and the forepart of
their bodies were often tattooed with a variety of patterns.[7]
[5] C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the Sandwich Islands_, p. 104.
[6] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 112 _sq._, 115 _sq._; U. Lisiansky,
_Voyage round the World_, pp. 123 _sq._; L. de Freycinet,
_Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii. Deuxieme partie
(Paris, 1839), p. 570; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 23; C. S.
Stewart, _Residence in the Sandwich Islands_, pp. 104, 106; J.
J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp. 77 _sqq._; J. Remy, _op. cit._ pp.
xxxvii _sq._; F. D. Bennett, _op. cit._ i. 209. The last of
these writers speaks in unfavourable terms of the personal
appearance of the women, whom he found less handsome than the
men and very inferior to the women of the Society Islands.
[7] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 213 _sq._, vii. 121; W. Ellis, _op.
cit._ iv. 23.
The staple food of the Hawaiians consists of taro (_kalo_), sweet
potatoes, and fish, but above all of taro. That root (_Arum_ or
_Caladium esculentum_) is to the Hawaiians what bread-fruit is to the
Tahitians, and its cultivation is their most important agricultural
industry. It is grown wherever there is water or a marsh, and it is even
planted on some arid heights in the island of Hawaii, where it yields
excellent crops. Artificial irrigation was practised and even regulated
by law or custom in the old days; for it was a rule that water should be
conducted over every plantation twice a week in general, and once a
week during the dry season. The bread-fruit tree is not so common, and
its fruit not so much prized, as in the Marquesas and Tahiti. The
natives grew sweet potatoes even before the arrival of Europeans. Yams
are found wild, but are hardly eaten except in times of scarcity. There
are several sorts of bananas; the fruit for the most part is better
cooked than raw. In the old days the cooking was done in the ordinary
native ovens, consisting of holes in the ground lined with stones which
were heated with fire. After being baked in an oven the roots of the
taro are mashed and diluted with water so as to form a paste or pudding
called _poe_ or _poi_, which is sometimes eaten sweet but is more
generally put aside till it has fermented, in which condition it is
preferred by the natives. It is a highly nutritious substance, and
though some Europeans complain of the sourness of taro pudding, others
find it not unpalatable. Fish used to be generally eaten raw, seasoned
with brine or sea-water. But they also commonly salt their fish, not for
the sake of preserving it for a season of scarcity, but because they
prefer the taste. They construct artificial fish-ponds, into which they
let young fish from the sea, principally the fry of the grey mullet, of
which the chiefs are particularly fond. Every chief has, or used to
have, his own fish-pond. The natives are very skilful fishermen. In the
old days they made a great variety of fish-hooks out of mother-of-pearl
and tortoise shell as well as out of bone, and these they dragged by
means of lines behind their canoes, and so caught bonettas, dolphins,
and albicores. They took prodigious numbers of flying fish in nets. At
the time when the islands were discovered by Captain Cook, the natives
possessed pigs and dogs. The flesh of both of these animals was eaten,
but only by persons of higher rank. Fowls were also bred and eaten, but
they were not very common, and their flesh was not very much esteemed.
The sugar-cane was indigenous in the islands, and the people ate it as a
fruit; along with bananas and plantains it occupied a considerable
portion of every plantation. Captain Cook found the natives skilful
husbandmen, but thought that with a more extensive system of
agriculture, the islands could have supported three times the number of
the existing inhabitants.[8] He remarked that the chiefs were much
addicted to the drinking of kava, and he attributed some of the
cutaneous and other diseases from which they suffered to an immoderate
use of what he calls the pernicious drug.[9]
[8] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 215 _sq._, 219, 224 _sq._, vii. 126
_sq._; U. Lisiansky, _Voyage round the World_, p. 126; Archibald
Campbell, _Voyage round the World_ (Edinburgh, 1816), pp.
161-63, 182 _sq._, 194-197; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 61, 215
_sq._, 420 (as to irrigation); C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the
Sandwich Islands_, pp. 111-113; Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._
i. 412, 426, 428, 430, 472; O. von Kotzebue, _Neue Reise um die
Welt_ (Weimar, 1830), ii. 96; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp. 68
_sq._; J. Remy, _op. cit._ pp. xxiv _sq._, xliii; F. D. Bennett,
_Narrative of a Whaling Voyage round the World_, i. 213 _sqq._
As to the system of irrigating the taro fields, see especially
O. von Kotzebue, _Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea and
Beering's Straits_ (London, 1821), i. 340 _sq._
[9] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 113 _sq._
Sec. 3. _Houses, Mechanical Arts_
Captain King observed that in some respects the natives of the Sandwich
Islands approached nearer in their manners and customs to the Maoris of
New Zealand than to their less distant neighbours of the Society and
Friendly Islands, the Tahitians and the Tongans. In nothing, he says, is
this more observable than in their method of living together in small
towns or villages, containing from about one hundred to two hundred
houses, built pretty close together, without any order, and with a
winding path leading through them. They were generally flanked towards
the sea with loose detached walls, intended for shelter and defence.[10]
The shape of the houses was very simple. They were oblong with very high
thatched roofs, so that externally they resembled the top of hay-stacks
or rather barns with the thatched roof sloping down steeply to two very
low sides, and with gable ends to match. The entrance, placed
indifferently in one of the sides or ends, was an oblong hole, so low
that one had rather to creep than walk in, and often shut by a board of
planks fastened together, which served as a door. No light entered the
house but by this opening, for there were no windows. Internally every
house consisted of a single room without partitions. In spite of the
extreme simplicity of their structure, the houses were kept very clean;
the floors were covered with a large quantity of dried grass, over which
they spread mats to sit and sleep upon. At one end stood a kind of bench
about three feet high, on which were kept the household utensils. These
consisted merely of a few wooden bowls and trenchers, together with
gourd-shells, serving either as bottles or baskets. The houses varied in
size with the wealth or rank of the owners. Those of the poor were mere
hovels, which resembled the sties and kennels of pigs and dogs rather
than the abodes of men. The houses of the chiefs were generally large
and commodious by comparison, some forty to sixty feet long by twenty or
thirty feet broad, and eighteen or twenty feet high at the peak of the
roof. Chiefs had always a separate eating-house, and even people of the
lower ranks had one such house to every six or seven families for the
men. The women were forbidden to eat in company with the men and even to
enter the eating-house during the meals; they ate in the same houses in
which they slept. The houses of the chiefs were enclosed in large yards,
and sometimes stood on stone platforms, which rendered them more
comfortable.[11]
[10] J. Cook, vii. 125.
[11] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 214 _sq._; U. Lisiansky, _Voyage
round the World_, p. 127; A. Campbell, _Voyage round the World_,
pp. 180-182; C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the Sandwich Islands_,
p. 107; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 320-322; Tyerman and Bennet,
_op. cit._ i. 371 _sq._; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp. 67 _sq._
In the mechanical arts the Hawaiians displayed a considerable degree of
ingenuity and skill. While the men built the houses and canoes and
fashioned wooden dishes and bowls, the women undertook the manufacture
of bark-cloth (_kapa_) and mats. Bark-cloth was made in the usual way
from the bark of the paper-mulberry, which was beaten out with grooved
mallets. The cloth was dyed a variety of colours, and patterns at once
intricate and elegant were stamped on it and stained in different tints.
The mats were woven or braided by hand without the use of any frame or
instrument. The materials were rushes or palm-leaves; the mats made of
palm-leaves were much the more durable and therefore the more valuable.
The coarser and plainer were spread on the floor to sleep on; the finer
were of white colour with red stripes, rhombuses, and other figures
interwoven on one side. Among the most curious specimens of native
carving were the wooden bowls in which the chiefs drank kava. They were
perfectly round, beautifully polished, and supported on three or four
small human figures in various attitudes. These figures were accurately
proportioned and neatly finished; even the anatomy of the muscles
strained to support the weight were well expressed. The fishing-hooks
made by the men, especially the large hooks made to catch shark, are
described by Captain Cook as really astonishing for their strength and
neatness; he found them on trial much superior to his own.[12]
[12] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 218 _sq._, vii. 133-135; L. de
Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii. 611 _sq._;
A. Campbell, _Voyage round the World_, pp. 192-195; W. Ellis,
_op. cit._ iv. 109-113; C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the
Sandwich Islands_, pp. 114-116; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp. 66
_sq._
The mechanical skill of these people was all the more remarkable because
of the extreme rudeness and simplicity of the tools with which they
worked. Their chief implement was an adze made of a black or
clay-coloured volcanic stone and polished by constant friction with
pumice-stone in water. They had also small instruments made each of a
single shark's tooth, some of which were fixed to the forepart of a
dog's jawbone and others to a thin wooden handle of the same shape.
These served as knives, and pieces of coral were used as files. Captain
Cook found the natives in possession of two iron tools, one of them a
piece of iron hoop, and the other an edge-tool, perhaps the point of a
broadsword. These they could only have procured from a European vessel
or from a wreck drifted on their coast. No mines of any kind are known
to exist in the islands.[13]
[13] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 220-224; A. Campbell, _op. cit._ p.
198; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 322; O. von Kotzebue, _Neue Reise
um die Welt_, ii. 97 (as to the kava bowls); J. J. Jarves, _op.
cit._ p. 66. As to the absence of mines in the Hawaiian Islands,
see J. Remy, _op. cit._ p. xvi.
Their weapons of war included spears, javelins, daggers, and clubs, all
of them made of wood. They also slung stones with deadly effect. But
they had no defensive armour; for the war-cloaks and wicker-work
helmets, surmounted with lofty crests and decked with the tail feathers
of the tropic bird, while they heightened the imposing and martial
appearance of the wearers, must have proved rather encumbrances than
protections. Captain Cook found the natives in possession of bows and
arrows, but from their scarcity and the slenderness of their make he
inferred that the Hawaiians, like other Polynesians, never used them in
battle.[14]
[14] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 227 _sq._, vii. 136 _sq._; W.
Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 156 _sq._; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp. 56
_sq._
Sec. 4. _Government, Social Ranks, Taboo_
The government of the Hawaiian Islands was an absolute monarchy or
despotism; all rights of power and property vested in the king, whose
will and power alone were law, though in important matters he was to a
certain extent guided by the opinion of the chiefs in council. The rank
of the king and the chiefs was hereditary, descending from father to
son; but the appointment to all offices of authority and dignity was
made by the king alone. Nevertheless posts of honour, influence, and
emolument often continued in the same family for many generations. Nor
were hereditary rank and authority confined to men; they were inherited
also by women. According to tradition, several of the islands had been
once or twice under the government of a queen. The king was supported by
an annual tribute paid by all the islands at different periods according
to his directions. It comprised both the natural produce of the country
and manufactured articles. But besides the regular tribute the king was
at liberty to levy any additional tax he might please, and even to seize
and appropriate any personal possessions of a chief or other subject.
Not infrequently the whole crop of a plantation was thus carried off by
his retainers without the least apology or compensation.[15] However,
the government of the whole Hawaiian archipelago by a single monarch
was a comparatively modern innovation. Down to nearly the end of the
eighteenth century the different islands were independent of each other
and governed by separate kings, who were often at war one with the
other; indeed there were sometimes several independent kingdoms within
the same island. But towards the close of the eighteenth century an
energetic and able king of Hawaii, by name Kamehameha (Tamehameha),
succeeded in extending his sway by conquest over the whole archipelago,
and at his death in 1819 he bequeathed the undivided monarchy to his
successors.[16]
[15] U. Lisiansky, _op. cit._ pp. 116 _sq._; A. Campbell, _op.
cit._ pp. 169 _sq._; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 411 _sq._; C. S.
Stewart, _Residence in the Sandwich Islands_, p. 102; Tyerman
and Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 380; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp. 30
_sqq._ According to Jarves (_op. cit._ p. 33), "Rank was
hereditary, and descended chiefly from the females, who
frequently held the reins of government in their own right. This
custom originated in the great license existing between the
sexes; no child, with certainty, being able to designate his
father, while no mistake could be made in regard to the mother."
[16] C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the Sandwich Islands_, p. 101;
J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ p. 30; J. Remy, _op. cit._ pp. lxi
_sq._; _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 9th Edition, xi. 528.
The whole body of chiefs fell into three classes or ranks. The first
included the royal family and all who were intimately connected with it.
The second included such as held hereditary offices of power or
governorships of islands, after the time when the whole archipelago was
united in a single kingdom. The third class embraced the rulers of
districts, the headmen of villages, and all inferior chiefs. The members
of the first two classes were usually called "high chiefs"; they were
few in number and closely related both by blood and marriage. The
members of the third class were known as "small" or "low" chiefs. They
were by far the most numerous body of chiefs in any island, and were
generally called _haku aina_ or landowners, though strictly speaking the
king was acknowledged in every island as the supreme lord and proprietor
of the soil by hereditary right or the law of conquest. When Kamehameha
had subdued the greater part of the islands, he distributed them among
his favourite chiefs and warriors on condition of their rendering him
not only military service, but a certain proportion of the produce of
their lands. In this he appears to have followed the ancient practice
invariably observed on the conquest of an island.[17] For "from the
earliest periods of Hawaiian history, the tenure of lands has been, in
most respects, feudal. The origin of the fiefs was the same as in the
northern nations of Europe. Any chieftain who could collect a sufficient
number of followers to conquer a district, or an island, and had
succeeded in his object, proceeded to divide the spoils, or 'cut up the
land,' as the natives termed it. The king, or principal chief, made his
choice from the best of the lands. Afterwards the remaining part of the
conquered territory was distributed among the leaders, and these again
subdivided their shares to others, who became vassals, owing fealty to
the sovereigns of the fee. The king placed some of his own particular
servants on his portion as his agents, to superintend the cultivation.
The original occupants who were on the land, usually remained under
their new conqueror, and by them the lands were cultivated, and rent or
taxes paid."[18]
[17] C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ p. 97; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv.
412 _sq._, 414; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ p. 33. Compare J. Cook,
_Voyages_, vii. 137 _sqq._
[18] Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ iv. 34.
Below the chiefs or nobles were the commoners, who included small
farmers, fishermen, mechanics, such as house-builders and
canoe-builders, musicians and dancers, in short, all the labouring
classes, whether they worked for a chief or farmer or cultivated patches
of land for their own benefit.[19] According to one account, "the common
people are generally considered as attached to the soil, and are
transferred with the land from one chief to another."[20] But this
statement is contradicted by an earlier and perhaps better-informed
writer, who spent some thirteen months in Oahu, while the islands were
still independent and before the conversion of the people to
Christianity. He tells us that commoners were not slaves nor attached to
the soil, but at liberty to change masters when they thought proper.[21]
On this subject Captain King observes: "How far the property of the
lower class is secured against the rapacity and despotism of the great
chiefs, I cannot say, but it should seem that it is sufficiently
protected against private theft, or mutual depredation; for not only
their plantations, which are spread over the whole country, but also
their houses, their hogs, and their cloth, were left unguarded, without
the smallest apprehensions. I have already remarked, that they not only
separate their possessions by walls in the plain country, but that, in
the woods likewise, wherever the horse-plantains grow, they make use of
small white flags in the same manner, and for the same purpose of
discriminating property, as they do bunches of leaves at Otaheite. All
which circumstances, if they do not amount to proofs, are strong
indications that the power of the chiefs, where property is concerned,
is not arbitrary, but at least so far circumscribed and ascertained, as
to make it worth the while for the inferior orders to cultivate the
soil, and to occupy their possessions distinct from each other."[22] Yet
on the other hand we are told by later writers that "in fact, the
condition of the common people is that of slaves; they hold nothing
which may not be taken from them by the strong hand of arbitrary power,
whether exercised by the sovereign or a petty chief." On one occasion
the writers saw nearly two thousand persons, laden with faggots of
sandal-wood, coming down from the mountains to deposit their burdens in
the royal store-houses, and then departing to their homes, weary with
their unpaid labours, yet without a murmur at their bondage.[23] When at
last, through contact with civilisation, they had learned to utter their
grievances, they complained that "the people was crushed by the numerous
forced labours and contributions of every sort exacted from them by the
chiefs. It was, indeed, very hard to furnish the chiefs, on every
requisition, with pigs, food, and all the good things which the folk
possessed, and to see the great despoiling the humble. In truth, the
people worked for the chiefs incessantly, they performed every kind of
painful task, and they paid the chiefs all the taxes which it pleased
them to demand."[24]
[19] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 413.
[20] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 417. Compare J. J. Jarves, _op.
cit._ p. 34.
[21] A. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 169. As to the length of
Campbell's residence in Wahoo (Oahu), see _id._, p. 153 note.
The date of his residence was 1809-1810. Compare O. von
Kotzebue, _Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea and Beering's
Straits_ (London, 1821), iii. 246: "The people are almost
subject to the arbitrary will of the lord, but there are no
slaves or vassals (_glebae adscripti_). The peasant and the
labourer may go wherever they please. The man is free, he may be
killed, but not sold and not detained."
[22] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 141 _sq._
[23] Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 415.
[24] J. Remy, _op. cit._ p. 167.
Certainly commoners were bound to pay great outward marks of deference
to their social superiors, the chiefs, or nobles. Indeed, the respect
almost amounted to adoration, for they were on no occasion allowed to
touch their persons, but prostrated themselves before them, and might
not enter their houses without first receiving permission.[25] Above
all, the system of taboo or _kapu_, as it was called in the Hawaiian
dialect,[26] oppressed the common people and tended to keep them in a
state of abject subjection to the nobles; for the prescriptions of the
system were numerous and vexatious, and the penalty for breaches of them
was death. If the shadow of a subject fell on a chief, the subject was
put to death; if he robed himself in the cloth or assumed the girdle of
a chief, he was put to death; if he climbed on the wall of a chief's
courtyard, he was put to death; if he stood upright instead of
prostrating himself when a vessel of water was brought for the chief to
wash with or his garments to wear, he was put to death; if he stepped on
the shadow of a chief's house with his head smeared with white clay, or
decked with a garland of flowers, or merely wetted with water, he was
put to death; if he slept with his wife on a taboo day, he was put to
death; if he made a noise during public prayers, he was put to death; if
a woman ate pig, or coco-nuts, or bananas, or lobster, or the fish
called _ulua_, she was put to death; if she went in a canoe on a taboo
day, she was put to death; if husband and wife ate together, they were
both put to death.[27]
[25] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 413; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp.
33 _sq._ Compare J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 137.
[26] In the Hawaiian dialect the ordinary Polynesian T is
pronounced K, and the Tongan B is pronounced P. Hence the Tongan
_taboo_ becomes in Hawaiian _kapoo_ (_kapu_). See E. Tregear,
_Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p. xxiii.
[27] J. Remy, _op. cit._ pp. 159, 161, 167.
In Hawaii, as in other parts of Polynesia, the taboo formed an important
and essential part both of the religious and of the political system, of
which it was at once a strong support and a powerful instrument. The
proper sense of the word taboo (in Hawaiian _kapu_) is "sacred." This
did not, however, imply any moral quality; it expressed rather "a
connexion with the gods, or a separation from ordinary purposes, and
exclusive appropriation to persons or things considered sacred";
sometimes it meant devoted as by a vow. Chiefs who traced their
genealogy to the gods were called _arii taboo_, "chiefs sacred"; a
temple was a _wahi taboo_, "place sacred"; the rule which prohibited
women from eating with men, and from eating, except on special
occasions, any fruits or animals ever offered in sacrifice to the gods,
while it allowed the men to partake of them, was called _ai taboo_,
"eating sacred." The opposite of _kapu_ was _noa_, which means "general"
or "common"; for example, _ai noa_ signifies "eating generally" or
"having food in common." Although it was employed for civil as well as
sacred purposes, the taboo was essentially a religious ceremony and
could be imposed only by the priests. A religious motive was always
assigned for laying it on, though it was often done at the instance of
the civil authorities; and persons called _kiaimoku_, "island keepers,"
a kind of police officers, were always appointed by the king to see that
the taboo was strictly observed.[28]
[28] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 385 _sqq._ Compare L. de
Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii. 597.
The application of the restriction implied by taboo was either general
or particular, either permanent or occasional. To take examples of
permanent taboos, the idols and temples, the persons and names of the
king and other members of the royal family, the persons of priests,
canoes belonging to the gods, the houses, clothes, and mats of the king
and priests, and the heads of men who were the devotees of any
particular idol, were always taboo or sacred. The flesh of hogs, fowls,
turtles, and several sorts of fish, coco-nuts, and almost everything
offered in sacrifice were taboo or consecrated to the use of the gods
and the men; hence women were, except in cases of particular indulgence,
forbidden to partake of them. Particular places, such as those
frequented by the king for bathing, were also permanently taboo. As
examples of temporary taboos may be mentioned those which were imposed
on an island or district for a certain time, during which no canoe or
person was allowed to approach it. Particular fruits, animals, and the
fish of certain places were occasionally taboo for several months,
during which neither men nor women might eat them.[29] The predecessor
of Kamehameha, king of Hawaii, "was taboo to such a degree that he was
not allowed to be seen by day. He only showed himself in the night: if
any person had but accidentally seen him by daylight he was immediately
put to death; a sacred law, the fulfilment of which nothing could
prevent."[30]
[29] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 387.
[30] O. von Kotzebue, _Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea
and Beering's Straits_ (London, 1821), iii. 247.
The seasons generally kept taboo were on the approach of some great
religious ceremony, immediately before going to war, and during the
sickness of chiefs. Their duration was various, and much longer in
ancient than in modern times. Tradition tells of a taboo which lasted
thirty years, during which men might not trim their beards and were
subject to other restrictions. Another was kept for five years. Before
the reign of Kamehameha forty days was the usual period; but in his time
the period was shortened to ten or five days, or even to a single day.
The taboo seasons might be either common or strict. During a common
taboo the men were only required to abstain from their usual avocations,
and to attend morning and evening prayers at the temple. But during a
strict taboo every fire and light in the district or island must be
extinguished; no canoe might be launched; no person might bathe or even
appear out of doors, unless his attendance was required at the temple;
no dog might bark, no pig grunt, and no cock crow; for if any of these
things were to happen the taboo would be broken and fail to accomplish
its object. To prevent this disaster the mouths of dogs and pigs were
tied up, and fowls were put under a calabash, or a cloth was fastened
over their eyes.[31]
[31] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 387 _sq._
The prohibitions of the taboo were strictly enforced; every breach of
them was punished with death, unless the delinquent had powerful friends
among the priests or chiefs, who could save him. The culprits were
generally offered in sacrifice, being either strangled or clubbed at the
temple; according to one account, they were burnt.[32]
[32] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 389. As to the taboo in Hawaii,
see also J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 146 _sq._; L. de Freycinet,
_Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii. 597; C. S. Stewart,
_Residence in the Sandwich Islands_, pp. 31 _sq._; J. J. Jarves,
_op. cit._ pp. 50-52; J. Remy, _op. cit._ pp. xxxviii _sq._, 159
_sqq._
The system seems to have been found at last too burdensome to be borne
even by the king, who under it was forbidden to touch his food with his
own hands, and had to submit to having it put into his mouth by another
person, as if he were an infant.[33] Whatever his motive, Liholiho, son
of Kamehameha, had hardly succeeded his father on the throne of Hawaii
when he abolished the system of taboo and the national religion at a
single blow. This remarkable reformation took place in November 1819.
When the first Christian missionaries arrived from America, some months
later, March 30th, 1820, they were astonished to learn of a peaceful
revolution, which had so opportunely prepared the way for their own
teaching.[34]
[33] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 388.
[34] L. de Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii.
603; O. von Kotzebue, _Neue Reise um die Welt_, ii. 109 _sqq._;
W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 30, 126 _sqq._, 137, 204, 312; C. S.
Stewart, _Residence in the Sandwich Islands_, pp. 31, 32 _sq._;
Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 378 _sq._, 397 _sq._, 442
_sq._; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp. 197 _sq._, 201; J. Remy,
_op. cit._ pp. lxv, 133 _sqq._; H. Bingham, _Residence of
Twenty-one Years in the Sandwich Islands_ (Hartford, 1849), pp.
69 _sqq._ King Kamehameha the First died 8th May 1819.
Sec. 5. _Religion, the Gods_
Of the native Hawaiian religion, as it existed before the advent of
Europeans and the conversion of the people to Christianity, we possess
no adequate account. The defect is probably due in great measure to the
readiness with which the islanders relinquished their old faith and
adopted the new one. The transition seems to have been effected with
great ease and comparatively little opposition; hence when the
missionaries settled in the islands a few months after the formal
abolition of the ancient religion, paganism was already almost a thing
of the past, and the Christian teachers were either unable or perhaps
unwilling to record in detail the beliefs and rites which they regarded
as false and pernicious. Be that as it may, we possess no such
comparatively full and accurate records of the old Hawaiian religion, as
we possess, for example, of the old pagan religion of the Tongans and
the Samoans, who clung much more pertinaciously to the creed of their
fathers than their more enlightened or more fickle kinsfolk in the
Sandwich Islands. Hence we are obliged to content ourselves with some
more or less meagre and fragmentary notices of the ancient Hawaiian
system of religious belief and practice. But as the Hawaiians are, or
were, pure-blooded Polynesians, we may assume with a fair degree of
probability that in its broad lines their religious system conformed to
the ordinary Polynesian type.
On this subject Captain King, the colleague and successor of Captain
Cook in his last voyage, observes as follows: "The religion of these
people resembles, in most of its principal features, that of the Society
and Friendly Islands. Their _Morais_, their _Whattas_, their idols,
their sacrifices, and their sacred songs, all of which they have in
common with each other, are convincing proofs that their religious
notions are derived from the same source. In the length and number of
their ceremonies this branch indeed far exceeds the rest; and though in
all these countries there is a certain class of men to whose care the
performance of their religious rites is committed, yet we had never met
with a regular society of priests, till we discovered the cloisters of
Kakooa in Karakakooa Bay [in the island of Hawaii]. The head of this
order was called _Orono_; a title which we imagined to imply something
highly sacred, and which, in the person of Omeeah, was honoured almost
to adoration.... It has been mentioned that the title of _Orono_, with
all its honours, was given to Captain Cook; and it is also certain that
they regarded us generally as a race of people superior to themselves;
and used often to say that great _Eatooa_ [_atuas_, spirits] dwelled in
our country. The little image, which we have before described as the
favourite idol on the _Morai_ in Karakakooa Bay, they called
_Koonooraekaiee_, and said it was Terreeoboo's god, and that he also
resided amongst us. There are found an infinite variety of these images
both on the _Morais_, and within and without their houses, to which they
give different names; but it soon became obvious to us in how little
estimation they were held, from their frequent expressions of contempt
of them, and from their even offering them to sale for trifles. At the
same time there seldom failed to be some one particular figure in
favour, to which, whilst this preference lasted, all their adoration was
addressed. This consisted in arraying it in red cloth, beating their
drums, and singing hymns before it, laying bunches of red feathers, and
different sorts of vegetables, at its feet, and exposing a pig or a dog
to rot on the _whatta_ that stood near it. In a bay to the southward of
Karakakooa, a party of our gentlemen were conducted to a large house, in
which they found the black figure of a man, resting on his fingers and
toes, with his head inclined backward, the limbs well formed and
exactly proportioned, and the whole beautifully polished. This figure
the natives call _Maee_; and round it were placed thirteen others of
rude and distorted shapes, which they said were the _Eatooas_ [spirits]
of several deceased chiefs, whose names they recounted. The place was
full of _whattas_, on which lay the remains of their offerings. They
likewise give a place in their houses to many ludicrous and some obscene
idols, like the Priapus of the ancients."[35]
[35] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 142-144.
The general Hawaiian name for god was _akua_, corresponding to the more
usual Polynesian form _atua_.[36] The four principal Hawaiian deities
were Ku, Kane, Kanaloa, and Lono.[37] Their names are only dialectically
different forms of Tu, Tane, Tangaroa or Tagaloa, and Rongo, four of the
greatest Polynesian gods.[38] Of these deities it is said that Ku, Kane,
and Lono formed the original Hawaiian triad or trinity, who were
worshipped as a unity under the name of Ku-kau-akahi, "the one
established."[39] The meaning or essence of the three persons of the
trinity is said to be Stability (Ku), Light (Tane), and Sound
(Lono).[40] "These gods," we are told, "created the three heavens as
their dwelling-place, then the earth, sun, moon, and stars, then, the
host of angels and ministers. Kanaloa (Tangaroa), who represented the
spirit of evil, was a later introduction into the Hawaiian theology; he
it was who led the rebellion of spirits, although Milu is in other
traditions credited with this bad pre-eminence."[41] We read that when
the trinity were at work on the task of creating the first man, the bad
spirit Kanaloa, out of rivalry, also made an image, but he could not
endow it with life. So, in a rage, he cried to Kane, "I will take your
man, he shall die!" And that, it is said, was the origin of death. The
reason why the spirits, under the leadership of Kanaloa, rebelled was
that they had been denied the sacrifice of kava. For their rebellion
they were thrust down to the lowest depth of Darkness or Night
(_Po_).[42]
[36] J. Remy, _op. cit._ p. xxxix; E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian
Comparative Dictionary_, p. 30, _s.v._ "Atua."
[37] J. Remy, _op. cit._ p. xxxix; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ p.
40; H. T. Cheever, _Life in the Sandwich Islands_ (London,
1851), p. 11; A. Bastian, _Die heilige Sage der Polynesier_
(Leipzig, 1881), p. 131; _id._, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_
(Berlin, 1883), p. 225; A. Marcuse, _Die Hawaiischen Inseln_,
pp. 97 _sq._
[38] E. Tregear, _op. cit._ 425, 461, 464, 540, _s.vv._ "Rongo,"
"Tane," "Tangaroa," "Tu."
[39] E. Tregear, _op. cit._ p. 425, _s.v._ "Rongo."
[40] E. Tregear, _op. cit._ pp. 461, 540, _s.vv._ "Tane," "Tu."
[41] E. Tregear, _op. cit._ p. 540, _s.v._ "Tu."
[42] E. Tregear, _op. cit._ p. 464, _s.v._ "Tangaroa." According
to another account, the evil spirit was not Kanaloa, but Ku;
Kanaloa was a younger brother of Kane, and helped him in his
beneficent labours. See A. Marcuse, _Die Hawaiischen Inseln_,
pp. 97 _sq._ This latter version agrees with the view of Kane
and Kanaloa as divine twins. See below, pp. 394 _sq._
A fuller account of these momentous transactions presents a close,
perhaps a suspicious, resemblance to the Biblical narrative of the same
events. It runs as follows:
"According to ancient Hawaiian traditions, there existed in the chaos
three mighty gods, Kane, Ku, and Lono. By their common action light was
brought into the chaos. Then the gods created three heavenly spheres, in
which they dwelt, and last of all the earth, sun, moon, and stars. Out
of their spittle they thereupon created a host of angels, who had to
render service to the three original deities. Last of all came the
creation of man. His body was fashioned out of red earth, and his head
out of white clay, and Kane, the highest of the gods, breathed into this
Hawaiian Adam the breath of life. Out of one of his ribs the Hawaiian
Eve was created. The newly formed pair, by name Kumuhonua and
Keolakuhonua, were placed in a beautiful paradise called Paliuli, which
was watered by the three rivers of life, and planted with many fine
trees, among them the sacred bread-fruit tree. The mightiest of the
angels, Kanaloa, the Hawaiian Lucifer, desired that the newly created
human pair should worship him, which was forbidden by God the Father,
Kane. After vain attempts to create a new man devoted to himself,
Kanaloa, out of desire for vengeance, resolved to ruin the first human
pair created by the gods. In the likeness of a great lizard he crept
into Paradise and seduced the two inhabitants of the same into
committing sin, whereupon they were driven out of Paradise by a powerful
bird sent by Kane. Then follow, as in the Bible, the legends of the
Hawaiian Cain (Laka) and the Hawaiian Noah (Nuu), by whom the ancestors
of the Hawaiian people are said to have been saved from the universal
flood."[43] The story of the creation of the first woman out of a rib of
the first man appears to have been widespread in Polynesia, for it is
reported also from Tahiti,[44] Fakaofo or Bowditch Island,[45] and New
Zealand.[46]
[43] A. Marcuse, _Die Hawaiischen Inseln_, p. 97.
[44] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, i. 110 _sq._; Tyerman
and Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 312 _sq._
[45] G. Turner, _Samoa_, pp. 267 _sq._
[46] J. L. Nicholas, _Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand_
(London, 1817), i. 59. Compare _Folk-lore in the Old Testament_,
i. 9 _sq._
Of the three persons in the Hawaiian trinity, Kane (Tane) is said to
have been the principal. He was especially associated with light; in a
fragment of an ancient liturgy he is called Heaven-father (_Lani-makua_)
and in a very ancient chant he is identified with the Creator. When
after the great flood the Hawaiian Noah, who is called Nuu, left his
vessel, he offered up sacrifice to the moon, saying, "You are doubtless
a transformation of Tane." But the deity was angry at this worship of a
material object; nevertheless, when Nuu expressed his contrition, the
rainbow was left as a pledge of forgiveness.[47]
[47] E. Tregear, _op. cit._ p. 461, _s.v._ "Tane."
According to one account, the two great gods Kane and Kanaloa were
twins. In Hawaii twins are regarded as superior to ordinary mortals both
in mind and body; hence it was natural to conceive of a pair of divine
twins, like the Dioscuri in Greek mythology. And, like the Dioscuri, the
divine Hawaiian twins sometimes appeared together to their worshippers
as helpers in time of need. Thus, in a season of dearth, when people
were dying of hunger, a poor fisher lad in the island of Lanai set up a
tiny hut on the sea-shore, and there day by day he offered a little from
the scanty store of fish which his family had caught; and as he did so
he prayed, saying, "Here, O god, is fish for thee." One day, as he sat
there, racked with unsatisfied yearning for the divine assistance, two
men came walking that way and rested at the hut; and, taking them to be
weary wanderers, the fisher lad willingly gave them what little food he
had left over. They slept there that night, and next day, when they were
departing, they revealed themselves to him as the two gods Kane and
Kanaloa, and they told him that his prayer had been heard, and that
salvation would follow. Sure enough, plenty soon returned to the land,
and on the spot where the little hut had stood, a stone temple was
built in stately terraces.[48] Again, we hear how when drought had
lasted long in the island of Oahu, and death stared the farmers in the
face for lack of water, the gods Kane and Kanaloa appeared in the
likeness of two young men and showed them a spring, which was afterwards
consecrated to the divine twins.[49] Once more, it is said that, when
the two deities were in Oahu, it chanced that they could find no water
with which to moisten their dry food. Then at Kane's direction Kanaloa
struck a stone with his spear, and from the stone there sprang a
fountain, which bears the name of Kane to this day, and still it rises
and sinks on the day of the moon which is sacred to that divinity.[50]
[48] A. Bastian, _Die heilige Sage der Polynesier_, pp. 131,
132.
[49] A. Bastian, _op. cit._ pp. 132 _sq._
[50] A. Bastian, _op. cit._ p. 133. As to the divine twins in
Hawaii, see also _id._, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, p. 243.
The god Lono was, as we have seen, no other than the great Polynesian
deity Rongo, the two names being the same word in dialectically
different forms. He was one of the most popular gods of Hawaii;[51] the
seasons and other natural phenomena were associated with him, and
prayers for rain were particularly addressed to him.[52] According to
one account, he was an uncreated, self-existent deity;[53] but according
to another account he was an ancient king of Hawaii, who rashly killed
his wife on a suspicion of infidelity, and then, full of remorse,
carried her lifeless body to a temple and made a great wail over it.
Thereafter he travelled through Hawaii in a state of frenzy, boxing and
wrestling with every one whom he met. The people in astonishment said,
"Is Lono entirely mad?" He replied, "I am frantic with my great love."
Having instituted games to commemorate his wife's death, he embarked in
a triangular canoe for a foreign land. Before he departed, he
prophesied, saying, "I will return in after times, on an island bearing
coco-nut trees, swine, and dogs." After his departure he was deified by
his countrymen, and annual games of boxing and wrestling were instituted
in his honour.[54] When Captain Cook arrived in Hawaii, the natives
took him to be their god Lono returned according to his prophecy. The
priests threw a sacred red mantle on his shoulders and did him
reverence, prostrating themselves before him; they pronounced long
discourses with extreme volubility, by way of prayer and worship. They
offered him pigs and food and clothes, and everything that they offered
to the gods. When he landed, most of the inhabitants fled before him,
full of fear, and those who remained prostrated themselves in adoration.
They led him to a temple, and there they worshipped him. But afterwards
in a brawl, when they saw his blood flowing and heard his groans, they
said, "No, this is not Rono," and one of them struck him, so that he
died. But even after his death, some of them still thought that he was
Rono, and that he would come again. So they looked on some of his bones,
to wit his ribs and his breastbone, as sacred; they put them in a little
basket covered all over with red feathers, and they deposited it in a
temple dedicated to Rono. There religious homage was paid to the bones,
and thence they were carried every year in procession to several other
temples, or borne by the priests round the island, to collect the
offerings of the faithful for the support of the worship of the god
Rono.[55]
[51] J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ p. 41.
[52] A. Marcuse, _Die Hawaiischen Inseln_, p. 98.
[53] E. Tregear, _op. cit._ p. 425, _s.v._ "Rongo."
[54] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 135; O. von Kotzebue, _Neue Reise
um die Welt_ (Weimar, 1830), ii. 88 _sq._; J. J. Jarves, _op.
cit._ pp. 41 _sq._; H. Bingham, _Residence of Twenty-one Years
in the Sandwich Islands_ (Hartford, 1849), p. 32; A. Bastian,
_Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, p. 246.
[55] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 134-136; Tyerman and Bennet, _op.
cit._ i. 376; J. Remy, _op. cit._ pp. 29-37; O. von Kotzebue,
_Neue Reise um die Welt_, ii. 98 _sq._
The great Polynesian god or hero Maui was known in Hawaii, where the
stories told of him resembled those current in other parts of the
Pacific. He is said to have dragged up the islands on his fishing-hook
from the depths of the ocean, and to have brought men their first
fire.[56] One day, when his wife was making bark-cloth and had not time
to finish it before night, Maui laid his hand on the sun and prevented
it from going down till the work was completed.[57]
[56] E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p.
236, _s.v._ "Maui"; A. Marcuse, _Die Haiwaiischen Inseln_, p.
98.
[57] Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 433; J. J. Jarves, _op.
cit._ p. 26.
The national war-god of Hawaii was named Tairi (Kaili). In the evening
he used to be seen flitting about near his temple in the form of a sort
of luminous vapour, like a flame or the tail of a comet. A similar
appearance is also occasionally seen in the Society Islands, where the
terrified natives formerly identified it with their god Tane, and
supposed that the meteor was the deity flying from temple to temple or
seeking whom he might destroy.[58] The image of the war-god Tairi used
to be carried to battle by the priest, who held it aloft above the
ranks. It was four or five feet high; the upper part was of wicker-work,
covered with red feathers; the face grinned hideously; the mouth
displayed triple rows of dog's or shark's teeth; the eyes gleamed with
mother of pearl; and the head was crowned with a helmet crested with
long tresses of human hair. In the battle the priest used to distort his
face into a variety of frightful grimaces and to utter appalling yells,
which were supposed to proceed from the god whom he bore or attended.
But the national war-god was not the only deity whose image was borne to
battle. Other chiefs of rank had their war-gods carried near them by
their priests; and if the king or chief was killed or taken, the god
himself was usually captured also. The presence of their deities
inspired the warriors with courage; for they imagined the divine
influence to be essential to victory.[59] The diviners were consulted
immediately before a battle. They slew the victims, and noticed the face
of the heavens, the passage of clouds over the sun, and the appearance
of a rainbow. If the omens were favourable, the image of the principal
war-god was brought out in front of the whole army and placed near the
king. The priest then prayed to the gods, beseeching them to prove
themselves stronger than the gods of the enemy in the ensuing
engagement, and promising them hecatombs of victims in the event of
victory. The bodies of foes slain in the battle were dragged to the king
or priest, who offered them as victims to his gods.[60]
[58] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 119.
[59] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 158 _sq._
[60] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 157 _sq._, 159.
The gods of Hawaii fell into two classes, according as they were
believed to have been primaeval deities born of Night (Po), or the souls
of men who had been deified after death. For it was believed to be
possible to detain the soul of a beloved or honoured person at death by
keeping his clothes or his bones; and the soul could thereafter be
invoked and could speak through the mouth of the person into whom it had
entered. Both classes of deities, the primaeval and the human, were
credited with the power of making people ill.[61] One way of obtaining a
guardian deity for a family was to take the body of a still-born child
and throw it into the sea or bury it in the earth; in the former case
the embryo was supposed to turn into a shark, in the latter case into a
grasshopper. When it was deemed necessary to obtain the help of a deity
(_akua_) for a special purpose, such as success in fishing or in
canoe-building, the divine spirit could be conjured into an image
(_kii_), and could thereafter appear in a dream to his worshipper and
reveal to him what food he desired to have dedicated to him, and what
accordingly the worshipper must abstain from eating. Often the god
showed himself to the dreamer in the shape of a stone or other object;
and on awakening the man was bound to procure the object, whatever it
was, and to honour it with prayer and sacrifice, in order to ensure the
protection of the deity. Prayers addressed to private gods were usually
the property of the owner, who was commonly also their author; whereas
prayers addressed to a public god, such as Kane, had to be learned from
a priest or other adept.[62]
[61] A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, pp. 269 _sq._
[62] A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, pp. 271 _sq._
Among the deities who had once been men would seem to have been the god
of medicine, the Hawaiian Aesculapius. It is said that many generations
ago a certain man named Koreamoku received all medicinal herbs from the
gods, who also taught him the use of them. After his death he was
deified, and a wooden image of him was placed in a large temple at
Kairua, to which offerings of hogs, fish, and coco-nuts were frequently
presented. Oronopuha and Makanuiairomo, two friends and disciples of
Koreamoku, continued to practise the healing art after the death of
their master, and they too were deified after death, particularly
because they were often successful in driving away the evil spirits
which afflicted the people and threatened them with death. To these
deified men the priests addressed their prayers when they administered
medicine to the sick.[63]
[63] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 335 _sq._; J. J. Jarves, _op.
cit._ p. 71.
Of all the deities of Hawaii the most dreaded was Pele, the goddess of
the volcanic fire, whose home was in the great and ever active volcano
of Kilauea. There she dwelt with the other members of her family,
brothers and sisters. They were all said to have come to Hawaii from a
foreign country called Tahiti after the great deluge had subsided. The
cones which rise like islands from the vast sea of boiling lava,
vomiting columns of smoke or pyramids of flame, were the houses where
these volcanic deities lived and amused themselves by playing at
draughts: the crackling of the flames and the roaring of the furnaces
were the music of their dance; and the red flaming surge was the surf
wherein they sported, swimming on the rolling fiery waves.[64] The
filaments of volcanic glass, of a dark olive colour and as fine as human
hair, some straight, some crimped or frizzled, which are to be seen
abundantly on the sides of the crater, and on the plain for miles round,
are called by the natives "Pele's hair"; in some places they lie so
thick as to resemble cobwebs covering the surface of the ground.[65]
Near the crater grow bushes bearing clusters of red and yellow berries
resembling large currants; of these the natives formerly would never eat
till they had thrown some of the clusters into the thickest of the smoke
and vapour as an offering to the goddess of the volcano.[66] Vast
numbers of hogs, some alive, others cooked, used to be cast into the
craters when they were in action or when they threatened an eruption;
and when they boiled over, the animals were flung into the rolling
torrent of lava to appease the gods and arrest the progress of the fiery
stream. For the whole island had to pay tribute to the gods of the
volcano and to furnish provisions for the support of their ministers;
and whenever the chiefs or people failed to send the proper offerings or
incurred the displeasure of the dreadful beings by insulting them or
their ministers, or by breaking the taboos which had to be observed in
the vicinity of the craters, the angry deities would spout lava from the
mountain or march by subterranean passages to the abode of the culprits
and overwhelm them under a flood of molten matter. And if the fishermen
did not offer them enough fish, they would rush down, kill the fish with
fire, and, filling up the shoals, destroy the fishing-grounds
entirely.[67] People who passed by the volcano of Kilauea often
presented locks of hair to Pele by throwing them into the crater with an
appropriate address to the deity.[68] On one occasion, when a river of
lava threatened destruction to the people of the neighbourhood, and the
sacrifice of many hogs, cast alive into the stream, had not availed to
stay its devastating course, King Kamehameha cut off some of his own
sacred locks and threw them into the torrent, with the result that in a
day or two the lava ceased to flow.[69] In the pleasant and verdant
valley of Kaua there used to be a temple of the goddess, where the
inhabitants of Hamakua, a district of Hawaii, formerly celebrated an
annual festival designed to propitiate the dread divinity and to secure
their country from earthquakes and floods of lava. On such occasions
large offerings of hogs, dogs, and fruit were made, and the priests
performed certain rites.[70] Worshippers of Pele also threw some of the
bones of their dead into the volcano, in the belief that the spirits of
the deceased would then be admitted to the society of the volcanic
deities, and that their influence would preserve the survivors from the
ravages of volcanic fire.[71] Nevertheless the apprehensions uniformly
entertained by the natives of the fearful consequences of Pele's anger
prevented them from paying very frequent visits to the vicinity of the
volcano; and when on their inland journeys they had occasion to approach
the mountain, they were scrupulously attentive to every injunction of
her priests, and regarded with a degree of superstitious veneration and
awe the appalling spectacle which the crater, with its sea of molten and
flaming lava, presented to their eyes.[72] They even requested strangers
not to dig or scratch the sand in its neighbourhood for fear of
displeasing the goddess and provoking her to manifest her displeasure by
an eruption.[73]
[64] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 237, 246-249; J. J. Jarves, _op.
cit._ pp. 42 _sq._
[65] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 363 _sq._; Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._
iv. 129.
[66] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 234-236.
[67] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 250.
[68] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 350.
[69] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 59. _sq._
[70] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 350.
[71] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 361.
[72] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 275.
[73] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 239.
The service of Pele was regularly cared for by an hereditary steward
(_kahu_) and an hereditary priestess. The duty of the steward was to
provide the materials for the public sacrifices, including the food and
raiment for the goddess; it was for him to furnish the hogs and fowls,
to cultivate the taro, sweet potatoes, and sugar-cane which were to
serve her for nourishment, to tend the plants from which her garments
were to be made, and to have all things in readiness for the offerings
at the appointed seasons. Of the plantations sacred to this use, one was
on the sea-shore, and another in the broken ground within the precincts
of the crater; and the steward with his family resided sometimes in the
one place and sometimes in the other. When the time came for offering
the sacrifice, the priestess descended into the depths of the volcano,
and there approaching as near as possible to the spot where the fire
burned most furiously, she cast into it her gifts, saying, "Here, Pele,
is food for you, and here is cloth," whereby she mentioned each article
as she flung it into the flames.[74] Sometimes the priestess claimed to
be inspired by Pele and even to be the goddess in person. One of the
priestesses, in an interview with the missionary William Ellis, assumed
a haughty air and declared, "I am Pele; I shall never die; and those who
follow me, when they die, if part of their bones be taken to Kilauea,
will live with me in the bright fires there." In a song she gave a long
account of the deeds and honours of the goddess, who, she said, dwelt in
the volcano and had come in former times from the land beyond the sky.
This song she chanted or recited in a rapid and vociferous manner,
accompanied by extravagant gestures, working herself up to a state of
excitement in which she appeared to lose all self-command. She also
claimed to be able to heal the sick through the indwelling spirit of the
goddess.[75] But the goddess was served also by priests. We read of one
such who offered prayers to her and assured the people that thereafter
she would do them no harm.[76]
[74] C. S. Stewart, _A Visit to the South Seas_ (London, 1832),
ii. 104.
[75] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 309-311. For other interviews with
priestesses of the goddess see _id._, iv. 275 _sq._; C. S.
Stewart, _Visit to the South Seas_, ii. 100-103.
[76] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 378.
The Hawaiians also paid religious reverence to certain birds, fish, and
animals. In a village Captain King saw two tame ravens which the people
told him were _eatooas_ (_atuas_, _akuas_), that is, gods or spirits,
cautioning him at the same time not to hurt or offend them.[77] The
native authors of a work on the history of Hawaii, speaking of the
ancient religion of their people, tell us that "birds served some as
idols; if it was a fowl, the fowl was taboo for the worshippers, and the
same for all the birds which were deified. The idol of another was a
four-footed animal, and if it was a pig, the pig was taboo for him. So
with all the animals who became gods. Another had a stone for his idol;
it became taboo, and he could not sit upon the stone. The idol of
another was a fish, and if it was a shark, the shark was taboo for him.
So with all the fish, and so they deified all things in earth and
heaven, and all the bones of men."[78] Further, the same writers observe
that "the trees were idols for the people and for the chiefs. If a man
had for his idol the _ohia_ tree, the _ohia_ was taboo for him; if the
bread-fruit tree was the idol of another, the bread-fruit tree was taboo
for him. The taboo existed likewise for all the trees out of which men
had made divine images, and it was the same also for food. If taro was a
person's idol, taro was taboo for him. It was the same for all the
eatables of which they had made gods."[79] This deification of birds,
fish, animals, plants, and inanimate objects resembles the Samoan system
and may, like it, be a relic of totemism.[80] Among the living creatures
to which they thus accorded divine honours were lizards, rats, and
owls.[81]
[77] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 144.
[78] J. Remy, _op. cit._ p. 165.
[79] J. Remy, _op. cit._ pp. 163, 165.
[80] See above, pp. 182 _sqq._, 200 _sqq._
[81] L. de Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii.
594.
Among the deified fishes it would seem that the shark held a foremost
place. On almost every cape jutting out into the sea, a temple used to
be built for the worship of the shark. The first fish of each kind,
taken by the fishermen, were always carried to the temple and offered to
the god, who was supposed to have driven them towards the shore.[82]
When the king or the priests imagined that the shark wanted food, they
sallied forth with their attendants, one of whom carried a rope with a
running noose. On coming to a group or crowd of people, they threw the
rope among them, and whoever happened to be taken in the snare, whether
man, woman, or child, was strangled on the spot, the body cut in pieces,
and flung into the sea, to be bolted by the ravenous monsters.[83]
Fishermen sometimes wrapped their dead in red native cloth, and threw
them into the sea to be devoured by the sharks. They thought that the
soul of the deceased would animate the shark which had eaten his body,
and that the sharks would therefore spare the survivors in the event of
a mishap at sea.[84] It was especially stillborn children that were thus
disposed of. The worshipper of the shark would lay the body of the
infant on a mat, and having placed beside it two roots of taro, one of
kava, and a piece of sugar-cane, he would recite some prayers, and then
throw the whole bundle into the sea, fully persuaded that by means of
this offering the transmigration of the soul of the child into the body
of a shark would be effected, and that thenceforth the formidable
monster would be ready to spare such members of the family as might
afterwards be exposed to his attack. In the temples dedicated to sharks
there were priests who, at sunrise and sunset, addressed their prayers
to the image which represented the shark; and they rubbed themselves
constantly with water and salt, which, drying on their skin, made it
appear covered with scales. They also dressed in red cloth, uttered
piercing yells, and leaped over the wall of the sacred enclosure;
moreover they persuaded the islanders that they knew the exact moment
when the children that had been thrown into the sea were transformed
into sharks, and for this discovery they were rewarded by the happy
parents with liberal presents of little pigs, roots of kava, coco-nuts,
and so forth.[85] The priests also professed to be inspired by sharks
and in that condition to foretell future events. Many people accepted
these professions in good faith and contributed to support the
professors by their offerings.[86]
[82] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 90; compare _id._, pp. 129 _sq._
[83] Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 422 _sq._; J. J. Jarves,
_op. cit._ p. 45.
[84] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 361.
[85] L. de Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii.
595 _sq._
[86] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ ii. 65.
From the foregoing account it appears that some at least of the
worshipful sharks were supposed to be animated by the souls of the
dead. Whether the worship of other sacred animals in Hawaii was in like
manner combined with a theory of transmigration, there seems to be no
evidence to decide. We have seen that a similar doubt rests on the
worship of animals in Tonga.[87]
[87] See above, pp. 92 _sqq._
Sec. 6. _Priests, Sorcerers, Diviners_
The priesthood formed a numerous and powerful body. Their office was
hereditary. They owned much property in people and lands, which were
heavily taxed for their support. Each chief had his family priest, who
followed him to battle, carried his war-god, and superintended all the
sacred rites of his household. The priests took rank from their gods and
chiefs. The keeper of the national war-god, who was immediately attached
to the person of the king, was the high priest.[88] In the inner court
of the great temple dedicated to Tairi, the war-god, stood a lofty frame
of wicker-work, in shape something like an obelisk, hollow within and
measuring four or five feet square at the base. Within this framework
the priest stood and gave oracles in the name of the god, whenever the
king came to consult the deity on any matter of importance, such as a
declaration of war or the conclusion of peace; for the war-god was also
the king's oracle. The oracular answer, given by the priest in a
distinct and audible voice, was afterwards reported by the king,
publicly proclaimed, and generally acted upon.[89] When the villages
failed to pay their tribute punctually to the king, he used to send
forth a priest bearing the image of the great god Rono, who scoured the
country of the defaulters for twenty-three days and obliged them to pay
double tribute. The priest who bore the image was strictly tabooed;
during his peregrination he might not touch anything with his hands; his
food had to be put into his mouth either by the chiefs of the villages
where he halted or by the king himself, who accompanied him.[90]
[88] J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ p. 48.
[89] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 97.
[90] L. de Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii.
596.
Distinct from the regular priests were the diviners or sorcerers who
formed a sort of lower priesthood or clergy. Their services were
employed for various purposes, such as to discover the cause of illness
or to detect a thief. The people generally believed that all deaths,
which were not due to acts of violence, were wrought either by the
action of a deity or by the incantations of a sorcerer. Hence in cases
of protracted illness the aid of one of these inferior clergy was almost
invariably sought by all who could procure a dog and a fowl for the
necessary sacrifice to the god, and a piece or two of cloth as a fee for
the priest. But the offerings to the god and the fees to the priest
naturally varied with the rank or wealth of the sufferer. After
sacrificing the victims the priest lay down to sleep, and if his prayers
were answered, he was usually able to inform the invalid of the cause of
his illness, which had been revealed to him in a dream. But the same
men, who could thus heal the sick by ascertaining and removing the cause
of sickness, were supposed to possess the power of praying or enchanting
people to death by the recitation of spells or incantations. The prayers
or incantations which they employed for these beneficent or maleficent
purposes varied with the individual: every practitioner had his own
formulas, the knowledge of which he carefully confined to his own
family; and he who was thought to have most influence with his god was
most frequently employed by the people and derived the greatest
emoluments from his profession.[91] Of this class of men the most
dreaded were those who invoked the god Uli as their patron deity. Their
special business was to kill people by their spells, which they recited
secretly, and for the most part by night; but to render these effectual
it was necessary for them to obtain some of the personal refuse of their
victim, such as his spittle, the parings of his nails, or the clippings
of his hair, which they buried or burned with the appropriate
incantations.[92] Hence the king of Hawaii was constantly attended by a
servant carrying a spittoon in which he collected the royal saliva to
prevent it from being used by the king's enemies for his injury or
destruction.[93] Ordinary chiefs seem to have adopted the same
precaution; a confidential servant deposited their spittle carefully in
a portable spittoon and buried it every morning.[94]
[91] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 293-295. Compare U. Lisiansky,
_op. cit._ pp. 120 _sq._; A. Campbell, _Voyage round the World_,
pp. 171 _sqq._; C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the Sandwich
Islands_, pp. 202 _sq._; Tyerman and Bennett, _op. cit._ i. 414;
J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp. 36 _sq._, 71 _sq._; A. Marcuse,
_op. cit._ pp. 103-105.
[92] A. Marcuse, _op. cit._ p. 104.
[93] O. von Kotzebue, _Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea
and Beering's Straits_ (London, 1821), i. 313.
[94] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 365.
A form of divination or magic was employed to detect a thief. The person
who had suffered the loss used to apply to a priest, to whom he
presented a pig and told his story. Thereupon the priest kindled a fire
by rubbing two pieces of wood together, and having taken three nuts he
broke the shells and threw one of the kernels into the fire, saying,
"Kill or shoot the fellow." If the thief did not appear before the nut
was consumed in the flames, the priest repeated the ceremony with the
other two nuts. Such was the fear inspired by this rite that the culprit
seldom failed to come forward and acknowledge his guilt. But if he
persisted in concealing his crime, the king would cause proclamation to
be made throughout the island that so-and-so had been robbed, and that
the robber or robbers had been prayed to death. So firm was the belief
of the people in the power of these prayers, that the criminal, on
hearing the proclamation, would pine away, refuse food, and fall a
victim to his own credulity.[95]
[95] A. Campbell, _Voyage round the World_, pp. 171-173.
Sec. 7. _Temples, Images, Human Sacrifices_
Of the Hawaiian temples, as they existed before the abolition of the
native religion, we seem to possess no good and clear description. When
Captain Cook first visited Hawaii and was sailing along the coast, he
noticed from the ship at every village one or more elevated white
objects, like pyramids or rather obelisks; one of them he judged to be
fifty feet high. On landing to examine it, he could not reach it on
account of an intervening pool of water. However, he visited another
structure of the same sort in a more accessible situation, and found
that it stood in what he calls a burying-ground or _morai_ closely
resembling those which he had seen in other Polynesian islands and
especially in Tahiti. This particular _morai_ was an oblong space, of
considerable extent, surrounded by a wall of stone, about four feet
high. The area enclosed was loosely paved with smaller stones; and at
one end of it stood the pyramid or obelisk, measuring about four feet
square at the base and about twenty feet high. The four sides were
composed, not of stones, but of small poles interwoven with twigs and
branches, thus forming an indifferent wicker-work, hollow or open within
from bottom to top. It seemed to be in a rather ruinous state, but
enough remained to show that it had been originally covered with the
light grey cloth to which the natives attached a religious significance.
It was no doubt with similar cloth that the white pyramids or obelisks
were covered which Captain Cook beheld in the distance from the deck of
his ship. Beside the particular pyramid which he examined Captain Cook
found a sacrificial stage or altar with plantains laid upon it. The
pyramids or obelisks which he thus saw and described were presumably the
structures in which the priests concealed themselves when they gave
oracles in the name of the god. On the farther side of the area of the
_morai_ of which Captain Cook has given us a description stood a house
or shed about ten feet high, forty feet long, and ten broad in the
middle, but tapering somewhat towards the ends. The entrance into it was
at the middle of the side, which was in the _morai_. On the farther side
of the house, opposite the entrance, stood two wooden images, each cut
out of a single piece, with pedestals, in all about three feet high, not
badly designed nor executed. They were said to represent goddesses
(_eatooa no veheina_). On the head of one of them was a carved helmet,
and on the other a cylindrical cap like the head-dress worn at Tahiti.
In the middle of the house, and before the two images, was an oblong
space, enclosed by a low edging of stone and covered with shreds of the
same grey cloth which draped the pyramid or obelisk. Within this
enclosure seven chiefs lay buried; and outside the house, just on one
side of the entrance, were two small square spaces in which a man and a
hog were buried respectively, after being killed and sacrificed to the
divinity. At a little distance from these, and near the middle of the
_morai_, were three more of these square enclosed places, in which three
chiefs had been interred. In front of their graves was an oblong
enclosed space in which, as Captain Cook was told, three human victims
were buried, each of them having been sacrificed at the funeral of one
of the three chiefs. Within the area of the _morai_ or burying-ground,
as Captain Cook calls it, were planted trees of various kinds. Similar
sanctuaries appeared to Captain Cook to abound in the island; the
particular one described by him he believed to be among the least
considerable, being far less conspicuous than several others which he
had seen in sailing along the coast.[96]
[96] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vi. 183-187. The cloth-covered pyramid
or obelisk was called a _henananoo_ (_ib._ p. 187).
From his description we may infer that the temples (_morais_) observed
by him did not contain stone pyramids like those which formed such
prominent features in the Tahitian sanctuaries and in the burial grounds
of the Tooitongas in Tongataboo; for the pyramids, or rather obelisks,
of wicker-work seen by Captain Cook in the Hawaiian sanctuaries were
obviously structures of a wholly different kind. But there seem to be
some grounds for thinking that stone pyramids, built in steps or
terraces, did occur in some of the Hawaiian temples. Thus Captain King
saw a _morai_, as he calls it, which consisted of a square solid pile of
stones about forty yards long, twenty broad, and fourteen [feet?] in
height. The top was flat and well paved, and surrounded by a wooden
rail, on which were fixed the skulls of captives who had been sacrificed
on the death of chiefs. The ascent to the top of the pile was easy, but
whether it was a staircase or an inclined plane is not mentioned by
Captain King. At one end of the temple or sacred enclosure was an
irregular kind of scaffold supported on poles more than twenty feet
high, at the foot of which were twelve images ranged in a semicircle
with a sacrificial table or altar in front of them. On the scaffold
Captain Cook was made to stand, and there, swathed in red cloth, he
received the adoration of the natives, who offered him a hog and chanted
a long litany in his honour.[97]
[97] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 5-7.
When Kamehameha was busy conquering the archipelago in the last years of
the eighteenth century, he built a great temple (_heiau_) for his
war-god Tairi in the island of Hawaii. Some thirty years later the
ruined temple was visited and described by the missionary William Ellis.
He says: "Its shape is an irregular parallelogram, 224 feet long, and
100 wide. The walls, though built of loose stones, were solid and
compact. At both ends, and on the side next the mountains, they were
twenty feet high, twelve feet thick at the bottom, but narrowed in
gradually towards the top, where a course of smooth stones, six feet
wide, formed a pleasant walk. The walls next the sea were not more than
seven or eight feet high, and were proportionally wide. The entrance to
the temple is by a narrow passage between two high walls.... The upper
terrace within the area was spacious, and much better finished than the
lower ones. It was paved with flat smooth stones, brought from a
distance. At the south end was a kind of inner court, which might be
called the sanctum sanctorum of the temple, where the principal idol
used to stand, surrounded by a number of images of inferior deities....
On the outside, near the entrance to the inner court, was the place of
the _rere_ (altar) on which human and other sacrifices were offered. The
remains of one of the pillars that supported it were pointed out by the
natives, and the pavement around was strewed with bones of men and
animals, the mouldering remains of those numerous offerings once
presented there. About the centre of the terrace was the spot where the
king's sacred house stood, in which he resided during the season of
strict _tabu_, and at the north end, the place occupied by the houses of
priests, who, with the exception of the king, were the only persons
permitted to dwell within the sacred enclosures. Holes were seen on the
walls, all around this, as well as the lower terraces, where wooden
idols of varied size and shape formerly stood, casting their hideous
stare in every direction."[98]
[98] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 96-98. Compare J. J. Jarves, _op.
cit._ pp. 45 _sq._
From this somewhat indistinct description we gather that the temple was
a large oblong area enclosed by high stone walls and open to the sky,
and that at some place within the enclosure there rose a structure in a
series of terraces, of which the uppermost was paved with flat stones
and supported the king's house, while the houses of the priests stood in
another part of the sacred enclosure. If this interpretation is correct,
we may infer that the temple resembled a Tahitian _morai_, which was a
walled enclosure enclosing a sort of stepped and truncated pyramid built
of stone.[99] The inference is confirmed by the language used by Captain
King in speaking of the temple which he describes, for he calls it a
_morai_,[100] and the same term is applied to the sacred edifices in
Hawaii by other voyagers.[101]
[99] See above, pp. 278 _sqq._
[100] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 5.
[101] O. von Kotzebue, _Neue Reise um die Welt_, ii. 89 _sq._;
A. Campbell, _Voyage round the World_, p. 175.
Another ruined temple (_heiau_) seen by Ellis in Hawaii, is described by
him as built of immense blocks of lava, and measuring a hundred and
fifty feet long by seventy feet wide. At the north end was a smaller
enclosure, sixty feet long and ten wide, partitioned off by a high wall,
with but one narrow entrance. The places where the idols formerly stood
were apparent, though the idols had been removed. The spot where the
altar had been erected could be distinctly traced; it was a mound of
earth, paved with smooth stones, and surrounded by a firm curb of lava.
The adjacent ground was strewn with bones of the ancient offerings.[102]
Another temple (_heiau_), in good preservation, visited by Ellis,
measured no less than two hundred and seventy feet in one direction by
two hundred and ten in another. The walls were thick and solid; on the
top of them the stones were piled in a series of small spires. The
temple was said to have been built by a queen of Hawaii about eleven
generations back.[103] Once more in one of the _puhonuas_ or cities of
refuge, which in Hawaii afforded an inviolable sanctuary to fugitives,
Ellis saw another temple (_heiau_), which he describes as "a compact
pile of stones, laid up in a solid mass, 126 feet by 65, and ten feet
high. Many fragments of rock, or pieces of lava, of two or more tons
each, were seen in several parts of the wall, raised at least six feet
from the ground." Ellis was told that the city of refuge, of which this
temple formed part, had been built for Keave, who reigned in Hawaii
about two hundred and fifty years before the time when the missionary
was writing.[104] From his descriptions we may infer that some at least
of the Hawaiian temples deserved to rank among megalithic structures,
and that the natives had definite traditions of the kings or queens by
whom the temples had been built.
[102] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 116.
[103] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 117 _sq._
[104] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 169.
In the island of Oahu a temple (_heiau_) visited by the missionary
Stewart was forty yards long by twenty yards broad. The walls, of dark
stone, were perfectly regular and well built, about six feet high, three
feet wide at the level of the ground, and two feet wide at the top. It
was enclosed only on three sides, the oblong area formed by the walls
being open on the west; from that side there was a descent by three
regular terraces or very broad steps.[105] This brief account confirms
the inference which I have drawn from the more detailed description of
Ellis, as to the terraced structure of some Hawaiian temples.
[105] C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the Sandwich Islands_, pp.
226 _sq._
In the mountains of Hawaii, at a height of about five thousand feet
above the sea, Commodore Wilkes saw the ruins of an ancient temple of
the god Kaili (Tairi), round about which stood eight small pyramids
built of compact blocks of lava laid without cement. These pyramids were
said to have been erected at the command of Umi, an ancient king, to
commemorate his conquests. They seem to have measured each some ten or
twelve feet square. The temple which they surrounded was about
ninety-two feet long by seventy-two feet wide; the outer walls were
about seven feet high and as many thick. Internally the edifice was
divided by partition walls three feet high. The building was said to
have been formerly covered with idols, of which no traces remained at
the time of Wilkes's visit.[106]
[106] Ch. Wilkes, _op. cit._ iv. 99 _sq._, with the plate.
Often, apparently, a Hawaiian temple consisted of little more than a
walled or palisaded enclosure containing a number of rudely carved
images and a place of sacrifice in the form of a platform raised on
poles. Such a temple is described by the Russian navigator Lisiansky.
The images in it were grouped and arranged so as to form a sort of
semicircle. The chief priest of the temple informed the Russians "that
the fifteen statues wrapped in cloth represented the gods of war; the
two to the right of the place of sacrifice, the gods of spring; those on
the opposite side, the guardians of autumn; and that the altar was
dedicated to the god of joy, before which the islanders dance and sing
on festivals appointed by their religion." With regard to the temples in
general, Lisiansky observes that they "were by no means calculated to
excite in the mind of a stranger religious veneration. They are suffered
to remain in so neglected and filthy a condition, that, were it not for
the statues, they might be taken rather for hog-sties than places of
worship."[107]
[107] U. Lisiansky, _op. cit._ pp. 105-107. He says (p. 106)
that the temple was "called by the natives _Heavoo_, not
_Morai_, as some navigators have said." The word _Heavoo_ is
probably identical with the word _heiau_, which other writers
give as the Hawaiian name for a temple. As to the form of the
temples see also A. Campbell, _Voyage round the World_, pp. 175
_sq._: "Their Morais, or places of worship, consist of one large
house or temple, with some smaller ones round it, in which are
the images of their inferior gods. The tabooed or consecrated
precincts are marked out by four square posts, which stand
thirty or forty yards from the building. In the inside of the
principal house there is a screen or curtain of white cloth,
hung across one end within which the image of Etooah [_atua_,
_akua_] is placed." Remy (_op. cit._ p. xl) describes the
Hawaiian temples as "simple enclosures of stones, roofless,
where the religious ceremonies were performed."
The images of the gods were usually carved of wood. When a new idol was
to be made, a royal and priestly procession went forth, with great
ceremony, to the destined tree, where the king himself, with a stone
axe, struck the first blow at the root. After the tree was felled, a man
or a hog was killed and buried on the spot where it had grown.[108]
Sometimes, apparently, the direction to carve an idol out of a
particular tree was given by a god in a dream. There is a tradition that
once when the woodmen were felling such a tree with their stone axes,
the chips flew out and killed two of them; whereupon the other woodmen
covered their faces with masks, and cut down the tree with their
daggers.[109] Another famous idol was said to be made of wood so
poisonous, that if chips of it were steeped in water, and anybody drank
of the water, he would die in less than twenty-four hours.[110] The
Hawaiians seem to have made their idols hideous on purpose to inspire
terror.[111] The features of some of the images were violently
distorted, their mouths set with a double row of the fangs of dogs,
their eyes made of large pearl oysters with black nuts in the middle;
some had long pieces of carved wood, shaped like inverted cones, rising
from the top of their heads;[112] some had tongues of a monstrous size,
others had no tongues at all; some had mouths that reached from ear to
ear; the heads of some were a great deal larger than their bodies.[113]
Some of the idols were stones. In the island of Hawaii there is a pebbly
beach from which pebbles used to be carried away to be deified or to
represent deities. They were generally taken in couples, a male and a
female, and having been wrapt up very carefully together in a piece of
native cloth, they were conveyed to a temple (_heiau_), where ceremonies
of consecration or deification were performed over them.[114]
[108] Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 450.
[109] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 92 _sq._
[110] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 91.
[111] A. Marcuse, _Die Hawaiischen Inseln_, p. 101.
[112] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 6, 15; compare A. Campbell, _op.
cit._ p. 76.
[113] U. Lisiansky, _op. cit._ p. 107.
[114] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 212 _sq._
The human sacrifice offered at the making of an idol was intended to
impart strength to the image.[115] But human sacrifices were offered on
many other occasions, such as on the approach of war, on the death of a
chief, and so forth. There is a tradition that Umi, a famous king of
Hawaii, once offered eighty men to his god as a thank-offering for
victory. The victims were generally prisoners of war, but in default of
captives any men who had broken taboos or rendered themselves obnoxious
to the chiefs were sacrificed. It does not appear that they were slain
in the presence of the idol or within the temple, but either on the
outside or where they were first taken; in all cases an attempt seems to
have been made to preserve the body entire or as little mangled as
possible. Generally the victims were despatched by a blow on the head
with a club or stone; sometimes, however, they were stabbed. Having been
stripped naked, the bodies were carried into the temple and laid in a
row, with their faces downwards, on the altar immediately before the
idol. The priest thereupon, in a kind of prayer, offered them to the
gods; and if hogs were sacrificed at the same time, they were
afterwards piled on the human bodies and left there to rot and putrefy
together.[116]
[115] J. Remy, _op. cit._ p. 161.
[116] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 150-152; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._
pp. 47 _sq._; J. Remy, _op. cit._ pp. xl _sq._ Compare U.
Lisiansky, _op. cit._ pp. 121 _sq._; Tyerman and Bennet, _op.
cit._ i. 423 _sq._
When a new temple was about to be dedicated, some of the people used to
flee into the mountains to escape being sacrificed. The last human
sacrifices are said to have been offered in 1807, when the queen of the
islands was seriously ill.[117] Whenever war was in contemplation, the
diviners used to sacrifice animals, generally hogs and fowls, and to
draw omens from the manner in which they expired, from the appearance of
their entrails, and from other signs. Sometimes, when the animal was
slain, they disembowelled it, took out the spleen, and, holding it in
their hands, offered their prayers. But if the contemplated expedition
was of any importance or the danger was imminent, human sacrifices were
offered to ensure the co-operation of the war-gods in the destruction of
their enemies.[118]
[117] A. Marcuse, _op. cit._ p. 103.
[118] W. Ellis, iv. 150 _sq._
Sec. 8. _Festivals_
In every lunar month the people celebrated four festivals. The festival
of the new moon lasted three nights and two days; the three others
lasted two nights and one day. These nights and days were taboo or
sacred: men who took part in the festivals might not speak to a woman
under pain of death, and all the people were forbidden to sail the sea,
to fish, to make bark-cloth, and to play games.[119] Besides these
monthly festivals there was one called Macahity, which lasted for a
whole month and seems to have celebrated the end of the old year. It
fell in November, and has been compared by Lisiansky to our festival of
Christmas. He tells us that "it continues a whole month, during which
the people amuse themselves with dances, plays, and sham-fights of every
kind. The king must open this festival wherever he is. On this occasion,
his majesty dresses himself in his richest cloak and helmet, and is
paddled in a canoe along the shore, followed sometimes by many of his
subjects. He embarks early, and must finish his excursion at sun-rise.
The strongest and most expert of the warriors is chosen to receive him
on his landing. This warrior watches the royal canoe along the beach;
and as soon as the king lands, and has thrown off his cloak, he darts
his spear at him, from a distance of about thirty paces, and the king
must either catch the spear in his hand, or suffer from it: there is no
jesting in the business. Having caught it, he carries it under his arm,
with the sharp end downwards, into the temple or _heavoo_. On his
entrance, the assembled multitude begin their sham-fights, and
immediately the air is obscured by clouds of spears, made for the
occasion with blunted ends. Hamamea [the king, Kamehameha] has been
frequently advised to abolish this ridiculous ceremony, in which he
risks his life every year; but to no effect. His answer always is, that
he is as able to catch a spear, as any one on the island is to throw it
at him. During the Macahity, all punishments are remitted throughout the
country; and no person can leave the place in which he commences these
holidays, let the affair requiring his absence be ever so
important."[120] The ceremony of throwing a spear at the king during the
festival of Macahity has been described also by the Scotch sailor
Archibald Campbell, who may have witnessed it. He says: "The king
remains in the _morai_ for the whole period; before entering it, a
singular ceremony takes place. He is obliged to stand till three spears
are darted at him: he must catch the first with his hand, and with it
ward off the other two. This is not a mere formality. The spear is
thrown with the utmost force; and should the king lose his life, there
is no help for it."[121] This curious rite may perhaps have been a relic
of an old custom which obliged the king to submit once a year to the
ordeal of battle, in order to prove his fitness for a renewed tenure of
office, death being the penalty of defeat and the kingdom the reward of
victory in the combat.[122] During the continuance of the festival the
priests were employed in collecting the taxes, which were paid by the
chiefs in proportion to the extent of their territories; these taxes
consisted of mats, feathers, and the produce of the country. The people
celebrated the festival by dancing, wrestling, and other
amusements.[123] The victor in the boxing matches and martial evolutions
was crowned and treated as king of the festival, which was held in
honour of the god Rono.[124]
[119] L. de Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii.
595. Compare U. Lisiansky, _Voyage round the World_, p. 118.
According to the latter writer, there were no taboos (festivals)
in the eleventh month.
[120] U. Lisiansky, _Voyage round the World_, pp. 118 _sq._ From
A. Campbell, _Voyage round the World_, p. 178, we learn that the
festival fell in November, and from a brief native notice we may
gather that the New Year celebration was the festival of
Macahity. See J. Remy, _Histoire de l'Archipel Havaiien_, pp.
167, 169, "_a la celebration de la nouvelle annee, les citoyens,
les chefs, les femmes, les enfants se livraient a des boxes
furieuses, et plusieurs recevaient dans ces jeux des blessures
tres graves_."
[121] A. Campbell, _op. cit._ p. 179.
[122] Compare _The Golden Bough_, Part III. _The Dying God_, pp.
117 _sq._
[123] A. Campbell, _op. cit._ pp. 178 _sq._
[124] O. von Kotzebue, _Neue Reise um die Welt_, ii. 88 _sq._
No one might go to war during the New Year festival; all the people had
to repair to the temples (_morais_). Three kinds of idols were
worshipped at this season; the principal of them, called Kekou-Aroha,
was carried round the island by a priest; everything that he could seize
with his left hand he had the right to appropriate, whether it was dogs,
pigs, vegetables, or what not; and any person on whom he in like manner
laid a hand was bound to assist him in carrying or leading to the temple
the tribute or booty he had thus taken possession of.[125]
[125] L. de Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii.
596.
Of the rigour with which the laws of taboo were enforced during one of
these festivals we may gather an idea from a statement of the Russian
navigator von Kotzebue. He says: "As Kareimoku's guests, we were present
at the celebration of a _Tabu pori_, which lasted from the setting of
the sun to sunrise on the third day. It is already known what degree of
sanctity is imparted to him who joins in this communion with the gods
during the time. Should he accidentally touch a woman, she must be
instantly put to death. Should he enter a woman's house, the flames must
immediately consume it."[126]
[126] O. von Kotzebue, _Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea
and Beering's Straits_, iii. 248 _sq._ Compare A. von Chamisso,
_Reise um die Welt_ (Leipzig, 1836), ii. 312.
Sec.9. _Death and Funeral Rites_
The Hawaiians explained life as usual by the hypothesis of a soul
(_uhane_), which animated the whole body, but had its seat especially in
the sockets of the eyes, and above all in the lachrymal gland. During
sleep the soul quits the body, wanders away, and sees the places and
things which appear to it in dreams; usually it returns in time to
resume its functions in the body without endangering the health of the
sleeper. Occasionally, however, it happens that in its rambles it loses
its way through falling in with a ghost or spectre, who frightens it;
but even then it may be brought back with the help of a familiar spirit
despatched to seek out and guide home the wanderer. When a man falls
sick, his soul begins to feel ill at ease in his body, and if the
sickness proves fatal, the soul quits him never to return.[127]
According to another account, the Hawaiians held that every man had two
souls in his body, of which one never left him in life, while the other
went forth from time to time in dreams or ecstasy, but only to return to
its corporeal tabernacle. Sometimes a diviner would warn a man that he
had seen his dream-soul roaming about, and that perhaps it might never
come back, because a certain deity was angry with him. Upon that the
terrified owner of the soul would naturally engage the diviner to
recover his spiritual property by propitiating the angry deity with a
valuable offering.[128]
[127] A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, pp. 272 _sq._
[128] J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ p. 39 note; A. Marcuse, _Die
Hawaiischen Inseln_, p. 105.
Sickness was commonly explained by the presence in the sufferer of an
evil spirit, who must be exorcised if the patient was to be restored to
health. For this purpose the services of a priest (_kahuna_) were
engaged, who by the recitation of a suitable incantation invited or
compelled the demon to declare through the mouth of the sick man why he
had entered into him, and on what terms he would consent to take his
departure. Sometimes, the demon was induced to perch on the head or
shoulders of one of the bystanders, and from that coign of vantage to
answer the interrogatory of the priest. But at other times he burrowed
so deep into the patient's body and held his tongue so obstinately, that
the priest had no alternative but to prick the sick man's body with
bamboo needles and to drop water into his eyes in order to drive out the
evil spirit.[129]
[129] A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, p. 269.
When all remedies had proved vain and death had followed, the bodies of
common people were buried in a crouching position. The upper part of the
body was raised; the face was bent forwards to meet the knees; the hands
were put under the hams and passed up between the knees; then head,
hands, and knees were bound together with cinnet or cord. Afterwards the
corpse was wrapt up in a coarse mat and interred on the first or second
day after death. But the corpses of chiefs and priests were not thus
doubled up; they were laid out straight, wrapt up in many folds of
native cloth, and buried in that posture. Priests were generally
committed to the earth within the precincts of the temple in which they
had officiated. A pile of stones or a circle of high poles marked their
grave. But it was only the bodies of priests or of persons of some
importance that were thus interred. For ordinary people natural graves
were preferred, where suitable places could be found, such as caves in
the face of cliffs or large subterranean grottos. Sometimes the
inhabitants of a village deposited their dead in one great cavern, but
generally each family had a distinct sepulchral cave. Their artificial
graves were either simple pits dug in the earth or large enclosures,
which might be surrounded with high stone walls so as to resemble the
ordinary temples (_heiaus_). Occasionally they buried their dead in
sequestered spots near their dwellings, but often in their gardens, and
sometimes in their houses. The graves were not deep, and the bodies were
usually placed in them in a sitting posture.[130] A rude method of
embalming by means of the flower of the sugar-cane was often practised,
whereby the entrails and brains were extracted and the body
desiccated.[131] When the dead was interred in the dwelling, the house
was not uncommonly shut up and deserted, the survivors seeking for
themselves a new habitation.[132] The custom no doubt sprang from a fear
of the ghosts, which were supposed to linger about their final
resting-places and to injure such as came within their reach; hence
their apparitions were much dreaded. For the same reason burials were
conducted in a private manner and by night. If people were seen carrying
a dead body past a house, the inmates would abuse or even stone them for
not taking it some other way; for they imagined that the ghost would ply
to and fro between the grave and his old home along the path by which
his corpse had been carried.[133] Sometimes, apparently, to prevent the
ghost from straying, his grave was enclosed by a sort of fence composed
of long poles stuck in the ground at intervals of three or four inches
and fastened together at the top. At all events Ellis saw a priest's
tomb thus enclosed, and he received this explanation of the fence from
some people; though others merely said that it was a custom so to inter
persons of consequence.[134] Nightmare was believed to be caused by a
ghost attempting to strangle the dreamer; under the influence of this
belief a strong man has been seen to run shrieking down the street,
tugging with both hands at his throat to tear the incubus away, till he
reached the door of a neighbour's house and, bursting in, fell fainting
on the floor. He thought that the ghost of a chief, who had died the day
before, had a grip on his throat and was trying to throttle him.[135]
Sometimes, however, affection for the dead sufficed to overcome the fear
of the ghost, and the mouldering bones were carried about as relics by
relations and friends.[136] When the Scotch sailor Archibald Campbell
was in the islands in the early years of the nineteenth century, his
patroness the queen kept by her the bones of her father wrapt up in a
piece of cloth. Whenever she slept in her own house, the bones were
placed by her side; in her absence they were set on a feather-bed which
she had received from the captain of a ship, and which she used only for
this purpose. On being asked by the Scotchman why she observed this
singular custom, she replied that it was because she loved her father so
dearly.[137] More usually, however, the bones of a beloved chief were
carefully hidden to prevent his enemies from finding them and making
arrow-heads out of them, with which to hunt rats, or otherwise profaning
them. Hence there was a proverb to the effect that the bones of bad
chiefs were not concealed. When the great King Kamehameha died in 1819,
his bones were hidden and disappeared completely in some secret
cave.[138]
[130] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 359 _sq._; J. J. Jarves, _op.
cit._ pp. 73 _sq._
[131] J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ p. 73; J. Remy, _op. cit._ p.
xlvii.
[132] Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 429.
[133] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 360 _sq._; J. J. Jarves, _op.
cit._ p. 74; A. Marcuse, _Die Hawaiischen Inslen_, p. 109.
[134] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 129.
[135] H. T. Cheever, _Life in the Sandwich Islands_ (London,
1851), pp. 11 _sq._, quoting Sheldon Dibble, _History of the
Sandwich Islands_, p. 99.
[136] O. von Kotzebue, _Neue Reise um die Welt_, ii. 98; A.
Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, p. 261.
[137] A. Campbell, _Voyage round the World_, pp. 206 _sq._
[138] J. Remy, _op. cit._ p. 153.
The death of a king or great chief in former days was the occasion for
the observance of some singular ceremonies and customs. The grief, real
or pretended, of the people found expression in many extravagant forms.
Men and women knocked out some of their front teeth with stones; but the
custom seems to have been observed even more extensively by men than by
women. The kinsmen or friends of the deceased chief set the example, and
their retainers were obliged to imitate them. Sometimes a man broke out
his own tooth with a stone, but more usually the service was rendered
him by another, who fixed one end of a stick against the tooth and
hammered the stick with a stone till the tooth broke off. If the men
deferred the operation, the women would perform it on them in their
sleep. More than one tooth was seldom sacrificed at one time; but as the
mutilation was repeated at the decease of every chief of rank or
authority, few men of mature years were to be seen with a whole set of
teeth, and many lost all their front teeth both in the upper and the
lower jaw. Another mutilation practised at such times was to cut one or
both ears, but it seems to have been comparatively rare. Much commoner
was the custom of burning circles or semi-circles on the face or breast
by means of strips of burning bark. The mourners also polled their hair
in various ways. Sometimes they made bald a small round piece on the
crown of the head, like the tonsure of Catholic priests; sometimes they
shaved or cropped close the whole head except round the edge, where a
short fringe was left to hang down; sometimes they made their heads
quite bald on one side and allowed the hair to remain long on the other;
occasionally they cut out a patch in the shape of a horse-shoe either at
the back of the head or above the forehead; sometimes they shore a
number of curved furrows from ear to ear or from the forehead to the
neck. When a chief who had lost a relative or friend had his own hair
cut after any particular pattern, his followers and dependants usually
cropped their hair in the same style. Not to clip or shave the hair in
mourning was regarded as disrespectful to the dead, but the particular
manner of cutting it was left to the taste of the individual.[139] Some
people in their frenzy knocked out their eyes with clubs and stones and
cut as well as burned their flesh.[140] Another peculiar badge of
mourning, adopted principally by the chiefs, was a black spot or line
tattooed on the tongue. The painful operation was performed by
puncturing the tongue with sharp fish-bones dipped in colouring
matter.[141] But though these personal mutilations were popular and
almost universal on the decease of chiefs, they appear not to have been
practised by the common people among themselves. Thus a wife did not
knock out her teeth on the death of her husband, and a son did not thus
express his grief for the loss of his parents, nor they for the death of
a child.[142]
[139] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 175 _sqq._, 181. Compare U.
Lisiansky, _op. cit._ p. 123; A. Campbell, _op. cit._ pp. 142
_sq._; J. Remy, _op. cit._ p. xlvii.
[140] C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the Sandwich Islands_, p.
166; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp. 65 _sq._
[141] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 177, 180 _sq._
[142] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 180.
Similar extravagances in the expression of grief were commonly exhibited
by mourners, as we have seen, in other parts of Polynesia; but in Hawaii
the rites observed at the death of a king or high chief were in so far
peculiar that they assumed the character of a Saturnalia or orgy of
unbridled lust and crime. On this subject the Russian navigator
Lisiansky, who visited the islands while the ancient system of
superstition was still in full vogue, reports as follows: "On the death
of the king, a scene of horror takes place that is hardly credible.
Twelve men are sacrificed; and shortly after the whole island abandons
itself for a month to the utmost disorder and licentiousness. During
this period, both sexes go entirely naked, and men cohabit with women
without any distinction: the woman who should dare to make resistance,
would be considered as violating the laws of the country. The same
licentiousness is observed on the death of a noble; but it does not
extend beyond the domains of the deceased, and is of a much shorter
duration, not continuing, as Mr. Young informed me, more than a few
days, though attempts are made by the youth of the party to prolong the
period. Those who are put to death on the demise of the king, or any
great personage, are such as have offered themselves for the purpose
during the life of their master; and they are in consequence considered
and treated by him as his best friends, since they have sworn to live
and die with him. When I reflect upon the horrid nature of this
ceremony, I hardly know how to credit its existence amongst a race of
men so mild and good as these islanders in general appear to be; but Mr.
Young, whose veracity I had no reason to doubt, assured me of the
fact."[143]
[143] U. Lisiansky, _Voyage round the World_, pp. 122 _sq._
This John Young, who gave Lisiansky information as to the customs and
religion of the Hawaiians, was an Englishman who had resided in the
islands for many years at the time of the Russian navigator's visit in
1804. Originally a sailor, born at Liverpool, he had been compulsorily
detained by the natives when he landed from his ship in Hawaii in March
1790. But from the first he received the kindest treatment from the
king, Kamehameha, whose full confidence and high esteem he enjoyed and
deserved. The king gave him a fine estate and appointed him to several
responsible offices; in particular Young was governor of Hawaii for no
less than nine years during the king's absence. He married a native
woman of rank, by whom he had six children. While he remained warmly
attached to his native country and rendered essential services to
English vessels touching at the islands, he remained a voluntary exile
for forty-five years in Hawaii, where he died at the patriarchal age of
ninety-two in December 1835. During this long period he enjoyed the
favour of the kings, chiefs, and people, and was highly respected and
esteemed for his intelligence and good offices by European voyagers to
the islands.[144] Thus he had the best opportunities for acquainting
himself with the customs and beliefs of the natives, and it is much to
be regretted that of the ample store of knowledge which he thus acquired
nothing remains but a few scattered notices recorded by travellers to
whom he had verbally communicated them.
[144] G. Vancouver, _Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific
Ocean and round the World_ (London, 1798), ii. 135 _sq._; W.
Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv. 96; Tyerman and Bennet,
_Journal of Voyages and Travels_, i. 377 _sq._; F. D. Bennett,
_Narrative of a Whaling Voyage_, i. 238 _sq._
In 1809, some five years after Lisiansky's visit to Hawaii, the Scotch
sailor Archibald Campbell witnessed one of these Saturnalia held on the
occasion of the death of the king's brother. He says: "The public
mourning that took place on this occasion was of so extraordinary a
nature that had I not been an eye-witness, I could not have given credit
to it. The natives cut out their hair, and went about completely naked.
Many of them, particularly the women, disfigured themselves, by knocking
out their front teeth, and branding their faces with red-hot stones, and
the small end of calabashes, which they held burning to their faces till
a circular mark was produced; whilst, at the same time, a general, I
believe I may say an universal, public prostitution of the women took
place. The queens, and the widow of the deceased, were alone exempted.
When the captain of a ship that lay in the harbour remonstrated with the
king upon these disgraceful scenes, he answered, that such was the law,
and he could not prevent them."[145]
[145] A. Campbell, _Voyage round the World_, pp. 142 _sq._
To these enormities the French navigator L. de Freycinet bore similar
testimony a few years later. He says: "The despair which is affected
after the loss of royal personages or great nobles presents also a
remarkable resemblance to what takes place under similar circumstances
among the inhabitants of the Marianne Islands. When we landed in Owhyhi
[Hawaii], signs of sorrow everywhere presented themselves to our eyes
and witnessed to the excesses that had been committed at the recent
death of Tamehameha. At such a crisis anarchy displays all its horrors:
the laws and the rules of taboo are broken without shame: the prohibited
foods are devoured without scruple, chiefly by the women: the rights of
property are ignored; force becomes the supreme law: the voice of chiefs
is powerless: old enmities are avenged by blood or pillage: in a word,
incredible scenes of disorder, of cruelty, and of lust are everywhere
renewed under the stimulus of impunity. Calm does not begin to reign
again until the heir is definitely invested with the royal power. Such
is the mode in which the common people, freed for the moment from all
restraint, express the grief which they are supposed to feel at the
death of their sovereign."[146]
[146] L. de Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii.
602.
The early missionaries to Hawaii also testified to the disorders which
prevailed on these occasions, though they seem not to have witnessed
them. From their accounts we gather that at such times the rights of
property were as little respected as the chastity of women. "On such an
occasion," says Stewart, "every restraint was cast off, and all were in
the habit of following the impulse of any and every wild passion that
might seize them. Rights of person or of property were no longer
regarded; and he who had the greatest muscular powers committed whatever
depredation he chose, and injured any one he thought proper. Even the
chiefs lost their ordinary pre-eminence, and could exert no influence of
restraint on the excesses of their subjects. It was the time of
redressing private wrongs, by committing violence on the property and
person of an enemy; and everything that any one possessed was liable to
be taken from him. Their grief was expressed by the most shocking
personal outrages, not only by tearing off their clothes entirely, but
by knocking out their eyes and teeth with clubs and stones, and pulling
out their hair, and by burning and cutting their flesh; while
drunkenness, riot, and every species of debauchery continued to be
indulged in for days after the death of the deceased."[147] To the same
effect Ellis writes that "as soon as the chief had expired, the whole
neighbourhood exhibited a scene of confusion, wickedness, and cruelty,
seldom witnessed even in the most barbarous society. The people ran to
and fro without their clothes, appearing and acting more like demons
than human beings; every vice was practised, and almost every species of
crime perpetrated. Houses were burnt, property plundered, even murder
sometimes committed, and the gratification of every base and savage
feeling sought without restraint. Injuries or accidents, long forgotten
perhaps by the offending party, were now revenged with unrelenting
cruelty."[148] According to Jarves, the early historian of Hawaii, on
these occasions no women were exempt from violation except the widows of
the deceased.[149]
[147] C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the Sandwich Islands_, pp.
165 _sq._
[148] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv. 177.
[149] J. J. Jarves, _History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich
Islands_, p. 66. Compare J. Remy, _op. cit._ p. xlvii.
Such outbursts of passion, released from all restraints of custom or
law, are not unknown elsewhere on the occasion of a death. Among the
Ba-ila of Northern Rhodesia it is customary at funerals for the women to
sing lewd songs. "Under ordinary circumstances it would be reckoned
taboo for women to utter such things in the presence of men; but at
funerals all restraints are removed. People do as they like. Grass may
be plucked out of the thatched roofs; the fields may be robbed of the
growing corn; all passions are let loose; and no complaint for damage,
theft, or adultery can be made. This last item used to be the case;
nowadays fines are claimed."[150]
[150] E. W. Smith and A. M. Dale, _The Ila-speaking Peoples of
Northern Rhodesia_ (London, 1920), ii. 113 _sq._
The number of human victims sacrificed at the death of a chief varied
with his rank. For a king of Hawaii the general number would seem to
have been ten or twelve.[151] But when King Kamehameha died in 1819, the
priest declared somewhat differently the custom in regard to human
sacrifice on such an occasion. When the corpse had been removed from the
king's own dwelling to a consecrated house for the performance of the
proper rites, a sacred hog was baked and offered to it by the priest;
for the dead king was now deemed to be a god. Then addressing the chiefs
and the new king, the priest spoke as follows: "I will now make known to
you the rules to be observed respecting persons to be sacrificed on the
burial of his body. If you obtain one man before the corpse is removed,
one will be sufficient; but after it leaves this house four will be
required. If delayed until we carry the corpse to the grave, there must
be ten; but after it is deposited in the grave, there must be fifteen.
To-morrow morning there will be a tabu, and if the sacrifice be delayed
until that time, forty men must die." However, on this occasion, no
human blood was shed, but three hundred dogs were sacrificed.[152] The
victims who were killed at the death of the king, princes, and
distinguished chiefs, and were buried with their remains, belonged to
the lowest class of society. In certain families the obligation of dying
with the different members of such or such a noble house was hereditary,
so that at the birth of a child it was known at whose death he must be
sacrificed. The victims knew their destiny, and their lot seems to have
had no terror for them.[153]
[151] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 145; U. Lisiansky, _op. cit._ p.
122.
[152] J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp. 189, 190. Compare J. Remy,
_op. cit._ pp. 125, 127; H. Bingham, _Residence of Twenty-one
Years in the Sandwich Islands_, p. 71.
[153] O. von Kotzebue, _Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea
and Beering's Straits_ (London, 1821), iii. 247.
At Honaunau, in the island of Hawaii, there was a sort of mausoleum in
which the bones of dead kings and princes were deposited. For some
reason it was spared in the general destruction of pagan monuments which
took place in 1819, and it was still almost intact when the missionary
Ellis visited and described it a few years later. It was a compact
building, twenty-four feet long by sixteen feet wide, built of the most
durable timber, and thatched with leaves. It stood on a bed of lava
jutting out into the sea, and was surrounded by a strong fence, leaving
a paved area in front and at the two ends. Several rudely carved male
and female images of wood were placed on the outside of the enclosure,
some on low pedestals under the shade of a tree, others on high posts
planted on the jutting rocks which overhung the edge of the water. A
number of effigies stood on the fence at unequal distances all around;
but the principal assemblage of idols was at the south-east end of the
enclosed space, where twelve of them stood in a semicircle on a
crescent-shaped basement of stone raised about two feet above the
pavement. Some of them rested on small pedestals, others on pillars
eight or ten feet high. The principal idol, distinguished by the
variety and superiority of the carving on its body and especially
on its head, stood in the middle, the others on either side of it,
"as if perpetual guardians of 'the mighty dead' reposing in the house
adjoining."[154]
[154] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv. 164 _sq._
When a death had taken place, the house in which it occurred, was deemed
defiled, and continued in that state until after the burial. But if the
deceased was a chief, the whole land was polluted, and the heirs sought
a residence in another part of the country, until the corpse was
dissected and the bones tied in a bundle; for when that was done the
season of defilement terminated. Hence on the death of King Kamehameha,
his son and successor, Liholiho, had to retire for a time to another
district.[155]
[155] J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ p. 191; H. Bingham, _Residence of
Twenty-one Years in the Sandwich Islands_, pp. 71 _sq._; J.
Remy, _op. cit._ pp. 127, 129.
Sec. 10. _Fate of the Soul after Death_
The Hawaiians in general believed that the human soul exists after
death, but their notions on the subject were, as usual, vague, confused,
and contradictory. Some said that all the souls of the departed went to
the Po, or place of night, and were there annihilated or eaten by the
gods.[156] According to another account, the souls of the dead that had
no claim to divinity fluttered about their old homes till the moment
arrived when they became the food of the gods. It is not certain, adds
de Freycinet, that they recognised the immortality of the soul in the
case of persons of the lowest class.[157] Others said that some souls
went to the regions of Akea (Wakea) and Miru (Milu), two ancient kings
of Hawaii. Of these two, Akea was reported to have been the first king
of the island. When he died, he descended into the nether world and
there founded a kingdom. His successor on the throne of Hawaii, by name
Miru or Milu, also descended into the underworld at death, and shared
the government of the infernal realm with his predecessor Akea. Their
land is a place of darkness, their food, lizards and butterflies. But
there are streams of water of which they drink, and wide-spreading trees
under which they recline.[158] Milu is described as the Hawaiian Pluto,
the lord of the lower world to whose dominions departed spirits go. His
abode was in the west, hence the ghosts of such as died on the eastern
shore of an island always had to cross to the western shore before they
could set out for their final place of rest in the spirit land. Some
said that Milu had his dwelling under the ocean, and that he was the
prince of wicked spirits.[159] However, according to some accounts, the
two ancient kings, Milu and Akea, ruled over separate regions in the
spirit land, which were tabooed to each other, so that nobody could pass
from the one to the other. Akea or Wakea dwelt in the upper region, and
there the souls of chiefs dwelt with him; whereas Milu occupied the
muddy lower region, and there the souls of common folk abode with him.
In the upper region all was peaceful and orderly, and there persons who
had faithfully complied with the precepts of religion in life were
received after death. On the other hand the lower region, ruled over by
Milu, was noisy and disorderly; evil spirits played their pranks there,
and the souls of the dead subsisted on lizards and butterflies.[160]
When persons recovered from a death-like swoon, it was supposed that
their souls had gone to the underworld and been sent back to earth by
Milu. The best account of the spirit land was given by one who had spent
eight days in it, and on returning to life reported to his family what
he had seen. According to his observations, the spirit land is flat and
fruitful, it is tolerably well lighted, and everything grows there
spontaneously, so that, contrary to some reports, the palace of Milu is
a really delightful place. Milu himself is not married to any one
particular wife; but from time to time he chooses for his consorts the
most beautiful of the female ghosts when they arrive in deadland, and
the women thus honoured are naturally taboo for the male ghosts. All
souls live there in exactly the same state in which they quitted their
bodies. The souls of those who died young, especially of those who fell
in battle, are hale and strong; whereas the souls of those who perished
of disease are sickly and weak, and weak, too, are the souls of such as
died in old age.[161]
[156] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 365 _sq._
[157] L. de Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii.
594.
[158] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 366; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ p.
38; A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, p. 262. Ellis gives
Miru as the form of the name, but the correct Hawaiian form is
Milu; for in the Hawaiian dialect the ordinary Polynesian R is
replaced by L. See E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative
Dictionary_, p. xxiii. In New Zealand and Mangaia the name Miru
was given to the goddess of hell or of the dead. See E. Tregear,
_op. cit._ pp. 243, 244, _s.v._ "Miru."
[159] E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, pp.
243 _sq._, _s.v._ "Miru."
[160] H. T. Cheever, _Life in the Sandwich Islands_ (London,
1851), p. 12; A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, pp. 264
_sqq._; A. Marcuse, _Die Hawaiischen Inseln_, p. 99.
[161] A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, p. 264.
There were three places in the islands from which the ghosts took their
departure for the other world. One was at the northern extremity of the
island of Hawaii; one was at the western end of Maui; and one was at the
southern point of Oahu.[162] According to one account, the ghosts on
their passage to Milu's subterranean realm went westward in the
direction of the setting sun, and either leaped from a rock into the sea
or vanished into a hole in the ground.[163]
[162] H. T. Cheever, _Life in the Sandwich Islands_, p. 12; A.
Marcuse, _Die Hawaiischen Inseln_, p. 99.
[163] A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, p. 265.
But before bidding a last farewell to earth, the soul of the deceased
was believed to linger for a time in the neighbourhood of the grave or
of the house. It had now become an _akua_ or divine spirit, but during
its stay on earth it was dreaded as an _akua-lapu_ or "terrifying
spirit," because it appeared to the living as a spectre or ghost. In
time, however, it grew weaker and weaker and gradually disappeared
altogether, like the other spirits (_akuas_). By that time it had found
a guide to show it the way to Milu's realm, from which there is no
return. Sometimes, however, the guardian god of a family would oppose
the passage of a soul to the other world, and send it back to life, so
that the seemingly dead man recovered.[164] It is said to have been a
firmly established belief that the dead appeared to the living and
communicated with them in dreams.[165] The priests in particular were
favoured with such messages from the other world.[166]
[164] A. Bastian, _op. cit._ p. 266.
[165] L. de Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii.
594.
[166] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv. 367.
A legend tells how a certain chief of Hawaii, sorrowing for the death of
his wife, applied to a priest, who furnished him with a god called
Kane-i-kou-alii (God of Chiefs), to guide him to the nether world of
Milu, whither his beloved spouse had departed. Journeying together, the
god and the man came to the end of the world, where grew a tree, which
split open and allowed them to glide down into the depths. There the god
hid behind a rock and allowed the chief to go on alone, but first he
rubbed stinking oil over the chief's body. On arriving at Milu's palace
the chief found the whole court full of spirits engaged in such noisy
and tumultuous sports, that he could steal in among them unobserved, all
the more because the nearest spirits mistook him for a ghost newly
arrived with the stench of his dead body still on him, so that they
turned away from him in disgust and made uncomplimentary remarks on his
unsavoury condition. When they had played all sorts of games, the chief
suggested that, as a new form of sport, they should all take out their
eyes and throw them in a heap. The suggestion was accepted, and every
one hastened to comply with it. But the chief took care to mark where
the eyes of Milu fell, and snatching them up he hid them in the coco-nut
beaker which he carried with him. As all the spirits were now blind, it
was easy for the chief to make his way to the neighbouring realm of Akea
or Wakea, which was tabooed to the spirits that swarmed in Milu's
kingdom and might not be entered by them. However, after long
negotiations, Milu was allowed to recover his eyes, on condition that
the soul of the chief's wife should be sent back to earth and reunited
to her body, which was happily accomplished.[167]
[167] A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, pp. 265 _sq._
The Hawaiians were not without some notion of a general resurrection of
the dead. When the missionary William Ellis was conversing with some of
the natives on that subject, they said that they had heard of it before
from a native priest named Kapihe, who had lived at their village in the
time of King Kamehameha. The priest told the king that at his death he
would see his ancestors, and that hereafter all the kings, chiefs, and
people of Hawaii would live again. When Ellis asked them how this would
be effected, and with what circumstances it would be attended, whether
they would live again in Hawaii or in Miru (Milu), the Hades of the
Sandwich Islands, they replied that there were two gods, who conducted
the departed spirits of their chiefs to some place in the heavens, where
the souls of kings and chiefs sometimes dwelt, and that afterwards the
two divine conductors returned with the royal and princely souls to
earth, where they accompanied the movements and watched over the
destinies of their survivors. The name of one of these gods was
Kaonohiokala, which means the eyeball of the sun; and the name of the
other was Kuahairo. Now Kapihe was priest to the latter god, and
professed to have received a revelation, in accordance with which he
informed King Kamehameha that, when the monarch should depart this life,
the god Kuahairo would carry his spirit to the sky and afterwards
accompany it back to earth again, whereupon his body would be restored
to life and youth; that he would have his wives again and resume his
government in Hawaii; that at the same time the existing generation
would see and know their parents and ancestors, and that all the people
who had died would rise again from the dead.[168] It is to be feared,
however, that the priest was a deceiver; for King Kamehameha has not yet
come to life again, and up to the present time the general resurrection
has not taken place in Hawaii.
[168] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv. 144 _sq._
That must conclude what I have to say about the belief in immortality
and the worship of the dead in Polynesia, The notions which the
Polynesians entertained on this subject cannot but strike a civilised
European as childish, while the customs which they based on them must
appear to him in great part foolish, even where they were not barbarous
and cruel. How far such childish notions and foolish customs tend to
confirm or to refute the widespread, almost universal, belief in the
survival of the human soul after death, is a question which I must leave
my readers to answer for themselves.
NOTE
TABOO AMOUNG THE MAORIS
The power which Maori chiefs possessed of imposing, or at all
events of enforcing, a taboo seems not to have been quite so absolute
as might perhaps be inferred from the statement in the text.[1] We
are told that the power of the taboo mainly depended on the influence
of the person who imposed it. If it were put on by a great
chief, it would not be broken, but a powerful man often violated the
taboo of an inferior. A chief, for example, would frequently lay one
of these sacred interdicts on a road or a river, and then nobody
would dare to go by either, unless he felt himself strong enough to
set the chief's taboo at defiance. The duration of the taboo was
arbitrary, and depended on the will of the person who imposed it.
Similarly with the extent to which the prohibition applied: sometimes
it was limited to a particular object, sometimes it embraced
many: sometimes it was laid on a single spot, at other times it
covered a whole district.[2]
[1] Above, p. 47.
[2] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its
Inhabitants_, Second Edition (London, 1870), p. 168. Compare J.
Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage autour du Monde et a la recherche de
la Perouse, Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 530.
To render a place taboo a chief had only to tie one of his old
garments to a pole and stick it up on the spot which he proposed
to make sacred, while at the same time he declared that the prohibited
area was part of his own body, such as his backbone, or
that it bore the name of one of his ancestors. In the latter case
all the persons descended from that particular ancestor were in
duty bound to rally to the defence of the chief's taboo, and the
more distant the ancestor, and the more numerous his descendants,
the greater the number of the champions thus pledged to the
support of the family honour. Hence the longer a man's pedigree,
the better chance he stood of maintaining his taboo against all
comers, for the larger was the troop of adherents whom he enlisted
in its defence. Thus chiefs, with family trees which reached backward
to the gods, were in a far better position to make good
their arbitrary interdicts than mere ordinary mortals, who hardly
remembered their grandfathers. In this as in other respects the
taboo was essentially an aristocratic institution.[3]
[3] R. Taylor, _op. cit._ p. 169.
INDEX
Abortions, spirits of, dreaded, 49 _n._^1
Adam, the Hawaiian, 393
Adoption among the Marquesans, 339
Aesculapius, the Hawaiian, 398
_Afiatouca_, burial-place, 102, 103
Agriculture of Maoris, 8 _sq._;
of the Tongans, 59 _sq._;
Samoan, 164 _sqq._;
of the Hervey Islanders, 221 _sq._;
of the Society Islanders, 249;
of the Hawaiians, 378 _sq._
Air, gods of the, 277
_Aitu_, Samoan gods embodied in visible objects, animals, birds, etc.,
182, 201, 207
Akaanga, a god, spreads a net to catch ghosts, 242, 244
Akea (Wakea), king of the nether world, 427, 428, 430
_Akua_, god, in the Hawaiian dialect, equivalent to _atua_, 392, 398
_Akuas_, spirits, 429
Alai Valoo, a Tongan god, 74
Alo Alo, a Tongan god, 71 _sq._
Altars in the Society Islands, 291
Amable, Father, Catholic missionary, 367
Ambler, English sailor, 84
Amusements of the Marquesans, 339 _sqq._
Ancestors worshipped by Maoris, 32 _sqq._;
skulls of, brought out at marriages, 288, 311
Ancestral spirits watch over the living, 33;
do not follow their kinsfolk among strangers, 34;
cause disease, 49;
worshipped by Society Islanders, 300, 315;
guardians of newly wedded pairs, 311
Angas, G. F., 48 _n._^1
Animals, gods in form of, 66, 92 _sqq._, 182 _sqq._;
deified spirits of men resident in, 227 _sq._;
worshipped in Hawaii, 401 _sqq._
Anointing a king of Samoa, 177
Anuanu, vale of, 376 _n._^2
_Ao_, titles of chiefs in Samoa, 172 _sq._
Apolima, Samoan island, 149, 151
Apparitions dreaded, 205, 217
Araia, 241, 242
Aremauku, starting-place for spirit-land, 239
Areois, Society of the, 259 _sqq._
_Arii taboo_, sacred chiefs, 387
_Ariki_, sacred chief, 41;
king, 224
Astronomy of priests, 293
_Atua_, the Polynesian word for god or spirit, 35, 36, 37, 41, 42, 44,
46, 64 _n._^3, 89, 277, 322, 323, 348, 349.
_Compare akua, eatooa, etua_
_Atuas_, consecrated feathers called, 291;
inspired priests called, 294;
great national gods, distinguished from _oramatuas tiis_, the
spirits of dead relatives, 324
Auraka, a burial cavern, 233, 237, 238, 241
Avaiki, subterranean region, home of the dead, 238, 239, 241, 243, 244
Axes or adzes of stone, 61, 180, 233, 251, 335, 382
Ba-ila, their licence at funerals, 425
Baessler, A., 221 _n._^1, 279 _n._^1, 285, 286, 374
Baganda, superstition as to twins among the, 270 _sq._
Baldness as penalty of impiety, 95;
the penalty of breach of taboo, 209 _sq._