Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands Part 27

When I was in danger at Honuakaha, Ye who desire long lances And despise those that are small, Too small a place was Kauai, Your dwelling; Small was the kalukalu of Puna.

Puna shall belong to Kaheleeha, Kona to Kalaumaki, Koolau to Makuakeke, Kohala to Kaamalama, Ha.n.a.lei to Kanewahineikialoha.

The poverty of Kauluiki and his friends grieves me.

Farewell, little ones caught in the net!

Here ends all that we were able to collect of this original and very ancient poetry. Tradition relates that Kawelo became king of Kauai, and reigned over that island to an advanced age.

When old age had lessened his force, and weakened his power, his subjects seized him and cast him from the top of a tremendous precipice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TARO PLANT.]

NOTES.

[Additions by the translator are inclosed in brackets.]

(1.) The name of Alapai is not found in the genealogy published by David Malo. Nevertheless, we have positive information from our old man and other distinguished natives that Alapai was supreme chief of Hawaii immediately before Kalaniopuu.

(2.) Poi is a paste made of the tuberous root of the kalo (_Colocasia antiquorum_, var. _esculenta_, Schott.). More than thirty varieties of kalo are cultivated on the Hawaiian Islands, most of them requiring a marshy soil, but a few will grow in the dry earth of the mountains. The tubers of all the kinds are acrid, except one, which is so mild that it may be eaten raw. After it is freed from acridity by baking, the kalo is pounded until reduced to a kind of paste which is eaten cold, under the name of poi. It is the princ.i.p.al food of the natives, with whom it takes the place of bread. The kalo leaves are eaten like spinach (_luau_), and the flowers (spathe and spadix), cooked in the leaves of the cordyline (_C. terminalis_, H.B.K.), form a most delicious dish. It is not only as poi that the tubers are eaten; they are sliced and fried like potatoes, or baked whole upon hot stones. It is in this last form that I have eaten them in my expeditions. A tuber which I carried in my pocket has often been my only provision for the day.

In Algeria, a kind of kalo is cultivated under the name of _chou caraibe_, whose tubers are larger, but less feculent. [In China, smaller and much less delicately flavored tubers are common in the markets.]

(3.) The Hawaiians have always been epicures in the article of dog-meat.

The kind they raise for their feasts is small and easily fatted, like pig.

They are fed only on vegetables, especially kalo, to make their flesh more tender and delicately flavored. Sometimes these dogs are suckled by the women at the expense of their infants. The ones that have been thus fed at a woman's breast are called _ilio poli_, and are most esteemed.

(4.) The Kahualii are still genuine parasites in the Hawaiian nation. They are, to use the language of a Catholic missionary, the Cretans of whom Paul speaks: "Evil beasts, slow bellies;" a race wholly in subjection to their appet.i.te, living from day to day, always reclining on the mat, or else riding horses furiously; having no more serious occupation than to drink, eat, sleep, dance, tell stories; giving themselves up, in a word, to all pleasures, lawful and unlawful, without scruple or distinction of persons. The Kahualii are very lazy. They are ashamed of honest labor, thinking they would thus detract from their rank as chiefs. Islanders of this caste are almost never seen in the service of Europeans. When their patron, the high chief of the family, has made them feel the weight of his displeasure, these inferior chiefs become notoriously miserable, worse than the lowest of the Kanakas (generic name of the natives).

(5.) [Kamehameha IV. and V. were only n.o.ble through their mother, Kinau, the wife of Kekuanaoa. They were adopted by Kamehameha III.

(Kauikeaouli).]

(6.) The old historian Namiki, an intelligent man, and well versed in the secrets of Hawaiian antiquity, has left precious unedited doc.u.ments, which have fallen into our hands. His son, Kuikauai, a school-master at Kailua, one of the true historico-sacerdotal race, has given us a genealogy of his ancestors which ascends without break to Paao.

(7.) A tradition exists, mentioned by Jarves, that Paao landed at Kohoukapu before the reign of Umi. According to the same author, Paao was not a Kanaka, but a man of the Caucasian race. However this may be, every one agrees that Paao was a foreigner, and a _naauao_ (scholar; literally, a man with enlightened entrails, the Hawaiians placing the mind and affections in the bowels).

(8.) Hina, according to tradition, brought into the world several sons, who dug the palis of Hulaana. It may be asked whether _Hina_, which means _a fall_, does not indicate a deluge (Kaiakahinalii of the Hawaiians), or some sort of cataclysm, and whether the islanders have not personified events.

(9.) It is, however, improbable that there were ever genuine sorcerers among the Hawaiians, in the sense that word has among Christians. It may have happened, and indeed it happens every day, that people die after the machinations of the kahuna-anaana; but it is more reasonable to refer these tragical deaths to the use of poison, than to attribute them to the incantations of the sorcerers. It is moreover known that there are on the group many poisons furnished by trees, by shrubs and sea-weeds; and the kahuna-anaana understood perfectly these vegetable poisons. The many known examples of their criminal use inclines us to believe that these kahuna were rather poisoners than magicians. [Kalaipahoa, the poison-G.o.d, was believed to have been carved out of a very poisonous wood, a few chips of which would cause death when mixed with the food.]

(10.) During the summer of the year 1852, while I was exploring the island of Kauai, I was near being the victim, under remarkable circ.u.mstances, of an old kahuna named Lilihae. I was then residing under the humble roof of the Mission at Moloaa. Lilihae had been baptized, and professed Christianity, although it was well known that he clung to the wors.h.i.+p of his G.o.ds. He was introduced to me by the missionaries as a man who, by his memory and profession, could add to my historical notes. I indeed obtained from him most precious material, and in a moment of good nature the old man even confided to me the secret of certain prayers that the priests alone should know. I wrote down several formulae at his dictation, only promising to divulge nothing before his death. The old man evidently considered himself perjured, for after his revelations he came no more to see me.

Some days had pa.s.sed after our last interview, and I thought no more of him. All at once I lost my appet.i.te and fell sick. I could eat nothing without experiencing a nausea, followed immediately by continual vomiting.

Two missionaries and my French servant, who partook of my food, exhibited almost the same symptoms. Not suspecting the true cause of these ailments, I attributed them to climate and the locality, and especially to the pestilent winds which had brought an epidemic ophthalmia among the natives. Things remained in this condition a fortnight without improvement, when one morning at breakfast a marmalade of bananas was served. I had hardly touched it to my lips when the nausea returned with greater violence; I could eat nothing, and soon a salivation came on which lasted several hours. In the mean while a poor Breton who had established himself on the island some years ago, and had conformed to savage life, came to see me. Bananas were scarce in the neighborhood, and he found that I had a large supply of them, and I offered him a bunch. Fortin, it was his name, on his way back to his cabin with my present, broke a banana off the bunch and commenced to eat it. He felt under his tooth a hard substance, which he caught in his hand. To his great surprise, it was a sort of blue and white stone. He soon felt ill, and fortunately was able to vomit what he had swallowed. Furious, and accusing me of a criminal intention, he returned to my quarters to demand an explanation. I examined the substance taken from the banana, and found that it was blue vitriol and corrosive sublimate. The presence of such substances in a banana was far from natural. I took other bunches of my supply, and found in several bananas the same poisons, which had been skillfully introduced under the skin. After some inquiries I found, from Fortin's own wife, that similar drugs had been sometimes seen in the hands of Lilihae, who had bought them of a druggist in Honolulu for the treatment of syphilis. The riddle was at once completely solved. A few days pa.s.sed, and Lilihae killed himself by poison, convinced that all his attempts could not kill me. In his native superst.i.tion, he was satisfied that the G.o.ds would not forgive his indiscretion, since they withheld from him the power of taking my life; and he could devise no simpler way to escape their anger, and the vengeance of my own G.o.d, than to take himself the poison against which I had rebelled. It was discovered that Lilihae had, in the first place, tried native poisons on me, and finding them ineffective, he thought that my foreign nature might require exotic poisons, which he had accordingly served in the bananas destined for my table. He went, without my knowledge, into the cook-house where my native servants kept my provisions, and, under pretext of chatting with them, found means to poison my food. The unfortunate kahuna died fully persuaded that I was a more powerful sorcerer than he. It was to be feared that, when he discovered his impotency, he would intrust the execution of his designs to his fellows, as is common among sorcerers; but his suicide fortunately removed this sword of Damocles which hung over my head.

(11.) At the present day, useless old men are no longer destroyed, nor are the children, whom venereal diseases have rendered very rare, suffocated; but they do eat lice, fleas, and gra.s.shoppers. Flies inspire the same disgust, and the women still give their b.r.e.a.s.t.s to dogs, pigs, and young kids.

(12.) [This operation is certainly still practiced extensively, if not universally; and the ancient form of _kakiomaka_, or slitting the prepuce, has given way, generally, to the _okipoepoe_, or the complete removal of the foreskin. The operation in a case that came under my notice on the island of Oahu was performed with a bamboo, and attended with a feast and rejoicings; the subject was about nine years old.]

(13.) The islanders, who admire and honor great eaters, have generally stomachs of a prodigious capacity. Here is an example: To compensate my servants, some seven in number, for the hards.h.i.+ps I had made them endure on Mauna Kea, I presented them with an ox that weighed five hundred pounds uncooked. They killed him in the morning, and the next evening there was not a morsel left. One will be less astonished at this when I say that these ogres, when completely stuffed, promote vomitings by introducing their fingers into their throats, and return again to the charge. [It is equally true that the Kanakas will go for a long time without much food, and it can not be said they are a race of gluttons.]

(14.) Awa (_Piper methystic.u.m_) grows spontaneously in the mountains of the Hawaiian group. The natives formerly cultivated it largely [and since the removal of the strict prohibition on its culture fields are not uncommon]. From the roots the natives prepare a very warm and slightly narcotic intoxicating drink. It is made thus: women chew the roots, and having well masticated them, spit them, well charged with saliva, into a calabash used for the purpose. They add a small portion of water, and press the juice from the chewed roots by squeezing them in their hands.

This done, the liquid is strained through cocoa-nut fibres to separate all the woody particles it may contain, and the awa is in a drinkable state.

The quant.i.ty drunk by each person varies from a quarter to half a litre (two to four gills). This liquor is taken just before supper, or immediately after. The taste is very nauseous, disagreeable to the last degree. One would suppose he was drinking thick dish-water of a greenish-yellow color. But its effects are particularly pleasant. An irresistible sleep seizes you, and lasts twelve, twenty-four hours, or even more, according to the dose, and the temperament of the individual.

Delicious dreams charm this long torpor.

Often when the dose is too great or too small, sleep does not follow; but in its place an intoxication, accompanied by fantastic ideas, and a strong desire to skip about, although one can not for a moment balance himself on his legs. I felt these last symptoms for sixty hours the first time I tasted this Polynesian liquor. The effects of awa on the const.i.tution of habitual drinkers are disastrous. The body becomes emaciated, and the skin is covered, as in leprosy, with large scales, which fall off, and leave lasting white spots, which often become ulcers.

(15.) This usage still exists in certain families toward great personages or people they wish especially to honor; but it is disappearing every day. Formerly when a Kanaka received a visit from a friend of a remote district, women were always comprised in the exchange of presents on that occasion. To fail in this was regarded as an unpardonable insult. The thing was so inwrought in their customs, that the wife of the visitor did not wait the order of her husband to surrender her person to her host.

(16.) [Liliha was the wife of Boki, governor of Oahu under Kamehameha II.]

(17.) The most curious thing which attracts the traveler's eye in the ruins of the temples built by Umi is the existence of a mosaic pavement, in the form of a regular cross, which extends throughout the whole length and breadth of the inclosure. This symbol is not found in monuments anterior to this king, nor in those of later times. One can not help seeing in this an evidence of the influence of the two s.h.i.+pwrecked white men whose advent we have referred to. Can we not conclude, from the existence of these Christian emblems, that about the time when the great Umi filled the group with his name, the Spanish or Portuguese s.h.i.+pwrecked persons endeavored to introduce the wors.h.i.+p of Christ to these islands?

Kama of Waihopua (Ka'u) has given us, through Napi, an explanation of the four compartments observed in the temple of Umi, represented by the following figure; but if we accept this explanation of Kama, it is as difficult to understand why this peculiarity is observed in the monuments of Umi, and not in any other heiau; as, for example, Kupalaha, situated in the territory of Makapala; Mokini, at Puuepa; Aiaikamahina, toward the sea at Kukuipahu; Kuupapaulau, inland at Kukuipahu-mauka. The remains of these four remarkable temples are found in the district of Kohala. Not the least vestige of the crucial division is to be seen. The G.o.d Kaili [see the first page of the Appendix], a word which means a theft, was not known before the time of Umi. [The temple of Iliiliopae, at the mouth of Mapulehu Valley, on Molokai, is divided as in the diagram, and the same is true of many other heiau; and as it seems to have been the usual form, it is not probable that the form of the cross had any thing to do with it.]

+----------------------------------+------------------+ Place of the G.o.d Kaili. Place of the G.o.d Ku. +----------------------------------+------------------+ Place of the priest Lono. Place of the chief Umi. +----------------------------------+------------------+

(18.) It does not seem improbable that a premature death removed the foreigner who could have given Umi the idea of an art until then unknown; and had the foreigner lived longer, these curious stones would have served to build an edifice of which the native architects knew not the proportions.

(19.) [The cities of Refuge were a remarkable feature of Hawaiian antiquity. There were two of these _Pahonua_ on Hawaii. The one at Honaunau, as measured by Rev. W. Ellis, was seven hundred and fifteen feet in length and four hundred and four feet wide. Its walls were twelve feet high and fifteen feet thick, formerly surmounted by huge images, which stood four rods apart, on their whole circuit. Within this inclosure were three large heiau, one of which was a solid truncated pyramid of stone one hundred and twenty-six feet by sixty, and ten feet high. Several ma.s.ses of rock weighing several tons are found in the walls some six feet from the ground. During war they were the refuge of all non-combatants. A white flag was displayed at such times a short distance from the walls, and here all refugees were safe from the pursuing conquerors. After a short period they might return unmolested to their homes, the divine protection of Keawe, the tutelary deity, still continuing with them.]

[Footnote A: The original _Recits d'un Vieux Sauvage pour servir a l'histoire ancienne de Hawaii_ was read on the 15th of December, 1857, to the Society of Agriculture, Commerce, Science, and Arts of the Department of the Marne, of which M. Remy was a corresponding member, and published at Chalons-sur-Marne in 1859. The translation is perfectly literal, and the Mele of Kawelo has been translated directly from the Hawaiian, M.

Remy's translation being often too free. A portion of this work was translated several years since by President W.D. Alexander, of Oahu College, and published in _The Friend_, at Honolulu, by William T.

Brigham.]

[Footnote B: This was not true. Liholiho carried some to England, and the rest were probably hidden in some of the many caverns on the sh.o.r.es of Kealakeakua Bay.--_Trans_.]

[Footnote C: The Hawaiian Islands were discovered in 1555, by Juan Gaetano, or Gaytan.--_Trans_.]

[Footnote D: Kaleikini may be considered the Hawaiian Hercules.]

[Footnote E: The more common form is, _Koele na iwi o Hua ma i ka la_--Dry are the bones of Hua and his company in the sun.--_Trans_.]

[Footnote F: On which the bark is beaten to make kapa.]

[Footnote G: The Hawaiians have a tradition of an ancient deluge, called Kaiakahinalii.]

THE END.