Primitive Love and Love-Stories Part 55

In an interesting book called _The Legends and Myths of Hawaii,_ by King Kalakaua, there is a tale called "Kaala, the Flower of Lanai; A Story of the Spouting Cave of Palikaholo," which also involves the use of a submarine cave, but has a tragic ending. It takes the King fifteen pages to tell it, but the following condensed version retains all the details of the original that relate directly to love:

Beneath a bold rocky bluff on the coast of Lanai there is a cave whose only entrance is through the vortex of a whirlpool. Its floor gradually rises from the water, and is the home of crabs, polypi, sting-rays, and other noisome creatures of the deep, who find here temporary safety from their larger foes. It was a dangerous experiment to dive into this cave. One of the few who had done it was Oponui, a minor chief of Lanai Island. He had a daughter named Kaala, a girl of fifteen, who was so beautiful that her admirers were counted by the hundreds.

It so happened that the great monarch Kamehameha I. paid a visit to Lanai about this time (near the close of the eighteenth century). He was received with enthusiasm, and among those who brought offerings of flowers was the fair Kaala. As she scattered the flowers she was seen by Kaaialii, one of the King's favorite lieutenants. "He was of chiefly blood and bearing" with sinewy limbs and a handsome face, and when he stopped to look into the eyes of Kaala and tell her that she was beautiful, she thought the words, although they had been frequently spoken to her by others, had never sounded so sweetly to her before. He asked her for a simple flower and she twined a _lei_ for his neck. He asked her for a smile, and she looked up into his face and gave him her heart.

After they had seen each other a few times the lieutenant went to his chief and said:

"I love the beautiful Kaala, daughter of Oponui. Give her to me for a wife."

"The girl is not mine to give," replied the King. "We must be just. I will send for her father. Come to-morrow."

Oponui was not pleased when he was brought before the King and heard his request. He had once, in war, narrowly escaped death at the hand of Kaaialii and now felt that he would rather feed his daughter to the sharks than give her to the man who had sought his life. Still, as it would have been unwise to openly oppose the King's wishes, he pretended to regard the proposal with favor, but regretted that his daughter was already promised to another man. He was, however, willing, he added, to let the girl go to the victor in a contest with bare hands between the two suitors.

The rival suitor was Mailou, a huge, muscular savage known as the "bone breaker." Kaala hated and feared him and had taken every occasion to avoid him; but as her father was anxious to secure so strong an ally, his desire finally had prevailed against her aversion.

Kaaialii was less muscular than his rival, but he had superior cunning, and thus it happened that in the fierce contest which followed he tripped up the "bone-breaker,"

seized his hair as he fell, placed his knees against his back, and broke his spine.

Breaking away from her disappointed father Kaala sprang through the crowd and threw herself into the victor's arms.

The king placed their hands together and said: "You have won her n.o.bly. She is now your wife. Take her with you."

But Oponui's wrath was greater than before, and he plotted revenge. On the morning after the marriage he visited Kaala and told her that her mother was dangerously ill at Mahana and wanted to see her before she died. The daughter followed him, though her husband had some misgivings. Arriving at the seash.o.r.e, the father told her, with a wild glare in his eyes, that he had made up his mind to hide her down among the G.o.ds of the sea until the hated Kaaialii had left the island, when he would bring her home again. She screamed and tried to escape, but he gathered the struggling girl in his arms and jumped with her into the circling waters above the Spouting Cave. Sinking a fathom or so, they were sucked upward into the cave, where he placed her just above the reach of the water among the crabs and eels, with scarcely light enough to see them. He offered to take her back if she would promise to accept the love of the chief of Olowalu and allow Kaaialii to see her in the embrace of another. But she declared she would sooner perish in the cave. Having warned her that if she attempted to escape she would surely be dashed against the rocks and become the food of the sharks, he returned to the sh.o.r.e.

Kaaialii awaited his wife's return with his heart aching for her warm embrace. He recalled the sullen look of Oponui, and panic seized him. He climbed a hill to watch for her return and his heart beat with joy when he saw a girl returning toward him. He thought it was Kaala, but it was Ua, the friend of Kaala and almost her equal in beauty. Ua told him that his wife had not been seen at her mother's, and as her father had been seen taking her through the forest, it was feared she would not be allowed to return.

With an exclamation of rage Kaaialii started down toward the coast. Here he ran across Oponui and tried to seize him by the throat; but Oponui escaped and ran into a temple, where he was safe from an attack. In a paroxysm of rage and disappointment Kaaialii threw himself upon the ground cursing the _tabu_ that barred him from his enemy. His friends took him to his hut, where Ua sought to soothe and comfort him. But he talked and thought alone of Kaala, and after partaking hastily of food, started out to find her. Of every one he met he inquired for Kaala, and called her name in the deep valleys and at the hilltops.

Near the sacred spring of Kealia he met a white-haired priest who took pity on him and told him where Kaala had been hidden. "The place is dark and her heart is full of terror. Hasten to her, but tarry not, or she will be the food of the creatures of the sea."

Thanking the priest, Kaaialii hastened to the bluff. With the words "Kaala, I come!" he sprang into the whirlpool and disappeared. The current sucked him up and suddenly he found himself in a chilly cave, feeling his way on the slimy floor by the dim light. Suddenly a low moan reached his ear. It was the voice of Kaala. She was lying near him, her limbs bruised with fruitless attempts to leave the cave, and no longer strong enough to drive away the crabs that were feeding upon her quivering flesh. He lifted her up and bore her toward the light. She opened her eyes and whispered, "I am dying, but I am happy, for you are here." He told her he would save her, but she made no response, and when he put his hand on her heart he found she was dead.

For hours he held her in his arms. At length he was aroused by the splas.h.i.+ng of water. He looked up and there was Ua, the gentle and beautiful friend of Kaala, and behind her the King Kamehameha. Kaaialii rose and pointed to the body before him. "I see," said the King, softly, "the girl is dead. She could have no better burial-place. Come, Kaaialii, let us leave it." But Kaaialii did not move. For the first time in his life he refused to obey his King. "What! would you remain here?" said the monarch. "Would you throw your life away for a girl? There are others as fair. Here is Ua; she shall be your wife, and I will give you the valley of Palawai. Come, let us leave at once lest some angry G.o.d close the entrance against us!"

"Great chief," replied Kaaialii, "you have always been kind and generous to me, and never more so than now. But hear me; my life and strength are gone. Kaala was my life, and she is dead. How can I live without her? You are my chief. You have asked me to leave this place and live. It is the first request of yours I have ever disobeyed. It shall be the last!" Then seizing a stone, with a swift, strong blow he crushed in brow and brain, and fell dead upon the body of Kaala.

A wail of anguish went up from Ua. Kamehameha spoke not, moved not. Long he gazed upon the bodies before him; and his eye was moist and his strong lips quivered as, turning away at last, he said: "He loved her indeed!"

Wrapped in _kapa_, the bodies were laid side by side and left in the cavern; and there to-day may be seen the bones of Kaala, the flower of Lanai, and of Kaaialii, her knightly lover, by such as dare seek the pa.s.sage to them through the whirlpool of Palikaholo.

IS THIS ROMANTIC LOVE?

These two Polynesian cave-stories are of interest from several points of view. In Waitz-Gerland (VI., 125), the Tongan tale is referred to as "a very romantic love-story," and if the author had known the Hawaiian story he would have had even more reason to call it romantic.

But is either of these tales a story of romantic love? Is there evidence in them of anything but strong selfish pa.s.sion or eagerness to possess one of the other s.e.x? Is there any trace of the _higher_ phases of love--of unselfish attachment, sympathy, adoration, as of a superior being, purity, gallantry, self-sacrifice? Not one. The Hawaiian Kaaialii does indeed smash his own skull when he finds his bride is dead. But that is a very different thing from sacrificing himself to save or please _her_. We have seen, too, on how slight a provocation these islanders will commit suicide, an act which proves a weak intellect rather than strong feeling. A man capable of feeling true love would have brains enough to restrain himself from committing such a silly and useless act in a fit of disappointment.

There is every reason to believe, moreover, that these stories have been embroidered by the narrators. In the vast majority of cases the men who have had an opportunity to note down primitive love-stories unfortunately did not hesitate to disguise their native flavor with European sauce in order to make them more palatable to the general public. This makes them interesting stories, made realistic by the use of local color, but utterly mars them for the scientific epicure who often relishes most what is caviare to the general. Take that Hawaiian story. It is supposed to be told by King Kalakaua himself. At least, the book of _Legend and Myths_ has "By His Hawaiian Majesty" on the t.i.tle page. Beneath those words we read that the book was edited by the Hon. E.M. Daggett; and in the preface acknowledgment is made to as many as eight persons "for material in the compilation of many of the legends embraced in this volume." Thus there are ten cooks, and the question arises, "did they carefully and conscientiously tell these stories exactly as related to them by aboriginal Hawaiians, free from missionary influences, or did they flavor the broth with European condiments?" To this question no answer is given in the book, but there is plenty of evidence that either the King himself, in order to make his people as much like ours as possible, or his foreign a.s.sistants, embellished them with sentimental details. To take only two significant points: it sounds very sentimental to be told that the girl Ua, after Kaaialii had jumped into the vortex "wailed upon the winds a requiem of love and grief," but a native Hawaiian has no more notion of the word requiem than he has of a syllogism. Then again, the story is full of expressions like this: "His _heart beat with joy_, for he thought she was Kaala;" or "He asked her for a smile and she _gave him her heart_." Such phrases mislead not only the general reader but careless anthropologists into the belief that the lower races feel and express their love just as we do. As a matter of fact, Polynesians do not attribute feelings to the heart. Ellis (II., 311), could not even make them understand what he was talking about when he tried to explain to them our ideas regarding the heart as a seat of moral feeling. The fact that our usage in this respect is a mere convention, not based on physiological facts, makes it all the more reprehensible to falsify psychology by adorning aboriginal tales with the borrowed plumes and phrases of civilization.

VAGARIES OF HAWAIIAN FONDNESS

It is quite possible that the events related in the cave-story did occur; but a Hawaiian, untouched by missionary influences, would have told them very differently. It is very much more likely, however, that if a Hawaiian had found himself in the predicament of Kaaialii, he would have sympathized with the king's contemptuous speech: "What!

would you throw your life away for a girl? There are others as fair.

Here is Ua; she shall be your wife." This would have been much more in accordance with what observers have told us of Hawaiian "heart-affairs." "The marriage tie is loose," says Ellis (IV., 315), "and the husband can dismiss his wife on any occasion." "The loves of the Hawaiians are usually ephemeral," says "Haole," the author of _Sandwich Island Notes_ (267). The widow seldom or never plants a solitary flower over the grave of her lord. She may once visit the mound that marks the repose of his ashes, but never again, unless by accident. It not unfrequently happens that a second husband is selected while the remains of the first are being conveyed to his "long home." Hawaiian women seem more attached to pigs and puppies than to their husbands or even their children. The writer just quoted says whole volumes might be written concerning the "silly affection"

of the women for animals. They carry them in their bosoms, and do not hesitate to suckle them. It is one of their duties to drive pigs to the market, and one day "Haole" came across a group of native women who had taken off their only garments and soaked them in water to cool their dear five hundred-pounder, while others were fanning him! As late as 1881 Isabella Bird wrote (213) that

"the crime of infanticide, which formerly prevailed to a horrible extent, has long been extinct; but the love of pleasure and the dislike of trouble which partially actuated it are apparently still stronger among the women than the maternal instinct, and they do not take the trouble necessary to rear infants.... I have nowhere seen such tenderness lavished upon infants as upon the pet dogs that the women carry about with them."

HAWAIIAN MORALS

Hawaiians did not treat women as brutally as Fijians do; yet how far they were from respecting, not to speak of adoring, them, is obvious from the contemptuous and selfish taboos which forbade women, on penalty of death, to eat any of the best and commonest articles of food, such as bananas, cocoanuts, pork, turtle; or refused them permission to eat with their lords and masters, or to share in divine wors.h.i.+p, because their touch would pollute the offerings to the G.o.ds.

The grossness of the Hawaiian erotic taste is indicated by "Haole's"

reference (123) to "the immense corpulency of some of the old Hawaiian queens, a feature which, in those days, was deemed the _ne plus ultra_ of female beauty." Incest was permitted to the chiefs, and the people vied with their rulers in the grossest sensuality.

"Nearly every night, with the gathering darkness, crowds would retire to some favorite spot, where, amid every species of sensual indulgence, they would revel until the morning twilight" (412).

"In Hawaii, whether the woman was married or single, she would have been thought very churlish and boorish if she refused any favor asked by a male friend of the family,"

says E. Tregear;[189] and in Dibble's _History of the Sandwich Islands_ (126-27) we read:

"For husbands to interchange wives, or for wives to interchange husbands, was a common act of friends.h.i.+p, and persons who would not do this were not considered on good terms of sociability. For a man or a woman to refuse a solicitation for illicit intercourse was considered an act of meanness, and so thoroughly was this sentiment wrought into their minds that, even to the present day, they seem not to rid themselves of the feeling of meanness in making a refusal."

The Hawaiian word for marriage is _hoao_, meaning "trial." It was also customary for a married woman to have an acknowledged lover known as _punula_. The word _hula hula_ is familiar the world over as the name of an improper dance, but it is nothing to what it used to be. The famous cave Niholua was consecrated to it. In past generations

"warriors came here to revel with their paramours. The Tartarean gloom was slightly relieved by torches ingeniously formed of strings of the candle-nut.

Beneath this rugged roof, and amid this darkness--their faces strangely reflecting the feeble torch-light--and divested of every particle of apparel, they promiscuously united in dancing the _hula hula_ (the licentious dance).... Wives were exchanged, and so were concubines; fathers despoiled their own daughters, and brothers deemed it no crime to perpetrate incest."

Waitz-Gerland (VI., 459) cite Wise as attesting that "in 1848 the missionaries gave up a girls' school, because it was impossible to preserve the virtue of their pupils," and Steen Bill wrote that in 1846 seventy per cent of all the crimes punished were of a lewd character, and that on the whole island there was not a chaste girl of eleven years of age. Isabella Bird wrote (169) that "the Hawaiian women have no notions of virtue as we understand it, and if there is to be any future for this race it must come through a higher morality."

THE HELEN OF HAWAII

As there was practically no difference between married and unmarried women in Hawaii, it is not strange that cases of abduction of wives should have occurred. The following story, related in Kalakana's book, probably suffered no great change at the hands of the recorder. I give a condensed version of it:

In the twelfth century, the close of the second era of migration from Tahiti and Samoa, there lived a girl named Hina, noted as the most beautiful maiden on the islands. She married the chief Hakalanileo, and had two children by him. Reports of her beauty had excited the fancy of Kaupeepee, the chief of Haupu. He went to test the reports with his own eyes, and saw that they were not exaggerated. So he hovered around the coast of Hilo watching for a chance to abduct her. It came at last.

One day, after sunset, when the moon was s.h.i.+ning, Hina repaired to the beach with her women to take a bath. A signal was given--it is thought by the first wife of Hina's husband--and, not long after, a light but heavily manned canoe dashed through the surf and shot in among the bathers. The women screamed and started for the sh.o.r.e. Suddenly a man leaped from the canoe into the water. There was a brief struggle, a stifled scream, a sharp word of command, and a moment later Kaupeepee was again in the canoe with the nude and frantic Hina in his arms. The boatmen lost no time to start; they rowed all night and in the morning reach Haupu.

Hina had been wrapped in folds of soft _kapa_, and she spent the night sobbing, not knowing what was to become of her. When sh.o.r.e was reached she was borne to the captor's fortress and given an apartment provided with every luxury. She fell asleep from fatigue, and when she awoke and realized where she was it was not without a certain feeling of pride that she reflected that her beauty had led the famous and mighty Kaupeepee to abduct her.

After partaking of a hearty breakfast, she sent for him and he came promptly. "What can I do for you ?" he asked. "Liberate me!" was her answer. "Return me to my children!" "Impossible!" was the firm reply. "Then kill me," she exclaimed. The chief now told her how he had left home specially to see her, and found her the most beautiful woman in Hawaii. He had risked his life to get her. "You are my prisoner," he said, "but not more than I am yours. You shall leave Haupu only when its walls shall have been battered down and I lie dead among the ruins."

Hina saw that resistance was useless. He had soothed her with flattery; he was a great n.o.ble; he was gentle though brave. "How strangely pleasant are his words and voice," she said to herself. "No one ever spoke so to me before. I could have listened longer." After that she hearkened for his footsteps and soon accepted him as her lover and spouse.

For seventeen years she remained a willing prisoner. In the meantime her two sons by her first husband had grown up; they ascertained where their mother was, demanded her release, and on refusal waged a terrible war which at last ended in the death of Kaupeepee and the destruction of his walls.

INTERCEPTED LOVE-LETTERS