THE AHULAU OKUU.
The word Ahulau means a deadly epidemic or pestilence; the word Okuu has two meanings which will be explained later.
A description of the symptoms of the victims of the Ahulau Okuu, as related to the Author in the year 1883, is herewith set forth in the words of the narrators, grandchildren of some of those who had been stricken with the Ahulau Okuu, but had recovered.
“Owing to the terrible pains in their stomachs, and the cramps in the legs, those who had the New disease could neither stand nor lie down: (hence the meaning of the word Okuu, a verb, to sit up because one has no place to lie down in comfort).
“To obtain some relief from the pains, the sick people sat on their hams or heels, with the body bowed forward clasping their stomachs, or sat on the ground, their legs in front and the body bowed in front over the legs. Thin stuff like sour starch water flowed from them very often; some vomited all the time; their faces and bodies became black and cold as like they had died, their eyes grew small and far in the head. They all the time cried for water, for they had a great thirst. People died so fast and so many, nobody was left to bury them.
“The sick and the well ones who looked after them, lived on baked sweet potatoes; the people were too tired and weary to make the poi.
“It often so happened, those who were not sick when they began to cook the food for the sick ones, were taken with the Ahulau Okuu, and died so quickly, falling over dead on the face, before the potatoes had cooked.” (All the above described conditions are typical of Cholera of the Asiatic type, the most malignant form.) Author.
The Ahulau Okuu ravaged all the Islands, and it is said to have caused 22,000 deaths. Kamehameha I, then living on the Island of Oahu, was stricken with the disease, but recovered.
(A) The Hawaiian word Okuu, a verb, means, to dismiss or let go the Soul: It is applied to and accepted as describing the last moments of those stricken with the pestilence of 1804: “they dismissed freely their souls and died.” This explanation of the meaning of Okuu is too vague. It gives no clue to the early stages of the disease or its symptoms. The only conclusion that can be safely drawn is that the Okuu was a rapidly fatal and epidemic malady.
(B) The Author of this Booklet sought for, and found years ago another Hawaiian word Okuu, which throws some light on the progress of the Ahulau Okuu previous to death, and it also gives some insight as to what the pestilence could be or was; furthermore to any physician of an intuitive mind, the translation into English of the word Okuu, “to dismiss freely and let go the Soul in death” explains nothing.
There are two words Okuu in the Hawaiian language, spelt alike and also pronounced alike, but entirely different in their meanings; both are verbs. Lorrin Andrews in his Hawaiian dictionary, a standard work, A.D. 1865. (q. v.), states the meaning of the second Okuu is “to have to sit up because one has no place to lie down in comfort”; this aptly describes the misery of a cholera victim; he or she cannot stand up, sit up, nor lie down in comfort, because of the intense and continuous pains in the belly, and cramps in the legs. Which of these two construings of the word Okuu gives the better and clearer explanation of what the Ahulau Okuu really was, is left to the judgment of the Reader.
A POLYNESIAN COLONY LIVES IN PELE LIILII
A. D. 1920.
The Mentawe or Menekeawe Islands lie 70 miles off the West coast of the Island of Sumatra, and the people of these islands are the last and only Colony of Polynesians living in the Malay Archipelago; all the other Polynesians have immigrated and passed onward to the Pacific Ocean.
Menekeawe is a Polynesian word, hence used every day in Hawaii; mene, means an axe or koi; keawe, means a bearer or carrier, also Keawe is the name of a man; hence we have the hale or house of Keawe, the temple of refuge at Honaunau, S. Kona, Hawaii.
The Menekeawe Islands are 21 in number, 4 large and 17 small; all are of volcanic formation; they lie offshore at the base of the great mountain Indrapura, 12,500 feet, now a quiescent volcano, and the alleged abode (pura) of Indra, the FIRE GOD of the Indo-Aryan peoples, a King God of the Middle Realm, the fire of the Air, the lightning.
The four largest of this group of Islands are, Siberut, Sipora or Sikatan, North and South Paggi; they are surrounded by coral reefs and volcanic shoals, difficult of access due to a huge surf. The area of all the islands is 1224 square miles, about one-fifth the size of Hawaii net; their Lat. 1° South to 3° 30′; Long. 100° E.
The people of the Menekeawe Islands in features, language and customs have a distinct and remarkable affinity with the Polynesians; they are almost a pure blooded race of ARYAN stock, and they are the only survivors of an eastward emigration of an Indo-Aryan people, who antedate the Malay peoples in Sumatra, the Battas and others. The Menekeawes have not fused nor mixed their blood with other Malay peoples; miscegenation, if any, has been very rare.
PELE’S HAIR is formed by whirlpools of scum floating on the surface of the rapidly moving magma of boiling lava, and blown by the wind over the rim of the lava basin. During heavy rain, Pele ceases to spin her amber colored threads of glass. In January, 1888, the Author collected the hair; analysis showed the composition to be Silicate of Calcium 75%; Silicate of Calcium Oxide 15%; Ferrous Carbonate, FeCO3, 7%; Ferrous Sulphate, FeSO4, 3%; the “hair” is therefore a fused transparent amorphous Silicate of Calcium; the amber color is due to the iron, Fe salts.
HALA: The Hala mountains are 40 miles west of the Indus river and form the boundary between S. E. Persia and India. The town of Hala in Persia is the modern Bela; an Indian town Hala is located on the bank of the Indus 25 miles north of Hydarabad (the abode by the water). The Maikai mountains are found S. of the Nerbudda river, Lat. 22° 30′ N; Long. 78° E. In Hawaii, hala, a pineapple, a tree; as a verb, hala, to pass beyond, as death; also Pahala, Halawa.
The Hawaiian people speak of living in PELE: The great volcanic islands around the Java Sea are this land. The great island of Sumatra, 1100 miles long by 250 wide, 66 volcanic centers, probably is the Hawaii Loa of the Hawaiians.
Island of Java: Yawa, Hawa, Chawa, Mul Java of Ibn Batuta, Jawa, Jawi, Jawah.
Savii Loa is great Java, Sawaii or Savaii is Javaii; Savaiiki is Javaiiki or little Java.
The Arabs were the great ancient navigators and explorers; they acquired their maritime skill and seamanship in the Mediterranean, Red and Arabian seas and in the Persian gulf.
The Phoenicians acquired their marine training around the islands in the Gulf of Persia.
The ancestors of the Hawaiians could have learned their marine skill, and probably did so, on the shores of the Arabian Sea and off the estuary of the river Indus, also in the Bay of Bengal and off the mouths of the River Ganges, and later, in the seas of Indonesia.
The Polynesians are pre-eminently a race of excellent seamen, due to centuries of a sea-faring life. The early members of that nation, upon their entry into the Pacific Ocean, perhaps in dhows and praus, but later as canoe-men, were skillful, fearless and as successful a race of navigators and explorers as the world has ever produced; poorly fitted out for ocean travel in frail craft; nevertheless the Polynesians pursued boldly a course into an unknown, vast ocean, where possible storms, thirst, starvation, shipwreck and death awaited them.
Some probable points of departure of the primal Polynesian emigrants, seeking new homes in the various islands of the Pacific, can be found at Sawaii and Kawaahae on the north coast of the island of Ceram (?Ceylon), one of the Molucca islands; thence they could pass due north up the Gilolo channel and enter the Pacific, leaving Pulo Morotai (Island of Molokai) to the northwest, then steering a course along the north of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands due east towards Samoa.
To escape the Mongoloid hordes, who were crushing and crowding them out in Indonesia, the Polynesians in their travels appear always from necessity and safety to have chosen the path of least resistance, the ocean; with its currents and winds, aided by sails and paddle power, it is a motor of comparative ease and progress, and also of sustenance, providing abundance of fish, limu (edible seaweed), etc.
The early Polynesians, armed with their knowledge of trade winds, ocean currents, the stars, and with their skill as fishermen, reduced to a minimum the prospects of ocean disasters or pilikias. On the ocean’s broad expanse no enemy could ambuscade them, nor were perils of this kind liable to be encountered. Under all the above conditions of ocean traveling the Polynesian navigators were enabled to explore and discover many new and hitherto unknown islands in the largest ocean of our globe, the Pacific.
The Polynesian speech or language is distinctly not of Malay or Mongoloid origin; research indicates that Indonesia was its home and that it must have been in use for centuries before the Malay came into the field. Due to the invasion of this race, some of their words became engrafted on to the Polynesian, they did not and have not materially changed it, hence, without any sufficient reason, the name Malayo-Polynesian is in common use to designate a language which is 85 per cent. Polynesian.
The Polynesians are absolutely a separate and distinct race from the Malays. The pure Polynesian type, such as most of aboriginal Hawaiians, has the following characteristics: Tall, skin brown or olive, brown eyes, abundant black wavy hair, ARYAN features, cleanly, cheerful, artistic, intellectual, gentle, polite and dignified, poetical, musical.
Their long type of skull and its capacity resembles in part the European. Every one of the above properties is lacking in the Malay, but the ancient Hindu and the Persian possessed every one of them; it is to these races that the primal Polynesians can be traced and hence their identification in the Pacific presents no problem that cannot be solved.
William Marsden (1754–1836), “History of Sumatra,” states: “All the Insular nations of the Pacific are colonies from Indonesia or Malaysia, whose original home was the great Island of SUMATRA, and their common speech the Great Polynesian.”
The Land of our Aryan Ancestors.
About 1400 B.C.—“The summer months are two, and the winter months are ten, and these are cold; and when the winter encompasses (us) with the worst of its annoyances it is cold for the trees and the flowers, cold for the cattle, horses and birds, and cold for the freezing-waters filled with the falling snow.”
Quoted from the sacred record of the Persians, kept by the “Magi,” the priests of the Persians—the Wise Men of the East; of the same class as those who carried to Mary, the mother of Christ, gold, frankincense and myrrh (aromatic germicides to protect the infant Christ from mumps, measles and tonsilitis, etc., and also to purify the air of the living quarters).
The location of a land with only two summer months must have been far to the north of the Caspian Sea, on the banks of the River Rha or the Volga. Petrograd, in 60 degrees N. Lat., has an average annual temperature of 38 degrees Fahr.
Farthest East in Polynesia.
Rapanui, or Easter Island: Seen by Captain Alvaro Mendaña, June 24, 1595; visited by the Dutch Admiral, Jacob Roggeveen, and his crew on Easter Sunday, 1722, hence the name of the island, Easter.
Inhabitants are today Polynesians who came from the Marquesa Islands, some 1800 miles to the northwest of Rapanui. A translation of one of their tablets bearing a hieroglyphic inscription relates as follows:
“In that happy land, that beautiful land, where Romaha lived before with his beloved Hangora; that beautiful land that was governed by the Gods from heaven; who lived in the water when it was cold; where the Black and White pointed Spider would have climbed to heaven, but was stopped by the falling snow and the freezing cold.”
This very unique narrative probably harks back to northwest India; Ramachandra, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu, the Polynesian Tangaroa, and the black and white spider is the winter solstice, similar to the Hawaiian astronomy, Ke alanui polohiwa a ke Kuukuu (the black luminous orbit of the Spider).