Jack London, Kamaaina
The other day a man stood, uncovered, beside the red bowlder that marks by his own wish the ashes of Jack London, upon the little Hill of Graves on his beloved Ranch in the Valley of the Moon. Set in indestructible cement, about those ashes—for he desired to rest in the ashes rather than any dust of him—are wrapped two cherished leis of ilima that he had brought withered from Hawaii.
The man, there among the trees of the whispering ridge, told me how, only a week earlier, he had been talking with a simple ukulele-player in a Hawaiian orchestra at one of the San Francisco theaters. The Hawaiian boy had spoken haltingly, with emotion:
“Better than any one, he knew us Hawaiians... Jack London, the Story Maker.... The news came to Honolulu—and people, they seemed to have lost a great friend—auwe! They could not understand.... They could not believe. I tell you this: Better than any one, he knew us Hawaiians.”
Months before, a friend wrote from Honolulu: “These many weeks, when two or three who knew him meet upon the street, they do not speak. They cannot speak. They only clasp hands and weep.”
And another: “Jack’s death has done a wonderful thing. It has brought together so many of his friends who had not known one another before. More—it has brought together even those of his friends who did not previously care-to know one another.”
What sweeter requiem could be his?
It was not an easy nor a quick matter for Jack London to earn his kamaainaship. Nor did he in any way beg the favor. Time only has been the proof whether his two stories, “The Sheriff of Kona” and “Koolau the Leper,” have made one tourist stay his foot from the shores of the Hawaiian Islands.
And yet, these stories, works of art that had nothing to do with his visit to Molokai, in no way counteracting, to his judgment, the admitted benefit of his article on the Settlement, were the cause of bitter feelings and recriminations from what of provincialism there was in Hawaii—and was ever island territory that was not provincial? “Provincial they are,” reads a penciled note of Jack’s: “which is equally true, nay, more than true, of New York City.”
And untrue things were spoken and printed of Jack. Erect, on his “two hind legs,” as was his wont, he defended himself. In the pages of Lorrin A. Thurston’s Pacific Commercial Advertiser, following certain remarks of the editor, Jack and Kakina had it out, hammer and tongs, without mincing of the English, as good friends may and remain good friends. Even now, it is with reminiscent smile of appreciation for the heated pair of them that I turn over the pages of Jack’s huge clipping scrapbook of 1910, forgotten the grave on the Little Hill, and once more live in memory of that brilliant discussion and Jack’s hurt and indignation that he should have been accused of abusing hospitality. There is no space here for the published letters; and besides, it is the long run of events that counts.
Kamaaina, desire of his heart, he became, until, in the end, the Hawaiians offered him that most honored name in their gift. In Hawaiian historical events, Kamehameha I was the only hero ever designated
“Ka Olali o Hawaii nui Kuaulii ka moa mahi i ku i ka moku,”
which is to say,
“The excellent genius who excelled at the point of the spear all the warriors of the Hawaiian Islands, and became the consolidator of the group.”
And to Jack London, this is their gift:
“Ka Olali o kapeni maka kila.”
“By the point of his pen his genius conquered all prejudice and gave out to the world at large true facts concerning the Hawaiian people and other nations of the South Seas.”