The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3) / The Belief Among the Polynesians

by James George Frazer

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE HAWAIIANS

§ 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]

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]

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]

§ 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]

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]

§ 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]

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]

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]

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]

§ 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

§ 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

§ 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]

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]

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]

§ 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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

§ 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]

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]

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]

§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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

§ 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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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.

FOOTNOTES

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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. Deuxième 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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.; Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th Edition, xi. 528.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[28] W. Ellis, op. cit. iv. 385 sqq. Compare L. de Freycinet, Voyage autour du Monde, Historique, ii. 597.

[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.

[31] W. Ellis, op. cit. iv. 387 sq.

[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.

[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.

[35] J. Cook, Voyages, vii. 142-144.

[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.]

[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.

[47] E. Tregear, op. cit. p. 461, s.v. "Tane."

[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.

[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.

[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.

[58] W. Ellis, op. cit. iv. 119.

[59] W. Ellis, op. cit. iv. 158 sq.

[60] W. Ellis, op. cit. iv. 157 sq., 159.

[61] A. Bastian, Inselgruppen in Oceanien, pp. 269 sq.

[62] A. Bastian, Inselgruppen in Oceanien, pp. 271 sq.

[63] W. Ellis, op. cit. iv. 335 sq.; J. J. Jarves, op. cit. p. 71.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[87] See above, pp. [92 sqq.]

[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.

[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.

[95] A. Campbell, Voyage round the World, pp. 171-173.

[96] J. Cook, Voyages, vi. 183-187. The cloth-covered pyramid or obelisk was called a henananoo (ib. p. 187).

[97] J. Cook, Voyages, vii. 5-7.

[98] W. Ellis, op. cit. iv. 96-98. Compare J. J. Jarves, op. cit. pp. 45 sq.

[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.

[102] W. Ellis, op. cit. iv. 116.

[103] W. Ellis, op. cit. iv. 117 sq.

[104] W. Ellis, op. cit. iv. 169.

[105] C. S. Stewart, Residence in the Sandwich Islands, pp. 226 sq.

[106] Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. iv. 99 sq., with the plate.

[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."

[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.

[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.

[117] A. Marcuse, op. cit. p. 103.

[118] W. Ellis, iv. 150 sq.

[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, "à la célébration de la nouvelle année, les citoyens, les chefs, les femmes, les enfants se livraient à des boxes furieuses, et plusieurs recevaient dans ces jeux des blessures très 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.

[125] L. de Freycinet, Voyage autour du Monde, Historique, ii. 596.

[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.

[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.

[129] A. Bastian, Inselgruppen in Oceanien, p. 269.

[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.

[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.

[143] U. Lisiansky, Voyage round the World, pp. 122 sq.

[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.

[145] A. Campbell, Voyage round the World, pp. 142 sq.

[146] L. de Freycinet, Voyage autour du Monde, Historique, ii. 602.

[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.

[150] E. W. Smith and A. M. Dale, The Ila-speaking Peoples of Northern Rhodesia (London, 1920), ii. 113 sq.

[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.

[154] W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iv. 164 sq.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[167] A. Bastian, Inselgruppen in Oceanien, pp. 265 sq.

[168] W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iv. 144 sq.

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