I.
On the 1st of October, 1819, a fleet of four canoes bearing the royal colors set sail from Kawaihae, in the district of Kohala, on the northwestern coast of Hawaii. The canoes were large and commodious, and were occupied by between sixty and seventy persons, a portion of whom were females. The most of the men were large, muscular and over six feet in height, while the dress and bearing of many of the women indicated that they were of the tabu and chiefly classes.
The costumes of a number of those of both sexes who seemed to be of rank were a strange admixture of native and foreign fabric and fashion. American and European manufactures were beginning to find a market in the islands, and the persons of many were adorned with rich cloths, jewelry and other tokens of civilization. Their weapons and utensils were largely of metal, and a squad of ten warriors armed with muskets, in one of the canoes, showed that the white man’s methods of warfare had received the early and earnest attention of the Hawaiian chiefs and leaders.
The canoe leading the little squadron was double, with covered apartments extending into and across the united decks of both, and the persons occupying it, with the exception of soldiers, sailors and servants, were distinguished alike for their gaudy trappings and a boisterous merriment infusing a feeling of jollity throughout the fleet. In this canoe was Liholiho, who, on the death of his distinguished father, Kamehameha I., something less than five months before, had become sole monarch of the Hawaiian group. In addition to two of his queens, he was accompanied by Kapihe, the commander of the royal vessels; Kekuanaoa, the royal treasurer, and a retinue of chiefly friends and personal attendants.
On the 8th of the previous May his royal father had died at Kailua, leaving to Liholiho the kingdom his arms had won, with Kaahumanu as second in authority and guardian of the realm. The morning following the death of his father Liholiho left Kailua for Kohala to avoid defilement, and there remained for ten days, when he returned to Kailua and formally assumed the sceptre. At the end of the season of mourning, for superstitious reasons the young king again left for Kohala, and took up his residence for a time at Kawaihae. Remaining there until the 1st of October, on the advice of Kaahumanu he had started on his return to Kailua.
Interior of an Ancient Temple.
During the brief residence of Liholiho at Kawaihae, Kaahumanu inaugurated a vigorous conspiracy against the priesthood, and resolved to persuade the young king to repudiate the religion and tabus of his fathers. In this scheme she was assisted by Keopuolani, the mother of Liholiho; Kalaimoku, the prime minister, and Hewahewa, the high-priest, who claimed descent from the renowned Paao.
In the latter part of the reign of the first Kamehameha the gods and tabus of the priesthood began to lose something of their sanctity in the estimation of the masses. Although the first Christian missionaries to the islands did not arrive until nearly a year after the death of Kamehameha I., many trading and war vessels had touched at Hawaiian ports during the two preceding decades. No very clear idea of the Christian religion had been imparted to the natives by the sailors and traders with whom they had been brought in contact; but it could not have escaped their observation that the foreigner’s disregard of the tabu brought with it no punishment, and they very naturally began to question the divinity of a religious code limited in its scope to the Hawaiian people.
The results of this growing scepticism were frequent violations of the tabu. To check this seditious tendency summary punishments were inflicted. A woman was put to death for entering the eating apartment of her husband, and Jarvis relates that three men were sacrificed at Kealakeakua, a short time before the death of Kamehameha—one of them for putting on the maro of a chief, another for eating a forbidden article, and the third for leaving a house that was tabu and entering one that was not. Kamehameha had learned something of the religion of the foreigners, but not enough to impress him greatly in its favor; and when questioned concerning it during his last illness he replied that he should die in the faith of his fathers, although he thought it well that his successor should give the subject attention.
Different motives influenced the leaders in this conspiracy against the religion and tabus of the group. Kaahumanu, the favorite wife of Kamehameha I., but the mother of none of his children, was bold, ambitious and unscrupulous. Left second in authority under the young king, she chafed at the restraints imposed by the tabu upon her sex. Many of the most palatable foods were denied her by custom, and in her intercourse with foreigners acts of courtesy were chilled and hampered by numerous and irksome tabu interdictions. To enable her to eat and drink of whatever her appetites craved, and to do so in the presence of males, Kaahumanu was prepared to strike at the roots of a religious system which had maintained her ancestors in place and power, even though she had no definite knowledge of the new faith with which she hoped to supplant it.
Although the uncle of one of the wives of Liholiho—Kekauonohi—Kalaimoku was not of distinguished rank. He was a chief of decided ability, however, and had been by degrees advanced under the first Kamehameha, until he became the prime minister of the second. Not being a tabu chief by birth, he was easily persuaded by Kaahumanu to lend his assistance in depriving those of higher rank of their tabu prerogatives, and to this end he and his brother Boki were baptized by the Roman Catholic chaplain of the French corvette L’Uranie shortly after the assumption of the government by Liholiho. This was done while the young king was residing at Kawaihae, and without his knowledge.
Keopuolani, the political wife of Kamehameha I., and the mother of Liholiho, Kauikeaouli and Nahienaena, was the daughter of Kiwalao, and of supreme tabu rank. So well was this recognized that her distinguished husband, it is related, always approached her with his face to the earth. She lacked decision of character, however, and her adhesion to the conspiracy against the tabu was doubtless due to the influence over her of the crafty Kaahumanu.
Whatever may have been the motives of others, the apostasy of Hewahewa seems to have been the result of conviction. Being the high-priest of Hawaii, he had everything to lose and nothing to profit by the destruction of the religious system of which he was the supreme and honored head. Of an inquiring mind, the little knowledge he had gained of the new creed had convinced him of the inconsistency of his own, and when the time came to strike he acted boldly. His hand was the first to apply the torch to the temples. Had he hesitated the conspiracy would have failed, for the influence of the high-priest with the masses at that time was second only to that of the king.
Liholiho was strong only in his attachments. Born in 1797, when the group had been consolidated under one government and further wars were not apprehended, he had not been given that austere and solid training in civil and military life imparted to the princes of the previous generation. He was attracted by the vices rather than the virtues of the foreigners at intervals visiting the islands, and, realizing that his future was secure, had devoted almost exclusively to pleasure the ripening years of his youth. Light-hearted, affectionate and gentle, he had shown so little taste for public affairs at the age of twenty-two that his dying father, in bequeathing to him the sceptre, deemed it prudent to accompany it with the condition that, should he wield it unworthily, the supreme power should devolve upon Kaahumanu.
These were the prominent actors in the scheme for the destruction of the priesthood, and this the character of the young king who had been tarrying for some months at Kawaihae, and to whom a message had been sent by Kaahumanu, informing him that, on his return to Kailua, she would openly set the gods at defiance and declare against the tabu. This information did not greatly astonish Liholiho. He knew of the growing hostility to the tabu; had talked with Hewahewa on the subject; had learned that his mother had failed to respect it on late occasions, and had himself seen it violated without harm to the offender. Yet he feared the consequences of an open declaration against the priesthood. He remembered the fate of Hua, whose bones whitened in the sun. He knew that his arrival at Kailua would precipitate the crisis, and compel him either to renounce or defend the gods of his fathers; and after leaving Kawaihae, as we have seen, with a party occupying four canoes, he pursued his way very leisurely toward Kailua, seemingly in no haste to reach his destination.
Moving southward, and passing the rocky point immediately north of Puako, sail was shortened in the royal fleet, and the canoes drifted slowly along the coast, taking just wind enough to hold their course. Carousings were heard in the royal quarters. Liholiho appeared, and, waving his hand to a group of men and women forward, a wild hula dance was soon in progress, to the accompaniment of drums and rattling calabashes. The king watched the dancers for some time with a vacant air, and then began to mark the drum-beats with his feet. The emphasis of the movement increased, until, dismissing his dignity, his voice finally rose above the rude music, and he began to dance with an enthusiasm which seemed to be almost frenzied. Others of the royal party joined in the revelry, and for half an hour or more the vessel was the scene of tumultuous merriment. Bottles and calabashes of intoxicating liquors were then passed from one to another of the companions of the king, and the hula was continued, followed by chants, meles and other methods of enjoyment. Drinking was frequent, and the humbler members of the party were sparingly supplied with gin, whiskey and other stimulants. Similar scenes were transpiring in the canoes following, and the debauch was the wildest ever witnessed on any one of the eight Hawaiian seas.
“Let us make drunk the water-gods!” exclaimed the king. “Here, Kuula, is a taste for you; and here, Ukanipo, is your share!” And he tossed into the ocean two bottles of liquor.
“Let us hope the gods may not be angered by the unusual sacrifice,” said Laanui, one of the favorite companions of the king. He spoke seriously, and Liholiho’s face wore a troubled expression for a moment as he replied:
“Then you have not yet lost faith in the gods, Laanui?”
“No,” was the prompt answer of Laanui.
The king did not continue the conversation. Turning and beckoning to a servant, more liquor was brought, after which the revelry was continued all through the day and far into the night. Meanwhile, so little progress had been made that at noon the next day the fleet was off Kiholo.
For another twenty-four hours the feasting, drinking and dancing continued, when the revelers were met by a double canoe sent by Kaahumanu from Kailua in search of the royal party. The messengers of his chief counselor were courteously received by Liholiho, and, hoisting all sail, he was escorted by them to Kailua, where he was warmly welcomed by Kaahumanu and the members of the royal family.
Appearances of dissipation were plainly visible in the language and bearing of the king, and Kaahumanu regarded the moment as auspicious for committing him to some flagrant and public act of hostility to the tabu. Both she and Keopuolani, the queen-mother, had been secretly violating it, since the death of Kamehameha I., by eating of foods interdicted to their sex, and to screen themselves from exposure it was necessary that the religious system should be destroyed of which the tabu was the vital force. This could be accomplished only through the united efforts of the king and high-priest. Hewahewa was prepared to do his part as the religious head of the kingdom, but the young king, notwithstanding the pressure that had been brought to bear upon him by Kaahumanu and a few of the leading chiefs of his court, was still undecided.
A feast was prepared in honor of the king’s return to Kailua. In accordance with native custom, separate tables for the sexes were spread, and a number of foreigners were present as the invited guests of Kaahumanu. During the afternoon Liholiho, in response to well-devised banters, had been induced to drink and smoke with the female members of his family. This was a favorable beginning, and, farther emboldened by his mother, who deliberately ate a banana in his presence and drank the milk of a cocoanut, he declared that he would openly set the tabu at defiance during the approaching feast.
It was feared that his courage would fail, and he was not left to himself for a moment until he led the way to the feast. His step was unsteady, and his face wore a troubled expression as he proceeded to the pavilion, accompanied by Kaahumanu, Keopuolani and other members of the royal household. As they separated to take seats at their respective tables, the queen-mother gave Liholiho a look of encouragement, and Kaahumanu said to him in a low tone:
“If you have the courage of your father, this will be a great day for Hawaii.”
The king made no reply, for at that moment his eyes fell upon wooden images of Ku and Lono, on opposite sides of the entrance, and he stepped briskly past them and seated himself at the head of one of the tables. The sight of the idols almost unnerved him, and some of the guests observed that his hand trembled as he raised to his lips and drained a vessel of what seemed to be strong liquor.
The guests were all seated. Hewahewa rose, and, glancing at the troubled face of the king, lifted his hands and said with firmness: “One and all, may we eat in peace, and in our hearts give thanks to the one and only god of all.”
The words of the high-priest restored the sinking courage of the king. He rose from his seat, deliberately walked to one of the tables reserved for the women, and seated himself beside his mother. During the strange proceeding not a word was spoken, not a morsel touched. Some believed him to be intoxicated; others were sure that he was insane. Since the age of Wakea no one had so defied the gods and lived. Many natives rose from the tables, and horror took the place of astonishment when Liholiho, encouraged by his mother, began to freely partake of the food prepared for the women. Interdicted fish, meats and fruits were then brought to the tables of the women by order of the king, who ate from their plates and drank from their vessels.
Now satisfied that the king was acting deliberately and with the approval of the most influential dignitaries of the kingdom, including the supreme high-priest, a majority of the chiefs present promptly followed the example of their sovereign, and an indescribable scene ensued. “The tabu is broken! the tabu is broken!” passed from lip to lip, swelling louder and louder as it went, until it reached beyond the pavilion. There it was taken up in shouts by the multitude, and was soon wafted on the winds to the remotest corners of Kona. Feasts were at once provided, and men and women ate together indiscriminately. The tabu foods of palace and temple were voraciously eaten by the masses, and thousands of women for the first time learned the taste of flesh and fruits which had tempted their mothers for centuries.
At the conclusion of the royal feast a still greater surprise bewildered the people. “We have made a bold beginning,” said Hewahewa to the king, thus adroitly assuming a part of the responsibility; “but the gods and heiaus cannot survive the death of the tabu.”
“Then let them perish with it!” exclaimed Liholiho, now nerved to desperation at what he had done. “If the gods can punish, we have done too much already to hope for grace. They can but kill, and we will test their powers by inviting the full measure of their wrath.”
Ancient Temple by the Sea-Shore, 1793.
To this resolution the high-priest gave his ready assent, and orders were issued at once for the destruction of the gods and temples throughout the kingdom. Resigning his office, Hewahewa was the first to apply the torch, and in the smoke of burning heiaus, images and other sacred property, beginning on Hawaii and ending at Niihau, suddenly passed away a religious system which for fifteen hundred years or more had shaped the faith, commanded the respect and received the profoundest reverence of the Hawaiian people. No creed was offered by the iconoclasts in lieu of the system destroyed by royal edict, and until the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, in March of the year following, the people of the archipelago were left without a shadow of religious restraint or guidance.