“To obtain some relief from the pains, the sick people sat on their hams or heels, with the body bowed forward clasping their stomachs, or sat on the ground, their legs in front and the body bowed in front over the legs. Thin stuff like sour starch water flowed from them very often; some vomited all the time; their faces and bodies became black and cold as like they had died, their eyes grew small and far in the head. They all the time cried for water, for they had a great thirst. People died so fast and so many, nobody was left to bury them.
“The sick and the well ones who looked after them, lived on baked sweet potatoes; the people were too tired and weary to make the poi.
“It often so happened, those who were not sick when they began to cook the food for the sick ones, were taken with the Ahulau Okuu, and died so quickly, falling over dead on the face, before the potatoes had cooked.” (All the above described conditions are typical of Cholera of the Asiatic type, the most malignant form.) Author.
The Ahulau Okuu ravaged all the Islands, and it is said to have caused 22,000 deaths. Kamehameha I, then living on the Island of Oahu, was stricken with the disease, but recovered.
(A) The Hawaiian word Okuu, a verb, means, to dismiss or let go the Soul: It is applied to and accepted as describing the last moments of those stricken with the pestilence of 1804: “they dismissed freely their souls and died.” This explanation of the meaning of Okuu is too vague. It gives no clue to the early stages of the disease or its symptoms. The only conclusion that can be safely drawn is that the Okuu was a rapidly fatal and epidemic malady.
(B) The Author of this Booklet sought for, and found years ago another Hawaiian word Okuu, which throws some light on the progress of the Ahulau Okuu previous to death, and it also gives some insight as to what the pestilence could be or was; furthermore to any physician of an intuitive mind, the translation into English of the word Okuu, “to dismiss freely and let go the Soul in death” explains nothing.
There are two words Okuu in the Hawaiian language, spelt alike and also pronounced alike, but entirely different in their meanings; both are verbs. Lorrin Andrews in his Hawaiian dictionary, a standard work, A.D. 1865. (q. v.), states the meaning of the second Okuu is “to have to sit up because one has no place to lie down in comfort”; this aptly describes the misery of a cholera victim; he or she cannot stand up, sit up, nor lie down in comfort, because of the intense and continuous pains in the belly, and cramps in the legs. Which of these two construings of the word Okuu gives the better and clearer explanation of what the Ahulau Okuu really was, is left to the judgment of the Reader.
A POLYNESIAN COLONY LIVES IN PELE LIILII
A. D. 1920.
The Mentawe or Menekeawe Islands lie 70 miles off the West coast of the Island of Sumatra, and the people of these islands are the last and only Colony of Polynesians living in the Malay Archipelago; all the other Polynesians have immigrated and passed onward to the Pacific Ocean.
Menekeawe is a Polynesian word, hence used every day in Hawaii; mene, means an axe or koi; keawe, means a bearer or carrier, also Keawe is the name of a man; hence we have the hale or house of Keawe, the temple of refuge at Honaunau, S. Kona, Hawaii.