From these facts it may be believed that Kanuha was not less than one hundred and sixteen years old when I met him on this occasion. This remarkable example of longevity was by no means unique at the Hawaiian Islands a few years since. Father Maréchal knew at Ka'u, in 1844, an aged woman who remembered perfectly having seen Alapai. I had occasion to converse at Kauai with an islander who was already a grandfather when he saw Captain Cook die. I sketched, at this very Hoopuloa, the portrait of an old woman, still vigorous, Meawahine, who told any who would hear her that her breasts were completely developed when her chief gave her as wife to the celebrated English navigator.
Old Kanuha was the senior of all these centenaries. I took advantage of his willing disposition to draw from him the historical treasures with which his memory was stored. Here, in my own order, is what he told me during a night of conversation, interrupted only by the Hawaiian dances (hulahula), and by some pipes of tobacco smoked in turn, in the custom of the country.
OF GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY WITH THE ANCIENT HAWAIIANS.
The soil was the property of the king, who reserved one part of it for himself, assigning another to the nobles, and left the rest to the first occupant. Property, based on a possession more or less ancient, was transmitted by heritage; but the king could always dispose, according to his whims, of property of chiefs and subjects, and the chiefs had the same privilege over the people.
Taxes were not assessed on any basis. The king levied them whenever it seemed good to him, and almost always in an arbitrary way. The chiefs also, and the priests, received a tribute from the people. The tax was always in kind, and consisted of:
Kalo, raw and made into poi;
Potatoes (Convolvulus batatas, L.) many varieties;
Bananas (maia) of different kinds;
Cocoa-nuts (called niu by the natives);
Dogs (destined for food);[[3]]
Hogs;
Fowls;
Fish, crabs, cuttle-fish, shell-fish;
Kukui nuts (Aleurites moluccana) for making relishes, and for
illumination;
Edible sea-weed (limu);
Edible ferns (several species, among others the hapuu);
Awa (Piper methysticum, Forst.);
Ki roots (Cordyline ti, Schott.), a very saccharine vegetable;
Feathers of the Oo (Drepanis pacifica), and of the Iiwi (Drepanis
coccinea): these birds were taken with the glue of the ulu or bread-fruit (Artocarpus incisa);
Fabrics of beaten bark (kapa) and fibre of the olona (Boehmeria),
of wauke (Broussonetia papyrifera), of hau (Hilasens tiliasens),
etc.;
Mats of Pandanus and of Scirpus;
Pili (grass to thatch houses with);
Canoes (waa);
Wood for building;
Calabashes (serving for food vessels, and to hold water);
Wooden dishes;
Arms and instruments of war, etc., etc.
A labor tax was also enforced, and it was perhaps the most onerous, because it returned almost regularly every moon for a certain number of days. The work was principally cultivating the loi, or fields of kalo, which belonged to the king or chiefs.
The Hawaiian people were divided into three very distinct classes; these were:
1. The nobility (Alii), comprising the king and the chiefs of whatever degree;
2. The clergy (Kahuna), comprising the priests, doctors, prophets, and sorcerers;