At Pololu, toward the mountain, are found fields of a very beautiful verdure. They are called the pastures, or grass-plots, of Paao (Na mauu a Paao). The old priest cultivated these fields himself, where no one since his time has dared to use spade or mattock. If an islander was impious enough to cultivate the meadow of Paao, the people believe that a terrible punishment would be the inevitable consequence of that profanation. Disastrous rains, furious torrents, would surely ravage the neighboring country.
Some Hawaiians pretend that there exists another sacerdotal race besides that of Paao, more ancient even than that, and whose priests belonged at the same time to a race of chiefs. It is the family of Maui, probably of Maui-hope, the last of the seven children of Hina,[[8]] the same who captured the sea-monster Piimoe. The origin of this race, to which Naihe of Kohala pretends to belong, is fabulous. Since the reign of Kamehameha, the priests of the order of Maui have lost favor.
The second class of the clergy was composed of the prophets (Kaula), an inoffensive and very respectable people, who gave vent to their inspiration from time to time in unexpected and uncalled-for prophesies. The third order of the clergy is that of Kilo, diviners or magicians. With these may be classed the Kilokilo, the Kahunalapaau and Kahunaanaana, a sort of doctors regarded as sorcerers, to whom was attributed the power of putting to death by sorcery and witchcraft.[[9]] The Kahunaanaana and the Kahunalapaau have never been considered as belonging to the high caste of Kahuna maoli.
The Kahunaanaana, or sorcerers, inherited their functions. They were thoroughly detested, and the people feared them, and do to this day. When the chiefs were dissatisfied with a sorcerer, they had his head cut off with a stone axe (koipohaku), or cast him from the top of a pali.
The doctors were of two kinds. The first, the Kahunalapaau proper, comprised all who used plants in the treatment of disease. Just as the sorcerers understood poisonous vegetables, so the doctors knew the simples which furnished remedies to work cures. The second kind comprised the spiritual doctors, who had various names, and who seem to have been intermediate between priests and magicians, sharing at once in the attributes of both. They were:
Kahuna makani, doctors of winds;
Kahuna hoonohonoho akua, who caused the gods to descend on the sick;
Kahuna aumakua, doctors of diseases of the old;
Kahuna Pele, doctors or priests of Pele, goddess of volcanoes.
All the doctors of the second kind are still found in the islands,[[10]] where they have remained idolaters, although they have been for the most part baptized. There is hardly a Kanaka who has not had recourse to them in his complaints, preferring their cures and their remedies to those of the foreign physicians. Laws have been enacted to prohibit these charlatans from exercising their art; but under the rule of Kamehameha III., who protected them, these laws have not been enforced.