(7.) A tradition exists, mentioned by Jarves, that Paao landed at Kohoukapu before the reign of Umi. According to the same author, Paao was not a Kanaka, but a man of the Caucasian race. However this may be, every one agrees that Paao was a foreigner, and a naauao (scholar; literally, a man with enlightened entrails, the Hawaiians placing the mind and affections in the bowels).
(8.) Hina, according to tradition, brought into the world several sons, who dug the palis of Hulaana. It may be asked whether Hina, which means a fall, does not indicate a deluge (Kaiakahinalii of the Hawaiians), or some sort of cataclysm, and whether the islanders have not personified events.
(9.) It is, however, improbable that there were ever genuine sorcerers among the Hawaiians, in the sense that word has among Christians. It may have happened, and indeed it happens every day, that people die after the machinations of the kahuna-anaana; but it is more reasonable to refer these tragical deaths to the use of poison, than to attribute them to the incantations of the sorcerers. It is moreover known that there are on the group many poisons furnished by trees, by shrubs and sea-weeds; and the kahuna-anaana understood perfectly these vegetable poisons. The many known examples of their criminal use inclines us to believe that these kahuna were rather poisoners than magicians. [Kalaipahoa, the poison-god, was believed to have been carved out of a very poisonous wood, a few chips of which would cause death when mixed with the food.]
(10.) During the summer of the year 1852, while I was exploring the island of Kauai, I was near being the victim, under remarkable circumstances, of an old kahuna named Lilihae. I was then residing under the humble roof of the Mission at Moloaa. Lilihae had been baptized, and professed Christianity, although it was well known that he clung to the worship of his gods. He was introduced to me by the missionaries as a man who, by his memory and profession, could add to my historical notes. I indeed obtained from him most precious material, and in a moment of good nature the old man even confided to me the secret of certain prayers that the priests alone should know. I wrote down several formulae at his dictation, only promising to divulge nothing before his death. The old man evidently considered himself perjured, for after his revelations he came no more to see me.
Some days had passed after our last interview, and I thought no more of him. All at once I lost my appetite and fell sick. I could eat nothing without experiencing a nausea, followed immediately by continual vomiting. Two missionaries and my French servant, who partook of my food, exhibited almost the same symptoms. Not suspecting the true cause of these ailments, I attributed them to climate and the locality, and especially to the pestilent winds which had brought an epidemic ophthalmia among the natives. Things remained in this condition a fortnight without improvement, when one morning at breakfast a marmalade of bananas was served. I had hardly touched it to my lips when the nausea returned with greater violence; I could eat nothing, and soon a salivation came on which lasted several hours. In the mean while a poor Breton who had established himself on the island some years ago, and had conformed to savage life, came to see me. Bananas were scarce in the neighborhood, and he found that I had a large supply of them, and I offered him a bunch. Fortin, it was his name, on his way back to his cabin with my present, broke a banana off the bunch and commenced to eat it. He felt under his tooth a hard substance, which he caught in his hand. To his great surprise, it was a sort of blue and white stone. He soon felt ill, and fortunately was able to vomit what he had swallowed. Furious, and accusing me of a criminal intention, he returned to my quarters to demand an explanation. I examined the substance taken from the banana, and found that it was blue vitriol and corrosive sublimate. The presence of such substances in a banana was far from natural. I took other bunches of my supply, and found in several bananas the same poisons, which had been skillfully introduced under the skin. After some inquiries I found, from Fortin's own wife, that similar drugs had been sometimes seen in the hands of Lilihae, who had bought them of a druggist in Honolulu for the treatment of syphilis. The riddle was at once completely solved. A few days passed, and Lilihae killed himself by poison, convinced that all his attempts could not kill me. In his native superstition, he was satisfied that the gods would not forgive his indiscretion, since they withheld from him the power of taking my life; and he could devise no simpler way to escape their anger, and the vengeance of my own God, than to take himself the poison against which I had rebelled. It was discovered that Lilihae had, in the first place, tried native poisons on me, and finding them ineffective, he thought that my foreign nature might require exotic poisons, which he had accordingly served in the bananas destined for my table. He went, without my knowledge, into the cook-house where my native servants kept my provisions, and, under pretext of chatting with them, found means to poison my food. The unfortunate kahuna died fully persuaded that I was a more powerful sorcerer than he. It was to be feared that, when he discovered his impotency, he would intrust the execution of his designs to his fellows, as is common among sorcerers; but his suicide fortunately removed this sword of Damocles which hung over my head.
(11.) At the present day, useless old men are no longer destroyed, nor are the children, whom venereal diseases have rendered very rare, suffocated; but they do eat lice, fleas, and grasshoppers. Flies inspire the same disgust, and the women still give their breasts to dogs, pigs, and young kids.