None of it did we miss—the parting and the embarkation of the banished; and never, should I live a thousand fair years, shall I forget the memory of that strange, rending wailing, escaping bestiality by its very deliberateness; for, no matter how deep and true may be the grief, this wailing expression of it constitutes a ceremonial in this as in other countries where it survives as a set form of lamentation. Shrill, piercing, it curdled the primitive life-current in us, every tone in the gamut of sorrow being played upon the plaintive word auwe (ah-oo-way’—quickly ow-way’), alas, in recurrent chorusing when each parting took place and the loved one stepped upon the gangplank, untouched by officers and crew of the small steamer.
“Clean” passengers were taken aboard first, the vessel picking up at another wharf those who bore no return ticket to the land of the clean. As the Noeau ranged alongside, the crowd ashore appeared like any other dock-gathering of natives, even to the flowers; but suddenly Jack at my elbow jerked out, “Look—look at that boy’s face!” It was a lad of twelve or so, and one of his cheeks was so swollen that the bursting eye seemed as if extended on a fleshy horn. Beside him a woman hovered, her face dark with sorrow. We were soon quick to detect the marks and roved from face to face, selecting more or less accurately those who proved later to be passengers for the dark fifty-odd miles across Kaiwi Channel and along the north coast of Molokai to the village of Kalaupapa, is their final destination and home on this earth.
But one can only see what one can see, and there were men and women who bore no apparent blemish; and yet these are now among the disfigured company on the lurching after-deck.
The ultimate wrench of hearts and hands, the supreme acme of ruth, came when, separated by the widening breach between steamer and dock, the lost and the deserted gazed upon one another, and the last offerings of leis fell short into the water. No normal malihini could stand by unwrung; it was utterly, hopelessly sad—a funeral in which the dead themselves walked.
Toward one white child, a blonde-haired little German maid, we felt especial solicitude. Her bronze companions all had dear ones to wail for them and for whom to “keen.” She stood quite apart, with dry eyes old before their time, watching an alien race voice its woe in ways she had not learned. Whose baby is she? To whom is she dear? Where is the mother who bore her? And the answer was just now volunteered by the Superintendent of the Leper colony, returning from a vacation, Mr. J. D. McVeigh. The child’s mother is already in Kalaupapa, far gone with a rapid form of leprosy; and this little daughter, who had been left with a drunken father who treated her ill, has been found with the same manifestation, and will live but a few years. So she is going to her own, and her own is waiting for her, and it is well. But think of the whole distorted face of the dream of life...
(1) Princess Likelike (Mrs. Cleghorn). (2) Princess Victoria Kaiulani. (3) Kaiulani at Ainahau. (4) “Kaiulani’s Banyan.”
...Now the white child has fallen asleep in a dull red sunset glow, her flaxen head in the lap of a beautiful hapa haole girl who carries no apparent spot of corrosion. She looks down right motherly upon the tired face of the small Saxon maid. Hawaiian women eternally “rock cradles in their hearts,” which are so expansive that it is said to matter little whose child they cradle—bringing up one another’s offspring with impartial loving-kindness. This practice extended even into highest circles, as Liliuokalani attests in her entertaining book, “Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen.” She herself was “given away” at birth, wrapped in the finest tapa cloth, to Konia, a granddaughter of Kamehameha the Great, wedded to a high chief, Paki. Their own daughter, Bernice Pauahi. Liliuokalani’s foster-sister, was afterward married to C. R. Bishop, Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1893 under King Lunallio, Kalakaua’s predecessor. The Queen writes that in using the term foster-sister she merely adopts one customary in the English language, there being no such modification recognized in her own tongue. As a matter of fact, in childhood she knew no other parents than Paki and Konia, no other sister than Pauahi. Her own father and mother were no more than interesting acquaintances. For this custom she offers only the reason that the alliance by adoption cemented ties of friendship between chiefs, which, spreading to the common people, doubtless encouraged harmony—a harmony that would have delighted King Solomon, to say nothing of white men’s courts of law!
They forget quickly, these Hawaiians, one hears; and one must believe, I suppose—and, believing, thank whatever gods may be; for this blissful latitude never was created for the harboring of grief. But the ability or tendency to forget pain has little to do with its momentary poignancy. The passionate Hawaiian suffers with all the abandon of the blood that keeps him always young. The sorrow is real, and the weeping. If these people could not recover speedily from despair, they would die off faster than they are already perishing from their arcadian isles.
On our deck, observing the dolorous scene aft, is a young native girl, round and ripe and more lovely than any we have yet seen. Clean and wholesome, unsullied by any blight, a happy body, she stands beside her father, a stalwart gray-haired Hawaiian with lofty mien. One wonders what are the young girl’s thoughts as she gazes upon these wrecks of her kind. And yet, she herself might have to be sought in Molokai another year. As well seek her under-ground, is the next thought. Poor human flesh and blood!