system covered the entire daily life of the people with a vast network of minute regulations and penalties. Thus, it was tabu for men and women to eat together, or even to have their food cooked in the same oven. Women were forbidden to eat pork, bananas, cocoanuts,
or turtle and certain kinds of fish, on pain of death. There were certain tabu days when no canoe could be launched, no fire lighted, and when no sound could be made, on pain of death. Even dogs had to be muzzled and fowls shut up in calabashes for twenty-four hours at a time.
The human sacrifice was the crowning act of the ancient worship, offered only on certain solemn occasions, and at the temples (Heiaus) of the highest class.
Whenever a temple was to be dedicated, a new house to be built for the chief, or a new war canoe to be launched, many of the people fled to the mountains and lay hidden till the danger was past.
Besides the regular priesthood, there were many kinds of medicine men, necromancers or mediums, sorcerers and diviners, who preyed upon the superstition and credulity of their countrymen. The belief that all forms of disease were caused by evil spirits, and their fear of being "prayed to death" (anaana), kept the people in a state of abject fear.
There is too much reason to believe that during several centuries preceding the discovery of the Islands they had been deteriorating in many respects. As the historian Fornander has stated:
"It was an era of strife, dynastic ambitions, internal and external wars on each Island, with all their deteriorating consequences of anarchy, depopulation, social and intellectual degradation, loss of liberty, loss of knowledge, loss of arts."
DISCOVERY OF THE ISLANDS.
It seems to be almost certain that one Juan Gaetano, a Spanish navigator, saw Hawaii in 1555 A. D. A group of islands, the largest of which was called La Mesa, was laid down in the old Spanish charts in the same latitude as the Hawaiian Islands, but 10 degrees too far east.