ative Hawaiians—big, generous, happy, good-looking folk, athletic and fond of music—are in physical characteristics, in temperament, in language, traditions and customs, so closely related to the Samoans, the Maoris of New Zealand, and the other inhabitants of Polynesia, that it is clear they belong to the same race. Although Hawaii is two thousand miles from any other land, the people are so much like the natives of the South Sea Islands that I do not see how the relationship can be questioned. Distance, too, means little, for we hear that only lately a Japanese junk was caught in a storm and the mast destroyed, yet it was swept along by the Japan current and in an exceedingly short time was washed up on the shore near Vancouver, with most of the sailors still alive. The adventurous boatmen who first landed on the island of Hawaii, however, must not only have crossed two thousand miles of ocean in their canoes but crossed it in the face of opposing trade winds and ocean currents.
The Polynesians of those early days, like the ancient Chaldeans, studied the heavenly bodies, and so, on their long voyages, were able to guide their course by the stars. Their vessels, which were double canoes, like those of the modern Samoans, were from fifty to one hundred feet long and carried a large company of people, with provisions, animals, idols, and everything that was needed for a long voyage or for colonizing a strange island.
The legends of that earliest time tell of Hawaii-loa, who sailed from the west to the Islands, which he named for himself. The coming of Wakea and Papa also belonged to that period. While they are mentioned as the creators of the earth, they are said in another version of the story to have come from Savaii in Samoa. They brought with them the tabu, which is common to all Polynesia.
Little is to be learned, however, of the history of Hawaii from the folklore of Pacific Islanders until about the year 1000 A. D. If we may believe their traditions, this was a time of great restlessness throughout all Polynesia, when Hawaii was again visited and held communication with other islands, peopled by the same race. It is interesting to remember that this was the century when the Norsemen were striking out across the Atlantic, showing that there were daring navigators on both sides of the globe.
Paao, one of the heroes from Samoa, who settled in Hawaii, became high priest. He introduced the worship of new gods and increased the number of tabus. The great temple built by him was the first in the shape of a quadrangle—previously they had been three-sided. Afterward, he went back to Samoa and returned with Pili, whom he made ruler, and from whom the Kamehamehas were descended.
From the Hawaiian meles, or songs, we may picture their life. The men were skilful fishermen, using hooks of shell, bone, or tortoise shell, nets of olona-fiber or long spears of hard wood. The bait used in shark fishing was human flesh. When it was thrown into the water and the shark was attracted to it, the fishermen sprang overboard and fought the fish with knives of stone and sharp shark's teeth. No doubt it was an extremely exciting sport.
Along the shores of the Islands are the walls of many fish-ponds, some of which, though very old, are still in use and bid fair to last for centuries longer. Usually they were made by building a wall of lava rock across the entrance to a small bay, and the fish were kept in the inclosure. The wall was built loosely enough to allow the water to percolate through it, and sluice gates were added, which could be opened and closed. They were at first owned by kings and chiefs, and were probably built by the forced labour of the people. Tradition has it that the wall of Wekolo Pond at Pearl Harbour was built by natives who formed a line from shore to mountain and passed lava rock from hand to hand until it reached the shores over a mile away, without once touching the ground. Some of the ponds in the interior of the Islands have been turned into rice fields and taro patches, especially on Oahu.
The sports and games of the Hawaiians, of which there were many, were nearly all associated with gambling. Indeed, it was the betting that furnished most of the excitement connected with them. At the end of a day of games, many of the people would have staked and lost everything they owned in the world.
Boxing, surf-riding and hurling the ulu—a circular stone disk, three or four inches in diameter—were some of the favourite amusements, as well as tobogganing, which is interesting as a tropical adaptation of something that we consider a Northern sport. The slide was laid out on a steep hillside, that was made slippery with dry pili grass. The sled, of two long, narrow strips of wood joined together by wicker work, was on runners from twelve to fourteen feet long, and was more like our sleds than modern toboggans. The native held the sled by the middle with both hands, and ran to get a start. Then, throwing himself face downward, he flew down the hill out upon the plain beyond, sometimes to a distance of half a mile or more.