The Spell of the Hawaiian Islands and the Philippines

by Isabel Anderson

It was in 1825, early in the reign of Kamehameha III, that Kapiolani, daughter of the high chief Keawe-mauhili, of Hilo, defied the power of Pele. Having become a Christian, she determined to give her people an object lesson on the powerlessness of their gods. With a retinue of eighty persons she journeyed, most of the way on foot, one hundred miles to the crater of Kilauea. When near the crater, she was met by the priestess of Pele, who threatened her with death if she broke the tabus. But Kapiolani ate the sacred ohelo berries without first offering some to the goddess, and undaunted, made her way with her followers down five hundred feet to the "Black Ledge." There, on the very margin of the fiery lake of Halemaumau, she addressed her followers in these ringing words:

"Jehovah is my God. He kindled these fires.... I fear not Pele. If I perish by the anger of Pele, then you may fear the power of Pele; but if I trust in Jehovah, and he should save me from the wrath of Pele, then you must fear and serve the Lord Jehovah. All the gods of Hawaii are vain!" Then they sang a hymn of praise to Jehovah, and wended their way back to the crater's rim in safety.

It was during the reign of Kamehameha III that the United States, France and Great Britain recognized the independence of the Hawaiian Islands. Before this news reached the Pacific, however, Lord George Paulet, a British naval officer, took possession and hoisted the British flag, because the King refused to yield to his demands. Five months later, Admiral Thomas, in command of Great Britain's fleet in the East, appeared at Honolulu and restored the country to the natives. In recognition, an attractive public park was named for him. At the thanksgiving service held on that day, the King uttered the words which were afterward adopted as the motto of the nation, the translation of which is: "In righteousness is the life of the land."

The independence of Hawaii was only once again threatened by a foreign power, when a French admiral took possession of the fort and the government buildings at Honolulu for a few days. Indeed, that independence was not only recognized but guaranteed by France, England and the United States.

Many of the missionaries settled in Hawaii, and their descendants have become rich and prominent citizens. Hawaii owes much to them. So far as lay in their power, they taught the people trades and introduced New England ideals of government and education. Two years after they arrived a spelling book was printed, and a few years later the printing office sent out a newspaper in the native language. The first boarding school for boys was started by Lorrin Andrews in 1831, on Maui, and it was not long after that one was established for girls. The Hilo boarding school, which came later, was the one that General Armstrong took many suggestions from for his work for the coloured people, at Hampton Institute in Virginia. Indeed, so eager were the Hawaiians to learn of their new teachers that whole villages came to the mission stations, gray-haired men and women becoming pupils, and the chiefs leading the way.

As early as 1835, Hoapili, governor of Maui, made the rule that all children over four years of age should attend school, and no man or woman who was unable to read and write should hold office or receive a license to marry. Soon after that laws were passed making attendance at school compulsory. Any man who had a child under eight years of age, and did not send him to school, was to suffer various penalties, among them to forfeit the right to cut the kinds of timber that the king set apart for the use of the people. To make this provision emphatic, the following sentence was added: "All those kinds of timber are tabu to those parents who send not their children to school." An anecdote of this transition period is found in a book written by one who styled himself simply Haole (a foreigner). In the valley of Halawa, on the island of Molokai, he was entertained at the house of the district judge, a full-blooded Hawaiian. Among the furnishings of the house were a table, a bedstead, some chairs, even a rocking chair. He gives an amusing description of his evening meal in this house.

"First of all, the table was covered with a sheet just taken off the bed. The table service consisted of a knife, fork and spoon, procured from the foot of a long woolen stocking, a single plate, a tumbler, and a calabash of pure water from a neighbouring spring. The eatables were composed of fresh fish, baked in wrappers of the ti leaf, a couple of boiled fowls, a huge dish of sweet potatoes, and another of boiled tara (taro?).... The last thing served upon the table was something which the family had learned to designate by the name of 'tea' in English. This was emptied into large bowls, and was intended for the family group, myself included....

"The cook was a strapping Kanaka, rather more than six feet in height, and would have weighed nearly three hundred pounds. While I was the only occupant of the table, the family had formed a circle on their mats, where they were discussing their supper with the utmost eagerness. He devoted his entire attention to me. He was a good specimen of a well poi-fed native. I could see his frame to advantage, for his sole dress consisted of a short woolen shirt and the malo; and his head of hair resembled that of the pictured Medusa. When I first sat down to the table, he took up my plate, and with a mouthful of breath, which was really a small breeze, he blew the dust from it.

"This act occasioned me no small merriment. But when, in supplying me with 'tea,' he took up a bowl and wiped it out with the corner of his flannel shirt, I could refrain no longer. I laughed until my sides fairly ached and the tears streamed down my face.... For a moment the family were taken by surprise, and so was this presiding deity of culinary operations. But on a second outburst from myself, they felt reassured, and joined with me in my laughter. The cook, however, seemed to feel that I had laughed at some one of his blunders; so he dipped the bowl in a calabash of water, washed it out with his greasy fingers, and again wiped it out with that same shirt lap. This was done three times, in answer to the laughter it was impossible for me to restrain. And when he had filled the bowl with tea, and saw that it remained untasted, he put a large quantity of sugar into the huge tea-kettle, shook it up, placed it at my right elbow, and told me to drink that!