The Hawaiian Archipelago

by Isabella L. Bird

I very soon left the languid life of Kona for this sheep station, 6000 feet high on the desolate slope of the dead volcano of Hualalai, (“offspring of the shining sun,”) on the invitation of its hospitable owner, who said if I “could eat his rough fare, and live his rough life, his house and horses were at my disposal.” He is married to a very attractive native woman who eats at his table, but does not know a word of English, but they are both away at a wool-shed eight miles off, shearing sheep.

This house is in the great volcanic wilderness of which I wrote from Kalaieha, a desert of drouth and barrenness. There is no permanent track, and on the occasions when I have ridden up here alone, the directions given me have been to steer for an ox bone, and from that to a dwarf ohia. There is no coming or going; it is seventeen miles from the nearest settlement, and looks across a desert valley to Mauna Loa. Woody trailers, harsh hard grass in tufts, the Asplenium trichomanes in rifts, the Pellea ternifolia in sand, and some ohia and mamané scrub in hollow places sheltered from the wind, all hard, crisp, unlovely growths, contrast with the lavish greenery below. A brisk cool wind blows all day; every afternoon a dense fog brings the horizon within 200 feet, but it clears off with frost at dark, and the flames of the volcano light the whole southern sky.

My companions are an amiable rheumatic native woman, and a crone who must have lived a century, much shrivelled and tattooed, and nearly childish. She talks to herself in weird tones, stretches her lean limbs by the fire most of the day, and in common with most of the old people has a prejudice against clothes, and prefers huddling herself up in a blanket to wearing the ordinary dress of her sex. There is also a dog, but he does not understand English, and for some time I have not spoken any but Hawaiian words. I have plenty to do, and find this a very satisfactory life.

I came up to within eight miles of this house with a laughing, holiday-making rout of twelve natives, who rode madly along the narrow forest trail at full gallop, up and down the hills, through mire and over stones, leaping over the trunks of prostrate trees, and stooping under branches with loud laughter, challenging me to reckless races over difficult ground, and when they found that the wahine haole was not to be thrown from her horse they patted me approvingly, and crowned me with leis of mailé. I became acquainted with some of these at Kilauea in the winter, and since I came to Kona they have been very kind to me.

I thoroughly like living among them, taking meals with them on their mats, and eating “two fingered” poi as if I had been used to it all my life. Their mirthfulness and kindliness are most winning; their horses, food, clothes, and time are all bestowed on one so freely, and one lives amongst them with a most restful sense of absolute security. They have many faults, but living alone among them in their houses as I have done so often on Hawaii, I have never seen or encountered a disagreeable thing. But the more I see of them the more impressed I am with their carelessness and love of pleasure, their lack of ambition and a sense of responsibility, and the time which they spend in doing nothing but talking and singing as they bask in the sun, though spasmodically and under excitement they are capable of tremendous exertions in canoeing, surf-riding, and lassoing cattle.

While down below I joined three natives for the purpose of seeing this last sport. They all rode shod horses, and had lassoes of ox hide attached to the horns of their saddles. I sat for an hour on horseback on a rocky hill while they hunted the woods; then I heard the deep voices of bulls, and a great burst of cattle appeared, with hunters in pursuit, but the herd vanished over a dip of the hill side, and the natives joined me. By this time I wished myself safely at home, partly because my unshod horse was not fit for galloping over lava and rough ground, and I asked the men where I should stay to be out of danger. The leader replied, “Oh, just keep close behind me!” I had thought of some safe view-point, not of galloping on an unshod horse with a ruck of half maddened cattle, but it was the safest plan, and there was no time to be lost, for as we rode slowly down, we sighted the herd dodging across the open to regain the shelter of the wood, and much on the alert.

Putting our horses into a gallop we dashed down the hill till we were close up with the chase; then another tremendous gallop, and a brief wild rush, the grass shaking with the surge of cattle and horses. There was much whirling of tails and tearing up of the earth--a lasso spun three or four times round the head of the native who rode in front of me, and almost simultaneously a fine red bullock lay prostrate on the earth, nearly strangled, with his foreleg noosed to his throat. The other natives dismounted, and put two lassoes round his horns, slipping the first into the same position, and vaulted into their saddles before he was on his legs.

He got up, shook himself, put his head down, and made a mad blind rush, but his captors were too dexterous for him, and in that and each succeeding rush he was foiled. As he tore wildly from side to side, the natives dodged under the lasso, slipping it over their heads, and swung themselves over their saddles, hanging in one stirrup, to aid their trained horses to steady themselves as the bullock tugged violently against them. He was escorted thus for a mile, his strength failing with each useless effort, his tongue hanging out, blood and foam dropping from his mouth and nostrils, his flanks covered with foam and sweat, till blind and staggering, he was led to a tree, where he was at once stabbed, and two hours afterwards a part of him was served at table. The natives were surprised that I avoided seeing his death, as the native women greatly enjoy such a spectacle. This mode of killing an animal while heated and terrified, doubtless accounts for the dark colour and hardness of Hawaiian beef.

Numbers of the natives are expert with the lasso, and besides capturing with it wild and half wild cattle, they catch horses with it, and since I came here my host caught a sheep with it, singling out the one he wished to kill, from the rest of the galloping flock with an unerring aim. It takes a whole ox hide cut into strips to make a good lasso.

One of my native friends tells me that a native man who attended on me in one of my earlier expeditions has since been “prayed to death.” One often hears this phrase, and it appears that the superstition which it represents has by no means died out. There are persons who are believed to have the lives of others in their hands, and their services are procured by offerings of white fowls, brown hogs, and awa, as well as money, by any one who has a grudge against another. Several other instances have been told me of persons who have actually died under the influence of the terror and despair produced by being told that the kahuna was “praying them to death.” I cannot learn whether these over-efficacious prayers are supposed to be addressed to the true God, or to the ancient Hawaiian divinities. The natives are very superstitious, and the late king, who was both educated and intelligent, was much under the dominion of a sorceress.