There were three places in the islands from which the ghosts took their departure for the other world. One was at the northern extremity of the island of Hawaii; one was at the western end of Maui; and one was at the southern point of Oahu.[162] According to one account, the ghosts on their passage to Milu's subterranean realm went westward in the direction of the setting sun, and either leaped from a rock into the sea or vanished into a hole in the ground.[163]
But before bidding a last farewell to earth, the soul of the deceased was believed to linger for a time in the neighbourhood of the grave or of the house. It had now become an akua or divine spirit, but during its stay on earth it was dreaded as an akua-lapu or "terrifying spirit," because it appeared to the living as a spectre or ghost. In time, however, it grew weaker and weaker and gradually disappeared altogether, like the other spirits (akuas). By that time it had found a guide to show it the way to Milu's realm, from which there is no return. Sometimes, however, the guardian god of a family would oppose the passage of a soul to the other world, and send it back to life, so that the seemingly dead man recovered.[164] It is said to have been a firmly established belief that the dead appeared to the living and communicated with them in dreams.[165] The priests in particular were favoured with such messages from the other world.[166]
A legend tells how a certain chief of Hawaii, sorrowing for the death of his wife, applied to a priest, who furnished him with a god called Kane-i-kou-alii (God of Chiefs), to guide him to the nether world of Milu, whither his beloved spouse had departed. Journeying together, the god and the man came to the end of the world, where grew a tree, which split open and allowed them to glide down into the depths. There the god hid behind a rock and allowed the chief to go on alone, but first he rubbed stinking oil over the chief's body. On arriving at Milu's palace the chief found the whole court full of spirits engaged in such noisy and tumultuous sports, that he could steal in among them unobserved, all the more because the nearest spirits mistook him for a ghost newly arrived with the stench of his dead body still on him, so that they turned away from him in disgust and made uncomplimentary remarks on his unsavoury condition. When they had played all sorts of games, the chief suggested that, as a new form of sport, they should all take out their eyes and throw them in a heap. The suggestion was accepted, and every one hastened to comply with it. But the chief took care to mark where the eyes of Milu fell, and snatching them up he hid them in the coco-nut beaker which he carried with him. As all the spirits were now blind, it was easy for the chief to make his way to the neighbouring realm of Akea or Wakea, which was tabooed to the spirits that swarmed in Milu's kingdom and might not be entered by them. However, after long negotiations, Milu was allowed to recover his eyes, on condition that the soul of the chief's wife should be sent back to earth and reunited to her body, which was happily accomplished.[167]
The Hawaiians were not without some notion of a general resurrection of the dead. When the missionary William Ellis was conversing with some of the natives on that subject, they said that they had heard of it before from a native priest named Kapihe, who had lived at their village in the time of King Kamehameha. The priest told the king that at his death he would see his ancestors, and that hereafter all the kings, chiefs, and people of Hawaii would live again. When Ellis asked them how this would be effected, and with what circumstances it would be attended, whether they would live again in Hawaii or in Miru (Milu), the Hades of the Sandwich Islands, they replied that there were two gods, who conducted the departed spirits of their chiefs to some place in the heavens, where the souls of kings and chiefs sometimes dwelt, and that afterwards the two divine conductors returned with the royal and princely souls to earth, where they accompanied the movements and watched over the destinies of their survivors. The name of one of these gods was Kaonohiokala, which means the eyeball of the sun; and the name of the other was Kuahairo. Now Kapihe was priest to the latter god, and professed to have received a revelation, in accordance with which he informed King Kamehameha that, when the monarch should depart this life, the god Kuahairo would carry his spirit to the sky and afterwards accompany it back to earth again, whereupon his body would be restored to life and youth; that he would have his wives again and resume his government in Hawaii; that at the same time the existing generation would see and know their parents and ancestors, and that all the people who had died would rise again from the dead.[168] It is to be feared, however, that the priest was a deceiver; for King Kamehameha has not yet come to life again, and up to the present time the general resurrection has not taken place in Hawaii.
That must conclude what I have to say about the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead in Polynesia, The notions which the Polynesians entertained on this subject cannot but strike a civilised European as childish, while the customs which they based on them must appear to him in great part foolish, even where they were not barbarous and cruel. How far such childish notions and foolish customs tend to confirm or to refute the widespread, almost universal, belief in the survival of the human soul after death, is a question which I must leave my readers to answer for themselves.
FOOTNOTES
[1] W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iv. 4 sqq.; J. J. Jarves, History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands (London, 1843), pp. 1 sqq.; J. Remy, Histoire de l'Archipel Havaiien (Paris and Leipzig, 1862), pp. vii sqq.; C. E. Meinicke, Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans, ii. 271 sqq.; Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ninth Edition, xi. 528 sqq.; A. Marcuse, Die Hawaiischen Inseln (Berlin, 1894), pp. 1 sqq.; F. H. H. Guillemard, Australasia, ii. 533 sqq.
[2] J. Cook, Voyages, vii. 94; W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, iv. 34, 379; C. S. Stewart, Residence in the Sandwich Islands, Fifth Edition (Boston, 1839), pp. 69 sqq., 140; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, Journal of Voyages and Travels, i. 366, 391; Ch. Wilkes, United States Exploring Expedition, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 373.
[3] W. Ellis, op. cit. iv. 13 sq.; C. S. Stewart, op. cit. pp. 213 sqq., 229 sqq.; Tyerman and Bennet, op. cit. i. 426 sqq.; J. Remy, op. cit. pp. xiv sq.; Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. iii. 390 sq.; F. D. Bennett, Narrative of a Whaling Voyage round the Globe (London, 1840), i. 198 sqq. The vale of Anuanu, which runs up into the mountains from the plain of Honululu in the island of Oahu, is especially famed for its natural beauty.
[4] J. Remy, op. cit. pp. xvi sqq. Compare J. Cook, Voyages, vii. 99 sq.; W. Ellis, op. cit. iv. 21 sq.; Ch. Wilkes, op. cit. iv. 283 sq.; J. J. Jarves, op. cit. pp. 12 sqq.; Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th edition, xi. 530.