Stirring scenes in savage lands

by James Greenwood

Ellis, the Polynesian traveller, makes mention of a singular building seen by him in Hawaii, called the Hare o Keave (the House of Keave), a sacred depository of the bones of departed kings and princes, probably erected for the reception of the bones of the king whose name it bears, and who reigned in Hawaii about eight generations back. It is, or was when Mr. Ellis saw it, a compact building, twenty-four feet by sixteen, constructed with the most durable timber, and thatched with ti leaves, standing on a bed of lava that runs out a considerable distance into the sea. It is surrounded by a strong fence or paling, leaving an area in the front and at each end about twenty-four feet wide. The pavement is of smooth fragments of lava, laid down with considerable skill. Several rudely-carved male and female images of wood were placed on the outside of the enclosure, some on low pedestals under the shade of an adjacent tree, others on high posts on the jutting rocks that hung over the edge of the water. “A number stood on the fence at unequal distances all round; but the principal assemblage of these frightful representatives of their former deities was at the south-east end of the enclosed space, where, forming a semi-circle, twelve of them stood in grim array, as if perpetual guardians of the mighty dead reposing in his house adjoining. A pile of stones was neatly laid up in the form of a crescent, about three feet wide and two feet higher than the pavement, and in this pile the images were fixed. They stood on small pedestals three or four feet high, though some were placed on pillars eight or ten feet in height, and curiously carved. The principal idol stood in the centre, the others on either hand, the most powerful being placed nearest to him; he was not so large as some of the others, but distinguished by the variety and superior carvings of his body, and especially of his head. Once they had evidently been clothed, but now they appeared in the most indigent nakedness. A few tattered shreds round the neck of one that stood on the left hand side of the door, rotted by the rain and bleached by the sun, were all that remained of numerous and gaudy garments with which their votaries had formerly arrayed them. A large pile of broken calabashes and cocoa-nut shells lay in the centre, and a considerable heap of dried and partly rotten wreaths of flowers, branches and shrubs, and bushes and fragments of tapa (the accumulated offerings of former days), formed an unsightly mound immediately before each of the images. The horrid stare of these idols, the tattered garments upon some of them, and the heaps of rotting offerings before them, seemed to us no improper emblems of the system they were designed to support, distinguished alike by its cruelty, folly, and wretchedness.”

Mr. Ellis endeavoured to gain admission to the inside of the house, but was told it was tabu roa (strictly prohibited), and that nothing but a direct order from the king or high priest could open the door. However, by pushing one of the boards across the doorway a little on one side, he looked in, and saw many large images, some of wood very much carved, and others of red feathers, with distended mouths, large rows of sharks’ teeth, and pearl-shell eyes. He also saw several bundles, apparently of human bones, cleaned carefully, tied up with cinet made of cocoa-nut fibres, and placed in different parts of the house, together with some rich shawls and other valuable articles, probably worn by those to whom the bones belonged, as the wearing apparel and other personal property of the chiefs is generally buried with them. When he had gratified his curiosity, and had taken a drawing of the building and some of its appendages, he proceeded to examine other remarkable objects of the place.

Adjoining the Hare o Keave to the southward, he found a Pahio tabu (sacred enclosure) of considerable extent, and was informed by his guide that it was one of the Pohonuas of Hawaii, of which he had often heard the chiefs and others speak. There are only two on the island—the one which he was then examining, and another at Waipio on the north-east part of the island, in the district of Kohala.

These Pohonuas were the Hawaiian cities of refuge, and afforded an inviolable sanctuary to the guilty fugitive, who, when flying from the avenging spear, was so favoured as to enter their precincts. They had several wide entrances, some on the side next the sea, the others facing the mountains. Hither the manslayer, the man who had broken a tabu, or failed in the observance of its rigid requirements, the thief, and even the murderer, fled from his incensed pursuers, and was secure. To whomsoever he belonged, and from whatever part he came, he was equally certain of admittance, though liable to be pursued even to the gates of the enclosure. Happily for him, those gates were perpetually open; and, as soon as the fugitive had entered, he repaired to the presence of the idol, and made a short ejaculatory address, expressive of his obligations to him in reaching the place with security. Whenever war was proclaimed, and during the period of actual hostilities, a white flag was unfurled on the top of a tall spear at each end of the enclosure; and until the conclusion of peace waved the symbol of hope to those who, vanquished in fight, might flee thither for protection. It was fixed a short distance from the walls on the outside, and to the spot on which this banner was unfurled the victorious warrior might chase his routed foes, but here he must himself fall back; beyond it he must not advance one step, on pain of forfeiting his life; the priests and their adherents would immediately put to death any one who should have the temerity to follow or molest those who were once within the pale of the pahio tabu, and, as they expressed it, under the shade or protection of the spirit of Keave, the tutelar deity of the place.

In one part of the enclosure, houses were formerly erected for the priests, and others for the refugees, who, after a certain period, or at the cessation of war, were dismissed by the priests, and returned unmolested to their dwellings and families, no one venturing to injure those who, when they fled to the gods, had been by them protected. Mr. Ellis could not learn the length of time it was necessary for them to remain in the Pohonuas, but it did not appear to be more than two or three days. After that they either attached themselves to the service of the priests, or returned to their homes.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A Samoan inquest—Carrying a body about—Embalming in Samoa—Samoan grave fires—Catching a spirit—New Zealand burial customs—The Sexton in Borneo—Dayak funerals—Funeral customs of the Sea Dayaks—Tombs in the air—Exorcising the evil spirit—Cruel treatment of widows—The “village of the dead”—The place of skulls—Praying to the dead—Ojibbeway mourners—Disposing of the property of the dead—A Chippewa ghost story—An invisible presence—A spirited ghost—Veneration for the dead—A royal funeral—The death dance—The last of the “Stung Serpent.”

In Samoa, another of the Polynesian islands, it is considered a disgrace to the family of an aged chief if he is not buried alive· “When an old man feels sick and infirm,” says the missionary Turner, “and thinks he is dying, he deliberately tells his children and friends to get all ready and bury him. They yield to his wishes, dig a round deep pit, wind a number of fine mats round his body, and lower down the poor old heathen into his grave in a sitting posture. Live pigs are then brought and tied, each with a separate cord, the one end of the cord to the pig and the other to the arm of the old man. The cords are then cut in the middle, leaving the one half hanging at the arm of the old man, and off the pigs are taken to be killed and baked for the burial feast. The old man, however, is still supposed to take the pigs with him to the world of spirits. The greater the chief the more numerous the pigs, and the more numerous the pigs the better the reception in their Hades of heathenism. The poor old man thus wound up, furnished with his pig strings, and covered over with some more mats, is all ready. His grave is then filled up, and his dying groans are drowned amid the weeping and the wailing of the living.