CHAPTER V.
“See man from Nature rising slow to Art.”—Pope.
Mauna Kea, the highest mountain of Hawaii, occupies the northern portion of the island. In some places it descends in grassy slopes, sufficiently gentle to form plains, dotted here and there with the many armed pandanus and the thickly leaved kukui trees. From the resinous nuts of the latter the natives obtained their torches, while its rich foliage and grand proportions made it equally valuable for timber or shade.
At the distance of some twenty miles from the bay where the caravel was wrecked, there was a level and extensive plain fringed with forests of the above named trees, and backed by the snow-topped mountains. The front afforded a wide-spread view of the ocean, the breezes from which, added to an elevation of several thousand feet, gave it a climate much cooler and more bracing than that of the coast. On this account, and from its natural beauties, it had from time immemorial been used by the Hawaiians as a spot on which to celebrate public games or sacred festivals. Its verdant and carefully irrigated soil afforded food for the numerous priests who belonged to the different “heiaus” or temples to be seen within its limits. These were built of basaltic stones, some of which were of great size, and nicely adjusted together without cement, according to their natural fractures. Within the walls, which were massive and high, were the houses of the priests and the shrines where were deposited the most sacred images. Each chief of importance had his family temple, around which had grown up villages, to accommodate himself and retainers in their periodical visits to this upland region.
For a month previous to the wreck, many thousands of the islanders had been gathered under their chiefs to engage in their annual athletic games. Their principal object was, however, to celebrate the festival of Lono. Now Lono was one of those mythic beings so common in America and Polynesia, who in ages long gone by, after having done many notable things for the benefit of their fellow men, disappear like Moses in some inexplicable manner, leaving behind them a memory always green, and a sort of implied promise to return with greater benefits in store. Indeed, heroes of this character appear amid much traditionary fog, in the youth of almost all nations. In this instance, Lono had killed his wife in a fit of jealousy, instigated by a Hawaiian Iago out of malice equal to the Venetian’s. Love’s reaction and contrition drove him frantic. After founding games in honor of his victim, he put out to sea in an oddly shaped canoe,—so the tradition runs,—promising to return some future day with many good things to enhance his welcome. Whether it was from love to him, or from faith in the expected increase of comforts and riches, that they so venerated his memory, I am at this day unable to say, but certain it is that a more popular god did not exist in Hawaii. His festival was therefore celebrated with peculiar unction.
On this occasion it had been honored with unusual solemnity, on account of the presence of the most powerful and best beloved chief of this island, whose territory embraced the fertile bay where the caravel went ashore.
It was the custom on the most sacred festivals to enforce perfect silence from man and beast during certain rites. While the festival lasted, peace was universal, property respected, and under the solemn influence of the magic “tabu,” human law and police seemed unnecessary; for there was implied in this simple word, if but its spirit were infringed, all the awful judgments, both temporal and supernatural, that the imagination could conceive, and even more, for the very uncertainty of the fate which was to attend its violation, added ten-fold force to its terrors. The simple symbol, therefore, which denoted the application of the tabu to any object, carried with it a power such as no civilized code ever exercised, and which the tortures of the Inquisition failed to establish.
The word tabu, as applied to religious matters, was a ritual in itself. Hence when the high-priest set apart a certain time as tabu to Lono, the entire population knew what ceremonies were to be performed, and what was expected of each of them. During the present holidays it had been specially enjoined that the valley in which Kiana, a descendant of Lono and the supreme chief of more than half of Hawaii, resided, should be tabu from man and all domestic animals. For one month, profound silence was to rest upon it. Consequently, the inhabitants left for the uplands, taking with them every animal and fowl which they owned. It was owing to this tabu that Alvirez, when he explored the valley, met with such complete stillness amid all the outward signs of active life.
The very day, therefore, that Alvirez had so freely taken possession of the chief’s own quarters, Kiana with his people were on their march homeward. This chief, as is the aristocracy in general of Hawaii, was of commanding stature, some six feet six inches in height, finely proportioned, with round elastic limbs, not over muscular or too sinewy, like the North American Indian, but full, with a soft smooth skin and a bright olive complexion, which was not so dark, but that the blood at times deepened the color thereon. His face was strikingly handsome, being, like his body, of that happy medium between womanly softness and the more rugged development of manly strength, which indicates a well harmonized physical structure. In repose, one feared to see him move, lest the beauty of outline would be destroyed; but when in action, with his muscles quivering with a hidden fire, his dark eyes flashing light, the full nostril of his race and rich sensual lip expanded with excitement, there was about him much that recalled the Apollo, particularly in the light step and eager haughty expression. His strength was prodigious. He had been known in battle, having broken his javelin, to seize an enemy by the leg and neck, and break his spine by a blow across his knees. Fierce he undoubtedly was to his foes, but there were in all his actions a pervading manliness and generosity, joined to a winning demeanor, which stamped him as one of nature’s gentlemen. No rival of his tribe disputed his authority, because all felt safer and better under his rule. By moral influence, rather than by force, all the other chiefs of this portion of Hawaii looked to him as their leader and umpire; so that without any of the dubious treaties and forms of a confederated government, they had all the advantages of one, while each remained free within his own territorial confines.