Kiana: a Tradition of Hawaii

by James Jackson Jarves

Mass had just been said. Olmedo had trained some of the more tractable youths to assist him in the service, which they did the more willingly, from perceiving that it gave them a personal importance to be considered of the household of Lono. The solemn chant of the priest in a strange and sonorous tongue, the regular responses of the Spaniards, and their thorough devotion, the simple exhortations to a good life, which all present could comprehend, followed by the earnest eloquence of Olmedo, as he sought to expound in the Hawaiian tongue the mysteries of a faith which it had no terms correctly to render, all made an impressive scene. Their hearts were touched even when their minds were not enlightened.

It was the decline of day. The sun was pouring a flood of soft light over the sea, which sparkled as with the radiance of an opal. Kiana, Olmedo, and Beatriz, came out of the chapel, and reclined upon a pile of mats which their attendants had spread for them on a green knoll just beyond the reach of the waves. The trade wind fanned them with its cool breath, and sang an evening hymn amid the waving palms, high above their heads. A group of fishermen were hauling their nets, heavy with the meshed fishes, to the music of a wild chant. Numbers of both sexes were sporting in the surf. The line of breakers commenced far seaward, in long, lofty, curling swells, that came in regular succession thundering onward to the shore, which trembled under the mighty reverberation. It was not a sound of anger, nor of merriment, but the pealing forth of Nature’s mightiest organ, in deep-toned notes of praise. There was much in the commingled glories of sound and color, the beauty of the shore, and the expanse of the ocean, to suggest an Infinite Author to the most thoughtless mind.

Human life and happiness mingle largely with the scene. The bathers shout and gambol in the water as if in their native element. The maidens and boys,—with their parents, who in the frolic become children also,—dive under the huge combers as one after another they break and foam on their way to the shore. Heads with flowing tresses and laughing eyes are continually shooting up through the yeast of waters with merry cries, then ducking again to escape the quick coming wave. Rising beyond it, each plunge carries them further seaward, till with their surf-boards they reach the line of deep water. Then poising their boards on the very crests of the heaviest rollers, they throw themselves flat upon them, and skilfully keeping their position just on its edge before it topples and breaks, they are borne with the speed of race horses towards the shore. Now is their highest glee. In revelry they scream and toss their dark arms, which strikingly contrast with the silvery gleaming wave, urging their ocean steeds to still more headlong haste. They near the rocks. Another instant, and of their gaysome forms nothing will remain but mangled flesh and broken bones. But no: the wave passes from under them, and dashes its salt spray upon the land barrier, and far away among the green bushes; the surf board is cast with violence upon the shore, but the active swimmers avoid the shock, by sliding at the latest moment from their boards and diving seaward, again emerge, challenging each other once more to mount Neptune’s car.

A more quiet scene is at the left. Here flows a gentle stream, overhung with deep foliage. On its banks, to the beating of drums and the quick chants of the musicians, young children are dancing. They wear wreaths of white or scarlet flowers, intermingled with deep green leaves, on their heads; and on their bosoms are necklaces of bright shells or finely braided hair, and feather mantles about their waists. They are yet too young to feel other instincts than the gladsome and chaste impulses which are shown in light and graceful motions. Even the groups of adults seated on the grass, watching with interest their sports, reflect their innocent gayety, and become for the moment young and innocent themselves.

In the stream itself, mothers are teaching their infants to swim. Their love for the water is apparent in every struggle. They take to it like ducklings, and almost as soon as they can walk they can be trusted alone in that element. Now they turn their smiling faces towards their parents, and kick and cry for one more plash and still another; the delighted mother encouraging its attempts with soothing voice and tender care.

Such was the spectacle on which Kiana and his friends were gazing, after leaving the chapel and seating themselves by the sea-shore.

That day Olmedo had in his discourse dwelt more earnestly than usual upon the doctrines of his creed, with the hope finally to induce Kiana to cast aside his mythology and accept the Roman Catholic Trinity. Here, indeed, was the stumbling-block. How could Olmedo hope to make an idea, which was in a great degree contradictory and incomprehensible even to many of the cultivated and theological minds of Europe, intelligible to the simple reason of the Polynesian, when by the former it was at least only received as a great mystery!