Such, in brief, were the chief objects of worship among these Hawaiians, whose habits in other respects offered a strong contrast to those of Kiana’s people. Cannibalism, though not very common, was not rare among the most ferocious of the clans, but was restricted chiefly to feasts of revenge after contests in which all their cruel propensities had been fully aroused. They were given to the worst forms of sorcery, and their worship embraced such rites as might be supposed to be pleasing to their demon-idols. Always at war, either among themselves, or with their more favored neighbors of the north, their selfish passions were ever active, and their religion, based upon fear and the most abject superstition, but confirmed them in the vices most congenial to their natures. Kiana’s subjects presented the aborigines of Polynesia under their most favorable aspect, but these tribes the other extreme of savage life. With both there were exceptions to the general character. There was, however, sufficient similarity between their traits to prove not only a common parentage, but that a change of circumstances would, in time, produce an alteration in the most prominent qualities of each. This actually occurred, nearly three centuries later, when the first Kamehameha united the islands under one sovereign. But even now the traveller perceives in the sparse inhabitants of these regions a less genial disposition than in those on the sea-coast, while it is among them that still linger most pertinaciously the traces of their former fearful worship.
Among their chiefs was one named Pohaku, who had acquired by his superior courage and fierceness an ascendency over all the others. He was dark even for a native; his hair short and crispy; his eyes blood-shot; nostrils thick and wide spread, and his lips heavy and full, showing, when open, a mouth in which great milky white teeth appeared like scattered tomb-stones in a graveyard; many having been knocked out in the various fights in which he had been engaged. His frame and muscles were those of a bull, and his strength prodigious. Brute force was his tenure of power, for with all the respect of the Hawaiians for inherited rank, he was so bad a tyrant, that nothing but a convenient opportunity had been wanting for them long before to have rid themselves of him. So malicious was his vanity, that he had been known to cut off the leg of a man more richly tattooed than his own. To mangle faces, whose beauty inspired him with jealousy, was a common pastime. Thankful were the possessors if their entire heads were spared. Even a handsome head of hair was sufficient provocation to cause the owner to be beheaded. To this malevolence he joined a mania for building. What with his wars, cruelties and constant consumption of time in his rude works, his immediate tenants had a hard service, so that it was not surprising that they took every occasion to desert to the territories of Kiana, who kindly received all who claimed his protection. Others retreated farther into the savage wilderness, and there became petty robbers, a further pest to the little industry that could exist under such a ruler, and on so precarious a soil. The whole population, therefore, bred to hardihood and tyranny, were ever ripe for every opportunity which would unite them in any enterprise that savored of danger and plunder.
CHAPTER XIV.
“He that studieth revenge, keepeth his own wounds green.”—Bacon.
Tolta had not been idle since the shipwreck. The restraint which the presence of the Spaniards had hitherto imposed upon him, was now removed. He was rarely seen with them, and indeed often disappeared for weeks at a time.
Kiana had never liked him. Tolta felt it at heart and resented it. At the bottom of this feeling was no doubt the attachment both had for Beatriz. We have seen the nature of Kiana’s; generous and profound, more from deep respect than from positive love, because in reality, while her character compelled, it at the same time repelled his passion. He had striven to win her, for he could not help it. In one sense, he was not disappointed at the result, because his reason told him it could not be otherwise. Having therefore obeyed both his own and her will, he now, in continuing his kindness, left her as free to act as himself.
It was different with Tolta. The Aztec saw even deeper into the impassable gulf between their two natures, but he was drawn to her with the tenacity of the bloodhound to his scent. In her presence he was gentle and serviceable. The passions which excited him when apart from her, became with her like those of a little child. He would gaze upon her for hours with eyes intense with his fiery emotions, but the moment she spoke to him the fire left them, and the good in him illumined his countenance.