Kiana: a Tradition of Hawaii

by James Jackson Jarves

With an object so dear in view, Beatriz felt equal to any emergency. Eager to serve her new sister, Liliha entered fully into her zeal. As they drew near the fortress, they met parties of women and children and bands of warriors, hurrying forward in the same direction. All were so bent on arriving early at their destination, that our travellers attracted but the customary salutations, with now and then the inquiry, “Have you seen the strange priest Hewahewa is to offer to Pele to-morrow? It will be a novel sight.” At these ominous inquiries, Beatriz shuddered and drew closer to Liliha, who at times barely refrained from indignantly bidding them cease their exultation, for her father would be guilty of no such breach of hospitality. “Has not Olmedo eaten beneath his roof;” she would say to Beatriz, “how then can he slay him? The laws of Hawaii forbid. Believe them not. Take courage.” As they passed one group of decrepit women to whose bony hands young children clung, scarcely old enough to totter along, but yet able to keep pace with the faltering steps of the hags who led them, Liliha could restrain herself no longer, and in her usual tone of authority, bade them “begone to their homes, and not leave them to glut their dim sight with the agonies of a horrible death. Their own would soon enough be upon them.” Not recognizing the young chiefess, they shook their lank arms menacingly at her, and croaked out, “So, so, my gay bird, you would look on it alone! Old eyes love new sights as well as young eyes. You go fast enough now, but your bones will crack and your flesh will wither like ours before many suns. You’ll know then what a treat ’tis to see Pele fed. Come, come, don’t keep us back,” and they twitched the little ones at their sides in impotent effort to make them go faster.

Luckily Liliha was out of hearing before they had finished their sentence, and thus was spared the temptation to reply. In company with a motley crowd, her party arrived at dusk at the western gate of the fortress, and entered unnoticed amid the throng. Numerous companies of warriors, with their arms and provisions, and headed by their hereditary chiefs, had assembled and were encamped apart from each other, both within and without the stronghold. Knots of these fierce men, intermingled with women and children, were gathered around orators, who were exciting their passions to war and plunder, and to whose eloquence they replied by shouts and yells and thrilling chants, brandishing their weapons and deriding their foes. There were many fighting women among them, the most ferocious of Amazons, whose cries and gestures were the wildest of all, as they indulged in imaginary triumphs, and danced and raved by torch light in maniac groups, or flying hither and thither with dishevelled hair and distorted countenances, sought to inspire the spectators with their own savage emotions. Priests were discussing their singular good fortune in the propitiatory offering they had secured for Pele in the white man, and promising the people her aid and that of her terrible sisters in the nefarious designs of Pohaku, whose heralds just before night-fall, had proclaimed war, and invited all the population to join in the feast, or more properly speaking the saturnalia, in anticipation of the solemn sacrifice of the morrow, and the subsequent march towards the territories of Kiana, whom they hoped to surprise. The non-combatants were to remain within the fortress. This was more than seven hundred feet wide. Its walls were fifteen feet thick and twelve high, making it for Hawaii impregnable, if resolutely defended. Along its whole extent at short intervals, were hideous images of stone or wood, which stood as sentinels over their worshippers. Now in the dusky light they looked like real demons, silently watching the noise and revelry below. The maddest of the priests were rushing about with smaller idols, lifting them above their heads with fearful screams and grimaces, pretending that they came from the images, which were to be borne in the ranks as consecrated banners. Feasting had already commenced, and various parties were to be seen seated on mats on the ground, both inside and outside of the houses, banqueting on wild boar, dog, live fishes, and other luxuries of the region, which they washed down with copious draughts of the intoxicating arva, amid rude jeers, jests, shouts and uproarious laughter. Slaves of both sexes, naked to their waist-cloths despite the chill air, gaunt and feeble, from famine and ill-usage, stood in the rear of their masters, eager to clutch the thrown aside morsel, while tremblingly obeying their capricious orders. Canine and swinish pets, barked and grunted, fought and rooted in unrebuked proximity to their owners, adding their stirring noises to the general chorus of discordant sounds.

Such was the spectacle into which Beatriz was introduced, as following Liliha they quietly made their way in search of Hewahewa. Fortunately, the deepening shadows of night favored their disguise, and Beatriz was too intent on finding Olmedo, to notice what otherwise would have alarmed her, for there were scenes of debauchery going on which it is not for the pen to describe.

As they passed the open door of a house larger than the rest, Liliha saw the gloomy features of Pohaku, intently gazing into a smothered fire, in which something was slowly consuming. Around him were a party of the high chiefs, who stood deferentially, while he reclined on a divan. On either hand were two priests, who were uttering a dismal chant with their hands extended towards heaven, but frequently stopping to throw a substance, the nature of which they could not discern, upon the fire. If it flashed into a quick bright flame, all hailed it with cries of satisfaction; but as it oftener seemed to half extinguish the fire, or to puff out thick wreaths of smoke, Pohaku’s face became fearfully moody, and he growled curses upon the priests, who evidently were more in awe of him than their deities. Tolta stood in the back-ground, regarding the scene with a look of mingled contempt and impatience.

Making a sign to her companions to remain where they were, Liliha thinking her father might be within, cautiously approached where she could see the interior. Hewahewa was not there. But before she could retire, Tolta passed out so close to her that she could have touched him, saying to himself, “Fools, do they think by drunkenness and frantic shouts to beat Kiana’s men, or by incantations to waste the flesh from his bones? Rightly that brute is named stone,”—referring to the meaning of the word Pohaku,—“his head and heart are made of nothing else. His stupid sorcery will lose me my game. He says he will not budge until he omens are auspicious. Would he were to be cast to Pele with Olmedo. But I must see that priest and get his final answer.” Seeing the group of women, he roughly said to them as he passed, “Away with you, hags, to your feasting; leave such foolery to your betters; you’ll have enough to wail for to-morrow,” little perceiving to whom his bitter words were spoken.

Liliha motioned to them to follow her as she stole after him. He walked fast, but they dogged him as noiselessly as shadows. Olmedo had been removed into the heiau, or temple, outside of the fortress, upon a cliff overhanging the lake of fire. Inside were a few houses devoted to the priests and the idols. As they passed under the eastern gate of the fortress, Liliha saw the three heads of the Spaniards set upon poles. In the dim light their features could not be distinguished. Supposing them to be some of the common victims of the priests, she put her finger upon her lips for Beatriz to keep silent, fearing the effect upon her of so sudden and ghastly a sight. Beatriz knew too well to whom they belonged, but she restrained her emotions, and passed them quickly, though not without an inward prayer for the repose of their souls.

They arrived at the entrance of the heiau as Tolta disappeared within. It had been made tabu to females, and was now deserted by all but the guards appointed by Hewahewa to watch over Olmedo. Death, under the most appalling forms, would be the penalty if they were detected within the sacred precincts. As little as Liliha knew of the rites of the popular religion, she was quite aware of the terrible punishment awarded to any breach of priestly tabus, though without any superstitious dread of infringing them. It was natural, therefore, for her to pause before she crossed the fatal barrier. Beatriz, either not perceiving or not understanding her hesitation, entered at once. Liliha stopped no longer, but impulsively followed, as did her faithful women, who, if it had been her will, would have leaped after her into the crater, so attached were they to their young mistress.

The heiau was reeking with foul odors, that arose from the putrefying masses of animal offerings upon the numerous altars. Some human sacrifices had been recently made. These corpses, in which decay had already begun, were stretched out before images so foul in features and postures, as to be unlike anything earthly. To a savage they might well appear to be fiends, but to an educated mind they were absurd and disgusting, exciting horror only from the blind devotion paid them. They saw also the secret access to the principal idols, by means of which the priests, like those of Isis at Pompeii, were able to utter oracles through their mouths, as if the god spoke, and to perform the usual ritual jugglery which, among all ignorant races, designing priestcraft passes off as miracles.

Although faint and soul-sick at these evidences of a faith so false, so pitiless to the doomed, and so suggestive of what might be her own fate, and unless they succeeded in rescuing Olmedo, would be his, Beatriz did not for a second falter. For a little while they were bewildered in the intricacies in the interior of the heiau, as they had lost sight of Tolta, and knew not in what direction to seek for the prison of Olmedo. As they cautiously groped their way from one house to another, listening to catch signs of life, they heard voices from one near by. Being of thatch, there was no difficulty in observing the interior through a hole made in the straw. They saw Olmedo lying on mats, with several guards about him, whom Liliha recognized to be her own men. Indeed they were husbands of the women with her. Tolta had just gone in, and was speaking to Olmedo in Spanish.