Meeting Place of an Ancient Secret Society.
(FROM A PAINTING IN THE ROYAL PALACE.)
The leading chiefs and high-priesthood claimed a lineage distinct from that of the masses, and traced their ancestry back to Kumuhonua, the Polynesian Adam. The iku-pau, a sacred class of the supreme priesthood, assumed to be the direct descendants from the godhead, while the iku-nuu were a collateral branch of the sacred and royal strain, and possessed only temporal powers. It was thus that one of the families of the Hawaiian priesthood, in charge of the verbal genealogical records, exalted itself in sanctity above the political rulers.
Proud of their lineage, to guard against imposture and keep their blood uncorrupted, the chiefs allowed their claims to family distinction to be passed upon by a college of heraldry, established by an early moi of Maui. Reciting their genealogies before the college, composed of aliis of accepted rank, and receiving the recognition of the council, chiefs were then regarded as members of the grade of aha-alii, or chiefs of admitted and irrevocable rank.
The chiefs inherited their titles and tabu privileges quite as frequently through the rank of one parent as of the other. As Hawaiian women of distinction usually had more than one husband, and the chiefs were seldom content with a single wife, the difficulty of determining the rights and ranks of their children was by no means easy; but the averment of the mother was generally accepted as conclusive and sufficient evidence in that regard.
For political purposes marriage alliances were common between the royal and chiefly families of the several islands, and thus in time the superior nobility of the entire group became connected by ties of blood. The political or principal wife of a king or distinguished chief was usually of a rank equal to that of her husband, and their marriage was proclaimed by heralds and celebrated with befitting ceremonies. Other wives were taken by simple agreement, and without ceremony or public announcement. Very much in the same manner the masses entered into their marriage unions. With the latter, however, polygamy was not common. When husband and wife separated, as they frequently did, each was at liberty to select another partner. The political wife of a chief was called wahine-hoao; the others, haia-wahine, or concubine.
In the royal families, to subserve purposes of state, father and daughter, brother and sister, and uncle and niece frequently united as man and wife. The children of such unions were esteemed of the highest rank, and, strange to say, no mental or physical deterioration seemed to result from these incestuous relations, for all through the past the mois and nobles of the group were noted for their gigantic proportions.
There were five or more grades of chiefs connected with the royal lines. First in order, and the most sacred, was the alii-niaupio (the offspring of a prince with his own sister); next, the alii-pio (the offspring of a prince with his own niece); next, the alii-naha (the offspring of a prince or king with his own daughter); next, the alii-wohi (the offspring of either of the foregoing with another chiefly branch); and next, the lo-alii (chiefs of royal blood). Any of these might be either male or female.
To these grades of chiefs distinct personal tabus or prerogatives were attached, such as the tabu-moe, tabu-wela, tabu-hoano and tabu-wohi. These tabus could be given or bequeathed to others by their possessors, but could not be multiplied by transmission. The meles, or ancestral chants of a family, passed in succession to the legal representatives, and became exclusively theirs; but the government, tabus and household gods of the king were subject to his disposal as he willed, either at his death or before it. The child of a tabu chief, born of a mother of lower rank, could not, according to custom, assume the tabu privileges of his father, although in some instances in the past they were made to inure to such offspring, notably in the case of Umi, King of Hawaii.