To the heathen the book of nature is a sealed book. Where the word of God is not, the works of God fail either to excite admiration or to impart instruction. The Sandwich Islands present some of the sublimest scenery on earth, but to an ignorant native—to the great mass of the people in entire heathenism—it has no meaning. As one crested billow after another of the heaving ocean rolls in and dashes upon the unyielding rocks of an iron-bound coast, which seems to say, “Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther,” the low-minded heathen is merely thinking of the shellfish on the shore. As he looks up to the everlasting mountains, girt with clouds and capped with snow, he betrays no emotion. As he climbs a towering cliff, looks down a yawning precipice, or abroad upon a forest of deep ravines, immense rocks, and spiral mountains thrown together in the utmost wildness and confusion by the might of God’s volcanoes, he is only thinking of some roots in the wilderness that may be good for food.
There is hardly a poem in this volume that does not show the utter falsity of this view. The writer of the words quoted above, now in his grave for more than sixty years, was a man for whose purity and moral character one must entertain the highest esteem. He enjoyed the very best opportunity to study the minds of the “heathen” about him, to discern their thoughts, to learn at first hand their emotions toward the natural world, whether of admiration, awe, reverence, or whether their attitude was that of blank indifference and absorption in selfish things. But he utterly failed to penetrate the mystery, the “truth and poetry,” of the Hawaiian mind and heart. Was it because he was tied to a false theology and a false theory of human nature? We are not called upon to answer this question. Let others say what was wrong in his standpoint. The object of this book is not controversial; but when a palpable injustice has been done, and is persisted in by people of the purest motives, as to the thoughts, emotions, and mental operations of the “savage,” and as to the finer workings within that constitute the furniture and sanctuary of heart and soul, it is imperative to correct so grave a mistake; and we may be sure that he whose words have just been quoted, were he living to-day, would acknowledge his error.
Though it is not the purpose of these pages to set forth in order a treatise on the human nature of the “savage,” or to make unneeded apology for the primitive and uncultured races of mankind in general, or for the Hawaiian in particular, yet it is no small satisfaction to be able to set in array evidence from the life and thoughts of the savages themselves that shall at least have a modifying influence upon our views on these points.
The poetry of ancient Hawaii evinces a deep and genuine love of nature, and a minute, affectionate, and untiring observation of her moods, which it would be hard to find surpassed in any literature. Her poets never tired of depicting nature; sometimes, indeed, their art seems heaven-born. The mystery, beauty, and magnificence of the island world appealed profoundly to their souls; in them the ancient Hawaiian found the image of man the embodiment of Deity; and their myriad moods and phases were for him an inexhaustible spring of joy, refreshment, and delight.
GLOSSARY
The study of Hawaiian pronunciation is mainly a study of vowel sounds and of accent. Each written vowel represents at least two related sounds.
A (ah) has the Italian sound found in father, as in ha-le or in La-ka; also a short sound like that of a in liable, as in ke-a-ke-a, to contradict, or in a-ha, an assembly.
E (a) has the sound of long a in fate, or of e in prey, without the i-glide that follows, as in the first syllable of Pé-le, or of mé-a, a thing; also the short sound of e in net, as in é-ha, hurt, or in péa, a sail.
I (ee) has the long sound of i in pique, or in police, as in i-li, skin, or in hí-la-hí-la, shame; also the short sound of i in hill, as in lí-hi, border, and in í-ki, small.