[5] Several places yet bear the name of Iku or Aiku; among others Aitu-take, one of the Hervey group, and Afareaaitu, a village in Huahaine of the Society Islands. [↑]
[6] It is of pre-Aryan origin; in ancient Greek writers we find the word koros or kouros applied to the infant gods. [↑]
Traditional Hawaiian History.
I have read with a great deal of interest the efforts made by various writers in the Hawaiian journals to restore and to publish the traditions, histories, songs and sagas, pertaining to the Hawaiian people. They have a value and being far greater than many would at first conceive of, whether historically, ethnologically or philologically considered; and their preservation and critical collation and analysis are objects well worthy of the time and trouble of men of leisure and ability. I have every reason to believe that what has so far been published is but a small part of the material that may yet be collected, if proper inquiries were made. It would be as absurd and incorrect to date Hawaiian history from the time of Captain Cook, as it would be to date English history from the time of the Norman Conquest, while the previous national life of the Hawaiian people is laid bare to the critical observer in numerous meles, kaaos, and moolelos, preserved and handed down from generation to generation, not by foreign dilettante or men of no standing, but by the most jealous care of chiefs, priests, and bards, independent in their source and preservation, crossing, clashing or confirming each other. Though the historical thread which underruns these traditions is often overlaid with fables, superstitions and exaggerations, yet I contend that from the very nature of their independent sources they are a most valuable material from which to rehabilitate Hawaiian history for centuries anterior to Capt. Cook. The critical canon which refuses to build up history from tradition, and receives nothing but contemporary writers or monumental records as evidences of fact, seems to me more nice than wise under certain circumstances. When Niebuhr ran his pen through Roman history previous to the sack of the city by the Gauls, it was not on account of the worthlessness of the Roman traditions, for he never had them in their pure and simple archaic form, nor yet a trust-worthy translation of them in either Greek or later Latin, but only such as the prejudice, credulity, ignorance and uncritical manipulation of Troy, Dionysius of Halicarnassus and others, had made them. And I am fain to believe that had either Niebuhr or Sir Cornwall Lewis stood face to face with the Roman, Etruscan and Sabinian traditions in their original, unadulterated form, while yet presenting a living impress of their respective peoples, so far from rejecting, they would have turned them to the best account in elucidating the times of which they treated.
Now as regards Hawaiian traditions, we have, or may have—if proper and speedy means are taken before the present generation of quinquagenarians becomes extinct,—a number and various series of traditions, genealogies, songs, histories, tales, prayers, rites of worship, land divisions, social and economical rules, agricultural and maritime instructions, all of them in the original language, bearing intrinsic and unmistakable proofs not only of their genuineness and great age, but also of different epochs of composition; and all of them issuing from and attached not to one grand overshadowing dynasty of chiefs to whose vanity, ambition and pretensions they might have been made subservient,—but to three, four, sometimes five or more equally independent rival dynasties, scanning each [[240]]other’s claims and pretensions with jealous care and asserting their own with the fullest freedom.
Of the almost incredible tenacity and faithfulness with which these traditions were preserved and handed down, abundant proofs exist in the uncorrupted exactness with which they are repeated even at this late day, when collected and written down as delivered by the old people in various parts of the islands. I have two independent sets of the prayer and chant of “Kapaahulani” (“He Elele kii na Maui”), recounting the genealogy and exploits of Kualii, a famous King of Oahu,—one collected on Hawaii, the other on Oahu—and yet—though it is perhaps the longest poem in the Hawaiian language, having six hundred and eighteen lines—the two versions do not differ to a word; so tenacious was the memory, so faithful the preservation of the original composition. I have also a double version of the remarkable chant or prophecy of Kaulumoku (“O Haui ka lani etc.”) regarding Kamehameha I, composed years before the conquest of the islands by the latter, and containing five hundred and twenty-seven lines; one version collected on Maui, the other on Hawaii, and the only difference between the two is the omission of one line in the Hawaii version. Though parts of the first poem are evidently of older date than the others, yet the poem as a whole can not well, from merely genealogical consideration, be less than two hundred years old. The latter poem was evidently composed before the year 1786, the approximate date of the author’s death, while Kamehameha I was still ruling over only one third of Hawaii and struggling with no marked success against the combined forces of Keawemauhili and Keoua. And thus with many other meles and chants of much older date, bearing record of contemporary events and of the past reminiscences of this people.
It is historically on record that a Spanish vessel under Capt. Gaetano, sailing from Acapulco to Manila, did about the year 1542 discover certain islands in the North Pacific, corresponding in latitude to the position of the Hawaiian Islands, though over ten degrees too far east in longitude; and that one of them, thought to be Hawaii, was called La Mesa by the Spaniards. But that record, and no subsequent or preceding record yet known in the Spanish archives, make any mention that these islands were ever visited by the Spanish navigators.[1] Here the native tradition comes to our aid; and that tradition is clear and positive and was well known before the arrival of Captain Cook, and is in substance this, that, in the time of Keliiokaloa, the son of Umi-a-Liloa, a vessel was cast away on the southwestern coast of Hawaii and three persons were saved from the wreck, viz: two men and one woman, who were kindly received and remained the balance of their lives in the country, marrying and having children with the aborigines. The first question which arises is, when did Keliiokaloa live? We know from numerous native genealogies, original on different islands, attached to different dynasties and families, crossing and confirming each other, that Keliiokaloa was the eighth generation previous to the birth of Kamehameha I. Now Kamehameha I died in May, 1819, and was at his death about eighty years old, making the time of birth approximate to the year 1740, perhaps one or two years earlier. Deducting the generation of which Keliiokaloa [[241]]was one, seven generations are left between the time of the shipwreck (and landing of the foreigners), mentioned in the tradition, and the birth of Kamehameha I.[2]
Whether that arrival of foreigners of European extraction was the only one which occurred during the time that the Spaniards monopolized the navigation in the North Pacific, I have found nothing positive in the native traditions, to either affirm or deny; though I have inferential reasons to believe that others besides those alluded to above did touch at some of these islands. In the well-known pule or chant of Kapaahulani, the King of Oahu, Kualii,—who during some portion of his life at least was contemporary with Keawe, the great grandfather of Kamehameha—is made to say of himself that he knew Tahiti. I quote the verse as it has been handed down:
Ua ike hoi wau ia Tahiti,