Manufactures.—The manufactures are chiefly sugar, fertilizers, and such products of the foundry and machine shop as are required for the machinery of the sugar factories. Most of the manufacturing industries, indeed, are maintained for supplying the local market, there being only three important exceptions—the manufacture of sugar, the cleaning of coffee and the cleaning and polishing of rice. The manufacture of sugar, which began between 1830 and 1840, has long been much the most important of the manufacturing industries: thus in 1900 the value of the sugar production was $19,254,773, and the total value of all manufactures, including custom work and repairing, was only $24,992,068. Next to sugar, fertilizers were the most important manufactured product, their value being $1,150,625; the products of the establishments for the polishing and cleaning of rice were valued at $664,300. Of the total product in 1900, only 18.5% (by value) is to be credited to the city of Honolulu. The growth of manufacturing is much hampered by the lack of labour. Excellent water power is utilized on the island of Kauai in an electric plant.
Communications.—There are good wagon roads on the islands, some of them macadamized, built of the hard blue lava rock. Hawaii had in 1909 about 200 m. of railway, of which the principal line is that of the Oahu Railway & Land Company (about 89 m.), extending from Honolulu W. and N. along the coast to Kahuku about one-half the distance around Oahu; another line from Kahuku Mill, the most northerly point of the island, S.E. to Honolulu, was projected in 1905; on the island of Hawaii is the Hilo Railroad (about 46 m.), carrying sugar, pineapples, rubber and lumber; other railways are for the most part short lines on sugar estates and in coffee-producing sections of the islands of Hawaii and Maui. Each of the larger islands has one or more ports which a local steamboat serves regularly, and Honolulu has the regular service of seven trans-Pacific lines (the American-Hawaiian Steamship Co., the Canadian-Australian Steamship Co., the Matson Navigation Co., the Oceanic Steamship Co., the Pacific Mail Steamship Co., the Mexican Oriental and the Toyo Kisen Kaisha); it is a midway station for vessels between the United States (mainland) and Australia and Southern Asia. In 1908 five steamship companies were engaged in traffic between island ports and the mainland (including Mexico). Honolulu has cable connexion with San Francisco and the East, and the several islands of the group are served by wireless telegraph.
Commerce.—The position of the archipelago, at the “cross-roads” of the North Pacific, has made it commercially important since the days of the whale fishery, and it has a practical monopoly of coaling, watering and victualling. Its main disadvantage is the lack of harbours—Honolulu and Pearl Harbor are the only ones in the archipelago; but under the River and Harbour Act of 1905 examinations and surveys were made to improve Hilo Bay on the island of Hawaii. Pearl Harbor is the U.S. naval station, and a great naval dock, nearly 1200 ft. long, was projected for the station in 1908. Within recent years commerce has grown greatly in volume; it has always been almost entirely with the United States. In 1880 the value of imports from the United States was $2,086,000, that of exports to the United States was $4,606,000; in 1907 the value of shipments of domestic merchandise from the United States to Hawaii was $5,357,907, and the value of shipments of domestic merchandise from Hawaii to the United States was $31,984,433, of which $30,111,524 was the value of brown sugar, $133,133 the value of rice, $601,748 the value of canned fruits, $124,146 the value of green, ripe or dried fruits, $117,403 the value of hides and skins, and $105,515 the value of green or raw coffee. The shipments of foreign merchandise each way are relatively insignificant. In the fiscal year 1908 the exports from Hawaii to foreign countries were valued at $597,640, ten times as much as in 1905 ($59,541); the imports into Hawaii from foreign countries were valued at $4,682,399 in the fiscal year 1908, as against $3,014,964 in 1905.
Population.—The total population of the islands in 1890 was 89,990; in 1900 it was 154,001, an increase within the decade of 71.13%; in 1910 it was 191,909. In 1908 there were about 72,000 Japanese, 18,000 Chinese, 5000 Koreans, 23,000 Portuguese, 2000 Spanish, 2000 Porto Ricans, 35,000 Hawaiians and part Hawaiians and 12,000 Teutons. Of the total for 1900 there were 61,111 Japanese, 25,767 Chinese and 233 negroes; of the same total there were 90,780 foreign-born, of whom 56,234 were natives of Japan, and 6512 were natives of Portugal. There were in all in 1900, 106,369 males (69.1%; a preponderance due to the large number of Mongolian labourers, whose wives are left in Asia) and only 47,632 females. About three-fifths of the Hawaiians and nearly all of American, British or North European descent are Protestants. Most of the Portuguese and about one-third of the native Hawaiians are Roman Catholics. The Mormons claim more than 4000 adherents, whose principal settlement is at Laie, on the north-east shore of Oahu; the first Mormon missionaries came to the islands in 1850. The population of 1910 was distributed among the several islands as follows: Oahu, 82,028; Hawaii, 55,382; Kauai and Niihau, 23,952; Kalawao, 785; and Maui, Lanai, Kahoolawe and Molokai, 29,762. The population of Honolulu district, the entire urban population of the Territory, was 22,907 in 1890, 39,306 in 1900, and 52,183 in 1910.
The aboriginal Hawaiians (sometimes called Kanakas, from a Hawaiian word kanaka, meaning “man”) belong to the Malayo-Polynesian race; they probably settled in Hawaii in the 10th century, having formerly lived in Native population. Samoa, and possibly before that in Tahiti and the Marquesas. Their reddish-brown skin has been compared in hue to tarnished copper. Their hair is dark brown or black, straight, wavy or curly; the beard is thin, the face broad, the profile not prominent, the eyes large and expressive, the nose somewhat flattened, the lips thick, the teeth excellent in shape and of a pearly whiteness. The skull is sub-brachycephalic in type, with an index of 82.6 from living “specimens” and 79 from a large collection of skulls; it is never prognathous. Most of the people are of moderate stature, but the chiefs and the women of their families have been remarkable for their height, and 400 pounds was formerly not an unusual weight for one of this class. This corpulence was due not alone to over-feeding but to an almost purely vegetable diet; stoutness was a part of the ideal of feminine beauty. The superiority in physique of the nobles to the common people may have been due in part to a system of massage, the lomi-lomi; it is certainly contrary to the belief in the bad effects of inbreeding—among the upper classes marriage was almost entirely between near relatives.
The Rev. William Ellis, an early English missionary, described the natives as follows: “The inhabitants of these islands are, considered physically, amongst the finest races in the Pacific, bearing the strongest resemblance to the New Zealanders in stature, and in their well-developed muscular limbs. The tattooing of their bodies is less artistic than that of the New Zealanders, and much more limited than among some of the other islanders. They are also more hardy and industrious than those living nearer the equator. This in all probability arises from their salubrious climate, and the comparative sterility of their soil rendering them dependent upon the cultivation of the ground for the yam, the arum, and the sweet potato, their chief articles of food. Though, like all undisciplined races, the Sandwich Islanders [Hawaiians] have proved deficient in firm and steady perseverance, they manifest considerable intellectual capability. Their moral character, when first visited by Europeans, was not superior to that of other islanders; and excepting when improved and preserved by the influence of Christianity, it has suffered much from the vices of intemperance and licentiousness introduced by foreigners. Polygamy prevailed among the chiefs and rulers, and women were subject to all the humiliations of the tabu system, which subjected them to many privations, and kept them socially in a condition of inferiority to the other sex. Infanticide was practised to some extent, the children destroyed being chiefly females. Though less superstitious than the Tahitians, the idolatry of the Sandwich Islanders was equally barbarous and sanguinary, as, in addition to the chief objects of worship included in the mythology of the other islands, the supernatural beings supposed to reside in the volcanoes and direct the action of subterranean fires rendered the gods objects of peculiar terror. Human sacrifices were slain on several occasions, and vast offerings presented to the spirits supposed to preside over the volcanoes, especially during the periods of actual eruptions. The requisitions of their idolatry were severe and its rites cruel and bloody. Grotesque and repulsive wooden figures, animals and the bones of chiefs were the objects of worship. Human sacrifices were offered whenever a temple was to be dedicated, or a chief was sick, or a war was to be undertaken; and these occasions were frequent. The apprehensions of the people with regard to a future state were undefined, but fearful. The lower orders expected to be slowly devoured by evil spirits, or to dwell with the gods in burning mountains. The several trades, such as that of fisherman, the tiller of the ground, and the builder of canoes and houses, had each their presiding deities. Household gods were also kept, which the natives worshipped in their habitations. One merciful provision, however, had existed from time immemorial, and that was [the puuhonuas] sacred inclosures, places of refuge, into which those who fled in time of war, or from any violent pursuer, might enter and be safe. To violate their sanctity was one of the greatest crimes of which a man could be guilty.” The native religion was an admixture of idolatry and hero-worship, of some ethical but little moral force. The king was war chief, priest and god in one, and the shocking licence at the death of a king was probably due to the feeling that all law or restraint was annulled by the death of the king—incarnate law. The mythic and religious legends of the people were preserved in chants, handed down from generation to generation; and in like poetic form was kept the knowledge of the people of botany, medicine and other sciences. Name-songs, written at the birth of a chief, gave his genealogy and the deeds of his ancestors; dirges and love-songs were common. These were without rhyme or rhythm, but had alliteration and a parallelism resembling Hebrew poetry. Drums, gourd and bamboo flutes, and a kind of guitar, were known before Cook’s day.
When the islands first became known to Europeans, the Hawaiian family was in a stage including both polyandry and polygyny, and, according to Morgan, older than either: two or more brothers, with their wives, or two or more sisters with their husbands, cohabited with seeming promiscuity. This system called punalua (a word which in the modern vernacular means merely “dear friend”) was first brought to the attention of ethnologists in 1871 by Lewis H. Morgan (who was incorrect in many of his premises) and was made the basis of his second stage, the punaluan, in the evolution of the family. These conditions did not last long after the coming of the missionaries. Descent was more commonly traced through the female line. As regard cannibalism, it appears that the heart and liver of the human victims offered in the temples were eaten as a religious rite, and that the same parts of any prominent warrior slain in battle were devoured by the victor chiefs, who believed that they would thereby inherit the valour of the dead man. Under taboo as late as 1819 women were to be put to death if they ate bananas, cocoa-nuts, pork, turtles or certain fish. In the days of idolatry the only dress worn by the men was a narrow strip of cloth wound around the loins and passed between the legs. Women wore a short petticoat made of kapa cloth (already referred to), which reached from the waist to the knee. But now the common class of men wear a shirt and trousers; the better class are attired in the European fashion. The women are clad in the holoka, a loose white or coloured garment with sleeves, reaching from the neck to the feet. A coloured handkerchief is twisted around the head or a straw hat is worn. Both sexes delight in adorning themselves with garlands (leis) of flowers and necklaces of coloured seeds. The Hawaiians are a good-tempered, light-hearted and pleasure-loving race. They have many games and sports, including boxing, wrestling (both in and out of water), hill-sliding, spear-throwing, and a game of bowls played with stone discs. Both sexes are passionately fond of riding. They delight to be in the water and swim with remarkable skill and ease. In the exciting sport of surf-riding, which always astonishes strangers, they balance themselves lying, kneeling or standing on a small board which is carried landwards on the curling crest of a great roller. All games were accompanied by gambling. Dances, especially the indecent hula, “danse du ventre,” were favourite entertainments.
Even at the time when they were first known to Europeans, they had stone and lava hatchets, shark’s-tooth knives, hardwood spades, kapa cloth or paper, mats, fans, fish-hooks and nets, woven baskets, &c., and they had introduced a rough sort of irrigation of the inland country with long canals from highlands to plains. They derived their sustenance chiefly from pork and fish (both fresh and dried), from seaweed (limu), and from the kalo (Colocasia antiquorum, var. esculenta), the banana, sweet potato, yam, bread-fruit and cocoa-nut. From the root of the kalo is made the national dish called poi; after having been baked and well beaten on a board with a stone pestle it is made into a paste with water and then allowed to ferment for a few days, when it is ready to be eaten. One of the table delicacies of former days was a particular breed of dog which was fed exclusively on poi before it was killed, cooked and served. Like other South Sea Islanders they made an intoxicating drink, awa or kava, from the roots of the Macropiper latifolium or Piper methysticum; in early times this could be drunk only by nobles and priests. The native dwellings are constructed of wood, or occasionally are huts thatched with grass at the sides and top. What little cooking is undertaken among the poorer natives is usually done outside. The oven consists of a hole in the ground in which a fire is lighted and stones made hot; and the fire having been removed, the food is wrapped up in leaves and placed in the hole beside the hot stones and covered up until ready; or else, as is now more common, the cooking is done in an old kerosene-oil can over a fire.
The Hawaiian language is a member of the widely-diffused Malayo-Polynesian group and closely resembles the dialect of the Marquesas; Hawaiians and New Zealanders, although occupying the most remote regions north and south at which the race has been found, can understand each other without much difficulty. Various unsuccessful attempts have been made to prove the language Aryan in its origin. It is soft and harmonious, being highly vocalic in structure. Every syllable is open, ending in a vowel sound, and short sentences may be constructed wholly of vocalic sounds. The only consonants are k, l, m, n and p, which with the gently aspirated h, the five vowels, and the vocalic w, make up all the letters in use. The letters r and t have been discarded in favour of l and k, as expressing more accurately the native pronunciation, so that, for example, taro, the former name of the Colocasia plant, is now kalo. The language was not reduced to a written form until after the arrival of the missionaries. A Hawaiian spelling book was printed in 1822; in 1834 two newspapers were founded; and in 1839 the first translation of the Bible was published.
In spite of moral and material progress—indeed largely because of changes in their food, clothing, dwellings and of other “advantages” of civilization—the race is probably dying out. Captain Cook estimated the number of natives at 400,000, probably an over-estimate; in 1823 the American missionaries estimated their number at 142,000; the census of 1832 showed the population to be 130,313; the census of 1878 proved that the number of natives was no more than 44,088. In 1890 they numbered 34,436; in 1900, 29,834, a decrease of 4602 or 13.3% within the decade. To account for this it is said that the blood of the race has become poisoned by the introduction of foreign diseases. The women are much less numerous than the men; and the married ones have few children at the most; two out of three have none. Moreover, the mothers appear to have little maternal instinct and neglect their offspring. It is, however, thought by some that these causes are now diminishing in force, and that the “fittest” of the race may survive. The part-Hawaiians, the offspring of intermarriage between Hawaiian women and men of other races, increased from 3420 in 1878 to 6186 in 1890 and 7835 in 1900.