Alexander says in his history of the islands: “During the days of Ka-meha-meha energetic measures were taken for the suppression of brigandage, murder and theft throughout the kingdom.”
“The Law of the Splintered Paddle” marked the awakening of a pagan conscience to a sense of just dealing between the strong and the weak. [[176]]
XVIII
LAST OF THE TABU
To-day the thatched house is a curiosity in the Hawaiian Islands. In the time of our story the grass roof was the only shelter from the rain and heat, except the thick-leaved tree or the insecure lava cave. The long rushes and grasses from the sea marshes and the long leaves of the pandanus tree made a very good if not a very enduring home. There the chiefs and common people alike were born, and out of such grass houses their bodies were carried when life was over.
It was the same story told over again on islands or continents. The chief’s house might have a few more mats of a little finer texture, or calabashes of wood with markings a little more unique, but birth nights left fully as many beautiful children, and the hours of death took away fully as many noble men and women from the poor hut built by the taro patch as from the better-apportioned home under the silver-leaved kukui or candle-nut tree. Out of the ranks of the unappreciated have come some of the best people of the earth, and some of the strongest influences changing nations. [[177]]
There was a modest grass house in one of the upland valleys of Kailua, Hawaii. Tall cocoanut trees bent over it. Near it grew the ohia, or native apple tree, luxuriant in crimson tassel-like blossoms. The sacred ohelo berries ripened in the iliahi or sandalwood forest above.
One bright afternoon a tall, finely formed woman broke through the arching branches which obstructed the path and approached the door where an old woman sat crooning to a child resting in her arms. The old woman looked up, and then fell on her face, crying:
“Oh! my chief! my chief! My Ka-ahu-manu!”