Part 4

The belief was general that the spirits of the dead might be seen and conversed with by the kilos, or sorcerers, and the spirits of the living, it was claimed, were sometimes invoked from their slumbering tabernacles by priests of exceptional sanctity. The spirit of the dead was called unihipili, while the disembodied and visible spirit of a living person was known as kahoaka.

Of all the deities Pele was held in greatest dread on the island of Hawaii, where volcanic irruptions were frequent. With her five brothers and eight sisters--all representing different elemental forces--she dwelt in state in the fiery abysses of the volcanoes, moving from one to another at her pleasure, and visiting with inundations of lava such districts as neglected to cast into the craters proper offerings of meats and fruits, or angered her in other respects. One of her forms was that of a beautiful woman, in which she sometimes sought human society, and numerous legends of her affairs of love have been preserved. She was regarded as the special friend of Kamehameha I., and the suffocation of a portion of the army of Keoua, near the crater of Kilauea, in 1791, was credited directly to her.

The last public recognition of the powers of Pele occurred as late as 1882 on the island of Hawaii. The village of Hilo was threatened. A broad stream of lava from Mauna Loa, after a devastating journey of twenty-five miles or more, reached a point in its downward course within a mile or two of the bay of Hilo. Its movement was slow, like that of all lava-streams some distance from their source, but its steadily approaching line of fire rendered it almost certain that the village, and perhaps the harbor, of Hilo would be destroyed within a very few days. Trenches were digged, walls were raised, and prayers were offered, but all to no purpose. Downward moved the awful avalanche of fire.

Ruth, a surviving sister of the fourth and fifth Kamehamehas, was then living in Honolulu. She was a proud, stern old chiefess, who thought too little of the whites to attempt to acquire their language. The danger threatening Hilo was reported to her. "I will save the fish-ponds of Hilo," said the old chiefess. "Pele will not refuse to listen to the prayer of a Kamehameha." She chartered a steamer, left Honolulu for Hilo with a large number of attendants, and the next day stood facing the still moving flow of lava. Ascending an elevation immediately back of the village, she caused to be erected there a rude altar, before which she made her supplications to Pele, with offerings fed to the front of the advancing lava. This done, she descended the hill with confidence and returned to Honolulu.

The stream of fire ceased to move, and to-day its glistening front stands like a wall around Hilo. "A remarkable coincidence," explained the whites. "The work of Pele," whispered the natives, although the last of the temples of that goddess had been destroyed sixty years before. Without discussing the cause--a natural one beyond a doubt--it may be remarked that the result has been something of a renewal with the natives of faith in the discarded gods of their fathers.

All of the minor gods of the Hawaiians seem to have been independent and self-controlling. It is not claimed that they derived their powers from, were directed by, or were responsible to the supreme godhead. Hence the mythology of the Polynesians, strong though it be in individual powers and personations of the forces and achievements of nature, presents itself to us in a fragmentary form, like an incongruous patchwork of two or more half-developed or half-forgotten religious systems.

One of the most noted of the independent deities of the group was Kalaipahoa, the poison-goddess of Molokai. Some centuries back she came to the islands, with two or three of her sisters, from an unknown land, and left her mark in many localities. She entered a grove of trees on the island of Molokai, and left in them a poison so intense that birds fell dead in flying over their branches. The king of the island was advised by his high-priest to have a god hewn from one of the poisoned trees. Hundreds of his subjects perished in the undertaking, but the image was finally finished and presented to the king, wrapped in many folds of kapa. It came down the generations an object of fear, and was finally seized by the first Kamehameha, and at his death divided among his principal chiefs.

Kuula was the principal god of the fishermen on all the islands of the group. Rude temples were erected to him on the shores of favorite fishing-grounds, and the first fish of every catch was his due. His wife was Hina, and she was appealed to when her husband withheld his favors. Laeapua and Kaneapua were gods worshipped by the fishermen of Lanai, and other fish-gods were elsewhere recognized.

There were a number of shark and lizard gods. They were powerful and malignant, and greatly feared by the classes who frequented the sea. Heiaus were erected to them on promontories overlooking the ocean, and the offerings to them of fish and fruits were always liberal. They assumed the forms of gigantic sharks and lizards, and not unfrequently lashed the waters into fury and destroyed canoes. Moaalii was the great shark-god of Molokai and Oahu. Apukohai and Uhumakaikai were the evil gods infesting the waters of Kauai. Lonoakihi was the eel-god of all the islands, and Ukanipo was the shark-god of Hawaii.

Among the celebrated war-gods of the kings of the group was that of Kamehameha I. It was called Kaili, or Ku-kaili-moku, and accompanied the great chief in all of his important battles. It had been the war-god of the Hawaiian kings for many generations, and was given in charge of Kamehameha by his royal uncle, Kalauiopuu. It was a small wooden image, roughly carved, and adorned with a head-dress of yellow feathers. It is said that at times, in the heat of battle, it uttered cries which were heard above the clash of arms. It is not known what became of the image after the death of Kamehameha.

The public heiaus, or temples, of the Hawaiians were usually walled enclosures of from one to five acres, and generally irregular in form. The walls were frequently ten feet in thickness and twenty feet in height, and the material used, was unhewn stone, without mortar or cement. They narrowed slightly from the base upward, and were sometimes capped with hewn slabs of coral or other rock not too firm in texture to be worked with tools of stone.

Within this enclosure was an inner stone or wooden temple of small dimensions, called the luakina, or house of sacrifice, and in front of the entrance to it stood the lele, or altar, consisting of a raised platform of stone. The inner temple was sacred to the priests. Within it stood the anu, a small wicker enclosure, from which issued the oracles of the kaulas, or prophets, and around the walls were ranged charms and gods of especial sanctity. Beside the entrance to this sacred apartment were images of the principal gods, and the outer and inner walls were surmounted by lines of stone and wooden idols.

The enclosure contained other buildings for the accommodation of the high-priest and his assistants; also a house for the governing chief or king, some distance removed from the domiciles of the priest. It was used temporarily by him when on a visit of consultation to the temple, or as a place of refuge in a time of danger. On each side of the entrance to the outer enclosure was a tabu staff, or elevated cross, and near it was a small walled structure in which were slain the victims for the altar.

When an augury was required by the king he frequently visited the heiau in person and propounded his questions to the kaulas. If the answers from the anu were vague and unsatisfactory, other methods of divination were resorted to, such as the opening of pigs and fowls, the shapes of the clouds, the flights of birds, etc. After prayers by the priest the animals were killed, and auguries were gathered from the manner in which they expired, the appearance of the intestines--which were supposed to be the seat of thought--and other signs. Sometimes the spleens of swine were removed, if auguries of war were required, and held above the heads of the priests while prayers were offered.

Before engaging in war or any other important enterprise attended by doubt or danger, human and other sacrifices were made, of which there were fifteen different kinds, and the first prisoners taken in battle were reserved for the altar. The priests named the number of men required for sacrifice, and the king provided them, sometimes from prisoners and malefactors, and sometimes from promiscuous drafts along the highways. The victims were slain with clubs without the temple walls, and their bodies, with other offerings, were laid upon the altar to decay. When the king or other high chief made a special offering of an enemy, the left eye of the victim, after the body had been brought to the altar, was removed and handed to him by the officiating priest. After making a semblance of eating it the chief tossed it upon the altar.

During the construction of heiaus human sacrifices were usually offered as the work progressed, and when completed they were dedicated with great pomp and solemnity, and the altars were sometimes heaped with human bodies. In dedicating ordinary temples the kaiopokeo prayer was employed; but in consecrating heiaus of the first class the kuawili invocation was recited, a prayer continuing from sunrise to sunset. Oil and holy water were sprinkled upon the altars and sacred vessels, and the services were under the direction of the high-priest, and generally in the presence of the governing chief.

The ordinary services in the temples consisted of offerings of fruits and meats, and of chants, prayers and responses, in which the people sometimes joined. Women did not participate in the ceremonies of the temples, but the exclusion found ample compensation in their exemption from sacrifice when human bodies were required.

Temples of refuge, called puhonuas, were maintained on Hawaii, and possibly on Lanai and Oahu in the remote past; but concerning the latter there is some doubt. One of the puhonuas on Hawaii was at Honaunau, near the sacred burial-place of Hale-o-Keawe, and the other at Waipio, connected with the great heiau of Paa-kalani. Their gates were always open, and priests guarded their entrances. Any one who entered their enclosures for protection, whether chief or slave, whether escaping criminal or warrior in retreat, was safe from molestation, even though the king pursued. These places of refuge, with the right of circumcision, which existed until after the death of the first Kamehameha, suggest a Polynesian contact with the descendants of Abraham far back in the past, if not a kinship with one of the scattered tribes of Israel.

In further evidence of the wanderings of the early Polynesians in western and southern Asia, and of their intercourse with the continental races, it may be mentioned that a disposition toward phallic worship, attested by tradition and existing symbols, followed them far out into the Pacific; and that connected with their story of the creation, so closely resembling the Hebrew version, is the Buddhist claim of previous creations which either ran their course or were destroyed by an offended godhead. Nor is Hawaiian tradition content with the mere advancement of the theory of successive creations. It makes specific reference to a creation next preceding that of their Ku-mu-honua, or Adam, and gives the names of the man and woman created and destroyed. They were Wela-ahi-lani and Owe.

It has been mentioned that the birds pueo and alae were sacred and sometimes worshipped. Among the sacred fish were the aku and opelu. How they became so is told in a legend relating to the high-priest Paao, who migrated to the islands in the eleventh century and induced Pili to follow him. Before visiting Hawaii, Paao lived near his brother, probably on the island of Samoa. Both were priests and well skilled in sorcery and divination. The name of the brother was Lonopele. Both were affluent and greatly respected. Lonopele's lands were near the sea and produced the choicest varieties of fruits. One season, when the fruits were ripening, Lonopele discovered that some one was surreptitiously gathering them in the night-time, and accused one of the sons of Paao of stealing them. Indignant at the charge, and discerning no better way of disproving it, Paao killed and opened his son, and showed his brother that there was no fruit in the stomach of the boy.

Grieved at the death of his son, and holding his brother accountable for it, Paao concluded to emigrate to some other land, and built strong canoes for that purpose. About the time they were completed a son of Lonopele chanced to be in the neighborhood, and Paao, remembering the death of his own son, ordered the boy to be killed. He was missed, and search was made for him, and his body was finally found near Paao's canoes. Lonopele charged his brother with the murder. Paao did not deny it, and Lonopele ordered him to leave the island. To avoid further trouble Paao set sail at once with a party consisting of thirty-eight persons. One tradition says Pili was of the party; but he must have left Samoa some years later, as Paao sent or went for him after reaching Hawaii.

As the canoes were moving from the shore several prophets, standing on the cliffs above, expressed a desire to join the party. "Very well," was the answer of Paao; "if you are prophets, as you say, leap from the cliffs and I will take you aboard." Several leaped into the sea and were dashed against the rocks and drowned. Finally Makuakaumana, a prophet of genuine inspiration, who was to have accompanied the expedition, reached the shore and discovered the canoes of Paao far out on the ocean. Raising his voice, he hailed Paao and asked that a canoe might be sent back for him. "Not so," returned the priest in a loud voice, which the favoring winds bore to the belated prophet. "To return would be an omen of evil. There is room for you, but if you would go with us you must fly to our canoes." And, flying, the prophet reached the canoes in safety.

Observing the canoes of Paao as they were disappearing in the distance, Lonopele sent a violent storm to destroy them; but the strong fish Aku assisted in propelling the canoes against the storm, and the mighty fish Opelu swam around them and broke the waves with his body. The malignant brother then sent the great bird Kihahakaiwainapali to vomit over the canoes and sink them; but they were hastily covered with mats, and thus escaped destruction. After a long voyage Paao landed in Puna, on the coast of Hawaii. Thenceforth the aku and opelu were held sacred by Paao and his descendants.

Following is a list of the supreme and principal elemental, industrial and tutelar deities of the Hawaiian group:

The Godhead. Kane, the organizer. Ku, the architect and builder. Lono, the executor. Kanaloa, the Lucifer, or fallen angel. Rulers in the realms of Po, or death. Akea, the first Hawaiian king, who, after life, founded the island-kingdom of Kapapahaunaumoku, in the realms of Po, or death. Milu, the successor of Akea, or who, according to another belief, accompanied Akea to Po, and became the perpetual ruler of a kingdom on its western confines. Manua, referred to in some legends as the supreme sovereign of Po. With him abide the spirits of distinguished chiefs and priests, who wander among beautiful streams and groves of kou trees, and subsist upon lizards and butterflies. Minor Celestial Deities. Kaonohiokala (the eyeball of the sun), a celestial god, with an abode somewhere in the heavens, and to whose presence the departed spirits of chiefs were conducted. Kuahairo, the messenger who conducted the souls of distinguished chiefs to Kaonohiokala. Olopue, a god of Maui, who bore the spirits of noted chiefs to the celestial paradise. Kamehameha sought to secure possession of a very sacred image of this god, inherited by Kahekili, moi of Maui. The Volcanic Deities. Pele, the ruling goddess of the volcanoes, with her sisters, Hiiaka-wawahi-lani, the heaven-rending cloud-holder; Makoie-nawahi-waa, the fire-eyed canoe-breaker; Hiiaka-noho-lani, the heaven-dwelling cloud-holder; Hiiaka-kaalawa-maka, the quick-glancing cloud-holder; Hiiaka-hoi-ke-poli-a-pele, the cloud-holder kissing the bosom of Pele; Hiiaka-ka-pu-enaena, the red-hot mountain lifting clouds; Hiiaka-kaleiia, the wreath encircled cloud-holder; Hiiaka-opio, the young cloud-holder; and their brothers, Kamo-hoalii, or King Moho, the king of vapor or steam; Kapohoikahiola, god of explosions; Keuakepo, god of the night-rain, or rain of fire; Kane-kahili, the husband of thunder, or thundering god; Keoahi-kamakaua, the fire-thrusting child of war. [The last two were hunchbacks.] Akuapaao, the war-god of Paao, taken from the temple of Manini by Umi. Ku-kaili-moku, the war-god of Kamehameha I., bequeathed to him by Kalaniopuu. Deities of the Elements. Laamaomao, god of the winds, the Hawaiian AEolus, whose home was on Molokai. Hinakuluiau, a goddess of the rain. Hinakealii and Hookuipaele, sisters of Hinakuluiau. Mooaleo, a powerful gnome of Lanai, conquered by Kaululaau, a prince of Maui. Kuula, a god of the fishermen. Hina, wife of Kuula. Laeapua and Kaneapua, gods of the fishermen of Lanai. Hinahele and her daughter Aiaiakuula, goddesses of the fishermen of Hawaii. Ukanipo, the great shark-god of Hawaii. Moaalii, the principal shark-god of Molokai and Oahu. Lonoakiki, the great eel-god of all the group. Apukohai and Uhumakaikai, evil shark or fish-gods of Kauai. Gods of the Arts and Industries. Akua-ula, the god of inspiration. Haulili, a god of speech, special to Kauai. Koleamoku, the deified chief who first learned the use of herbs and the art of healing from the gods. He was a patron of the kahunas. Olonopuha and Makanuiailone, deified disciples of Koleamoku. Kaanahua, the second son of the high-priest Luahoomoe, and Kukaoo, gods of the husbandman. Lakakane, god of the hula and similar sports. Mokualii, god of the canoe-makers. Hai, god of kapa making. Ulaulakeahi, god of distillation. Kalaipahoa, a goddess who entered and poisoned trees. Kapo and Pua, sisters of Kalaipahoa, with like functions. Kama, a powerful tutelar god of all the islands. Laauli, the god who made inviolable laws. Kuahana, the god who killed men wantonly. Leleioio, the god who inflicted bodily pain. Lelehookaahaa, wife of Leleioio. Lie, a goddess of the mountains, who braided leis. Maikahulipu, the god who assisted in righting upset canoes. Pohakaa, a god living in precipitous places, and who rolled down stones, to the fright and injury of passers. Keoloewa, a god worshipped in the heiaus of Maui. Kiha, a goddess of Maui, held in great reverence. Uli, the god of the sorcerers. Pekuku, a powerful god of Hawaii. Lonoikeaualii, a god worshipped in the heiaus of Oahu. Kauakahi, a god of Maui and Molokai. Hiaka, a mountain god of Kauai. Kapo and Kapua, and several others, messengers of the gods. Ouli, the god appealed to by the kahunas in praying people to death. Maliu, any deified deceased chief. Akua noho, gods possessing the spirits of departed mortals, of which there were many. Kiha-wahine and Kalo, noted deities of the class of akua-noho. Mahulu, a name common to three gods in the temples of Lono. Manu, the names of two gods at the outer gates of heiaus dedicated to Lono. Puea, the god worshipped in the darkness. Kaluanuunohonionio, one of the principal gods of the luakina, or sacrificial house of the temple. Kanenuiakea, a general name for a class of thirteen gods connected with the larger heiaus.

ANCIENT HAWAIIAN GOVERNMENT.

Previous to the eleventh century the several habitable islands of the Hawaiian group were governed by one or more independent chiefs, as already stated. After the migratory influx of that period, however, and the settlement on the islands of a number of warlike southern chiefs and their followers, the independent chiefs began to unite for mutual protection. This involved the necessity of a supreme head, which was usually found in the chief conceded to be the most powerful; and thus alii-nuis, mois and kings sprang into existence. So far as tradition extends, however, certain lines, such as the Maweke, Pili and Paumakua families, were always considered to be of supreme blood. They came to the islands as chiefs of distinguished lineage, and so remained.

Gradually the powers of the mois and ruling chiefs were enlarged, until at length they claimed almost everything. Then the chiefs held their possessions in fief to the moi, and forfeited them by rebellion. In time the king became absolute master of the most of the soil over which he ruled, and assumed tabu rights which rendered his person sacred and his prerogatives more secure. All he acquired by conquest was his, and by partitioning the lands among his titled friends he secured the support necessary to his maintenance in power. Certain lands were inalienable both in chiefly families and the priesthood; they were made so by early sovereign decrees, which continued to be respected; but with each succeeding king important land changes usually occurred.

Although the king maintained fish-ponds and cultivated lands of his own, he was largely supported by his subject chiefs. They were expected to contribute to him whatever was demanded either of food, raiment, houses, canoes, weapons or labor, and in turn they took such portions of the products of their tenants as their necessities required. The ili was the smallest political division; next above it was the ahapuaa, which paid a nominal or special tax of one hog monthly to the king; next the okana, embracing several ahapuaas; and finally the moku, or district, or island.

The laboring classes possessed no realty of their own, nor could they anywhere escape the claim or jurisdiction of a chief or landlord. They owed military and other personal service to their respective chiefs, and the chiefs owed theirs to the king. If required, all were expected to respond to a call to the field, fully armed and prepared for battle.

Caste rules of dress, ornamentation and social forms were rigidly enforced. The entire people were divided into four general classes: first, the alii, or chiefly families, of various grades and prerogatives; second, the kahunas, embracing priests, prophets, doctors, diviners and astrologers; third, the kanaka-wale, or free private citizens; and, fourth, the kauwa-maoli, or slaves, either captured in war or born of slave parents.

The laws were few and simple, and the most of them referred to the rights and prerogatives of the king, priesthood and nobility. Property disputes of the masses were settled by their chiefs, and other grievances were in most instances left to private redress, which frequently and very naturally resulted in prolonged and fatal family feuds, in the end requiring chiefly and sometimes royal intervention.