X
LONO’S LAST MARTYR
The heroes of victory are rarely without their monuments: the heroes of lost causes are too often forgotten. The old order changes, giving place to new, and in course of time we praise the bold innovators who let in the light, but we forget that even the defeated darkness may have its martyrdoms, its faith and its courage worthy of the poet’s song.
It is a story of such heroism as this which gathers round a neglected tumulus, now well nigh hidden in clustering ferns and creeping vines on the island of Hawaii. Not far from Kilau, on the western coast of the island, almost under the shadow of Mauna Hualalai, which rises nearly 9,000 feet above the sea, there is a plain of rough lava, whose barrenness is only in places veiled by tufts of waving grass and by spreading creepers and richly hued flowers. In many places there rise the ruins of former temples and fortifications belonging to the old warlike time. The massive, squarely shapen stones contrast strangely with the spherical volcanic boulders which attest that here Nature has warred as well as man. After traveling over two miles of such country as this you will begin to stumble over frequent heaps of stones well nigh concealed in the grass and ferns. Your imagination suggests graves, rightly so, and you pick your way among them till you come to Kuamoo, where there is an oblong cairn, some ten feet long by six wide, built in the form of a tomb, and almost hidden from sight in the greenery of innumerable ferns and the blossoms of morning glory and passion flower. Well does Nature keep the spot beautiful and fragrant, for here lie side by side the mortal remains of two heroes and two lovers, whom, heathen though they were, the new time will not willingly permit to be forgotten.
It was in the autumn of 1819 that the great change came which has been hailed by many as the day of new birth for the Eight Islands—the abolition of the tabu and the destruction of the idols. We shall not attempt to defend the anterior condition of the island kingdom, but it will be seen in the course of this story that the transition was by no means without its element of danger and mischief.
No darkness could well have been deeper than that of olden Hawaii, with its bloody worship, its human sacrifices, its oppression of the makaainana, or common people, and, above all, its tabu. How this pressed with leaden weight upon the people would be almost incredible if described in detail. Suffice it to say that for every act and condition of life there was a tabu, extending to food, dress, etiquette, time, place, labor, and privilege. And for every breach of the tabu there was but one penalty—death.
It might, therefore, be thought that its abolition would be received with universal applause, that only from the hearts of the cruel bigots of heathenism, monsters thirsting for human gore, tyrants ruling by oppression and fraud, would there be a sigh of regret when the death-knell of the old heathenism sounded forth.
This, however, was not the case. Viewing the matter from close quarters we can easily see that the priests and worshippers of Lono, who protested against the act of Liholiho had some justice on their side.
The mighty Kamehameha had breathed his last, and his dust had been hidden away somewhere, where, no one but Hoapili knew, among the mountains of Hawaii. Liholiho, his successor, was under the influence of the queen mother, Kaahumanu, who had long been chafing under the restraints of the tabu upon her sex. He himself, a youth of twenty-two, no stranger, unfortunately, to the fire-water of the whalers, deemed the law of tabu overmuch of a clog on his own princely liberty, and as entailing, moreover, a heavy expenditure for the support of the state idolatry and the maintenance of the priesthood.
Arrived at Kawaihae, he heard of Kaahumanu’s intention to attempt the sacrilege, and, not indisposed to have his own share in the contemplated work, immediately sailed to the south. Landing at Puako, there followed a series of debauches to which the court of Kamehameha had been a stranger. For twenty-four hours the tumultuous merriment went on. The royal party joined the hula-dancers in their obscene revelry. They tossed bottles of liquor to the sea gods, inviting them to drink themselves drunk with them, and at last the moment arrived when a public violation of the tabu was to take place, in order to show that the old order had passed forever. This breach with the past was made by the king’s deliberate act of sending prohibited food from his own table to that of the women, and by his taking his own place among them. In a moment the royal example was followed, men and women were eating and drinking promiscuously together, and the feast was no longer “ai kapu,” or sacred eating, but “ai noa,” or common eating. A few chiefs turned pale in their drunkenness at the outrages offered to their religion and their law, some strode forth indignant and held counsel together, while Liholiho and the high-priest, Hewahewa, with their drunken crew, rode forth to destroy the images of the insulted gods, and the shrines where no sacrifice should be offered more.
We shall not be ashamed to stay among the few still faithful to the old order and its traditions. It is true the tabu was tyrannous and cruel beyond belief, but a cruel code is far better than anarchy, and Liholiho had nothing to put in the place of the tabu but the lawless wantonness of the whalers. Was the liquor of the white men a better inspiration than the will of the chiefs? Had not Kamehameha, to whom the land owed prosperity and peace, deliberately given up drinking the haole gin and expressly warned his people against falling into its pernicious snare? And now had they not lived to see his son, a shameful sight to the people, reeling on horseback, arms and legs extended, raging against the gods of their fathers? If Vancouver had sent the white teacher he had promised they might have heard tidings worth giving ear to, as, rumor had it, had been the case in Tahiti, but surely it was better to keep the old law, by which the chiefs and people alike guided their steps, until they had considered the new!
The chief speaker in the conference was the young and handsome Kekuaokalani, upon whom had fallen the defense of the traditions of church and state. No nobler Hawaiian had ever been listened to by the alii. Well nigh seven feet in height, with masses of raven black hair hanging upon his shoulders, perfect in features and form, wise, brave and magnetic, a chief of even bluer blood than his uncle Kamehameha, by his own choice also a priest, equal in learning to Hewahewa, he was a man well fitted to be the leader of a cause however desperate it might appear. Moreover, his marriage with the beautiful Manono, who lived in the light of his love, had touched the sympathy and imaginations of the people, and when he strode forth from the wild revelry of the crowd, bearing in his arms the insulted image of Lono, he may well have seemed a hero, or even a demi-god, to the amazed and troubled people.
Whether ambitious or not, Kekuaokalani conceived that to him had come a charge from the gods to avenge their cause upon a drunken and degenerate king and to take the place before the shrines vacated by the renegade Hewahewa. As for Kaahumanu, he knew her to be a light woman, whose escapades had sorely troubled the heart and patience of Kamehameha. Certainly Lady Pele, goddess of the fire-world, slumbering within the mountain, would protect her honor against law-breakers such as she.
So Kekuaokalani withdrew to Kaaweloa, where the conservative leaders and the priests offered him the crown, with the oracular saying: “A religious chief shall possess the kingdom, but irreligious chiefs shall always be poor.” It was a dangerous honor thus thrust upon him, but he accepted it gladly and prepared for the trial of strength with Liholiho. Many of the people who shared his spirit gathered around him and, when the winter solstice brought with it the annual feast of Lono, the festival was kept with a sincerity and enthusiasm all the more impressive from the presentiment entertained by not a few that it was the last festival which Lono would ever have in Hawaii. It is not a little pathetic to contemplate the people “about to die” face to face with the gods “about to die” for these five strange, sad, festive days.
Meanwhile the work of the royal “reformers” went on throughout the land and a month passed by, during which the news came daily of the pulling down of heiaus and the burning of idols. The king was happy in his iconoclasm, but no word came to him of the preparations of Kekuaokalani. Then suddenly the tidings reached Liholiho that Hamakua was being invaded by the rebels, and that one of the chiefs, Kainapau by name, was slain. Some of the king’s favorites endeavored to belittle the affair and strove to allay the royal alarm by offering, with forty warriors, to suppress the insurrection. Hewahewa, the renegade priest, knew Kekuaokalani better, and declared:
“Not forty times forty will be enough! Kekuaokalani is in the field to conquer or to die!”
Then the alarm was genuine and general, and while the resourceful Kaahumanu bethought herself of the purchase of muskets from the white traders, Liholiho endeavored to quench the fire of rebellion by the sending of an embassy.
Some of the most notable men in the crowd were selected, men close of kin to Kekuaokalani, as well as high in the counsels of Liholiho. There was prominent among them, Naihe, the uncle of the rebel chief, and Kalaimoku, the commander of the king’s forces. And with these was Keopuolani, the bluest blooded queen of Kamehameha.
“We come,” they said, “to make peace between you and the king. Liholiho offers you freedom to follow your own religion if you will consent to lay aside your arms.”
“Alas!” replied the chief, “to what avail is liberty to worship when the gods and the temples are consumed with fire? How can we serve the gods acceptably when the tabu exists no more and men know not what is sacred and what is common?”
“You will have war, then?” asked the ambassadors.
“Nay, I choose not,” cried Kekuaokalani. “Here stand I where Liholiho and Hewahewa, king and high-priest, should stand to defend the traditions to which I am pledged by my oath as alii. Lono will not forget the faithful, and if we die we die true to our ancestors and to the gods who made them kings.”
Kalaimoku withdrew with his company sadly and respectfully, and Kekuakoalani went within his house and, falling upon the breast of his wife, burst into tears.
O! beautiful was life surrounded with the love of Manono! Hard it were to die and go beneath the ground with such sunshine flooding the earth. But Kekuaokalani was right: “He could not choose.”
“Is there a choice for strong souls to be weak?” Though he die, he must be loyal to his faith in Lono. The night before, the alae had uttered its shrill note of presaging ill outside the house. Manono was all disconsolate with so many auguries of ill about her, but her husband bravely used every endeavor to turn aside her fears, saying that forebodings of ill were only for those who did ill. Yet he felt in his heart that the gods perhaps intended to take their cause into their own hands, and that he might be only a sacrifice where he had hoped to be a deliverer.
Nevertheless, the next morning, when the army made itself ready for the march, Kekuaokalani had a countenance wherein was no trace of fear or foreboding. With cheerful shouts of encouragement to his eager followers, he trod the lava plains with as much alacrity as if starting to a feast, and close behind him, rather than with the other women in the rear, marched Manono, happier to stand on the field of blood beside her lover than to tarry behind in ignoble safety. There were priests of Lono, too, carrying the gods newly arrayed for the carnage. Perchance, yet once again, might the war god Kaili be seen flying above the contending hosts, a luminous streak of vapor, uttering aloud the war cries which had cleared the way to victory for Kamehameha. How the drunkard Liholiho would feel his blood freezing in his veins at such an apparition!
As they marched along they came to the spot where, twelve generations before, the mighty giant Maukaleoleo had appeared to the hero Umi and had given him strength above the lot of man to overcome his foes. Would that now that terrific figure might appear, plucking the cocoanuts from the tallest trees as he walked, or wading out to sea among the canoes!
But, alas! no marvels came to aid their faith. They must fight the battle of the gods alone to-day.
So at last they came to Kuamoo on the morning of December 19, 1819, a day forever memorable in the history of Hawaii as the day in which the forces of the old era were defeated by those of the new, both struggling in the dark and ignorant of the light which was so soon to come.
Kalaimoku was even yet anxious to avoid a battle with Kekuaokalani, who was his own sister’s son, and he sent a messenger with an affectionate entreaty for another interview. But, even though his own mother pleaded, together with his uncle, the dauntless heathen refused to listen to the messenger and compelled him to leap into the sea and swim with all his might to save his life.
The forces then took up their respective positions, Kalaimoku knowing that now only the grim arbitrament of battle could decide. Liholiho’s forces were strong in musketry and in the aid of foreigners, and their retreat was protected by the formidable squadron of double canoes which had been the pride of Kamehameha’s declining years. Kekuaokalani placed the priests of Lono with the images in the front of his line for a while, and then loud were the imprecations denounced upon the royal army. But, to be of more avail to-day, behind these was a splendid force of spearmen eager for the lehua, or first-slain victim. Behind all were the women, who followed the soldiers with calabashes of water and dried fish, to recruit the strength of the combatants when these were weary or athirst. But every woman was ready to fight and die with Kekuaokalani.
The attack was made by the rebel forces, who bore down upon the army of Liholiho with an impetus such as must have swept all before it, had it not been for the foreigners with their guns vomiting streams of fire upon their assailants. The company of musketeers kept up such a murderous fire upon the rebel center that, after a terrific and protracted struggle, this was driven back to the rising ground. Kekuaokalani, whose tall form was seen everywhere in the fray as he shouted orders to his spearmen, was wounded early in the battle, but fought on without knowing it, rallying his forces behind a stone wall about breast high, where there took place a struggle which for obstinacy and valour had no parallel in the annals of Hawaiian warfare. The double canoes commanded by the queen mother, Kaahumanu, raked the insurgent position with their guns, but two heroic figures seemed to stand out among the falling after every discharge, as if bearing charmed lives amid the rain of death. These were Kekuaokalani and his wife, Manono, who fought side by side, heedless of the heaped corpses around them. Weak with loss of blood from his previous wounds, Kekuaokalani more than once leaned fainting upon the arm of his wife, but he revived again and again to fight with a still more desperate valor. The temptation was sore when he beheld, through the battle smoke, his uncle Kalaimoku and his mother signalling him to ask for quarter; he set his teeth hard and fired again. Had it been Manono herself, he had most like done the same, though her breast had faced the bullets! No longer able to stand, he sat upon a fragment of lava and continued to load and fire his musket. No Kaili flew above the host as of old, no Lono came to lend supernatural aid to his faithful martyrs. Instead, the forces of Kalaimoku were advancing, and Kekuaokalani knew himself left to die, with life still sweet on his lips. The fated ball came at last, pierced his left breast, and, folding his face in his feather cloak, Kekuaokalani fell forward at the feet of Manono, and expired without a groan. Manono wept not, but awaited hopefully the messenger of death which should make them fellows again in the halls of Milu. On came the conquerors; in vain Kalaimoku and his sister cried to save her. Another bullet, unerring in its aim, pierced her temple and she fell upon the warm but lifeless body of her husband.
The insurgents made but little more resistance now that their leader had fallen. It was sunset and under the cover of the darkness any that could, escaped. Some surrendered or were captured by the royal troops, a few crept into caves and holes of the mountains, and, covering the entrance with pieces of lava, lay concealed till Liholiho had returned to Kailua.
Kalaimoku and his sister stood over the corpses of Kekuaokalani and Manono, and, gazing long upon the noble dead, exclaimed with tears:
“Truly, since the days of Keawe, no nobler Hawaiians have lost the light of the sun!”
Thus perished Lono’s last champions, faithful unto death.
Three months later the first Christian missionaries reached the group with the tidings so long desired. The first news which reached them from the shore was in the almost incredible words: “The idols of Hawaii are no more!”
May we not, while rejoicing in the new day which was thus brought to the land left by Liholiho bereft of law and religion, retain a tender heart for the youthful pair whose bodies sleep beneath the morning glory and the heaped-up stones on the shore of Kuamoo?