The whole body of chiefs fell into three classes or ranks. The first included the royal family and all who were intimately connected with it. The second included such as held hereditary offices of power or governorships of islands, after the time when the whole archipelago was united in a single kingdom. The third class embraced the rulers of districts, the headmen of villages, and all inferior chiefs. The members of the first two classes were usually called "high chiefs"; they were few in number and closely related both by blood and marriage. The members of the third class were known as "small" or "low" chiefs. They were by far the most numerous body of chiefs in any island, and were generally called haku aina or landowners, though strictly speaking the king was acknowledged in every island as the supreme lord and proprietor of the soil by hereditary right or the law of conquest. When Kamehameha had subdued the greater part of the islands, he distributed them among his favourite chiefs and warriors on condition of their rendering him not only military service, but a certain proportion of the produce of their lands. In this he appears to have followed the ancient practice invariably observed on the conquest of an island.[17] For "from the earliest periods of Hawaiian history, the tenure of lands has been, in most respects, feudal. The origin of the fiefs was the same as in the northern nations of Europe. Any chieftain who could collect a sufficient number of followers to conquer a district, or an island, and had succeeded in his object, proceeded to divide the spoils, or 'cut up the land,' as the natives termed it. The king, or principal chief, made his choice from the best of the lands. Afterwards the remaining part of the conquered territory was distributed among the leaders, and these again subdivided their shares to others, who became vassals, owing fealty to the sovereigns of the fee. The king placed some of his own particular servants on his portion as his agents, to superintend the cultivation. The original occupants who were on the land, usually remained under their new conqueror, and by them the lands were cultivated, and rent or taxes paid."[18]
Below the chiefs or nobles were the commoners, who included small farmers, fishermen, mechanics, such as house-builders and canoe-builders, musicians and dancers, in short, all the labouring classes, whether they worked for a chief or farmer or cultivated patches of land for their own benefit.[19] According to one account, "the common people are generally considered as attached to the soil, and are transferred with the land from one chief to another."[20] But this statement is contradicted by an earlier and perhaps better-informed writer, who spent some thirteen months in Oahu, while the islands were still independent and before the conversion of the people to Christianity. He tells us that commoners were not slaves nor attached to the soil, but at liberty to change masters when they thought proper.[21] On this subject Captain King observes: "How far the property of the lower class is secured against the rapacity and despotism of the great chiefs, I cannot say, but it should seem that it is sufficiently protected against private theft, or mutual depredation; for not only their plantations, which are spread over the whole country, but also their houses, their hogs, and their cloth, were left unguarded, without the smallest apprehensions. I have already remarked, that they not only separate their possessions by walls in the plain country, but that, in the woods likewise, wherever the horse-plantains grow, they make use of small white flags in the same manner, and for the same purpose of discriminating property, as they do bunches of leaves at Otaheite. All which circumstances, if they do not amount to proofs, are strong indications that the power of the chiefs, where property is concerned, is not arbitrary, but at least so far circumscribed and ascertained, as to make it worth the while for the inferior orders to cultivate the soil, and to occupy their possessions distinct from each other."[22] Yet on the other hand we are told by later writers that "in fact, the condition of the common people is that of slaves; they hold nothing which may not be taken from them by the strong hand of arbitrary power, whether exercised by the sovereign or a petty chief." On one occasion the writers saw nearly two thousand persons, laden with faggots of sandal-wood, coming down from the mountains to deposit their burdens in the royal store-houses, and then departing to their homes, weary with their unpaid labours, yet without a murmur at their bondage.[23] When at last, through contact with civilisation, they had learned to utter their grievances, they complained that "the people was crushed by the numerous forced labours and contributions of every sort exacted from them by the chiefs. It was, indeed, very hard to furnish the chiefs, on every requisition, with pigs, food, and all the good things which the folk possessed, and to see the great despoiling the humble. In truth, the people worked for the chiefs incessantly, they performed every kind of painful task, and they paid the chiefs all the taxes which it pleased them to demand."[24]
Certainly commoners were bound to pay great outward marks of deference to their social superiors, the chiefs, or nobles. Indeed, the respect almost amounted to adoration, for they were on no occasion allowed to touch their persons, but prostrated themselves before them, and might not enter their houses without first receiving permission.[25] Above all, the system of taboo or kapu, as it was called in the Hawaiian dialect,[26] oppressed the common people and tended to keep them in a state of abject subjection to the nobles; for the prescriptions of the system were numerous and vexatious, and the penalty for breaches of them was death. If the shadow of a subject fell on a chief, the subject was put to death; if he robed himself in the cloth or assumed the girdle of a chief, he was put to death; if he climbed on the wall of a chief's courtyard, he was put to death; if he stood upright instead of prostrating himself when a vessel of water was brought for the chief to wash with or his garments to wear, he was put to death; if he stepped on the shadow of a chief's house with his head smeared with white clay, or decked with a garland of flowers, or merely wetted with water, he was put to death; if he slept with his wife on a taboo day, he was put to death; if he made a noise during public prayers, he was put to death; if a woman ate pig, or coco-nuts, or bananas, or lobster, or the fish called ulua, she was put to death; if she went in a canoe on a taboo day, she was put to death; if husband and wife ate together, they were both put to death.[27]
In Hawaii, as in other parts of Polynesia, the taboo formed an important and essential part both of the religious and of the political system, of which it was at once a strong support and a powerful instrument. The proper sense of the word taboo (in Hawaiian kapu) is "sacred." This did not, however, imply any moral quality; it expressed rather "a connexion with the gods, or a separation from ordinary purposes, and exclusive appropriation to persons or things considered sacred"; sometimes it meant devoted as by a vow. Chiefs who traced their genealogy to the gods were called arii taboo, "chiefs sacred"; a temple was a wahi taboo, "place sacred"; the rule which prohibited women from eating with men, and from eating, except on special occasions, any fruits or animals ever offered in sacrifice to the gods, while it allowed the men to partake of them, was called ai taboo, "eating sacred." The opposite of kapu was noa, which means "general" or "common"; for example, ai noa signifies "eating generally" or "having food in common." Although it was employed for civil as well as sacred purposes, the taboo was essentially a religious ceremony and could be imposed only by the priests. A religious motive was always assigned for laying it on, though it was often done at the instance of the civil authorities; and persons called kiaimoku, "island keepers," a kind of police officers, were always appointed by the king to see that the taboo was strictly observed.[28]
The application of the restriction implied by taboo was either general or particular, either permanent or occasional. To take examples of permanent taboos, the idols and temples, the persons and names of the king and other members of the royal family, the persons of priests, canoes belonging to the gods, the houses, clothes, and mats of the king and priests, and the heads of men who were the devotees of any particular idol, were always taboo or sacred. The flesh of hogs, fowls, turtles, and several sorts of fish, coco-nuts, and almost everything offered in sacrifice were taboo or consecrated to the use of the gods and the men; hence women were, except in cases of particular indulgence, forbidden to partake of them. Particular places, such as those frequented by the king for bathing, were also permanently taboo. As examples of temporary taboos may be mentioned those which were imposed on an island or district for a certain time, during which no canoe or person was allowed to approach it. Particular fruits, animals, and the fish of certain places were occasionally taboo for several months, during which neither men nor women might eat them.[29] The predecessor of Kamehameha, king of Hawaii, "was taboo to such a degree that he was not allowed to be seen by day. He only showed himself in the night: if any person had but accidentally seen him by daylight he was immediately put to death; a sacred law, the fulfilment of which nothing could prevent."[30]
The seasons generally kept taboo were on the approach of some great religious ceremony, immediately before going to war, and during the sickness of chiefs. Their duration was various, and much longer in ancient than in modern times. Tradition tells of a taboo which lasted thirty years, during which men might not trim their beards and were subject to other restrictions. Another was kept for five years. Before the reign of Kamehameha forty days was the usual period; but in his time the period was shortened to ten or five days, or even to a single day. The taboo seasons might be either common or strict. During a common taboo the men were only required to abstain from their usual avocations, and to attend morning and evening prayers at the temple. But during a strict taboo every fire and light in the district or island must be extinguished; no canoe might be launched; no person might bathe or even appear out of doors, unless his attendance was required at the temple; no dog might bark, no pig grunt, and no cock crow; for if any of these things were to happen the taboo would be broken and fail to accomplish its object. To prevent this disaster the mouths of dogs and pigs were tied up, and fowls were put under a calabash, or a cloth was fastened over their eyes.[31]
The prohibitions of the taboo were strictly enforced; every breach of them was punished with death, unless the delinquent had powerful friends among the priests or chiefs, who could save him. The culprits were generally offered in sacrifice, being either strangled or clubbed at the temple; according to one account, they were burnt.[32]
The system seems to have been found at last too burdensome to be borne even by the king, who under it was forbidden to touch his food with his own hands, and had to submit to having it put into his mouth by another person, as if he were an infant.[33] Whatever his motive, Liholiho, son of Kamehameha, had hardly succeeded his father on the throne of Hawaii when he abolished the system of taboo and the national religion at a single blow. This remarkable reformation took place in November 1819. When the first Christian missionaries arrived from America, some months later, March 30th, 1820, they were astonished to learn of a peaceful revolution, which had so opportunely prepared the way for their own teaching.[34]
Of the native Hawaiian religion, as it existed before the advent of Europeans and the conversion of the people to Christianity, we possess no adequate account. The defect is probably due in great measure to the readiness with which the islanders relinquished their old faith and adopted the new one. The transition seems to have been effected with great ease and comparatively little opposition; hence when the missionaries settled in the islands a few months after the formal abolition of the ancient religion, paganism was already almost a thing of the past, and the Christian teachers were either unable or perhaps unwilling to record in detail the beliefs and rites which they regarded as false and pernicious. Be that as it may, we possess no such comparatively full and accurate records of the old Hawaiian religion, as we possess, for example, of the old pagan religion of the Tongans and the Samoans, who clung much more pertinaciously to the creed of their fathers than their more enlightened or more fickle kinsfolk in the Sandwich Islands. Hence we are obliged to content ourselves with some more or less meagre and fragmentary notices of the ancient Hawaiian system of religious belief and practice. But as the Hawaiians are, or were, pure-blooded Polynesians, we may assume with a fair degree of probability that in its broad lines their religious system conformed to the ordinary Polynesian type.
On this subject Captain King, the colleague and successor of Captain Cook in his last voyage, observes as follows: "The religion of these people resembles, in most of its principal features, that of the Society and Friendly Islands. Their Morais, their Whattas, their idols, their sacrifices, and their sacred songs, all of which they have in common with each other, are convincing proofs that their religious notions are derived from the same source. In the length and number of their ceremonies this branch indeed far exceeds the rest; and though in all these countries there is a certain class of men to whose care the performance of their religious rites is committed, yet we had never met with a regular society of priests, till we discovered the cloisters of Kakooa in Karakakooa Bay [in the island of Hawaii]. The head of this order was called Orono; a title which we imagined to imply something highly sacred, and which, in the person of Omeeah, was honoured almost to adoration.... It has been mentioned that the title of Orono, with all its honours, was given to Captain Cook; and it is also certain that they regarded us generally as a race of people superior to themselves; and used often to say that great Eatooa [atuas, spirits] dwelled in our country. The little image, which we have before described as the favourite idol on the Morai in Karakakooa Bay, they called Koonooraekaiee, and said it was Terreeoboo's god, and that he also resided amongst us. There are found an infinite variety of these images both on the Morais, and within and without their houses, to which they give different names; but it soon became obvious to us in how little estimation they were held, from their frequent expressions of contempt of them, and from their even offering them to sale for trifles. At the same time there seldom failed to be some one particular figure in favour, to which, whilst this preference lasted, all their adoration was addressed. This consisted in arraying it in red cloth, beating their drums, and singing hymns before it, laying bunches of red feathers, and different sorts of vegetables, at its feet, and exposing a pig or a dog to rot on the whatta that stood near it. In a bay to the southward of Karakakooa, a party of our gentlemen were conducted to a large house, in which they found the black figure of a man, resting on his fingers and toes, with his head inclined backward, the limbs well formed and exactly proportioned, and the whole beautifully polished. This figure the natives call Maee; and round it were placed thirteen others of rude and distorted shapes, which they said were the Eatooas [spirits] of several deceased chiefs, whose names they recounted. The place was full of whattas, on which lay the remains of their offerings. They likewise give a place in their houses to many ludicrous and some obscene idols, like the Priapus of the ancients."[35]
The general Hawaiian name for god was akua, corresponding to the more usual Polynesian form atua.[36] The four principal Hawaiian deities were Ku, Kane, Kanaloa, and Lono.[37] Their names are only dialectically different forms of Tu, Tane, Tangaroa or Tagaloa, and Rongo, four of the greatest Polynesian gods.[38] Of these deities it is said that Ku, Kane, and Lono formed the original Hawaiian triad or trinity, who were worshipped as a unity under the name of Ku-kau-akahi, "the one established."[39] The meaning or essence of the three persons of the trinity is said to be Stability (Ku), Light (Tane), and Sound (Lono).[40] "These gods," we are told, "created the three heavens as their dwelling-place, then the earth, sun, moon, and stars, then, the host of angels and ministers. Kanaloa (Tangaroa), who represented the spirit of evil, was a later introduction into the Hawaiian theology; he it was who led the rebellion of spirits, although Milu is in other traditions credited with this bad pre-eminence."[41] We read that when the trinity were at work on the task of creating the first man, the bad spirit Kanaloa, out of rivalry, also made an image, but he could not endow it with life. So, in a rage, he cried to Kane, "I will take your man, he shall die!" And that, it is said, was the origin of death. The reason why the spirits, under the leadership of Kanaloa, rebelled was that they had been denied the sacrifice of kava. For their rebellion they were thrust down to the lowest depth of Darkness or Night (Po).[42]
A fuller account of these momentous transactions presents a close, perhaps a suspicious, resemblance to the Biblical narrative of the same events. It runs as follows:
"According to ancient Hawaiian traditions, there existed in the chaos three mighty gods, Kane, Ku, and Lono. By their common action light was brought into the chaos. Then the gods created three heavenly spheres, in which they dwelt, and last of all the earth, sun, moon, and stars. Out of their spittle they thereupon created a host of angels, who had to render service to the three original deities. Last of all came the creation of man. His body was fashioned out of red earth, and his head out of white clay, and Kane, the highest of the gods, breathed into this Hawaiian Adam the breath of life. Out of one of his ribs the Hawaiian Eve was created. The newly formed pair, by name Kumuhonua and Keolakuhonua, were placed in a beautiful paradise called Paliuli, which was watered by the three rivers of life, and planted with many fine trees, among them the sacred bread-fruit tree. The mightiest of the angels, Kanaloa, the Hawaiian Lucifer, desired that the newly created human pair should worship him, which was forbidden by God the Father, Kane. After vain attempts to create a new man devoted to himself, Kanaloa, out of desire for vengeance, resolved to ruin the first human pair created by the gods. In the likeness of a great lizard he crept into Paradise and seduced the two inhabitants of the same into committing sin, whereupon they were driven out of Paradise by a powerful bird sent by Kane. Then follow, as in the Bible, the legends of the Hawaiian Cain (Laka) and the Hawaiian Noah (Nuu), by whom the ancestors of the Hawaiian people are said to have been saved from the universal flood."[43] The story of the creation of the first woman out of a rib of the first man appears to have been widespread in Polynesia, for it is reported also from Tahiti,[44] Fakaofo or Bowditch Island,[45] and New Zealand.[46]
Of the three persons in the Hawaiian trinity, Kane (Tane) is said to have been the principal. He was especially associated with light; in a fragment of an ancient liturgy he is called Heaven-father (Lani-makua) and in a very ancient chant he is identified with the Creator. When after the great flood the Hawaiian Noah, who is called Nuu, left his vessel, he offered up sacrifice to the moon, saying, "You are doubtless a transformation of Tane." But the deity was angry at this worship of a material object; nevertheless, when Nuu expressed his contrition, the rainbow was left as a pledge of forgiveness.[47]
According to one account, the two great gods Kane and Kanaloa were twins. In Hawaii twins are regarded as superior to ordinary mortals both in mind and body; hence it was natural to conceive of a pair of divine twins, like the Dioscuri in Greek mythology. And, like the Dioscuri, the divine Hawaiian twins sometimes appeared together to their worshippers as helpers in time of need. Thus, in a season of dearth, when people were dying of hunger, a poor fisher lad in the island of Lanai set up a tiny hut on the sea-shore, and there day by day he offered a little from the scanty store of fish which his family had caught; and as he did so he prayed, saying, "Here, O god, is fish for thee." One day, as he sat there, racked with unsatisfied yearning for the divine assistance, two men came walking that way and rested at the hut; and, taking them to be weary wanderers, the fisher lad willingly gave them what little food he had left over. They slept there that night, and next day, when they were departing, they revealed themselves to him as the two gods Kane and Kanaloa, and they told him that his prayer had been heard, and that salvation would follow. Sure enough, plenty soon returned to the land, and on the spot where the little hut had stood, a stone temple was built in stately terraces.[48] Again, we hear how when drought had lasted long in the island of Oahu, and death stared the farmers in the face for lack of water, the gods Kane and Kanaloa appeared in the likeness of two young men and showed them a spring, which was afterwards consecrated to the divine twins.[49] Once more, it is said that, when the two deities were in Oahu, it chanced that they could find no water with which to moisten their dry food. Then at Kane's direction Kanaloa struck a stone with his spear, and from the stone there sprang a fountain, which bears the name of Kane to this day, and still it rises and sinks on the day of the moon which is sacred to that divinity.[50]
The god Lono was, as we have seen, no other than the great Polynesian deity Rongo, the two names being the same word in dialectically different forms. He was one of the most popular gods of Hawaii;[51] the seasons and other natural phenomena were associated with him, and prayers for rain were particularly addressed to him.[52] According to one account, he was an uncreated, self-existent deity;[53] but according to another account he was an ancient king of Hawaii, who rashly killed his wife on a suspicion of infidelity, and then, full of remorse, carried her lifeless body to a temple and made a great wail over it. Thereafter he travelled through Hawaii in a state of frenzy, boxing and wrestling with every one whom he met. The people in astonishment said, "Is Lono entirely mad?" He replied, "I am frantic with my great love." Having instituted games to commemorate his wife's death, he embarked in a triangular canoe for a foreign land. Before he departed, he prophesied, saying, "I will return in after times, on an island bearing coco-nut trees, swine, and dogs." After his departure he was deified by his countrymen, and annual games of boxing and wrestling were instituted in his honour.[54] When Captain Cook arrived in Hawaii, the natives took him to be their god Lono returned according to his prophecy. The priests threw a sacred red mantle on his shoulders and did him reverence, prostrating themselves before him; they pronounced long discourses with extreme volubility, by way of prayer and worship. They offered him pigs and food and clothes, and everything that they offered to the gods. When he landed, most of the inhabitants fled before him, full of fear, and those who remained prostrated themselves in adoration. They led him to a temple, and there they worshipped him. But afterwards in a brawl, when they saw his blood flowing and heard his groans, they said, "No, this is not Rono," and one of them struck him, so that he died. But even after his death, some of them still thought that he was Rono, and that he would come again. So they looked on some of his bones, to wit his ribs and his breastbone, as sacred; they put them in a little basket covered all over with red feathers, and they deposited it in a temple dedicated to Rono. There religious homage was paid to the bones, and thence they were carried every year in procession to several other temples, or borne by the priests round the island, to collect the offerings of the faithful for the support of the worship of the god Rono.[55]
The great Polynesian god or hero Maui was known in Hawaii, where the stories told of him resembled those current in other parts of the Pacific. He is said to have dragged up the islands on his fishing-hook from the depths of the ocean, and to have brought men their first fire.[56] One day, when his wife was making bark-cloth and had not time to finish it before night, Maui laid his hand on the sun and prevented it from going down till the work was completed.[57]
The national war-god of Hawaii was named Tairi (Kaili). In the evening he used to be seen flitting about near his temple in the form of a sort of luminous vapour, like a flame or the tail of a comet. A similar appearance is also occasionally seen in the Society Islands, where the terrified natives formerly identified it with their god Tane, and supposed that the meteor was the deity flying from temple to temple or seeking whom he might destroy.[58] The image of the war-god Tairi used to be carried to battle by the priest, who held it aloft above the ranks. It was four or five feet high; the upper part was of wicker-work, covered with red feathers; the face grinned hideously; the mouth displayed triple rows of dog's or shark's teeth; the eyes gleamed with mother of pearl; and the head was crowned with a helmet crested with long tresses of human hair. In the battle the priest used to distort his face into a variety of frightful grimaces and to utter appalling yells, which were supposed to proceed from the god whom he bore or attended. But the national war-god was not the only deity whose image was borne to battle. Other chiefs of rank had their war-gods carried near them by their priests; and if the king or chief was killed or taken, the god himself was usually captured also. The presence of their deities inspired the warriors with courage; for they imagined the divine influence to be essential to victory.[59] The diviners were consulted immediately before a battle. They slew the victims, and noticed the face of the heavens, the passage of clouds over the sun, and the appearance of a rainbow. If the omens were favourable, the image of the principal war-god was brought out in front of the whole army and placed near the king. The priest then prayed to the gods, beseeching them to prove themselves stronger than the gods of the enemy in the ensuing engagement, and promising them hecatombs of victims in the event of victory. The bodies of foes slain in the battle were dragged to the king or priest, who offered them as victims to his gods.[60]
The gods of Hawaii fell into two classes, according as they were believed to have been primaeval deities born of Night (Po), or the souls of men who had been deified after death. For it was believed to be possible to detain the soul of a beloved or honoured person at death by keeping his clothes or his bones; and the soul could thereafter be invoked and could speak through the mouth of the person into whom it had entered. Both classes of deities, the primaeval and the human, were credited with the power of making people ill.[61] One way of obtaining a guardian deity for a family was to take the body of a still-born child and throw it into the sea or bury it in the earth; in the former case the embryo was supposed to turn into a shark, in the latter case into a grasshopper. When it was deemed necessary to obtain the help of a deity (akua) for a special purpose, such as success in fishing or in canoe-building, the divine spirit could be conjured into an image (kii), and could thereafter appear in a dream to his worshipper and reveal to him what food he desired to have dedicated to him, and what accordingly the worshipper must abstain from eating. Often the god showed himself to the dreamer in the shape of a stone or other object; and on awakening the man was bound to procure the object, whatever it was, and to honour it with prayer and sacrifice, in order to ensure the protection of the deity. Prayers addressed to private gods were usually the property of the owner, who was commonly also their author; whereas prayers addressed to a public god, such as Kane, had to be learned from a priest or other adept.[62]
Among the deities who had once been men would seem to have been the god of medicine, the Hawaiian Aesculapius. It is said that many generations ago a certain man named Koreamoku received all medicinal herbs from the gods, who also taught him the use of them. After his death he was deified, and a wooden image of him was placed in a large temple at Kairua, to which offerings of hogs, fish, and coco-nuts were frequently presented. Oronopuha and Makanuiairomo, two friends and disciples of Koreamoku, continued to practise the healing art after the death of their master, and they too were deified after death, particularly because they were often successful in driving away the evil spirits which afflicted the people and threatened them with death. To these deified men the priests addressed their prayers when they administered medicine to the sick.[63]
Of all the deities of Hawaii the most dreaded was Pele, the goddess of the volcanic fire, whose home was in the great and ever active volcano of Kilauea. There she dwelt with the other members of her family, brothers and sisters. They were all said to have come to Hawaii from a foreign country called Tahiti after the great deluge had subsided. The cones which rise like islands from the vast sea of boiling lava, vomiting columns of smoke or pyramids of flame, were the houses where these volcanic deities lived and amused themselves by playing at draughts: the crackling of the flames and the roaring of the furnaces were the music of their dance; and the red flaming surge was the surf wherein they sported, swimming on the rolling fiery waves.[64] The filaments of volcanic glass, of a dark olive colour and as fine as human hair, some straight, some crimped or frizzled, which are to be seen abundantly on the sides of the crater, and on the plain for miles round, are called by the natives "Pele's hair"; in some places they lie so thick as to resemble cobwebs covering the surface of the ground.[65] Near the crater grow bushes bearing clusters of red and yellow berries resembling large currants; of these the natives formerly would never eat till they had thrown some of the clusters into the thickest of the smoke and vapour as an offering to the goddess of the volcano.[66] Vast numbers of hogs, some alive, others cooked, used to be cast into the craters when they were in action or when they threatened an eruption; and when they boiled over, the animals were flung into the rolling torrent of lava to appease the gods and arrest the progress of the fiery stream. For the whole island had to pay tribute to the gods of the volcano and to furnish provisions for the support of their ministers; and whenever the chiefs or people failed to send the proper offerings or incurred the displeasure of the dreadful beings by insulting them or their ministers, or by breaking the taboos which had to be observed in the vicinity of the craters, the angry deities would spout lava from the mountain or march by subterranean passages to the abode of the culprits and overwhelm them under a flood of molten matter. And if the fishermen did not offer them enough fish, they would rush down, kill the fish with fire, and, filling up the shoals, destroy the fishing-grounds entirely.[67] People who passed by the volcano of Kilauea often presented locks of hair to Pele by throwing them into the crater with an appropriate address to the deity.[68] On one occasion, when a river of lava threatened destruction to the people of the neighbourhood, and the sacrifice of many hogs, cast alive into the stream, had not availed to stay its devastating course, King Kamehameha cut off some of his own sacred locks and threw them into the torrent, with the result that in a day or two the lava ceased to flow.[69] In the pleasant and verdant valley of Kaua there used to be a temple of the goddess, where the inhabitants of Hamakua, a district of Hawaii, formerly celebrated an annual festival designed to propitiate the dread divinity and to secure their country from earthquakes and floods of lava. On such occasions large offerings of hogs, dogs, and fruit were made, and the priests performed certain rites.[70] Worshippers of Pele also threw some of the bones of their dead into the volcano, in the belief that the spirits of the deceased would then be admitted to the society of the volcanic deities, and that their influence would preserve the survivors from the ravages of volcanic fire.[71] Nevertheless the apprehensions uniformly entertained by the natives of the fearful consequences of Pele's anger prevented them from paying very frequent visits to the vicinity of the volcano; and when on their inland journeys they had occasion to approach the mountain, they were scrupulously attentive to every injunction of her priests, and regarded with a degree of superstitious veneration and awe the appalling spectacle which the crater, with its sea of molten and flaming lava, presented to their eyes.[72] They even requested strangers not to dig or scratch the sand in its neighbourhood for fear of displeasing the goddess and provoking her to manifest her displeasure by an eruption.[73]
The service of Pele was regularly cared for by an hereditary steward (kahu) and an hereditary priestess. The duty of the steward was to provide the materials for the public sacrifices, including the food and raiment for the goddess; it was for him to furnish the hogs and fowls, to cultivate the taro, sweet potatoes, and sugar-cane which were to serve her for nourishment, to tend the plants from which her garments were to be made, and to have all things in readiness for the offerings at the appointed seasons. Of the plantations sacred to this use, one was on the sea-shore, and another in the broken ground within the precincts of the crater; and the steward with his family resided sometimes in the one place and sometimes in the other. When the time came for offering the sacrifice, the priestess descended into the depths of the volcano, and there approaching as near as possible to the spot where the fire burned most furiously, she cast into it her gifts, saying, "Here, Pele, is food for you, and here is cloth," whereby she mentioned each article as she flung it into the flames.[74] Sometimes the priestess claimed to be inspired by Pele and even to be the goddess in person. One of the priestesses, in an interview with the missionary William Ellis, assumed a haughty air and declared, "I am Pele; I shall never die; and those who follow me, when they die, if part of their bones be taken to Kilauea, will live with me in the bright fires there." In a song she gave a long account of the deeds and honours of the goddess, who, she said, dwelt in the volcano and had come in former times from the land beyond the sky. This song she chanted or recited in a rapid and vociferous manner, accompanied by extravagant gestures, working herself up to a state of excitement in which she appeared to lose all self-command. She also claimed to be able to heal the sick through the indwelling spirit of the goddess.[75] But the goddess was served also by priests. We read of one such who offered prayers to her and assured the people that thereafter she would do them no harm.[76]
The Hawaiians also paid religious reverence to certain birds, fish, and animals. In a village Captain King saw two tame ravens which the people told him were eatooas (atuas, akuas), that is, gods or spirits, cautioning him at the same time not to hurt or offend them.[77] The native authors of a work on the history of Hawaii, speaking of the ancient religion of their people, tell us that "birds served some as idols; if it was a fowl, the fowl was taboo for the worshippers, and the same for all the birds which were deified. The idol of another was a four-footed animal, and if it was a pig, the pig was taboo for him. So with all the animals who became gods. Another had a stone for his idol; it became taboo, and he could not sit upon the stone. The idol of another was a fish, and if it was a shark, the shark was taboo for him. So with all the fish, and so they deified all things in earth and heaven, and all the bones of men."[78] Further, the same writers observe that "the trees were idols for the people and for the chiefs. If a man had for his idol the ohia tree, the ohia was taboo for him; if the bread-fruit tree was the idol of another, the bread-fruit tree was taboo for him. The taboo existed likewise for all the trees out of which men had made divine images, and it was the same also for food. If taro was a person's idol, taro was taboo for him. It was the same for all the eatables of which they had made gods."[79] This deification of birds, fish, animals, plants, and inanimate objects resembles the Samoan system and may, like it, be a relic of totemism.[80] Among the living creatures to which they thus accorded divine honours were lizards, rats, and owls.[81]
Among the deified fishes it would seem that the shark held a foremost place. On almost every cape jutting out into the sea, a temple used to be built for the worship of the shark. The first fish of each kind, taken by the fishermen, were always carried to the temple and offered to the god, who was supposed to have driven them towards the shore.[82] When the king or the priests imagined that the shark wanted food, they sallied forth with their attendants, one of whom carried a rope with a running noose. On coming to a group or crowd of people, they threw the rope among them, and whoever happened to be taken in the snare, whether man, woman, or child, was strangled on the spot, the body cut in pieces, and flung into the sea, to be bolted by the ravenous monsters.[83] Fishermen sometimes wrapped their dead in red native cloth, and threw them into the sea to be devoured by the sharks. They thought that the soul of the deceased would animate the shark which had eaten his body, and that the sharks would therefore spare the survivors in the event of a mishap at sea.[84] It was especially stillborn children that were thus disposed of. The worshipper of the shark would lay the body of the infant on a mat, and having placed beside it two roots of taro, one of kava, and a piece of sugar-cane, he would recite some prayers, and then throw the whole bundle into the sea, fully persuaded that by means of this offering the transmigration of the soul of the child into the body of a shark would be effected, and that thenceforth the formidable monster would be ready to spare such members of the family as might afterwards be exposed to his attack. In the temples dedicated to sharks there were priests who, at sunrise and sunset, addressed their prayers to the image which represented the shark; and they rubbed themselves constantly with water and salt, which, drying on their skin, made it appear covered with scales. They also dressed in red cloth, uttered piercing yells, and leaped over the wall of the sacred enclosure; moreover they persuaded the islanders that they knew the exact moment when the children that had been thrown into the sea were transformed into sharks, and for this discovery they were rewarded by the happy parents with liberal presents of little pigs, roots of kava, coco-nuts, and so forth.[85] The priests also professed to be inspired by sharks and in that condition to foretell future events. Many people accepted these professions in good faith and contributed to support the professors by their offerings.[86]
From the foregoing account it appears that some at least of the worshipful sharks were supposed to be animated by the souls of the dead. Whether the worship of other sacred animals in Hawaii was in like manner combined with a theory of transmigration, there seems to be no evidence to decide. We have seen that a similar doubt rests on the worship of animals in Tonga.[87]
The priesthood formed a numerous and powerful body. Their office was hereditary. They owned much property in people and lands, which were heavily taxed for their support. Each chief had his family priest, who followed him to battle, carried his war-god, and superintended all the sacred rites of his household. The priests took rank from their gods and chiefs. The keeper of the national war-god, who was immediately attached to the person of the king, was the high priest.[88] In the inner court of the great temple dedicated to Tairi, the war-god, stood a lofty frame of wicker-work, in shape something like an obelisk, hollow within and measuring four or five feet square at the base. Within this framework the priest stood and gave oracles in the name of the god, whenever the king came to consult the deity on any matter of importance, such as a declaration of war or the conclusion of peace; for the war-god was also the king's oracle. The oracular answer, given by the priest in a distinct and audible voice, was afterwards reported by the king, publicly proclaimed, and generally acted upon.[89] When the villages failed to pay their tribute punctually to the king, he used to send forth a priest bearing the image of the great god Rono, who scoured the country of the defaulters for twenty-three days and obliged them to pay double tribute. The priest who bore the image was strictly tabooed; during his peregrination he might not touch anything with his hands; his food had to be put into his mouth either by the chiefs of the villages where he halted or by the king himself, who accompanied him.[90]
Distinct from the regular priests were the diviners or sorcerers who formed a sort of lower priesthood or clergy. Their services were employed for various purposes, such as to discover the cause of illness or to detect a thief. The people generally believed that all deaths, which were not due to acts of violence, were wrought either by the action of a deity or by the incantations of a sorcerer. Hence in cases of protracted illness the aid of one of these inferior clergy was almost invariably sought by all who could procure a dog and a fowl for the necessary sacrifice to the god, and a piece or two of cloth as a fee for the priest. But the offerings to the god and the fees to the priest naturally varied with the rank or wealth of the sufferer. After sacrificing the victims the priest lay down to sleep, and if his prayers were answered, he was usually able to inform the invalid of the cause of his illness, which had been revealed to him in a dream. But the same men, who could thus heal the sick by ascertaining and removing the cause of sickness, were supposed to possess the power of praying or enchanting people to death by the recitation of spells or incantations. The prayers or incantations which they employed for these beneficent or maleficent purposes varied with the individual: every practitioner had his own formulas, the knowledge of which he carefully confined to his own family; and he who was thought to have most influence with his god was most frequently employed by the people and derived the greatest emoluments from his profession.[91] Of this class of men the most dreaded were those who invoked the god Uli as their patron deity. Their special business was to kill people by their spells, which they recited secretly, and for the most part by night; but to render these effectual it was necessary for them to obtain some of the personal refuse of their victim, such as his spittle, the parings of his nails, or the clippings of his hair, which they buried or burned with the appropriate incantations.[92] Hence the king of Hawaii was constantly attended by a servant carrying a spittoon in which he collected the royal saliva to prevent it from being used by the king's enemies for his injury or destruction.[93] Ordinary chiefs seem to have adopted the same precaution; a confidential servant deposited their spittle carefully in a portable spittoon and buried it every morning.[94]
A form of divination or magic was employed to detect a thief. The person who had suffered the loss used to apply to a priest, to whom he presented a pig and told his story. Thereupon the priest kindled a fire by rubbing two pieces of wood together, and having taken three nuts he broke the shells and threw one of the kernels into the fire, saying, "Kill or shoot the fellow." If the thief did not appear before the nut was consumed in the flames, the priest repeated the ceremony with the other two nuts. Such was the fear inspired by this rite that the culprit seldom failed to come forward and acknowledge his guilt. But if he persisted in concealing his crime, the king would cause proclamation to be made throughout the island that so-and-so had been robbed, and that the robber or robbers had been prayed to death. So firm was the belief of the people in the power of these prayers, that the criminal, on hearing the proclamation, would pine away, refuse food, and fall a victim to his own credulity.[95]
Of the Hawaiian temples, as they existed before the abolition of the native religion, we seem to possess no good and clear description. When Captain Cook first visited Hawaii and was sailing along the coast, he noticed from the ship at every village one or more elevated white objects, like pyramids or rather obelisks; one of them he judged to be fifty feet high. On landing to examine it, he could not reach it on account of an intervening pool of water. However, he visited another structure of the same sort in a more accessible situation, and found that it stood in what he calls a burying-ground or morai closely resembling those which he had seen in other Polynesian islands and especially in Tahiti. This particular morai was an oblong space, of considerable extent, surrounded by a wall of stone, about four feet high. The area enclosed was loosely paved with smaller stones; and at one end of it stood the pyramid or obelisk, measuring about four feet square at the base and about twenty feet high. The four sides were composed, not of stones, but of small poles interwoven with twigs and branches, thus forming an indifferent wicker-work, hollow or open within from bottom to top. It seemed to be in a rather ruinous state, but enough remained to show that it had been originally covered with the light grey cloth to which the natives attached a religious significance. It was no doubt with similar cloth that the white pyramids or obelisks were covered which Captain Cook beheld in the distance from the deck of his ship. Beside the particular pyramid which he examined Captain Cook found a sacrificial stage or altar with plantains laid upon it. The pyramids or obelisks which he thus saw and described were presumably the structures in which the priests concealed themselves when they gave oracles in the name of the god. On the farther side of the area of the morai of which Captain Cook has given us a description stood a house or shed about ten feet high, forty feet long, and ten broad in the middle, but tapering somewhat towards the ends. The entrance into it was at the middle of the side, which was in the morai. On the farther side of the house, opposite the entrance, stood two wooden images, each cut out of a single piece, with pedestals, in all about three feet high, not badly designed nor executed. They were said to represent goddesses (eatooa no veheina). On the head of one of them was a carved helmet, and on the other a cylindrical cap like the head-dress worn at Tahiti. In the middle of the house, and before the two images, was an oblong space, enclosed by a low edging of stone and covered with shreds of the same grey cloth which draped the pyramid or obelisk. Within this enclosure seven chiefs lay buried; and outside the house, just on one side of the entrance, were two small square spaces in which a man and a hog were buried respectively, after being killed and sacrificed to the divinity. At a little distance from these, and near the middle of the morai, were three more of these square enclosed places, in which three chiefs had been interred. In front of their graves was an oblong enclosed space in which, as Captain Cook was told, three human victims were buried, each of them having been sacrificed at the funeral of one of the three chiefs. Within the area of the morai or burying-ground, as Captain Cook calls it, were planted trees of various kinds. Similar sanctuaries appeared to Captain Cook to abound in the island; the particular one described by him he believed to be among the least considerable, being far less conspicuous than several others which he had seen in sailing along the coast.[96]
From his description we may infer that the temples (morais) observed by him did not contain stone pyramids like those which formed such prominent features in the Tahitian sanctuaries and in the burial grounds of the Tooitongas in Tongataboo; for the pyramids, or rather obelisks, of wicker-work seen by Captain Cook in the Hawaiian sanctuaries were obviously structures of a wholly different kind. But there seem to be some grounds for thinking that stone pyramids, built in steps or terraces, did occur in some of the Hawaiian temples. Thus Captain King saw a morai, as he calls it, which consisted of a square solid pile of stones about forty yards long, twenty broad, and fourteen [feet?] in height. The top was flat and well paved, and surrounded by a wooden rail, on which were fixed the skulls of captives who had been sacrificed on the death of chiefs. The ascent to the top of the pile was easy, but whether it was a staircase or an inclined plane is not mentioned by Captain King. At one end of the temple or sacred enclosure was an irregular kind of scaffold supported on poles more than twenty feet high, at the foot of which were twelve images ranged in a semicircle with a sacrificial table or altar in front of them. On the scaffold Captain Cook was made to stand, and there, swathed in red cloth, he received the adoration of the natives, who offered him a hog and chanted a long litany in his honour.[97]
When Kamehameha was busy conquering the archipelago in the last years of the eighteenth century, he built a great temple (heiau) for his war-god Tairi in the island of Hawaii. Some thirty years later the ruined temple was visited and described by the missionary William Ellis. He says: "Its shape is an irregular parallelogram, 224 feet long, and 100 wide. The walls, though built of loose stones, were solid and compact. At both ends, and on the side next the mountains, they were twenty feet high, twelve feet thick at the bottom, but narrowed in gradually towards the top, where a course of smooth stones, six feet wide, formed a pleasant walk. The walls next the sea were not more than seven or eight feet high, and were proportionally wide. The entrance to the temple is by a narrow passage between two high walls.... The upper terrace within the area was spacious, and much better finished than the lower ones. It was paved with flat smooth stones, brought from a distance. At the south end was a kind of inner court, which might be called the sanctum sanctorum of the temple, where the principal idol used to stand, surrounded by a number of images of inferior deities.... On the outside, near the entrance to the inner court, was the place of the rere (altar) on which human and other sacrifices were offered. The remains of one of the pillars that supported it were pointed out by the natives, and the pavement around was strewed with bones of men and animals, the mouldering remains of those numerous offerings once presented there. About the centre of the terrace was the spot where the king's sacred house stood, in which he resided during the season of strict tabu, and at the north end, the place occupied by the houses of priests, who, with the exception of the king, were the only persons permitted to dwell within the sacred enclosures. Holes were seen on the walls, all around this, as well as the lower terraces, where wooden idols of varied size and shape formerly stood, casting their hideous stare in every direction."[98]
From this somewhat indistinct description we gather that the temple was a large oblong area enclosed by high stone walls and open to the sky, and that at some place within the enclosure there rose a structure in a series of terraces, of which the uppermost was paved with flat stones and supported the king's house, while the houses of the priests stood in another part of the sacred enclosure. If this interpretation is correct, we may infer that the temple resembled a Tahitian morai, which was a walled enclosure enclosing a sort of stepped and truncated pyramid built of stone.[99] The inference is confirmed by the language used by Captain King in speaking of the temple which he describes, for he calls it a morai,[100] and the same term is applied to the sacred edifices in Hawaii by other voyagers.[101]
Another ruined temple (heiau) seen by Ellis in Hawaii, is described by him as built of immense blocks of lava, and measuring a hundred and fifty feet long by seventy feet wide. At the north end was a smaller enclosure, sixty feet long and ten wide, partitioned off by a high wall, with but one narrow entrance. The places where the idols formerly stood were apparent, though the idols had been removed. The spot where the altar had been erected could be distinctly traced; it was a mound of earth, paved with smooth stones, and surrounded by a firm curb of lava. The adjacent ground was strewn with bones of the ancient offerings.[102] Another temple (heiau), in good preservation, visited by Ellis, measured no less than two hundred and seventy feet in one direction by two hundred and ten in another. The walls were thick and solid; on the top of them the stones were piled in a series of small spires. The temple was said to have been built by a queen of Hawaii about eleven generations back.[103] Once more in one of the puhonuas or cities of refuge, which in Hawaii afforded an inviolable sanctuary to fugitives, Ellis saw another temple (heiau), which he describes as "a compact pile of stones, laid up in a solid mass, 126 feet by 65, and ten feet high. Many fragments of rock, or pieces of lava, of two or more tons each, were seen in several parts of the wall, raised at least six feet from the ground." Ellis was told that the city of refuge, of which this temple formed part, had been built for Keave, who reigned in Hawaii about two hundred and fifty years before the time when the missionary was writing.[104] From his descriptions we may infer that some at least of the Hawaiian temples deserved to rank among megalithic structures, and that the natives had definite traditions of the kings or queens by whom the temples had been built.
In the island of Oahu a temple (heiau) visited by the missionary Stewart was forty yards long by twenty yards broad. The walls, of dark stone, were perfectly regular and well built, about six feet high, three feet wide at the level of the ground, and two feet wide at the top. It was enclosed only on three sides, the oblong area formed by the walls being open on the west; from that side there was a descent by three regular terraces or very broad steps.[105] This brief account confirms the inference which I have drawn from the more detailed description of Ellis, as to the terraced structure of some Hawaiian temples.
In the mountains of Hawaii, at a height of about five thousand feet above the sea, Commodore Wilkes saw the ruins of an ancient temple of the god Kaili (Tairi), round about which stood eight small pyramids built of compact blocks of lava laid without cement. These pyramids were said to have been erected at the command of Umi, an ancient king, to commemorate his conquests. They seem to have measured each some ten or twelve feet square. The temple which they surrounded was about ninety-two feet long by seventy-two feet wide; the outer walls were about seven feet high and as many thick. Internally the edifice was divided by partition walls three feet high. The building was said to have been formerly covered with idols, of which no traces remained at the time of Wilkes's visit.[106]
Often, apparently, a Hawaiian temple consisted of little more than a walled or palisaded enclosure containing a number of rudely carved images and a place of sacrifice in the form of a platform raised on poles. Such a temple is described by the Russian navigator Lisiansky. The images in it were grouped and arranged so as to form a sort of semicircle. The chief priest of the temple informed the Russians "that the fifteen statues wrapped in cloth represented the gods of war; the two to the right of the place of sacrifice, the gods of spring; those on the opposite side, the guardians of autumn; and that the altar was dedicated to the god of joy, before which the islanders dance and sing on festivals appointed by their religion." With regard to the temples in general, Lisiansky observes that they "were by no means calculated to excite in the mind of a stranger religious veneration. They are suffered to remain in so neglected and filthy a condition, that, were it not for the statues, they might be taken rather for hog-sties than places of worship."[107]
The images of the gods were usually carved of wood. When a new idol was to be made, a royal and priestly procession went forth, with great ceremony, to the destined tree, where the king himself, with a stone axe, struck the first blow at the root. After the tree was felled, a man or a hog was killed and buried on the spot where it had grown.[108] Sometimes, apparently, the direction to carve an idol out of a particular tree was given by a god in a dream. There is a tradition that once when the woodmen were felling such a tree with their stone axes, the chips flew out and killed two of them; whereupon the other woodmen covered their faces with masks, and cut down the tree with their daggers.[109] Another famous idol was said to be made of wood so poisonous, that if chips of it were steeped in water, and anybody drank of the water, he would die in less than twenty-four hours.[110] The Hawaiians seem to have made their idols hideous on purpose to inspire terror.[111] The features of some of the images were violently distorted, their mouths set with a double row of the fangs of dogs, their eyes made of large pearl oysters with black nuts in the middle; some had long pieces of carved wood, shaped like inverted cones, rising from the top of their heads;[112] some had tongues of a monstrous size, others had no tongues at all; some had mouths that reached from ear to ear; the heads of some were a great deal larger than their bodies.[113] Some of the idols were stones. In the island of Hawaii there is a pebbly beach from which pebbles used to be carried away to be deified or to represent deities. They were generally taken in couples, a male and a female, and having been wrapt up very carefully together in a piece of native cloth, they were conveyed to a temple (heiau), where ceremonies of consecration or deification were performed over them.[114]
The human sacrifice offered at the making of an idol was intended to impart strength to the image.[115] But human sacrifices were offered on many other occasions, such as on the approach of war, on the death of a chief, and so forth. There is a tradition that Umi, a famous king of Hawaii, once offered eighty men to his god as a thank-offering for victory. The victims were generally prisoners of war, but in default of captives any men who had broken taboos or rendered themselves obnoxious to the chiefs were sacrificed. It does not appear that they were slain in the presence of the idol or within the temple, but either on the outside or where they were first taken; in all cases an attempt seems to have been made to preserve the body entire or as little mangled as possible. Generally the victims were despatched by a blow on the head with a club or stone; sometimes, however, they were stabbed. Having been stripped naked, the bodies were carried into the temple and laid in a row, with their faces downwards, on the altar immediately before the idol. The priest thereupon, in a kind of prayer, offered them to the gods; and if hogs were sacrificed at the same time, they were afterwards piled on the human bodies and left there to rot and putrefy together.[116]