Roughing It
had formerly been kindly sustained. The children also were sent away.
Then Kalaimoku came to the house, and the chiefs had a consultation. One
of them spoke thus: ‘This is my thought—we will eat him raw. [This
sounds suspicious, in view of the fact that all Sandwich Island
historians, white and black, protest that cannibalism never existed in
the islands. However, since they only proposed to “eat him raw” we
“won’t count that”. But it would certainly have been cannibalism if they
had cooked him.—M. T.] Kaahumanu (one of the dead King’s widows)
replied, ‘Perhaps his body is not at our disposal; that is more properly
with his successor. Our part in him—his breath—has departed; his remains
will be disposed of by Liholiho.’
“After this conversation the body was taken into the consecrated house
for the performance of the proper rites by the priest and the new King.
The name of this ceremony is uko; and when the sacred hog was baked the
priest offered it to the dead body, and it became a god, the King at the
same time repeating the customary prayers.
“Then the priest, addressing himself to the King and chiefs, said: ‘I
will now make known to you the rules to be observed respecting persons
to be sacrificed on the burial of this body. If you obtain one man
before the corpse is removed, one will be sufficient; but after it
leaves this house four will be required. If delayed until we carry the
corpse to the grave there must be ten; but after it is deposited in the
grave there must be fifteen. To-morrow morning there will be a _tabu_,
and, if the sacrifice be delayed until that time, forty men must die.’
“Then the high priest, Hewahewa, inquired of the chiefs, ‘Where shall be
the residence of King Liholiho?’ They replied, ‘Where, indeed? You, of
all men, ought to know.’ Then the priest observed, ‘There are two
suitable places; one is Kau, the other is Kohala.’ The chiefs preferred
the latter, as it was more thickly inhabited. The priest added, ‘These
are proper places for the King’s residence; but he must not remain in
Kona, for it is polluted.’ This was agreed to. It was now break of day.
As he was being carried to the place of burial the people perceived that
their King was dead, and they wailed. When the corpse was removed from
the house to the tomb, a distance of one chain, the procession was met
by a certain man who was ardently attached to the deceased. He leaped
upon the chiefs who were carrying the King’s body; he desired to die
with him on account of his love. The chiefs drove him away. He persisted
in making numerous attempts, which were unavailing. Kalaimoka also had
it in his heart to die with him, but was prevented by Hookio.
“The morning following Kamehameha’s death, Liholiho and his train
departed for Kohala, according to the suggestions of the priest, to
avoid the defilement occasioned by the dead. At this time if a chief
died the land was polluted, and the heirs sought a residence in another
part of the country until the corpse was dissected and the bones tied in
a bundle, which being done, the season of defilement terminated. If the
deceased were not a chief, the house only was defiled which became pure
again on the burial of the body. Such were the laws on this subject.
“On the morning on which Liholiho sailed in his canoe for Kohala, the
chiefs and people mourned after their manner on occasion of a chief’s
death, conducting themselves like madmen and like beasts. Their conduct
was such as to forbid description; The priests, also, put into action
the sorcery apparatus, that the person who had prayed the King to death
might die; for it was not believed that Kamehameha’s departure was the
effect either of sickness or old age. When the sorcerers set up by their
fire-places stick with a strip of kapa flying at the top, the chief
Keeaumoku, Kaahumaun’s brother, came in a state of intoxication and
broke the flag-staff of the sorcerers, from which it was inferred that
Kaahumanu and her friends had been instrumental in the King’s death. On
this account they were subjected to abuse.”
You have the contrast, now, and a strange one it is. This great Queen,
Kaahumanu, who was “subjected to abuse” during the frightful orgies that
followed the King’s death, in accordance with ancient custom, afterward
became a devout Christian and a steadfast and powerful friend of the
missionaries.
Dogs were, and still are, reared and fattened for food, by the
natives—hence the reference to their value in one of the above
paragraphs.
Forty years ago it was the custom in the Islands to suspend all law for
a certain number of days after the death of a royal personage; and then
a saturnalia ensued which one may picture to himself after a fashion,
but not in the full horror of the reality. The people shaved their
heads, knocked out a tooth or two, plucked out an eye sometimes, cut,
bruised, mutilated or burned their flesh, got drunk, burned each other’s
huts, maimed or murdered one another according to the caprice of the
moment, and both sexes gave themselves up to brutal and unbridled
licentiousness.
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And after it all, came a torpor from which the nation slowly emerged
bewildered and dazed, as if from a hideous half-remembered nightmare.
They were not the salt of the earth, those “gentle children of the sun.”
The natives still keep up an old custom of theirs which cannot be
comforting to an invalid. When they think a sick friend is going to die,
a couple of dozen neighbors surround his hut and keep up a deafening
wailing night and day till he either dies or gets well. No doubt this
arrangement has helped many a subject to a shroud before his appointed
time.
They surround a hut and wail in the same heart-broken way when its
occupant returns from a journey. This is their dismal idea of a welcome.
A very little of it would go a great way with most of us.
CHAPTER LXIX.
Bound for Hawaii (a hundred and fifty miles distant,) to visit the great
volcano and behold the other notable things which distinguish that
island above the remainder of the group, we sailed from Honolulu on a
certain Saturday afternoon, in the good schooner Boomerang.
The Boomerang was about as long as two street cars, and about as wide as
one. She was so small (though she was larger than the majority of the
inter-island coasters) that when I stood on her deck I felt but little
smaller than the Colossus of Rhodes must have felt when he had a man-of-
war under him. I could reach the water when she lay over under a strong
breeze. When the Captain and my comrade (a Mr. Billings), myself and
four other persons were all assembled on the little after portion of the
deck which is sacred to the cabin passengers, it was full—there was not
room for any more quality folks. Another section of the deck, twice as
large as ours, was full of natives of both sexes, with their customary
dogs, mats, blankets, pipes, calabashes of poi, fleas, and other
luxuries and baggage of minor importance. As soon as we set sail the
natives all lay down on the deck as thick as negroes in a slave-pen, and
smoked, conversed, and spit on each other, and were truly sociable.
The little low-ceiled cabin below was rather larger than a hearse, and
as dark as a vault. It had two coffins on each side—I mean two bunks. A
small table, capable of accommodating three persons at dinner, stood
against the forward bulkhead, and over it hung the dingiest whale oil
lantern that ever peopled the obscurity of a dungeon with ghostly
shapes. The floor room unoccupied was not extensive. One might swing a
cat in it, perhaps, but not a long cat. The hold forward of the bulkhead
had but little freight in it, and from morning till night a portly old
rooster, with a voice like Baalam’s ass, and the same disposition to use
it, strutted up and down in that part of the vessel and crowed. He
usually took dinner at six o’clock, and then, after an hour devoted to
meditation, he mounted a barrel and crowed a good part of the night. He
got hoarser and hoarser all the time, but he scorned to allow any
personal consideration to interfere with his duty, and kept up his
labors in defiance of threatened diphtheria.
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Sleeping was out of the question when he was on watch. He was a source
of genuine aggravation and annoyance. It was worse than useless to shout
at him or apply offensive epithets to him—he only took these things for
applause, and strained himself to make more noise. Occasionally, during
the day, I threw potatoes at him through an aperture in the bulkhead,
but he only dodged and went on crowing.
The first night, as I lay in my coffin, idly watching the dim lamp
swinging to the rolling of the ship, and snuffing the nauseous odors of
bilge water, I felt something gallop over me. I turned out promptly.
However, I turned in again when I found it was only a rat. Presently
something galloped over me once more. I knew it was not a rat this time,
and I thought it might be a centipede, because the Captain had killed
one on deck in the afternoon. I turned out. The first glance at the
pillow showed me repulsive sentinel perched upon each end of
it—cockroaches as large as peach leaves—fellows with long, quivering
antennae and fiery, malignant eyes. They were grating their teeth like
tobacco worms, and appeared to be dissatisfied about something. I had
often heard that these reptiles were in the habit of eating off sleeping
sailors’ toe nails down to the quick, and I would not get in the bunk
any more. I lay down on the floor. But a rat came and bothered me, and
shortly afterward a procession of cockroaches arrived and camped in my
hair. In a few moments the rooster was crowing with uncommon spirit and
a party of fleas were throwing double somersaults about my person in the
wildest disorder, and taking a bite every time they struck. I was
beginning to feel really annoyed. I got up and put my clothes on and
went on deck.
The above is not overdrawn; it is a truthful sketch of inter-island
schooner life. There is no such thing as keeping a vessel in elegant
condition, when she carries molasses and Kanakas.
It was compensation for my sufferings to come unexpectedly upon so
beautiful a scene as met my eye—to step suddenly out of the sepulchral
gloom of the cabin and stand under the strong light of the moon—in the
centre, as it were, of a glittering sea of liquid silver—to see the
broad sails straining in the gale, the ship heeled over on her side, the
angry foam hissing past her lee bulwarks, and sparkling sheets of spray
dashing high over her bows and raining upon her decks; to brace myself
and hang fast to the first object that presented itself, with hat jammed
down and coat tails whipping in the breeze, and feel that exhilaration
that thrills in one’s hair and quivers down his back bone when he knows
that every inch of canvas is drawing and the vessel cleaving through the
waves at her utmost speed. There was no darkness, no dimness, no
obscurity there. All was brightness, every object was vividly defined.
Every prostrate Kanaka; every coil of rope; every calabash of poi; every
puppy; every seam in the flooring; every bolthead; every object; however
minute, showed sharp and distinct in its every outline; and the shadow
of the broad mainsail lay black as a pall upon the deck, leaving
Billings’s white upturned face glorified and his body in a total
eclipse.
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Monday morning we were close to the island of Hawaii. Two of its high
mountains were in view—Mauna Loa and Hualaiai. The latter is an imposing
peak, but being only ten thousand feet high is seldom mentioned or heard
of. Mauna Loa is said to be sixteen thousand feet high. The rays of
glittering snow and ice, that clasped its summit like a claw, looked