Concerning the dead in ancient days

HAWAIIAN ANTIQUITIES AND FOLK-LORE

THE HAWAIIANS' ACCOUNT OF THE FORMATION OF THEIR ISLANDSAND ORIGIN OF THEIR RACE, WITH THE TRADITIONS OF THEIRMIGRATIONS, ETC., AS GATHERED FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES

By ABRAHAM FORNANDER

Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop MuseumVolume V‒Part I

HONOLULU H. I.BISHOP MUSEUM PRESS 1998

pgs. 570-576

Writer S. Kamaka 

Mokumanamana -ancient lands of our tupuna

Kii: Creative Commons

WHEN confined with long illness, and death draws near, a person, before his death, mutters in an indistinct and mumbling way, speaking of his relatives and his gods, whether they be dead or whether they be living, in this manner: “So and so is coming to get. me to go.” And thus, he would rave until he died. Whereupon all his relatives mourned, and if he was greatly beloved, they extracted something from his corpse, such as a nail, a tooth, or perhaps some hair.1 Here is another thing: if something was seen issuing from the mouth or the eyes, possibly a white substance accompanied by tears, the deceased truly loved his relatives; his corpse would then be kept uninterred four or five days, or even longer, to show their regard.     If the corpse be left unburied, it should be placed in a box2 unseen by the people, and should be arranged in this manner: Lower the head of the corpse until it is bowed between the legs, draw up the legs so that the knees would project beyond the shoulders; slip in a cord at the knee-joints and fasten tightly; the corpse then would be round in appearance.3 If there be anything which the deceased had, such as money, or clothes or other articles, it is buried with the corpse. Food is also left; fish, or tobacco, or kapa, it may be, so that the dead would not go hungry for food,4 or be cold; such is what I have heard.     In taking the corpse to be hidden,5 it is done by two or three of his friends, not by many people. The burial is done at night, however not in the daytime. In digging the grave, it is dug round, like a banana hole. The usual depth of the grave is up to one’s waist, that is, up to the loins of a man. In the olden time, this grave was called a pahee (smooth place). Upon digging, take the dirt from the grave to another place in a fine mat, or a gourd, else the tracks would be shown. Should it be a new house, the friends of the dead would dig from the outside till they reached within,6 without the house owner knowing anything about it. The people thought that if the burial place was known, the bones would be taken for fishhooks, and the flesh for shark bait. There are some hidden graves among the precipices; others are on plains. There is a hidden grave at Haleakala; it is called the grave of Kaawa; it is right mauka of Nuu, on Maui. This is the way the corpse is treated before being thrown into that hole. When the friend of the dead takes the corpse, he takes also what the deceased was fond of when living: If he was fond of pork, banana, or perhaps sugarcane, etc., he takes them; and upon arriving at the grave, the friend of the deceased calls to the departed ancestors7 first buried in that grave, thus: “So and so, here comes your descendant.” If the corpse should keep falling until it drops into the water, and a rainbow appears, then it is without relatives; but the corpse who has relatives is grasped by them when the body is thrown, and is stranded on the precipice, and not dropped into the water. After the burial, they come home and mourn.

     Another thing: If the corpse is being carried, and the one he loved is far in the rear, no progress would be made, for the deceased would demur. The one he loved should be immediately behind; then there would be no demurring. This is what the friend of the dead should say: “I thought you loved me, but you do not; if you act like this, your bones will be broken.” When he has finished saying that the corpse will acquiesce, and it will be light work carrying it to the place of burial. The grave should be well lined, and the corpse laid to rest, the head towards the east, the feet towards the west.8 It is wrong to lay the corpse with the head towards the west, for it would appear as a ghost. When the body is buried, the friend should repeat these words: “Do not go wandering to houses, but stay quietly here; you have food, fish and clothes.”

     Another thing: Some people, when they see that a person is dead, would strip the flesh from the bones and make them into knives or fishhooks; or else they would be hung up in the house, so that the loved ones may go and see them. Some of the corpses are taken to the sea or water and thrown in, so that they may become shark- or lizard-gods.

     Here are the secret graves wherein the chiefs of Nuu were buried: Makaopalena, Kealaohia and Puukelea, all on the side of Haleakala on the eastern side of Maui. Hanohano and Alalakeiki are others. At Alalakeiki, several men from Hawaii who had brought a corpse to be hidden were killed. When those men from Hawaii had gone into the cave, a man of the place, Niuaawaa by name, came along and closed up the mouth of the cave with stones, and those people stayed in there until they died. There is no living man who knows any of these secret burial places,9 so well hidden are they.

                               CONCERNING THE SOUL AFTER A PERSON’S DEATH.

     The Hawaiians do not agree on the idea of what becomes of the soul after a person dies. They say that the soul has three abiding places, namely: the volcano, in the water, and on dry plains like the plains of Kamaomao and Kekaa.10   Should a chief die, or any of his own men, or the servants of Pele, then their souls will go to the volcano, and the servants of Pele and other men will serve as they served in this world.11 And the servant of Pele will be his caretaker, who will lord it over his stewards or even over his own food servants. When one wants to see it, then this is the process: go with a servant of Pele, and the kahu will be called by chanting one of the chants of that chief.  Some say that should a person dies and is buried at the edge of a spring or a watercourse, then his soul will enter another body, such as a shark, or any other living body of the sea. Those that are buried by the body of fresh water will enter that stream and become a large okuhekuhe or long-tailed lizaird, and if buried on dry land, then they will enter the body of an owl, and such like.

These bodies that are entered by the souls of men become guides12 to their friends who are living. This is what the soul which has entered these things would do: It would proceed and enter his friend, and when it has possessed him, the soul would eat regular food until satisfied, then go back, and he would repeatedly do that. And this friend, should he have any trouble on land, such as war, then the owl13 would lead him to a place of safety; and if in fresh water, the lizard and such like would keep him safe: and if the trouble is in the ocean, the shark and such like would care for him, This is one reason why a great many people are prohibited from eating many things.  Another thing: The soul also lives on a dry plain after the death of die body; and such places are called ka Ieina a ka uhane (the casting-off place of the soul). This name applies to wherever in Hawaii nei people lived.

Nihoa-Maloku is the leina

 Kii: C. Farmer; September 2011.

Chants and stories tell of regular voyages between Niʻihau and Nihoa. One chant tells of the winter rains that come from the direction of Nihoa:

Ea mai ana ke ao ua o Kona

Ea mai ana ma Nihoa

Ma ka mole mai o Lehua

Ua iho a pulu ke kahakai

The rain clouds of Kona come,

Approaching from Nihoa,

From the base of Lehua,

Pouring down, drenching the coast.

The following are the places where the souls live: For the people of Niihau, Kapapakiikii, and a second one is at Mauloku on Nihoa; for the Kauai people, at Hanapepe; for the Oahu people, at Kaimalolo; for the Molokai people, at the boundary of Koolau and Kona, at the district of Wainene; for the Lanai people, at Hokunui; for the Maui people, there are two places, at Kekaa. and the plains of Kamaomao; and for the Hawaii people, there are three places, at Hilo, at Waipio, and at Palilua. All these places are known as the casting-off places of souls.14 Should a soul get to any of these places, it will be impossible for it to come back again.  Still another thing: Should the body die, the soul may appear as if in the flesh; then there becomes no more night to the soul, only light. The chiefs have a separate place to dwell in, and the warriors have a different place. Sports are carried on there as during real life, such as throwing the spear, guessing the hidden no'a,15 coasting downhill, surfing, fencing, wrestling; there is plenty of food, food which needed no cultivation, such as potatoes, taro, ape, etc.; and because of this people think when the body is dead the following should be provided: Food, fish, tobacco, water, steel on which to strike flint and obtain fire, o-o, spear, axe, knife; because they think the soul will need these things to work with at that place.  

   Another thing: Some people think that the soul has no abiding place, but only wanders about, and then comes and enters a living person. Such a soul is called “wind,” or “unihipili” ‒ the spirit of a deceased person. That is what people in the olden times thought.

S. KAMAKA.

1 This was termed his maunu (bait), a necessity for the priest in seeking the acceptance or recognition of a deceased person by his ancestral spirit (aumakua). Also in sorcery, to the anaana or praying-to-death priest, one's maunu was looked upon as most efficacious.

2 Box, or coffin, brings this to modern times. In former days, an old canoe or section thereof served the purpose, as found in some ancient burial caves.

3 Not all bodies were prepared for burial in this manner. Some were laid full length in a basket formed of a plaited coconut leaf.

4 The provisioning of a corpse with supposedly needed supplies bears out the idea of their belief that the soul at death goes out and wanders on, seeking friends and living much as in the present life.

5 Secret burial was the rule for the preservation of one's bones, hence the care that even the traces of dirt removed should not reveal a place of interment.

6 Under-house burials were probably chosen as security, though instances are known where affection was the prime motive.

7 Claiming the services of their aumakuas for companionship and direction in the spirit-world lest he wander aimlessly alone.

8 This bears out note 3. The position of the body at burial pointing to the west was said by Fornander to indicate a general belief as to its being the direction of the original home of their gods and ancestors, whither their spirits would depart.

9 Tradition points to the general respect of the trust imposed on the caretaker of such places; to betray their trust, it was believed, would be followed by dire consequences.

10 Both of these places are on the western shore of Maui, Kekaa being not far distant from Lahaina, and Kamaomao on the peninsula.

11 Another point in the belief of life after death being much the same as in this world.

12Guides in the form of aumakuas (ancestral gods) and unihipili (familiar spirits).

13Tbe owl was one of the most popular objects possessing aumakua attributes.

14These various Soul’s Leap localities make provision as the point of departure for the soul at death in its leap to find its aumakua for guidance and companionship, or failing such, to descend to the realm of Milu.

15Noa, the game of hiding a stone under a cloth or piece of kapa.