Kii: 1842 Drawing, Thomas Agate. National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.
Ruling Chiefs Of Hawaii
SAMUEL M. KAMAKAU
(Revised Edition)
KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS PRESS • HONOLULU
Pgs. 416-430
https://ulukau.org/ulukau-books/?a=d&d=EBOOK-CHIEFS.2.33.1&e=-------haw-20--1--txt-txPT-----------
To a people living happily in a pleasant land with purple mountains, sea-girt beaches, cool breezes, life long and natural, even to extreme old age [to these people], with the coming of strangers, there came contagious diseases which destroyed the native sons of the land. No longer is the sound of the old man's cane heard on the long road, no longer do the aged crouch about the fireplace, no longer do those helpless with age stretch themselves on their beds, no longer do they remain withering in the house like the cane-blossom stalks plucked and dried for the dart-throwing game. We are praying to God that we may reach the length of life of our forbears. We build churches, labor day and night, give offerings to charity and the Sabbath dues, but the land is become empty; the old villages lie silent in a tangle of bushes and vines, haunted by ghosts and horned owls, frequented by goats and bats.
The smallpox came, and dead bodies lay stacked like kindling wood, red as singed hogs. Shame upon those who brought the disease and upon the foreign doctors who allowed their landing! The ship displayed the yellow flag, and the pilot went out and returned without going on board and told the chiefs that the ship had disease aboard and a foreigner had taken it. So the chiefs sent Dr. Porter Ford to the ship. He told the chiefs what the disease was, and the chiefs and foreign ministers allowed the man to be brought ashore at Kahakaʻaulana and the foreigners on the ship to be quarantined for a few days at Kapua on the south side of Waikiki. The chiefs really wanted to send the ship away without landing, but they yielded to the foreign ministers. Three months later the disease broke out like a volcanic eruption. It started at Kikihale on the northwest side of town in Ka-ʻai-one's yard, it is said, among some washwomen who lived in the house. The family hid the disease. In this same yard was an assistant doctor called Kentucky (Kinikake) Desha. Friends went in secret to see the girl until the eruption turned yellow, and then it was reported to the government and Dr. Judd, Dr. Rooke, and other doctors were called in. This was in May, 1853, and legislature was in session. A strict quarantine was declared, but it was too late; the house should be thatched before the rainy season (ako e ka hale a paʻa, a i ke kamo ana i ka hoʻoilo, ʻaʻole e kulu ia e ke kuaua o ka Hilinehu). On Thursday the case was discovered and on Friday it was isolated at the house for storing ox carts at Honuakaha on the south side of town, and this became a receiving station for smallpox patients. On Saturday the marshal (ilamuku), acting under orders of the government, set fire to the house from which the patient had been removed. People in town from other islands went to see it burn and then returned to Maui, Hawaii, Kauai, where they broke out themselves and spread the disease to these islands. Some went to Koʻolau, ʻEwa, Waialua, Waiʻanae, and the Waiʻalae beaches. Everywhere there was mourning and lamentation.
The disease spread through the row of houses on the northwest side of Maunakea street seaward of the infected house and then cut straight out to Kapuʻukolo. From Maunakea street it passed to the Kikihale Stream and up Nuʻuanu street to the land mauka of Waikahalulu and down to the beach at Kapapoko. The house at Honuakaha was crowded, and Mr. Johnstone's house on Kahuʻa plain was taken as a hospital and the other houses in the yard put to use. A hundred were stricken in a day; scarcely one out of ten lived. The writer went into the hospital and saw for himself how fatal the disease was, even under foreign doctors. If the pimple was spotted and pointed there was hope of cure; in from ten to fifteen days the patient was well. When the throat first became sore a gargle of kukui juice and ʻohiʻa bark was used, the patient bathed for seven days, and the skin covered with a paste which caused the scabs to fall off. The writer himself saved over a hundred persons [with such treatment], and some are living today whom he treated at Kipahulu where the government could not care for patients. Eruptions in the hair took longer to cure, and those who had the disease longer became pitted so that they show the marks today.
From the last week in June until September the disease raged in Honolulu. The dead fell like dried kukui twigs tossed down by the wind. Day by day from morning till night horse-drawn carts went about from street to street of the town, and the dead were stacked up like a load of wood, some in coffins, but most of them just piled in, wrapped in cloth with heads and legs sticking out. When the graveyard at Honuakaha was filled, Keoneʻula was taken for a burial ground and the plains of Kaiwi-ʻula and the rocky land of Mauʻoki and Laepohaku. From Maunalua to Moanalua in the district of Kona the dead lay buried. Death spread to ʻEwa, to Halawa, to Waimanalo, until it surrounded Oahu. Some large tracts were entirely denuded, some had but a few survivors. Not a family but bore its loss.* On Maui there was not a member of the Board of Health who did anything to care for the sick as they were cared for by the government in Honolulu and places in its vicinity. The police just carried them away to some distant place and left them without medical care or proper food. The whole population was wiped out from Wakiu, the uplands of Kawaipapa, Palemo, and mauka of Waikaʻakihi in the Hana district, and so for Kipahulu and Kaupo.
The reason why so many died was, first, through ignorance; second, through incredulity; third, through not listening to advice. They had had no experience with contagious diseases nor had their grandparents before them except during the cholera epidemic of Kamehameha's day, and when the smallpox came they regarded it with curiosity rather than with fear. Only when they saw the dead strewn like kukui branches did terror fall upon them. The wife nursed the husband or the husband the wife, and when the children fell ill the parents nursed them. This is how the disease spread. Those who did not go near a house where there was disease did not fall ill. ... It was among the commoners that the deaths occurred. Few of the chiefs died and among the members of the legislature not one was overtaken by the disease although they looked after the people and helped bury the dead. It was said that God preserved them because they were the law makers, and He also preserved the king and the royal family. For six months the epidemic lasted, by October its rage seemed spent. Ten thousand of the population are said to have died of this disease.
The year 1854 was celebrated for the disputes that arose in the legislature, the first over the payment for the medicines used by the doctors and for their attendance during the epidemic, one doctor in particular who had done his best to help save the lives of the people, becoming out of patience with the whole nation because the dispute lasted so long and was even carried over to the next session. The second [dispute concerned] the valuation of a piece of land governed by the queen. This land covered that part of Waikahalulu adjoining the sea and called today ʻAina-hou. The queen wished to sell it. The king (whose petition was presented by the writer of this history) put its value at $30,000, the legislature at $15,000. The question was debated from Monday until Saturday when finally it was put through at a compromise for $20,000 and the king graciously accepted the offer. But the next week the dispute began again because the Chief Justice pointed out to the committee of the House that the queen had no right to sell the land as it belonged to the government, and it was only their consideration for the queen that would make them give her $15,000, and this sum was accordingly passed as a gift to the queen. . . . But it seemed to the writer that the chief justice was arguing without knowing anything about the granting of land right. ... If his opinion was correct that the queen had no right to the land of Waikahalulu toward the sea, known as Kuloloia, then the legislature had not the least right to give to the queen money for which the commoners had been taxed. This would be favoritism. The money which the commoners earned with the sweat of their brows, the poor people whose bodies were worn and their clothes ragged and their noses running, should not be so wasted. . . . The queen should prove her claim to the land before the courts. The Hawaiian historian was firm and the House voted not to give any money to the queen. When the Nobles heard of the vote, which corresponded with the wish of the majority, they too refused the money to the queen. A committee was sent to confer with the king, but he refused to see them as he wished to take the case for the queen before the land court. He therefore sent for the British lawyer, Montgomery, to try his suit for the property of the queen.
As soon as the town heard that the king was bringing suit for the land of his queen the British consul, Miller, came to the house of Ka-ʻeo where the king often stayed, with an offer to purchase the property for his government for $80,000. The king refused to sell to another government. Then came a letter from a company formed of the wealthiest citizens of the town of which Dr. G. P. Judd was chairman, offering $100,000 for the land, and again the king refused. The king said, "I do not want to sell the land of my queen to another government, as it is close to the port where ships anchor. I wish to sell it to my own government at a reasonable price and I left it to the legislature to decide this price. But first, you vote to give a sum of money, and then to give a smaller sum. [Then you] say there is no right of property, and now you vote to give nothing, and to take the land for the government. You cannot get anywhere in this way." The two houses were much upset when they heard this, and they voted to purchase at $22,000 and to have the principal left in the hands of the government not to be drawn for ten years and the queen to draw the interest. This land so bought by the government is situated on the east side of the harbor of Kou and extends from Pakaka to Kakaʻako [that is, from lower Fort street to Kewalo basin] and is called ʻAina-hou . . . Had he sold to another government the land would have yielded a much larger sum, hence the king showed in this transaction that he placed the good of his country before the personal gain of his wife. On the whole the legislative session of this year, 1854, was one of long disputes which prolonged the session and brought the expenses up to between $20,000 and $30,000, and the king's speech adjourning the session was not a friendly one.
This year, 1854, was marked by the death of Kamehameha III. Kauikeaouli was the son of Kamehameha I and his sacred wife, Keōpūolani. Born in 1813, in Keauhou, Hawaiʻi, he was just a young child when he sat down to a meal with his mother, thereby breaking the ‘ai kapu that prohibited males and females eating together. Kauikeaouli took the throne in 1825, after his older brother, Liholiho (Kamehameha II), had died in London.
Kauikeaouli ruled from 1825 – 1854. Perhaps no king born to the throne ever made a better ruler. . . . He made all men free and equal. There were no slaves with backs bent by labor, none with the corners of the eye tattooed, no pipe-lighters for others, none who were born servants, neither free eaters (noa), despised slaves (kauwa), none with a mark on the forehead. The tabus of the chiefs were all done away. . . . Many kinds of tabus run through a chief's veins; many kinds of tabus belong to the chiefs as gods; the kahuna's tabus pertain to the gods, but it is the chiefs for whom the tabus are carried out; the kahunas are the executors (ilamuku) who carry on the tabus of the gods, and the younger generation are those who carry on the chiefs' tabus. Although these tabus were all abolished before Kamehameha II became king, nevertheless they were all well fulfilled in Kamehameha III whose tabu was greater than any king or chief on earth....*
A little schooner with two masts, well manned with captain and sailors, ready to sail out on the far ocean. Such is the Hawaiian kingdom. A little kingdom, but it has been given a room in the great exposition in Paris, the only government from the Pacific to be represented. The European governments are astonished to see the sign outside the Hawaiian room at the exposition. They cannot believe it. A race of man-eaters are the Hawaiian people, are they not? And do they really have a government? And have they a room here? Then they examine the exhibit and see a cloak made out of bird feathers, a wreath of bird feathers, and a number of other objects from ancient times. They see the products of the country—sugar, molasses, rice, coffee. At the office of the Hawaiian government they find books from the first pi-a-pa primer to books large and small, the Bible, and newspaper files beginning with the Lama Hawaii and the Kumu Hawaii and ending with the Au ʻOkoʻa and the Kuʻokoʻa. Books for education, books of laws from the beginning to the present time. The office has a quantity of Hawaiian manuscripts. The men interested in education look at each other and say, "This cannibal island is ahead in literacy; and the enlightened countries of Europe are behind it!" Hawaii is a country with a constitution, with laws and bylaws; its throne is established by constitutional authority. Most of the European countries are still ruled by the power of the king and nobles alone. Hawaii is ahead of them.
Soon after the adjourning of the legislature the king went to Oneawa in Kailua for vacation and seemed restored in health. . . .† He went fishing and sea bathing at Kailua and really felt better. His feelings of nausea and the convulsions caused by indulgence in drink left him as he lived a temperate life. Another month he passed at Kikiwelawela in Heʻeia and at Ahulimanu and was pleasantly entertained by the Roman Catholic priests. The people believed that he would turn to Catholicism. It may or may not be so, for the minds of chiefs run with their desires like a river whose course is directed into fresh channels with the rainfall. The queen and the minister of the interior went down to visit the king, and the queen saw how much better he looked. After a few days she was ready to go back to the city. "Tomorrow I return," she said. "I will take you back," said the king. "No, we return alone. You are much better here." She feared that if he got back to the city the foreigners would get him to drinking again. The king however promised to return to Koʻolau and he escorted the queen back to the palace as was indeed the old established etiquette.
But when he reached the city a warship had arrived and he was detained for an audience. Then Piʻikoi invited the king to attend his house warming at Kewalo and the king consented and rode out that evening with the queen and the minister of the interior and some of the chiefs. The table was loaded with everything good to eat, but there were no strong drinks, only ale and beer. The royal party left after the feasting and toasts, but at the palace the queen noticed that the king's horse was left saddled. "Are you going to ride again?" she asked. "I will come back right away," he promised. He returned to the feast where the drinking had now begun and remained drinking until midnight, when he returned to the palace. The queen saw that he had been drinking and exclaimed, "So you went back to drink again!" The king answered meekly as he was wont to do when he had been drinking, and said, "Let us go outside where it is cool." The queen demurred lest he take cold, but he insisted and they prepared to sleep outside. He lay on a sofa at the side of the pile of sleeping mats with the queen watching at his head until the king fell asleep with Ka-ʻeo and the rest at some distance from them. Shortly after she heard him breathing heavily and cried out, "Wake up! wake up! you must have taken cold; let us go into the house." She lifted him and called John Young to help carry him into the house. Dr. Rooke was sent for, and by morning the king was better, but suffering from headache. He asked for brandy, but the queen hesitated until some one advised it. The headache was cured, the king was able to walk, and he took a drink secretly. Nausea and convulsions followed, and he was delirious and had to be put to bed. The attack came on at the house of John Young in Kinaʻu's yard, and he was carried to his own house at Hoʻihoʻi-ke-ea in the palace yard. A second doctor was called in, an Englishman named Smith, and this man informed the foreigners waiting outside that the king was dying. The queen was grieved. She and the chiefs saw him sleeping and believed that his illness would soon be over as at other times, and here it was being noised about town that he was dying, and the commoners were hushed and broken-hearted and the town fast becoming demoralized.
At eleven in the morning on Monday, December 16, 1854, the cannon boomed its signal and the flag at half-mast gave warning of his death. Our parent Kua-papa-nui had passed on with the procession that moves on forever. The whole nation heard the report, from ʻEwa and the Koʻolaus, from every mountainside; and the foreigners within the town, both strangers and those of the land. The sound of wailing rose and increased like the clamorous sound of the breaking waves. It beat upon the ears insistently and mournfully like the reiterative strokes of the tapa stick in the hands of the cunning craftsman who beats out a fine cloth. Like the plaintive voice of the yellow-feathered lale bird singing its dirge, was the tremulous voice of the queen, lost in the thousands of voices of the crowd who stood without. For a year or more she wept aloud, longer than was known of any other queen for a royal husband, even those who wear black in sign of mourning but seldom shed real tears, and after a few months turn to idle jesting and foolish romances.
When the common people of the land knew that their ruling chief was dead they raised their lamentations to heaven that Kane-breaker-of-the-heavens might hear and pour down rain to fall as tears upon the earth. Some sailed to Oahu to weep with the queen. The inter-island boats Manuokekai and Kalama and the sailing ships that touched in such numbers at the islands were crowded to overflowing. The queen invited the huge procession of mourners to enter the tabu grounds [of the palace] where orange and mango trees stood weighted down with fruitage, and the gates were thrown open and the body of the king taken into the palace until the time of the funeral, and the public allowed to enter and mourn him there as they wished. On January 10, 1855, the bier was lifted and carried away. It was a fine day after a time of rain, the roads were dry again and the highway was crowded with people of all races come to see the funeral procession of the king.
King Ka-lani-waiakua Ka-lani-kau-io-kikilo Kiwalaʻo-i-ke-kapu, Ka-mehameha III, died at Hoʻihoʻi-ke-ea in the palace yard, December 16, 1854. He was born at Keauhou at North Kona, Hawaii, on the day of Hune on the 11th day of Hinaiaeleele, August 17, 1813 by the English calendar, although some claim March 17 as the date. He lived only a little over forty years, but these years were rich in achievement; no one could find fault with any of his acts. Why did all lament him? Because his deeds were in the cause of truth. He worked to benefit chiefs and commoners alike.
He attained to the ruling power when he was but eleven years of age. ... In his speech at Honuakaha he proclaimed "The government of learning" in which chiefs should teach commoners and each one teach another. Teachers were distributed about the islands, and only those who could not walk stayed away from school. Some schools had a hundred, some a thousand pupils. From children to bearded men, all were gathered into the schools. Buildings went up over night to serve as school houses; if a landlord refused to build he lost his post. A line separated those who could read from those who could not. The concert exercises by which they were taught delighted the people. The rhythmical sound of the voices in unison as they rose and fell was like that of the breakers that rise and fall at Waialua or like the beat of the stick hula in the time of Pele-io-holani and Ka-lani-ʻopuʻu.
A ea mai ke kai o Waialua, Let the sea of Waialua rise,
Wawa no ʻolelo ʻokoʻa i pali, Let the roar echo over the hills,
Nunu me he ihu o ka puaʻa hae la, Rumble like the grunt of the wild
pig.
ʻAko ka lau o ka nalu piʻi i ka Pali, Let the rising wave break the leaf
from the cliff.
Ku pali Kaiaka i ka ʻino, Kaiaka cliff stands above the
storm,
ʻIno ka lae o Kukuilauʻania, Stormy is the cape of Kukuilau-
ʻania,
He Maka-nui. Windy indeed it is!
Makani me he ao la ka leo o ke kai, The voice of the sea rises upon the
wind
Kuli paʻia wawa ka uka a Lihuʻe, Deafening those in the uplands of
Lihuʻe,
O me he ʻokaʻa la i ke kula, As it is borne over the plain,
Ke kula hahi a ke kai e halulu nei, The rumbling of the sea treading
upon the plain.
Halulu ma ke Koʻolau, Rumbling over Koʻolau,
Hoʻolono ʻEwa, ʻEwa hearkens,
ʻAʻole i ʻike i ka po ana a ka nalu, She has not seen the rising of the
waves
Kuhihewa wale no Wahiawa - e. And mistakes it for Wahiawa.
Because they took so much pleasure in the old chants, they used the old tunes for the recitations in unison:
Mai malama hou i na akua laʻau, Do not keep any more wooden
gods,
E huli kakou i ke ʻliʻi ola mau, Turn to the Lord of eternal life,
Maikaʻi e hoʻonui i ke akua maikaʻi, Give praise to the good God,
Pela mai ʻIo-lani ko Hawaii, So says ʻIolani (Kamehameha II)
chief of Hawaii.
Ua hiki mai nei ke kanawai menu, Hither have come the eternal laws,
Ke hauʻoli nei ko kakou naʻau, Our hearts rejoice in them,
Ko ʻIo-lani makua Ka-ʻahu-manu ʻIolani's foster mother, Ka-ʻahu-
me Ka-umu-aliʻi, manu, and Ka-umu-aliʻi
E manaʻo i ke Akua ko luna aliʻi. Taught us to believe in God, the
king above.*
Na laua kakou i kauoha mai, They two have counseled us
E paulele mau i kee akua maikaʻi, To have faith in the good God,
I ola ka ʻuhane o kakou a pau, That our souls may be saved
Ka puaneane ke ao malama mau, To dwell in the land of eternal
light,
A kaua mai nei ka poʻe kimopo, And when foes come to oppose us
Ua malama mai Iesu ia kakou, Jesus will give us His care.
Iehova ke Akua ka kakou e hapai, Jehovah is the God whom we laud,
I ka puʻuhonua kakou e ola ai. Our refuge in whom we find life.
That is how the government of learning moved along quickly so that within half a year there were thousands of persons who knew how to read, write, and spell. The governor of Kauai had his own teacher, so had the governor of Maui, and this humble writer was one of those who taught. Many of these old-time teachers are still living. Of the pupils who entered the first, second, and third classes at Lahainaluna. half of were elementary teachers whose knowledge and capacity had been tested before the missionary teachers, and the chiefs had selected from among them those whom each wished to educate at Lahainaluna. That is how the government of learning moved ahead. ... "I want a government of learning," said the king, and the chiefs supported him.
The king said, "I give my kingdom to God." ... At this time the country was filled with people, two or three times four hundred on each large estate, up to five times four hundred. Schools were built in the mountains and in the crowded settlements. Waipiʻo had school houses near the coast and in the uplands. At Kahalepoʻai, Hauone, Kalakoa, Wahiawa, Halemano, and Kanewai there were large villages with teachers and schoolhouses; so at Lihuʻe, Kalena, Maunauna, Kake, and Puʻukuʻu. There were several school houses and teachers for each district. Hono-uliuli had over ten school houses with their teachers. The lowest number of pupils to each school was 50 up to 200 or more. Oahu was then thickly populated. It is sad to see how in so short a time whole villages have vanished leaving not a man. . . . And as the kingdom of letters moved quickly so also moved the kingdom of God. . . . The teachers performed both duties, they taught letters and promoted the kingdom of God. Singing and prayer came first, then testimony. There were church meetings on the Sabbath and on Wednesday evening, meetings for testimony on Thursday and Friday, and meetings of the women as well. . . . The whole nation took up the duty at the command of the king alone without aid from the missionaries. They read print, they went to prayers, to meeting, to testimony services, to the preaching services, and when they sang, they sang their songs as they had their old chants to the tunes of the ʻalaʻapapa hula of Kukueuhi and others, and quavered like the ʻalala' hula of Kawaikuapuʻu and his school. So sang Ke-lou Ka-makau, Ka-ʻele-o-waipiʻo, Kuʻokoʻa, and the rest. They sang their songs with the belief that the kingdom of God would not be displeased with their way of singing so long as it was sung with a humble heart by a penitent, one whose prayers were uttered in faith.
During these years when a teacher became the leader for the kingdom of God in Hawaii no one questioned the division between the old and the new religion. There was only one principle of division in the kingdom of God, all that did not belong to it was sin. God did not say this or that was wrong; it was the kingdom of God which was the dividing line. The kingdom of Hawaii became a kingdom that worshiped God. The chiefs upheld the hands of Ka-ʻahu-manu, and the nation turned to the truth. No one during those years could be seen worshiping in the old way; no one was to be seen inspired by a spirit, possessed by spirits, practicing sorcery; there was not much ʻawa drinking; no fire places for burning in the kuni sorcery were to be seen, nor any of those ancient practices which had passed away at the time of free eating in Liholiho's day. It was a time when all Hawaii turned to do homage to the kingdom of God. The plover flew in peace, the rat squeaked without fear in his hole, the shark showed his teeth unmolested in the wave, there had never been such peace before.
Some of missionaries thought it wrong to protect this government of God; the kingdom of God is not a kingdom ruled by a king [they said]. Perhaps this was not the king's thought in joining the kingdom which he ruled as chief with the kingdom of God. He did not mean to give up his rule as chief, but to make God the protector of the kingdom and of his rule over it. That was his real thought. God was to be the judge to set his kingdom to rights, and that was why he commanded the whole nation to learn to read and to turn to the word of God. Strange indeed were the hard thoughts of the missionary! ... So they girded up their loins, sharpened their knives, and chose which part of the fish they would take, one the side piece, another the belly, one the eyes, another white meat, and another red meat. So they chose as they pleased. When the last man of them had come they were treated like chiefs; lands were parceled out to them; they were given the same honors as Ka-umu-aliʻi. Yet they found fault. Now you want to close the door of heaven to the Hawaiians. You want the honors of the throne for yourselves because you sit at ease as ministers upon your large land. . . .
Kamehameha III wanted his race to become god-fearing people, to become ministers of the gospel. In Ka-ʻahu-manu's day there were many such; for example, Ka-Hana-nui, Na-ʻaoa, Ka-makahiki, Wahine-aliʻi, Kaʻi-ana, Puni-haole, and others. These men may have been ignorant, but they knew their Bibles, and the chiefs and people, the rich and the poor, were led to God. Then there were ministers appointed who were helped by the government through the legislature to consult with the king. The kingdom of Hawaii became famous because of these words of Kamehameha III. Rich, aye rich! It could be cut up, salted down, hung out to dry; it filled the big drying frame, the little drying frame until the smell of it was wafted from one end of the islands to the other end. This was the result of the land-giving fishermen of the chief. The hands trembled with eagerness to give with the right hand, with the left hand, until the head nodded, the chin swayed wearily. It was grabbed openly and passed on behind the back. Great lands were theirs until they were full of pride; they built little houses, big houses, fine wooden fences, grand sleeping houses; there was not a grain spared by the plover, the bird from Kahiki. All was included in the saying, "I give my kingdom to God."
It was said at Honuakaha that a man should not leave his wife or the wife her husband. The chiefs and prominent people had at this time many wives, and Kamehameha ordered that polygamy should no longer be practiced, but a man must have but one wife and he was to choose the wife he was most fond of, and the woman must choose one husband and they two were to be married before God and become one before God. Marriage was held sacred at this time when marriage took place before the minister, but when marriage could be performed by secular law marriage became a pastime for the wealthy man or the loose woman. Married today, divorced tomorrow. In Ka-ʻahu-manu's day the law was enforced and peace reigned.
The king said that the Christian Sabbath should be strictly kept. . . . The Hawaiians saw how the missionaries kept the Sabbath during the first years after they came to Hawaii; no work of any kind was done, no kindling of fires. After a time the Sabbath became a day of pleasure, and people did just as on week days, and for four or five years it was not observed, but when the king's proclamation was made the Sabbath was strictly kept all over Hawaii from 1825 to 1827, and the day became a day of rest for the race. It amazed a Hawaiian to see the day so disregarded as it was on the American coast where the day was not so strictly kept as in Hawaii. In California I saw people hammering, washing, ironing, and doing other work on the Sabbath day.*
"Do not become drunkards," Kamehameha proclaimed in his speech at Honuakaha. The chiefs upheld his words; Ka-ʻahu-manu and Ka-lani-moku aided and approved, and liquor was prohibited in the back country. A month had not passed before all the stills were shut down, no liquor flowed, and drinking places and places of amusement were closed both in town and in the country.
Holokapapa a ke ʻlii ʻaimoku o The word of the chief rules over
Kalani all,
Ku ke hula haʻa ka papa mahimahi. All move together to enforce the
chief's wish.
Ka-ʻahu-manu upheld her chief's words lest they be uttered in vain and the tabu became extremely strict; severe penalties were laid down. ʻAwa was prohibited and all liquors, even those imported from other countries. Foreigners were forbidden to sell or even give liquor to Hawaiians. Boki helped enforce this prohibition. He had just returned from England with the bodies of the king and queen and at that time he was doing well. There was hope of putting an end to liquor drinking in the group, and Kau-i-ke-aouli's name became famous for this achievement. Even the foreigners' saloons were closed. So with his other prohibitions against murder, adultery, stealing, gambling, infanticide, and sedition. Ka-ʻahu-manu proclaimed these laws from Hawaii to Kauai, and the terrible book of the law was given by word of mouth from her lips to uphold her chief in establishing the peace and prosperity of his kingdom. The king's laws were just and good in these early years of the kingdom. They were kept throughout the kingdom and caused education and Christianity to spread rapidly; in these days when there was no written law the nation had a higher standard of right living than some enlightened nations.
These are the works of note which the king accomplished in his youth. He had a mature mind and brought things to pass which really benefited the nation. . . . But his greatest achievement was the change in the form of government to a constitutional monarchy and to a kingdom based upon law. Without this change the kingdom of learning and the kingdom that worshiped God could not have had peace. This benefit the king gave willingly, not in answer to any appeal by the nation to him or to the
chiefs. It was God alone who charged him with this gift to the nation. The constitution established the king in the right to his possessions and his kingly honor; it provided for the possessions and wealth of the kingdom ; it gave to the common people a right to the taxes and the property of the kingdom.
Is it the fact of our having a Christian and literate government that has brought us prosperity? In America there has just been fought a terrible war, a war of devils, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, to free those who were kept in slavery. It is said that the word of God came to Britain in the time when the disciples of Christ lived and that the Bishop of Rome founded the kingdom of God there. Over six hundred years ago in the time of King John, Britain had a constitution. . . . Has the government always weighed the good of the common people against that of the nobles? Britain is like a huge glass water bottle, smooth and round and glittering outside. The nations praised her and admired her smooth shapeliness and variegated colors, but within were all sorts of stinging, prickly things—sea urchins, sand burrs, the thorny-seeded nohu creeper. For years the commoners sought for rights in the land from the nobles, and qould not get the land. The nobles of Britain took away the land from the Irish so that the chiefs and commoners of Ireland lived in poverty, and the Irish had to give gifts to the king and to the church. That is why that land is so rebellious against Britain. The British took the land of the Hindus in Asia; 190,000,000 people are in that land and bitterness and rebellion are in that land. Nor is that all. There are Newfoundland and New Zealand where also there is unrest. How have education, the worship of God, the constitutional forms of government bettered the provinces of Great Britain? . . .
The benefits given by the constitution are those which provide a better life for the common people. In first place, the fishing rights were made free to commoners, and tabu fish have been made free. Second, the small taxes to different land agents were abolished. Third, the taxes paid by women and the confiscation of property to pay taxes were abolished. Fourth, the tabu upon various trees such as koa, kauila, oʻa, koaiʻe, sandalwood, and upon such birds as the mamo and ʻo-ʻo from which feathers were taken, has been abolished. Fifth, those who have many children or old people to care for, as well as feeble and deformed persons were freed from taxation. Sixth, Christian worship was introduced. Seventh, ownership of land as freehold was made possible for commoners.* Eighth, protection was given to a man from search and arrest within his own house. Ninth, the roads were improved, such as the Pali Road which has been made serviceable for a horse and carriage. Fifteen generations ago Kiha son of Piʻi-lani paved with rocks and straightened the roads of Molokai and Maui and these roads are still preserved today. Ehu, son of Kuaiwa, was another road maker. He was chief of Kona and built a road from the uplands of Kona into Ka-ʻu which is called "the way of Ehu." Maui, son of Kalana, was one of the ancient chiefs of Maui who made roads twenty centuries ago. The roads in his day were straight and the people were accustomed to running along straight roads; so when certain persons ran after Maui to kill him he made the road go zigzag and it was called "the zigzag road of Maui" (ke alanui kikeʻekeʻe a Maui). One is at Waikane and Waiahole in Koʻolaupoko on Oahu, and one at Kekaʻa between Lahaina and Kaanapali, and another at Kealakahakaha in Kahakuloa on Maui. In Kamehameha Ill's day the road was a benefit to the poor. But the greatest benefit of all derived from the constitution was the fact that all this was given out of love. The constitution was called "the coming of life," "the granting of life and peace,"—Ka-la-hiki-ola, Kalana-ola, Kuapapa-nui.*
Some people say that the Kamehamehas won the kingdom through successful warfare. Kamehameha made the daughters of his war counselors, who gave him the kingdom, his wives; and their descendants thus became heirs to the kingdom for which Kamehameha had striven. Ka-hoʻano-ku Kinaʻu was considered for the succession to the kingdom because he was grandson of Ka-manawa, one of the war leaders who fought to place Kamehameha over the kingdom. Ke-kuaiwa Kamehameha was considered because he was a grandson of Keʻe-au-moku, another of the war counselors who faced death for Kamehameha. But at the death of Kau-i-ke-aouli he was succeeded by Kamehameha IV, and it was said that for the first time a grandchild of Kamehameha held the rule over the kingdom for which Kamehameha had himself striven. How did it happen, then, that Kamehameha II and Kamehameha III were chosen rulers over the group? The chiefs disputed about the succession while Kamehameha was living, and Kamehameha asked the opinion of men skilled in genealogies and of the orators and those who knew about government in ancient days. Some of the chiefs and governors thought that the old standards should not count in the succession. But the skilled men told Kamehameha that in order to keep the kingdom united as he left it and prevent its falling to pieces at his death, he must consolidate it under one ruler and must leave it to an heir who was in the ruling line from his ancestors. He should therefore appoint Liholiho his heir and his younger brother, Kau-i-ke-aouli, to succeed him because, although they came from the side of the defeated chiefs who were his enemies and not
one of whom had aided him to gain the kingdom, they were piʻo chiefs belonging to the line of chiefs who owned the rule from their ancestors. Ke-opu-o-lani and her mother, Ke-kuʻi-apo-iwa Liliha, and her younger sister, Ka-lani-kau-io-kikilo Ka-lani-akua, were tabu chiefesses of Maui, and they had all fled to Molokai with their mother, Ka-lani-ka-uli-hiwa-kama Ka-lola on account of whose illness they had been overtaken there by Kamehameha before they could reach Oahu. Ke-opu-o-lani was the daughter of Kiwalaʻo, son of Ka-lani-ʻopuʻu, and heir to the kingdom of Hawaii, who was killed in the battle of Mokuʻohai by Kamehameha's warriors. Was Kiwalaʻo's an unbroken line of succession to the chieftainship over Hawaii? Perhaps so. Ka-lani-ʻopuʻu ruled Hawaii; his father, Ka-lani-nui-a-mamao, ruled Ka-ʻu and Puna. Keawe ruled Hawaii ; his mother was Keakea-lani. The ruling chiefs branched out. There were a multitude of children born to them, but the kingdom could be given to but one. That line of chiefs must become separated as the ruling family and the other relatives must become retainers, executors, and attendants upon that family. How about the mother of Kiwalaʻo and Ke-kuʻi-apo-iwa? Kalola was their mother, descended from a ruling family of Maui with the fire tabu of that island. Ke-opu-o-lani was the child of these two, and Kamehameha II and III were her children. The inheriting of the kingdom by these two chiefs put an end to rebellious thoughts and gave peace to the country. During the long reign of Kamehameha III no civil war arose nor did sedition of any kind disturb it peace. * A high chief who is a wise ruler and lives like a father to his people, never allowing them to know fear or distress, is spoken of as Kuapapa-nui
Ke Au ʻOkoʻa, Oct 14, 1869.
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