Victoria, British ColumbiaVictoria, British ColumbiaClick Thumbnail for full-size Illustration
And first as to the Cascades and the Dalles of the Columbia. You leave Portland for Dalles City in a steamboat at five o'clock in the morning. The better way is to sleep on board this steamer, and thus avoid an uncomfortably early awakening. Then when you do rise, at six or half past, you will find yourself on the Columbia, and steaming directly at Mount Hood, whose splendid snow-covered peak seems to bar your way but a short distance ahead. It lies, in fact, a hundred miles off; and when you have sailed some hours toward it the river makes a turn, which leaves the snowy peak at one side, and presently hides it behind the steep bank.
The little steamer, very clean and comfortable, affords you an excellent breakfast, and some amusement in the odd way in which she is managed. Most of the river steamers here have their propelling wheel at the stern; they have very powerful engines, which drive them ahead with surprising speed. I have gone sixteen miles an hour in one, with the current; and when they make a landing the pilot usually runs the boat's head slantingly against the shore, and passengers and freight are taken in or landed over the bow. At the wood-pile on the shore you may generally see one of the people called "Pikes," whom you will recognize by a very broad-brimmed hat, a frequent squirting of tobacco-juice, and the possession of two or three hounds, whom they call hereabouts "hound-dogs," as we say "bull-dog." And this reminds me that in Oregon the country people usually ask you if you will eat an "egg-omelet;" and they speak of pork—a favorite food of the Pike—as "hog-meat."
The voyage up the river presents a constant succession of wild and picturesque scenery; immense rocky capes jut out into the broad stream; for miles the banks are precipitous, like the Hudson River Palisades, only often much higher, and for other miles the river has worn its channel out of the rock, whose face looks bare and clean cut, as though it had been of human workmanship. The first explorer of the Columbia, even if he was a very commonplace mortal, must have passed days of the most singular exhilaration, especially if he ascended the stream in that season when the skies are bright and blue, for it seems to me one of the most magnificent sights in the world. I am not certain that the wildness does not oppress one a little after a while, and there are parts of the river where the smoothly cut cliffs, coming precipitously down to the water's edge, and following down, sheer down, to the river's bottom, make you think with terror of the unhappy people who might here be drowned, with this cold rock within their reach, yet not affording them even a momentary support. I should like to have seen the rugged cliffs relieved here and there by the softness of smooth lawns, and some evidences that man had conquered even this rude and resisting nature.
But for a century or two to come the traveler will have to do without this relief; nor need he grumble, for, with all its rugged grandeur, the scenery has many exquisite bits where nature has a little softened its aspect. Nor is it amiss to remember that but a little way back from the river there are farms, orchards, cattle, and sheep. At one point the boat for a moment turned her bow to the shore to admit a young man, who brought with him a wonderful bouquet of wild flowers, which he had gathered at his home a few miles back; and here and there, where the hill-sides have a more moderate incline, you will see that some energetic pioneer has carved himself out a farm.
Nevertheless it is with a sense of relief at the change that you at last approach a large island, a flat space of ten or twelve hundred acres, with fences and trees and grain fields and houses, and with a gentle and peaceful aspect, doubly charming to you when you come upon it suddenly, and fresh from the preceding and somewhat appalling grandeur. Here the boat stops; for you are here at the lower end of the famous Cascades, and you tranship yourself into cars which carry you to the upper end, a distance of about six miles, where again you take boat for Dalles City.
Map of Puget Sound and VicinityMap of Puget Sound and VicinityClick Thumbnail for full-size Illustration
The Cascades are rapids. The river, which has ever a swift and impetuous current, is nearly two miles wide just above these rapids. Where the bed shoals it also narrows, and the great body of water rushes over the rocks, roaring, tumbling, foaming—a tolerably wild sight. There is nowhere any sudden descent sufficient to make a water-fall; but there is a fall of a good many feet in the six miles of cascades.
These rapids are considered impassable, though I believe the Indians used sometimes to venture down them in canoes; and it was my good fortune to shoot down them in a little steamer—theShoshone—the third only, I was told, which had ever ventured this passage. The singular history of this steamboat shows the vast extent of the inland navigation made possible by the Columbia and its tributaries. She was built in 1866 on the Snake River, at a point ninety miles from Boise City, in Idaho Territory, and was employed in the upper waters of the Snake, running to near the mouth of the Bruneau, within one hundred and twenty-five miles of the head of Salt Lake.
When the mining excitement in that region subsided there ceased to be business for her, and her owner determined to bring her to Portland. She passed several rapids on the Snake, and at a low stage of water was run over the Dalles. Then she had to wait nearly a year until high water on the Cascades, and finally passed those rapids, and carried her owner, Mr. Ainsworth, who was also for this passage of the Cascades her pilot, and myself safely into Portland.
We steamed from Dalles City about three o'clock on an afternoon so windy as to make the Columbia very rough. When we arrived at the head of the Cascades we found the shore lined with people to watch our passage through the rapids. As we swept into the foaming and roaring waters the engine was slowed a little, and for a few minutes the pilots had their hands full; for the fierce currents, sweeping her now to one side and then to the other, made the steering extraordinarily difficult. At one point there seemed a probability that we should be swept on to the rocks; and it was very curious to stand, as General Sprague and I, the only passengers, did, in front of the pilot-house, and watch the boat's head swing against the helm and toward the rocks, until at last, after half a minute of suspense, she began slowly to swing back, obedient to her pilot's wish.
We made six miles in eleven minutes, which is at the rate of more than thirty miles per hour, a better rate of speed than steamboats commonly attain. Of course it is impossible to drive a vessel up the Cascades, and a steamboat which has once passed these rapids remains forever below.
At the upper end of the Cascades a boat awaits you, which carries you through yet more picturesque scenery to Dalles City, where you spend the night. This is a small place, remarkable to the traveler chiefly for the geological collection which every traveler ought to see, belonging to the Rev. Mr. Condon, a very intelligent and enthusiastic geologist, the Presbyterian minister of the place. You have also at Dalles City a magnificent view of Mount Hood, and Mr. Condon will tell you that he has seen this old crater emit smoke since he has lived here.
There is no doubt that both Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens have still internal fires, though both their craters are now filled up with ashes. There is reason to believe that at its last period of activity Mount Hood emitted only ashes; for there are still found traces of volcanic ashes, attributable, I am told, to this mountain, as far as one hundred miles from its summit. Of Mount St. Helens it is probable that its slumbering fires are not very deeply buried. A few years ago two adventurous citizens of Washington Territory were obliged, by a sudden fog and cold storm, to spend a night near its summit, and seeking for some cave among the lava where to shelter themselves from the storm, found a fissure from which came so glowing and immoderate a heat that they could not bear its vicinity, and, as they related, were alternately frozen and scorched all night—now roasting at the volcanic fire, and again rushing out to cool themselves in the sleet and snow.
Puget Sound Chiefs
The rocks are volcanic from near the mouth of the Willamette to and above the Dalles, and geologists suppose that there have been great convulsions of nature hereabouts in recent geological times. The Indians have a tradition, indeed, that the river was originally navigable and unobstructed where now are the Cascades, and that formerly there was a long, natural tunnel, through which the Columbia passed under a mountain. They assert that a great earthquake broke down this tunnel, the site of which they still point out, and that the debris formed the present obstructions at the Cascades.
Oregon, if one may judge by the fossil remains in Mr. Condon's collection, seems once to have been inhabited by a great number and variety of pre-adamite beasts; but the most singular object he has to show is a very striking ape's head, carved with great spirit and vigor out of hard lava. This object was found upon the shore of the Columbia by Indians, after a flood which had washed away a piece of old alluvial bank. The rock of which it is composed is quite hard; the carving is, as I said, done with remarkable vigor; and the top of the head is hollowed out, precisely as the Indians still make shallow depressions in figures and heads which they carve out of slate, in which to burn what answers in their religious ceremonies for incense.
But supposing this relic to belong to Oregon—and there is, I was told, no reason to believe otherwise—where did the Indian who carved it get his idea of an ape? The Indians of this region, poor creatures that they are, have still the habit of carving rude figures out of slate and other soft rocks. They have also the habit of cutting out shallow, dish-like depressions in the heads of such figures, wherein to burn incense. But they could not give Mr. Condon any account of the ape's head they brought him, nor did they recognize its features as resembling any object or creature familiar to them even by tradition.
The Dalles of the Columbia are simply a succession of falls and rapids, not reaching over as great a distance as the Cascades, but containing one feature much more remarkable than any thing which the Cascades afford, and indeed, so far as I know, found nowhere else.
The Columbia above the Dalles is still a first-class river, comparable in depth and width, and in the volume of its water, only with the Lower Mississippi or the Amazon. It is a deep, rapidly-flowing stream, nearly a mile wide. But at one point in the Dalles the channel narrows until it is, at the ordinary height of the river, not over a hundred yards wide; and through this narrow gorge the whole volume of the river rushes for some distance. Of course water is not subject to compression; the volume of the river is not diminished; what happens, as you perceive when you see this singular freak of nature, is that the river is suddenly turned up on its edge. Suppose it is, above the Dalles, a mile wide and fifty feet deep; at the narrow gorge it is but a hundred yards wide—how deep must it be? Certainly it can be correctly said that the stream is turned up on its edge.
The Dalles lie five or six miles above Dalles City; and you pass these rapids in the train which bears you to Celilo early the next morning after you arrive at Dalles City. Celilo is not a town; it is simply a geographical point; it is the spot where, if you were bound to the interior of the continent by water, you would take steamboat. There is here a very long shed to shelter the goods which are sent up into this far-away and, to us Eastern people, unknown interior; there is a wharf where land the boats when they return from a journey of perhaps a thousand miles on the Upper Columbia or the Snake; there are two or three laborers' shanties—and that is all there is of Celilo; and your journey thither has been made only that you may see the Dalles, and Cape Horn, as a bold promontory on the river is called.
What I advise you to do is to take a hearty lunch with you, and, if you can find one, a guide, and get off the early Celilo train at the Dalles. You will have a most delightful day among very curious scenery; will see the Indians spearing salmon in the pools over which they build their stages; and can examine at leisure the curious rapids called the Dalles. A party of three or four persons could indeed spend several days very pleasantly picnicking about the Dalles, and in the season they would shoot hare and birds enough to supply them with meat. The weather in this part of Oregon, east of the Cascade range, is as settled as that of California, so that there is no risk in sleeping-out-of-doors in summer.
There is a singularly sudden climatic change between Western and Eastern Oregon; and if you ask the captain or pilot on the boat which plies between the Cascades and Dalles City, he can show you the mountain range on one side of which the climate is wet, while on the other side it is dry. The Cascade range is a continuation northward of the Sierra Nevada; and here, as farther south, it stops the water-laden winds which rush up from the sea. Western Oregon, lying between the Cascades and the ocean, has so much rain that its people are called "Web-feet;" Eastern Oregon, a vast grazing region, has comparatively little rain. Western Oregon, except in the Willamette and Rogue River valleys, is densely timbered; Eastern Oregon is a country of boundless plains, where they irrigate their few crops, and depend mainly on stock-grazing. This region is as yet sparsely settled; and when we in the East think of Oregon, or read of it even, it is of that part of the huge State which lies west of the Cascades, and where alone agriculture is carried on to a considerable extent.
You will spend a day in returning from the Dalles to Portland, and arriving there in the evening can set out the next morning for Olympia, on Puget Sound, by way of Kalama, which is the Columbia River terminus for the present of the Northern Pacific Railroad. It is possible to go by steamer from Portland to Victoria, and then return down Puget Sound to Olympia; but to most people the sea-voyage is not enticing, and there are but slight inconveniences in the short land journey. The steamer leaving Portland at six A.M. lands you at Kalama about eleven; there you get dinner, and proceed about two by rail to Olympia. It is a good plan to telegraph for accommodations on the pretty and comfortable steamerNorth Pacific, and go directly to her on your arrival at Olympia.
Puget Sound is one of the most picturesque and remarkable sheets of water in the world; and the voyage from Olympia to Victoria, which shows you the greater part of the Sound, is a delightful and novel excursion, specially to be recommended to people who like to go to sea without getting sea-sick; for these land-encircled waters are almost always smooth.
When, at Kalama, you enter Washington Territory, your ears begin to be assailed by the most barbarous names imaginable. On your way to Olympia by rail you cross a river called the Skookum-Chuck; your train stops at places named Newaukum, Tumwater, and Toutle; and if you seek further, you will hear of whole counties labeled Wahkiakum, or Snohomish, or Kitsap, or Klikatat; and Cowlitz, Hookium, and Nenolelops greet and offend you. They complain in Olympia that Washington Territory gets but little immigration; but what wonder? What man, having the whole American continent to chose from, would willingly date his letters from the county of Snohomish, or bring up his children in the city of Nenolelops? The village of Tumwater is, as I am ready to bear witness, very pretty indeed; but surely an emigrant would think twice before he established himself either there or at Toutle. Seattle is sufficiently barbarous; Steilacoom is no better; and I suspect that the Northern Pacific Railroad terminus has been fixed at Tacoma—if it is fixed there—because that is one of the few places on Puget Sound whose name does not inspire horror and disgust.
Nanaimo, Vancouver's islandNanaimo, Vancouver's islandClick Thumbnail for full-size Illustration
Olympia, which lies on an arm of Puget Sound, and was once a town of great expectations, surprises the traveler by its streets, all shaded with magnificent maples. The founder of the town was a man of taste; and he set a fashion which, being followed for a few years in this country of abundant rains, has given Olympia's streets shade trees by the hundred which would make it famous were it an Eastern place.
Unluckily, it has little else to charm the traveler, though it is the capital of the Territory; and when you have spent half an hour walking through the streets you will be quite ready to have the steamer set off for Victoria. The voyage lasts but about thirty-six hours, and would be shorter were it not that the steamer makes numerous landings. Thus you get glimpses of Seattle, Steilacoom, Tacoma, and of the so-called saw-mill ports—Port Madison, Port Gamble, Port Ludlow, and Port Townsend—the last named being also the boundary of our Uncle Samuel's dominions for the present, and the port of entry for this district, with a custom-house which looks like a barn, and a collector and inspectors, the latter of whom examine your trunk as you return from Victoria to save you from the sin of smuggling.
From Port Townsend your boat strikes across the straits of San Juan de Fuca to Victoria; and just here, as you are crossing from American to English territory, you get the most magnificent views of the grand Olympian range of mountains and of Mount Regnier. Also, the captain will point out to you in the distance that famous island of San Juan which formed the subject or object, or both, of our celebrated boundary dispute with great Britain, and you will wonder how small an object can nearly make nations go to war, and for what a petty thing we set several kings and great lords to studying geography and treaties and international law, and boring themselves, and filling enterprising newspapers with dozens of columns of dull history; and you will wonder the more at the stupid pertinacity of these English in clinging to the little island of San Juan when you reach Victoria, and see that we shall presently take that dull little town too, not because we want it or need it, but to save it from perishing of inanition.
It is something to have taste and a sense of the beautiful. Certainly the English, who discovered the little landlocked harbor of Victoria and chose it as the site of a town, displayed both. It is by natural advantages one of the loveliest places I ever saw, and I wonder, remote as it is, that it is not famous. The narrow harbor, which is not so big as one of the big Liverpool docks, is surrounded on both sides by the prettiest little miniature bays, rock-bound, with grassy knolls, and here and there shady clumps of evergreens; a river opening out above the town into a kind of lake, and spanned by pretty bridges, invites you to a boating excursion; and the fresh green of the lawn-like expanses of grass which reach into the bay from different directions, the rocky little promontories with boats moored near them, the fine snow-covered mountains in the distance, and the pleasantly winding roads leading in different directions into the country, all make up a landscape whose soft and gay aspect I suppose is the more delightful because one comes to it from the somewhat oppressive grandeur of the fir forests in Washington Territory.
In the harbor of Victoria the most conspicuous object is the long range of warehouses belonging to the Hudson Bay Company, with their little trading steamers moored alongside. These vessels bear the signs of traffic with a savage people in the high boarding nettings which guard them from stem to stern, and which are in their more solid parts pierced for musketry. Here, too, you see a queer little old steamboat, the first that ever vexed the waters of the Pacific Ocean with its paddle-wheels. And as your own steamer hauls up to the wharf, you will notice, arrayed to receive you, what is no doubt the most shocking and complete collection of ugly women in the world.
These are the Indians of this region. They are very light-colored; their complexion has an artificial look; there is something ghastly and unnatural in the yellow of the faces, penetrated by a rose or carmine color on the cheeks. They are hideous in all the possible aspects and varieties of hideousness—undersized, squat, evil-eyed, pug-nosed, tawdry in dress, ungraceful in every motion; they really mar the landscape, so that you are glad to escape from them to your hotel, which you find a clean and comfortable building, where, if you are as fortunate as the traveler who relates this, you may by-and-by catch a glimpse or two of a fresh, fair, girlish English face, which will make up to you for the precedent ugliness.
Victoria hopes to have its dullness enlivened by a railroad from the mainland one of these days, which may make it more prosperous, but will probably destroy some of the charm it now has for a tourist. It can hardly destroy the excellent roads by which you may take several picturesque drives and walks in the neighborhood of the town, nor the pretty views you have from the hills near by, nor the excursions by boat, in which you can best see how much Nature has done to beautify this place, and how little man has done so far to mar her work.
Silks and cigars are said to be very cheap in Victoria; and those who consume these articles will probably look through the shops and make a few purchases, not enough to satisfy, though sufficient to arouse the suspicions of the Collector of Customs at Port Townsend. If you use your time well, the thirty-six hours which the steamer spends at Victoria will suffice you to see all that is of interest there to a traveler, and you can return in her down the Sound, and make more permanent your impressions of its scenery.
You will perhaps be startled, if you chance to overhear the conversation of your fellow-passengers, to gather that it concerns itself chiefly with millions, and these millions run to such extraordinary figures that you may hear one man pitying another for the confession that he made no more than a hundred millions last year. It is feet of lumber they are speaking of; and when you see the monstrous piles of sawdust which encumber the mill ports, the vast quantities of waste stuff they burn, and the huge rafts of timber which are towed down to the mills, as well as the ships which lie there to load for South America, Tahiti, Australia, and California, you will not longer wonder that they talk of millions.
Some of these mills are owned by very wealthy companies, who have had the good fortune to buy at low rates large tracts of the best timber lands lying along the rivers and bays. A saw-mill is the centre of quite a town—and a very rough town too, to judge from the appearance of the men who come down to the dock to look at the steamer, and the repute of the Indian women who go from port to port and seem at home among the mill men.
Having gone by sea to Oregon, I should advise you to return to California overland. The journey lies by rail through the fertile Willamette Valley, for the present the chief agricultural country of Oregon, to Roseburg, and thence by stage over and through some of the most picturesque and grand scenery in America, into California. If you are curious in bizarre social experiments, you may very well stop a day at Aurora, thirty miles below Portland, and look at some of the finest orchards in the State, the property of a strange German community which has lived in harmony and acquired wealth at this point.
Salem, too, the capital of Oregon, lying on the railroad fifty miles below Portland, is worth a visit, to show you how rich a valley the Willamette is. And as you go down by stage toward California you will enjoy a long day's drive through the Rogue River Valley, a long, narrow, winding series of nooks, remote, among high mountains, looking for all the world as though in past ages a great river had swept through here, and left in its dry bed a fertile soil, and space enough for a great number of happy and comfortable homes.
May and June are the best months in which to see Oregon and Puget Sound. With San Francisco as a starting-point, one may go either to Portland or to Victoria direct. If you go first to Victoria, you save a return journey across Puget Sound, and from Olympia to Kalama, but you miss the sail up the Columbia from Astoria to Portland. The following table of fares will show you the cost of traveling in the region I have described:
Meals on these journeys are extra, and cost from half a dollar to seventy-five cents. They are generally good. All these rates are in coin. On the steamer from San Francisco to Portland or Victoria meals are included in the fare.
When you are once in Portland, a vast region opens itself to you, if you are an adventurous tourist. You may take boat at Celilo, above the Dalles, and steam up to Wallula, where you take stage for Elkton, a station on the Pacific Railroad, in Utah; this journey shows you the heart of the continent, and is said to abound in magnificent scenery. I have not made it, but it is frequently done. If you have not courage for so long an overland trip, a journey up to the mouth of Snake River and back to Portland, which consumes but a week, will give you an intelligent idea of the vastness of the country drained by the main body of the great Columbia River.
The great plains and table-lands which lie east of the Cascades, and are drained by the Columbia, the Snake, and their affluents, will some day contain a vast population. Already enterprising pioneers are pushing into the remotest valleys of this region. As you sail up the Columbia, you will hear of wheat, barley, sheep, stock, wool, orchards, and rapidly growing settlements, where, to our Eastern belief, the beaver still builds his dams, unvexed even by the traps and rifle of the hunter.
Ancient Hawaiian IdolAncient Hawaiian IdolClick Thumbnail for full-size Illustration
APPENDIX.CONTRIBUTIONS OF A VENERABLE SAVAGE TO THE ANCIENTHISTORY OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.[A]TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. JULES REMY, BY WILLIAM T. BRIGHAM.
[I am indebted to Mr. William T. Brigham, of Boston, the translator of the following "Contributions of a venerable Savage," and the author of a valuable treatise on the volcanoes of the Sandwich Islands, as well as of several memoirs on the natural history of the Islands, for his kind permission to use this very curious fragment, with his additions, in my volume. The original I have not been able to lay my hands on. It gives a picturesque account of the Hawaiian people before they came into relations with foreigners. It should be remembered by the reader that Mr. Remy is a Frenchman, and that his relations with the Roman Catholic missionaries somewhat colored his views of the labors of the American missionaries on the Islands.
The "contributions" in this translation of Mr. Brigham were privately printed by him some years ago, and the following note by him explains their origin. It will be seen that Mr. Brigham translated the Mele, or chant of Kawelo, from the original.]
One evening, in the month of March, 1853, I landed at Hoopuloa, on the western shore of Hawaii. Among the many natives collected on the beach to bid me welcome and draw my canoe up over the sand, I noticed an old man of average size, remarkably developed chest, and whose hairs, apparently once flaxen, were hoary with age. The countenance of this old man, at once savage and attractive, was furrowed across the forehead with deep and regular wrinkles. His only garment was a shirt of striped calico.
A sort of veneration with which his countrymen seemed to me to regard him only increased the desire I at first felt to become acquainted with the old islander. I was soon told that his name was Kanuha, that he was already a lad when Alapai[1] died (about 1752), that he had known Kalaniopuu, Cook, and Kamehameha the Great. When I learned his name and extraordinary age, I turned toward Kanuha, extending my hand. This attention flattered him, and disposed him favorably toward me. So I resolved to take advantage of this lucky encounter to obtain from an eye-witness an insight into Hawaiian customs before the arrival of Europeans.
A hut of pandanus had been prepared for me upon the lava by the care of a missionary. I made the old man enter, and invited him to partake of my repast of poi,[2] cocoa-nut, raw fish, and roast dog. While eating the poi with full fingers, Kanuha assured me that he had lived under King Alapai, and had been his runner, as well as the courier of Kalaniopuu, his successor. So great had been Kanuha's strength in his youth that, at the command of his chiefs, he had in a single day accomplished the distance from Hoopuloa to Hilo, more than forty French leagues. When Cook died, in 1779, the little children of Kanuha's children had been born. When I spoke of Alapai to my old savage, he told me thatit seemed to him a matter of yesterday; of Cook,it was a thing of to-day.
From these facts it may be believed that Kanuha was not less than one hundred and sixteen years old when I met him on this occasion. This remarkable example of longevity was by no means unique at the Hawaiian Islands a few years since. Father Maréchal knew at Ka'u, in 1844, an aged woman who remembered perfectly having seen Alapai. I had occasion to converse at Kauai with an islander who was already a grandfather when he saw Captain Cook die. I sketched, at this very Hoopuloa, the portrait of an old woman, still vigorous, Meawahine, who told any who would hear her that her breasts were completely developed when her chief gave her as wife to the celebrated English navigator.
Old Kanuha was the senior of all these centenaries. I took advantage of his willing disposition to draw from him the historical treasures with which his memory was stored. Here, in my own order, is what he told me during a night of conversation, interrupted only by the Hawaiian dances (hulahula), and by some pipes of tobacco smoked in turn, in the custom of the country.
OF GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY WITH THE ANCIENT HAWAIIANS.
The soil was the property of the king, who reserved one part of it for himself, assigning another to the nobles, and left the rest to the first occupant. Property, based on a possession more or less ancient, was transmitted by heritage; but the king could always dispose, according to his whims, of property of chiefs and subjects, and the chiefs had the same privilege over the people.
Taxes were not assessed on any basis. The king levied them whenever it seemed good to him, and almost always in an arbitrary way. The chiefs also, and the priests, received a tribute from the people. The tax was always in kind, and consisted of:
Kalo, raw and made into poi;Potatoes (Convolvulus batatas, L.) many varieties;Bananas (maia) of different kinds;Cocoa-nuts (calledniuby the natives);Dogs (destined for food);[3]Hogs;Fowls;Fish, crabs, cuttle-fish, shell-fish;Kukui nuts (Aleurites moluccana) for making relishes, and forillumination;Edible sea-weed (limu);Edible ferns (several species, among others thehapuu);Awa (Piper methysticum, Forst.);Ki roots (Cordyline ti, Schott.), a very saccharine vegetable;Feathers of theOo(Drepanis pacifica), and of theIiwi(Drepaniscoccinea): these birds were taken with the glue of theuluor bread-fruit (Artocarpus incisa);Fabrics of beaten bark (kapa) and fibre of theolona(Boehmeria),ofwauke(Broussonetia papyrifera), ofhau(Hilasens tiliasens),etc.;Mats of Pandanus and of Scirpus;Pili (grass to thatch houses with);Canoes (waa);Wood for building;Calabashes (serving for food vessels, and to hold water);Wooden dishes;Arms and instruments of war, etc., etc.
A labor tax was also enforced, and it was perhaps the most onerous, because it returned almost regularly every moon for a certain number of days. The work was principally cultivating theloi, or fields of kalo, which belonged to the king or chiefs.
The Hawaiian people were divided into three very distinct classes; these were:
1. The nobility (Alii), comprising the king and the chiefs of whatever degree;
2. The clergy (Kahuna), comprising the priests, doctors, prophets, and sorcerers;
3. Citizens (Makaainana), comprising laborers, farmers, proletaries, and slaves.
THE NOBILITY. NA'LII.
The chiefs or nobles were of several orders. The highest chief bore the title ofMoi, which may best be rendered by the word majesty. In a remote period of Hawaiian history, this title was synonymous withKa lani, heaven. This expression occurs frequently in ancient poems:Auhea oe, e ka lani? Eia ae. This mode of address is very poetic, and quite pleasing to the chiefs.
The Moi was still calledkapuandaliinui. To tread on his shadow was a crime punished with death:He make ke ee malu. The chief next the throne took the title ofWohi. He who ranked next, that ofMahana. These titles could belong at the same time to several chiefs of the blood-royal, who were calledAlii kapu, Alii wohi. The ordinary nobility furnished the king's aids-de-camp, calledHulumanu(plumed officers).
By the side of the nobility were theKahu alii, literally guardians of the chiefs, of noble origin by the younger branch, but who dared not claim the title of chief in the presence of their elders. The Kahu alii of the male sex might be considered born chamberlains; of the female, ladies of the bed-chamber.
There were five kinds of Kahu alii, which are: Iwikuamoo, Ipukuha, Paakahili, Kiaipoo, Aipuupuu.
These titles constituted as many hereditary charges reserved for the lesser nobility. The functions of the Iwikuamoo (backbone of the chief) were to rub his lord on the back, when stretched on his mat. The Ipukuha had charge of the royal spittoons. The Paakahili carried a very long plume (kahili), which he waved, around the royal person to drive away the flies and gnats. The duties of this officer were continual and most fatiguing, for he must constantly remain near the person of his master, armed with his kahili, whether the king was seated or reclining, eating or sleeping. The Kiaipoo's special charge was to watch at the side of his august chief during sleep. The Aipuupuu was the chief cook, and, besides, performed functions similar to those of steward or purveyor.
There were, besides, other inferior chiefs, as thePuuku, attendants of the house or palace;Malama ukana, charged with the care of provisions in traveling;Aialo, who had the privilege of eating in the presence of the chief; and, at the present day, theMuki baka, who had the honor of lighting the king's pipe and carrying his tobacco-pouch.
Although the people considered these last four orders as belonging to the nobility, it seems that they were of lower rank than the citizens favored by the chiefs.
Finally, the king had always in his service theHula, who, like the buffoon or jester of the French kings, must amuse his majesty by mimicry or dancing. TheKahu alii, orKaukaualii, as they are now styled, are attendants or followers of the high chiefs by right of birth. They accompany their masters everywhere, almost in the same manner that a governess follows her pupil.[4] From the throne down nobility was hereditary. The right of primogeniture was recognized as natural law. Nobility transmitted through the mother was considered far superior to that on the father's side only, even if he were the highest of chiefs. This usage was founded on the following proverb:Maopopo ka makuahine, aole maopopo ka makuakane(It is always evident who the mother is, but one is never sure about the father). Agreeably to this principle, the high chiefs, when they could not find wives of a sufficiently illustrious origin, might espouse their sisters and their nieces, or, in default of either of these, their own mother. Nevertheless, history furnishes us several examples of kings who were not noble on the maternal side.[5]
THE CLERGY. NA KAHUNA.
The priests formed three orders:
1. TheKahunaproper.
2. TheKaula, or prophets.
3. TheKilo, diviners or magicians.
The priesthood, properly so called (Kahuna maoli, Kahuna pule), was hereditary. The priests received their titles from their fathers, and transmitted them to their offspring, male and female, for the Hawaiians had priestesses as well. The priest was the peer of the nobility; he had a portion of land in all the estates of the chiefs, and sometimes acquired such power as to be formidable to the alii. In religious ceremonies, the priests were clothed with absolute power, and selected the victims for the sacrifices. This privilege gave them an immense and dangerous influence in private life, whence the Hawaiian proverb: The priest's man is inviolable, the chief's man is the prey of death,Aole e make ko ke kahuna kanaka, o ko ke 'lii kanaka ke make.
The kahuna, being clothed with supreme power in the exercise of his functions, alone could designate the victim suitable to appease the anger of the gods. The people feared him much for this prerogative, which gave the power of life and death over all, and the result was that the priest had constantly at his service an innumerable crowd of men and women wholly devoted to him. It was not proper for him to choose victims from a people who paid him every imaginable attention. But among the servants of the alii, if there were any who had offended the priest or his partisans, nothing more was necessary to condemn to death such or such an attendant of even the highest chief. From this it may be seen how dangerous it was not to enjoy the good graces of the kahuna, who, by his numerous clan, might revolutionize the whole country. History affords us an example in the Kahuna Kaleihokuu of Laupahoehoe, who had in his service so considerable a body of retainers that he was able in a day, by a single act of his will, to put to death the great chief Hakau, of Waipio, and substitute in his place Umi, the bastard son (poolua) of King Liloa, who had, however, been adopted by Kaleihokuu. Another example of this remarkable power is seen in the Kahuna of Ka'u, who massacred the high chief Kohookalani, in the neighborhood of Ninole, tumbling down upon him a huge tree from the top of thepali(precipice) of Hilea.
TheKahuna, especially those of the race of Paao, were the natural depositaries of history, and took the revered title ofMo'olelo, or historians. Some individuals of this stock still exist, and they are all esteemed by the natives, and regarded as the chiefs of the historical and priestly caste. The sacerdotal order had its origin in Paao, whose descendants have always been regarded as theKahuna maoli.[6] Paao came from a distant land called Kahiki. According to several chiefs, his genealogy must be more correct than that of the kings. Common tradition declares that Paao came from foreign countries, landing on the north-west shore of Hawaii (Kohala), at Puuepa, in the place where, to this day, are seen the ruins of the Heiau (temple) of Mokini, the most ancient of all the temples, and which he is said to have built. The advent of Paao and his erection of this heiau are so ancient, according to the old men, that Night helped the priest raise the temple:Na ka po i kukulu ae la Mokini, a na Paao nae. These sayings, in the native tongue, indicate the high antiquity of Paao.[7]
To build the temple of Mokini, which also served as a city of refuge, Paao had stones brought from all sides, even from Pololu, a village situated four or five leagues from Mokini or Puuepa. The Kanakas formed a chain the whole length of the route, and passed the stones from one to another—an easy thing in those times—from the immense population of the neighborhood.
Paao has always been considered as the first of the Kahuna. For this reason his descendants, independently of the fact that they are regarded asMookahuna, that is, of the priesthood, are more like nobles in the eye of the people, and are respected by the chiefs themselves. There are, in the neighborhood of Mokini, stones which are considered petrifactions of the canoe, paddles, and fish-hooks of Paao.
At Pololu, toward the mountain, are found fields of a very beautiful verdure. They are called the pastures, or grass-plots, of Paao (Na mauu a Paao). The old priest cultivated these fields himself, where no one since his time has dared to use spade or mattock. If an islander was impious enough to cultivate the meadow of Paao, the people believe that a terrible punishment would be the inevitable consequence of that profanation. Disastrous rains, furious torrents, would surely ravage the neighboring country.
Some Hawaiians pretend that there exists another sacerdotal race besides that of Paao, more ancient even than that, and whose priests belonged at the same time to a race of chiefs. It is the family of Maui, probably of Maui-hope, the last of the seven children of Hina,[8] the same who captured the sea-monster Piimoe. The origin of this race, to which Naihe of Kohala pretends to belong, is fabulous. Since the reign of Kamehameha, the priests of the order of Maui have lost favor.
The second class of the clergy was composed of the prophets (Kaula), an inoffensive and very respectable people, who gave vent to their inspiration from time to time in unexpected and uncalled-for prophesies. The third order of the clergy is that ofKilo, diviners or magicians. With these may be classed theKilokilo, theKahunalapaauandKahunaanaana, a sort of doctors regarded as sorcerers, to whom was attributed the power of putting to death by sorcery and witchcraft.[9] The Kahunaanaana and the Kahunalapaau have never been considered as belonging to the high caste of Kahuna maoli.
The Kahunaanaana, or sorcerers, inherited their functions. They were thoroughly detested, and the people feared them, and do to this day. When the chiefs were dissatisfied with a sorcerer, they had his head cut off with a stone axe (koipohaku), or cast him from the top of a pali.
The doctors were of two kinds. The first, the Kahunalapaau proper, comprised all who used plants in the treatment of disease. Just as the sorcerers understood poisonous vegetables, so the doctors knew the simples which furnished remedies to work cures. The second kind comprised the spiritual doctors, who had various names, and who seem to have been intermediate between priests and magicians, sharing at once in the attributes of both. They were:
Kahuna makani, doctors of winds;
Kahuna hoonohonoho akua, who caused the gods to descend on the sick;
Kahuna aumakua, doctors of diseases of the old;
Kahuna Pele, doctors or priests of Pele, goddess of volcanoes.
All the doctors of the second kind are still found in the islands,[10] where they have remained idolaters, although they have been for the most part baptized. There is hardly a Kanaka who has not had recourse to them in his complaints, preferring their cures and their remedies to those of the foreign physicians. Laws have been enacted to prohibit these charlatans from exercising their art; but under the rule of Kamehameha III., who protected them, these laws have not been enforced.