“‘Alas! alas! dead is my chief!Dead is my lord and my friend!My friend in the season of famine,My friend in the time of drought,My friend in my poverty,My friend in the rain and the wind,My friend in the heat and the sun,My friend in the cold from the mountain,My friend in the storm,My friend in the calm,My friend in the eight seas.Alas! alas! gone is my friend,And no more will return!’
“‘Alas! alas! dead is my chief!Dead is my lord and my friend!My friend in the season of famine,My friend in the time of drought,My friend in my poverty,My friend in the rain and the wind,My friend in the heat and the sun,My friend in the cold from the mountain,My friend in the storm,My friend in the calm,My friend in the eight seas.Alas! alas! gone is my friend,And no more will return!’
“‘Alas! alas! dead is my chief!Dead is my lord and my friend!My friend in the season of famine,My friend in the time of drought,My friend in my poverty,My friend in the rain and the wind,My friend in the heat and the sun,My friend in the cold from the mountain,My friend in the storm,My friend in the calm,My friend in the eight seas.Alas! alas! gone is my friend,And no more will return!’
“‘Alas! alas! dead is my chief!
Dead is my lord and my friend!
My friend in the season of famine,
My friend in the time of drought,
My friend in my poverty,
My friend in the rain and the wind,
My friend in the heat and the sun,
My friend in the cold from the mountain,
My friend in the storm,
My friend in the calm,
My friend in the eight seas.
Alas! alas! gone is my friend,
And no more will return!’
“Other exhibitions of a similar kind I witnessed at Mani. After the death of Keopuolani we frequently saw the inhabitants of a whole district that had belonged to her coming to weep on account of her death. They walked in profound silence, either in single file or two or three abreast, the old people leading the van and the children bringing up the rear. They were not covered with ashes, but almost literally clothed in sackcloth. No ornament, or even decent piece of cloth, was seen on any one. Dressed only in old fishing nets, dirty and torn pieces of matting, or tattered garments, and these sometimes tied on their bodies with pieces of old canoe ropes, they appeared the most abject and wretched of human beings I ever saw. When they were within a few hundred yards of the house where the corpse was lying they began to lament and wail. The crowds of mourners around the house opened a passage for them to approach it, and then one or two of their number came forward and, standing a little before the rest, began a song or recitation, showing her birth, rank, honours, and virtues, brandishing a staff or piece of sugar-cane,and accompanying their recitation with attitudes and gestures, expressive of the most frantic grief. When they had finished they sat down and mingled with the thronging multitudes in their loud and ceaseless wailing.”
Though these ceremonies were so popular, and almost universal, on the decease of their chiefs, they do not appear to have been practised by the common people among themselves. The wife did not knock out her teeth on the death of her husband, nor the son his when he lost his father or mother, neither did parents thus express their grief when bereaved of an only child. Sometimes they cut their hair, but in general only indulged in lamentations and weeping for several days.
Ellis, the Polynesian traveller, makes mention of a singular building seen by him in Hawaii, called theHare o Keave(the House of Keave), a sacred depository of the bones of departed kings and princes, probably erected for the reception of the bones of the king whose name it bears, and who reigned in Hawaii about eight generations back. It is, or was when Mr. Ellis saw it, a compact building, twenty-four feet by sixteen, constructed with the most durable timber, and thatched withtileaves, standing on a bed of lava that runs out a considerable distance into the sea. It is surrounded by a strong fence or paling, leaving an area in the front and at each end about twenty-four feet wide. The pavement is of smooth fragments of lava, laid down with considerable skill. Several rudely-carved male and female images of wood were placed on the outside of the enclosure, some on low pedestals under the shade of an adjacent tree, others on high posts on the jutting rocks that hung over the edge of the water. “A number stood on the fence at unequal distances all round; but the principal assemblage of these frightful representatives of their former deities was at the south-east end of the enclosed space, where, forming a semi-circle, twelve of them stood in grim array, as if perpetual guardians of the mighty dead reposing in his house adjoining. A pile of stones was neatly laid up in the form of a crescent, about three feet wide and two feet higher than the pavement, and in this pile the images were fixed. They stood on small pedestals three or four feet high, though some were placed on pillars eight or ten feet in height, and curiously carved. The principal idol stood in the centre, the others on either hand, the most powerful being placed nearest to him; he was not so large as some of the others, but distinguished by the variety and superior carvings of his body, and especiallyof his head. Once they had evidently been clothed, but now they appeared in the most indigent nakedness. A few tattered shreds round the neck of one that stood on the left hand side of the door, rotted by the rain and bleached by the sun, were all that remained of numerous and gaudy garments with which their votaries had formerly arrayed them. A large pile of broken calabashes and cocoa-nut shells lay in the centre, and a considerable heap of dried and partly rotten wreaths of flowers, branches and shrubs, and bushes and fragments of tapa (the accumulated offerings of former days), formed an unsightly mound immediately before each of the images. The horrid stare of these idols, the tattered garments upon some of them, and the heaps of rotting offerings before them, seemed to us no improper emblems of the system they were designed to support, distinguished alike by its cruelty, folly, and wretchedness.”
Mr. Ellis endeavoured to gain admission to the inside of the house, but was told it wastabu roa(strictly prohibited), and that nothing but a direct order from the king or high priest could open the door. However, by pushing one of the boards across the doorway a little on one side, he looked in, and saw many large images, some of wood very much carved, and others of red feathers, with distended mouths, large rows of sharks’ teeth, and pearl-shell eyes. He also saw several bundles, apparently of human bones, cleaned carefully, tied up with cinet made of cocoa-nut fibres, and placed in different parts of the house, together with some rich shawls and other valuable articles, probably worn by those to whom the bones belonged, as the wearing apparel and other personal property of the chiefs is generally buried with them. When he had gratified his curiosity, and had taken a drawing of the building and some of its appendages, he proceeded to examine other remarkable objects of the place.
Adjoining theHare o Keaveto the southward, he found aPahio tabu(sacred enclosure) of considerable extent, and was informed by his guide that it was one of thePohonuasof Hawaii, of which he had often heard the chiefs and others speak. There are only two on the island—the one which he was then examining, and another at Waipio on the north-east part of the island, in the district of Kohala.
ThesePohonuaswere the Hawaiiancities of refuge, and afforded an inviolable sanctuary to the guilty fugitive, who, when flying from the avenging spear, was so favoured as to enter their precincts. They had several wide entrances, some on the side next the sea, the others facing the mountains. Hither the manslayer, the man who had broken atabu,or failed in the observance of its rigid requirements, the thief, and even the murderer, fled from his incensed pursuers, and was secure. To whomsoever he belonged, and from whatever part he came, he was equally certain of admittance, though liable to be pursued even to the gates of the enclosure. Happily for him, those gates were perpetually open; and, as soon as the fugitive had entered, he repaired to the presence of the idol, and made a short ejaculatory address, expressive of his obligations to him in reaching the place with security. Whenever war was proclaimed, and during the period of actual hostilities, a white flag was unfurled on the top of a tall spear at each end of the enclosure; and until the conclusion of peace waved the symbol of hope to those who, vanquished in fight, might flee thither for protection. It was fixed a short distance from the walls on the outside, and to the spot on which this banner was unfurled the victorious warrior might chase his routed foes, but here he must himself fall back; beyond it he must not advance one step, on pain of forfeiting his life; the priests and their adherents would immediately put to death any one who should have the temerity to follow or molest those who were once within the pale of thepahio tabu, and, as they expressed it, under the shade or protection of the spirit of Keave, the tutelar deity of the place.
In one part of the enclosure, houses were formerly erected for the priests, and others for the refugees, who, after a certain period, or at the cessation of war, were dismissed by the priests, and returned unmolested to their dwellings and families, no one venturing to injure those who, when they fled to the gods, had been by them protected. Mr. Ellis could not learn the length of time it was necessary for them to remain in thePohonuas, but it did not appear to be more than two or three days. After that they either attached themselves to the service of the priests, or returned to their homes.