ALOHA WORLD RESOURCES

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he last and largest island discovered by Captain Cook was called by the natives Hawaii, --- meaning “Fiery Java,” and pronounced as if spelled Hah-wah-ee, accent on the second syllable, --- and this name has very appropriately been adopted as a designation for the entire group in place of the Sandwich Islands.

The coast of these islands are often bold, rocky, and precipitous, cliffs rising for hundreds of feet perpendicular from the water. Yet there are sheltered bays, and Oahu has one of the finest harbors in the world. There are at different places along the shores dangerous reefs, beautiful fringes of coral, or long, wide stretches of yellow beach, where the murmuring tide kissed by the trade-winds plays at hide-and-seek with harmless glee.

The larger portion of the surface of the islands is mountainous, two of the interior peaks reaching an altitude of nearly fourteen thousand feet; but at their foot lie rich alluvial plains, plateaus, and valleys, with silvery streams leaping in cascades from the overhanging cliffs. With few exceptions the mountains are clothed in dense growth of temperate zone sturdiness, while the lowlands abound with a tropical vegetation of a perpetual green.

Evidence of the volcanic origin of these islands exists on every hand, from the dead and buried cones of Kauai to the living fires of Hawaii. By this it will be observed that the former, as well as being the most northerly, is the oldest of the series. This theory is supported by the fact that only the two cones remain on this isle, and these on the southeastern slope. All others have been destroyed by the march of years, and their slopes covered with dense forest. The land having undergone longer change, is more arable, the soil deeper, and the vegetation more bountiful than on the other islands. Encircled by beaches of silvery brightness, with valleys and hillsides painted by natures brush a green that never fades, Kauai is the “Garden Isle.”

Lying in a westerly direction, about fifteen miles distant, is Niihau, resembling it in physical features. This island is sparsely settled, its inhabitants being formerly noted for the manufacture of mats made from a sort of rush which only grows on this island and Kauai, and is now the largest sheep range among the islands.

Kaula, southwest from Kauai, is a barren rock, which is the resort of innumerable birds, whose eggs are sometimes sought by the inhabitants of the windward islands.
Oahu, the following island on the southeasterly course, produces more recent and numerous indications of its volcanic formation; but here are valleys of great fertility, and a mountain range of rugged appearance. On account of its fine harbor at Honolulu, it is known as the “Mistress of the Sea.”

Maui, next in order, attests its younger age, having several craters, the largest and highest of which is Haleakala, “the house of the sun,” which lifts its bulky crest ten thousand feet into the air, being the largest extinct volcano in the world. Maui is the “Switzerland of the Hawaiian Islands.”

South of Maui, separated by a channel of only a few miles in width, is Kahoolawe, with its lowlands, except for a species of coarse grass, almost destitute of plant life. It is uninhabited, stock owners of Maui, to which island it no doubt sometime belonged, having it as pasturage for their flocks.

Between these two islands rises a rocky barrier, Molokini, used as a place for the fishermen to spread their nets.

Lanai, separated from Maui by a channel of ten miles in width, has but recently become valuable for sheep raising and sugar growing.
East-southeast of Oahu is a chain of volcanic mountains nearly equal in elevation to those of Maui, which form in the main the island of Molokai, a long irregular ridge, with little level land and a few plantations, and the unenviable reputation of being the lazaretto of exiled lepers.

The youngest and mightiest of the group is the one from which it gets its name, unfinished Hawaii, still smoking, still exhibiting to the wondering beholder the sublime agency of creation. This island is famous for its physical grandeur and volcanic exhibitions. The legends of the Hawaiians, reaching back over a thousand years, fail to mention any activity of volcanic force on the other islands. The fires of Maui’s mammoth house of the sun burned out before man beheld its riven walls, while concerning the eruptions of the lower and lesser craters the ancient historian is equally silent. What a grand, yet terrible, spectacle it must have been when all the flues of these mountain furnaces were aglow with their liquid flame, which in their bombardment of the sky fairly set ablaze the moonless heavens and the eight Hawaiian seas! But if tradition fails to describe the activity of the volcanoes of the other islands, it is very vivid in its pictures of Hawaii’s volcanic outbreaks. Mauna Kea ( the white mountain ), Mauna Loa ( the long mountain ), Mauna Haulalai ( offspring of the sun ) at irregular intervals have displayed their awful energies in convulsions that have rocked the island like a cradle on the deep and flung their molten contents down the slopes to the sea. A still more realistic representative of the fiery powers is the ever active Kilauea, with a crater nearly nine miles in circumference, the largest constant volcano in the world.

With a uniformity and salubrity of climate unsurpassed, the mean temperature never rising above ninety or sinking below sixty degrees, and whose southern languor is continually refreshed by the ozone breath of the polar seas; with plains and slopes of remarkable fertility covered with vast cane-fields and sugar plantations, groves of kingly palms, sturdy ironwoods, delicate tamarinds, feathery algarrobas, star-eyed oranges, dusky ohias, snowy kukui/candlenuts, sunlit papayas, umbrageous breadfruits, flowering mangoes, wine-palms, slender cocoa-palms, hardy pomegranates, twisted haus and wide spreading umbrella-trees, of plants and vegetables, the fan-leafed banana (mai`a), tree-like plaintain, giant fern, clinging azalea, nutritive yam, bulburous taro, crimson strawberry, and many others, the united offerings of the tropical and temperate zones growing side by side; with a flora that does not stop by decorating the rich alluvial deposits of the valleys in a bewildering array of flowers and reminders of flowers, but fringes the brinks of the chasms with the scarlet vine ie-ie and spans the abyss with a network of gold and bronze vines tipped with trumpet-shaped blossoms, tints the mist of the waterfalls with the rainbow hues of the convolvuli, or crimsons with the transparent leaves of the ohia the fiery floods of the craters; with gorgeous vines and trailers, magenta blossoms and passion flowers, embowering the homes of the many races of men living here in harmony and contentment; with a landscape clothed in a perpetual green, and mountain-tops floating like a white and brown islands in cloudland; with their summer seas reflecting the azure of the southern skies; with its beaches of a dazzling whiteness fringed with cocoa-palms; over all an indescribable charm of solitude and drowsy peacefulness, to him who looks for the sunny side of nature the Hawaiian Islands are the “Paradise of the Pacific,” the wonderland of the World.

In vivid contrast to Oahu’s Edenic valleys and Maui’s picturesque slopes rises the weather side of Hawaii, lighted by that huge lamp trimmed by no mortal hand, but kept bright against burning sun and waxing moon from time immemorial, and overlooked by the mountain monarch with foot bathed in the sea and whitened head swathed in the clouds. Everywhere the grandeur and sublimity of the scene strikes the beholder with wonder akin to awe. He gazes on the the corregated streams of congealed lava, on the broken domes of volcanoes long since burnt out, on the furnace fires of Kilauea, sees with his own eyes the startling evidence of the internal powers that builded the mountains, watches the crimson fountains play on the surface of the lake of fire and the fantastic figures dancing in ghoulish glee at their escape from the Plutonian dungeons of the inner earth, until he exclaims in dismay, “The Inferno of the World!”

The indigenous plants are the banana, plantain, cocoanut, breadfruit, ohia (native apple), sugar-cane, arrowroot, sweet potato, strawberry, raspberry, and the sacred berry ohelo. The imported plants are the lime, orange, mango, tamarind, papaya, guava, and all edible products except those named above.

If prodigal in her floral gifts nature was extremely chary in her bestowal of wild and domestic creatures, and the fauna of the islands a hundred years ago was limited to dogs, swine, mice, lizards, owls, bats, snipe, plover, ducks, a specie of geese peculiar to the place, and a few varieties of birds of simple song and not very brilliant plumage. It seems probable that animal life was almost entirely lacking here when first peopled by the human race.

The natives accounted for the remarkable uniformity and salubrity of the climate by the following legendary tale of the early days of the islands:
A powerful demi-god ruling over Maui, and having his dwelling on Haleakala, got angry because the sun shone every morning on the mountains of Hawaii before it did on his abode. Thereupon he caused to be made a huge net, which he carried one night and spread it quite over his rival. As a result the rising sun got entangled in the meshes of Maui’s beg web, which had been woven so cunningly that the harder the sun tried to break away the more his rays got mixed up in the gauze-like structure. Maui watched the struggle with a merry twinkle in his eye, and when the sun had got tired of his futile efforts, he offered to set him free if he would promise to shine on him and Mauna Loa alike, never too hot or too cold, and never allowing mist or cloud to obscure the favored islands. The sun was fain to obtain his freedom upon such easy terms, and, agreeing to Maui’s demands, received his liberty. Ever since he has bestowed his favor with wonderful equality on the seven islands, so that they have been blessed with their remarkable climate and temperature. Fogs or mists have never risen to mar the sun’s splendor, and lest he should forget his promise and shine too fervidly on his children of the sea, he made a compact with the north wind to keep perpetual vigil over him.

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aptain Cook estimated the population of these islands to be not less than four hundred thousand, and that Hawaii alone contained considerably over one hundred thousand inhabitants.

These people were not savages, as we are apt to apply the term, but barbarians of a milder and more progressive type. In personal appearance they were generally above medium stature, well formed, with muscular limbs, frank countenance, and features often resembling the Europeans. An early writer in describing them said: “Their gait is graceful and sometimes stately. The chiefs in particular are tall and stout, and their personal appearance is so much superior to the common people that some have imagined them a distinct race. This, however, is not the fact; the great care taken of them in childhood, and their better living, have probably occasioned the difference. Their hair is black or brown, strong, and frequently curly; their complexion is neither yellow like the Malay nor red like the American Indian, but a kind of olive and sometimes reddish brown. Their arms and other parts of the body are often tattooed, but, except in one of the islands ( Kauai ), this is by no means as common as in many parts of the southern sea.”

They belong to a branch of the Polynesian race, which was undoubtedly of Aryan stock, migrating at a remote period from Asia Minor through India, Sumatra, and Java to the Southern Pacific Islands, from there advancing slowly northward to New Zealand, Samoa, Tahiti, and Hawaii. These facts are well substantiated by the close affinity of the names of localities, men, and physical objects, with the general construction of the several languages, so that a person mastering one can easily understand the others.

Early accounts of the people have been preserved through an order of priesthood, which caused to be committed to memory the more prominent affairs of each family, so that handed down from father to son successively the deeds and genealogies of the chiefs could be traced for over forty generations. These traditions, a picturesque background for its romantic modern history, make Hawaii a wonderland in verity. Their legends peopled the sea and sky with all sorts of weird spirits and the volcanic craters of the island world with demons of fantastic figures and terrible demeanor; they scintillated with deeds of prowess and chivalry, if wilder and more barbarous, none the less valorous than those performed by the mailed knights of the continental world; their warriors, without shields or fear of death, sprang to battle under the wings of the great white bird of Kane, as defiantly as the rugged Vikings of Northland followed the dusky ravens of Odin; their sailors, in frail craft and under the sole guidance of the sun and stars, navigated the seas for thousands of miles, and achieved conquest in far distant lands; one of their boldest mariners, in the eleventh century, reached the western shore of America, and carried back to his native isles as captives three of its inhabitants; their kings and priests were men of mighty stature, proving by their genealogies a descent from Adam and a kinship with the gods.

These sages describe a renowned chief by the name of Hawaii, a great fisherman and navigator in ancient times, who, on one of his long cruises, discovered two islands that pleased him so well he returned and brought there his wife and family. The islands he named Maui, for his wife, and Hawaii-Loa for himself, and this family, the legend claims, were the first inhabitants of the islands.

While this statement is to be looked on with suspicion, there is a very clear account of an emigration from Samoa in the sixth century under a chief named Nanaula. This chief, after trouble with some of his relatives in regard to ruling his native isle, gathered a portion of his most adventurous followers about him; and in double canoes, large enough to hold fifty to one hundred persons, this party, accompanied by their priests, taking with them gods, dogs, swine, fowls, and seeds, set forth into the unknown sea on a voyage of discovery. They reached Oahu and Kauai, which they found unpeopled, and took peaceful possession. They were soon followed by a few others from Samoa and Tahiti, when immigration ceased for over four hundred years.

Then another warlike chief of Samoa, known as Nanamoa, not satisfied with fighting at home, set out on a voyage of conquest, eventually coming to the Hawaiian Islands. A long and desperate struggle with the descendants of Nanalua for supremacy followed. Other incursions succeeded, one of which brought from Samoa Paao, a high priest, and Pili, a warlike chief, and Hawaii passed under the sovereignty of these two. Intercourse was maintained with the southern islands for one hundred and fifty years, according to all accounts, an unusually active period, filled with romantic adventures, wild conquests, and perilous voyages at sea.

Isolated and environed by water, dependant to a considerable extent upon the fruits of the sea for their living, the inhabitants of the Pacific islands naturally partook of a maritime character. The Hawaiian was in his true element when disporting in the tide, or daring the dangers of old ocean in his craft with its curved prow and clumsy-looking outrigger.

The building of their seagoing craft, with the tools the mechanic had to use, required no small amount of time, skill, and perseverance. Thus the builder of a canoe became a person of great importance, and the launching of his craft an event celebrated with a feast and the sacrifice of a human life.

There were several classes, as well as sizes and shapes of canoes (Footnote: This name seems to have originated with the natives of America, and, since the discovery of this continent by Columbus, to have been applied indiscriminately to the smaller water craft of the uncivilized races wherever found---AUTHOR). The principal chiefs had boats from fifty to seventy-five feet in length, two feet in width, and from three to four feet in depth. The sterns were often ornamented with crude carvings of grotesque figures. The size and decorations were supposed to indicate the rank and dignity of the chief.

Next to these were the sacred craft of the priests, their ornaments set off with feathers. Small houses were built on these, containing the image of some god, usually in the shape of a bird, and many colored feathers decked the place. Here the prayers for the welfare of the little fleet were offered, and offerings made to Lono, the god of the waters.

Not inferior in size, though less ornamented, were the stoutly built war canoes. With these, sterns were made lower, and covered so as to afford protection from the darts and missiles of the enemy. The bottom was round, with the upper sides narrow, and the prow curved like the neck of a swan and finished to represent the head of some bird. In order to give the rowers and sail-managers more room and security than on the narrow edges, a sort of grating was made from the strong wood of the breadfruit-tree was placed over the hull. The fighting men were stationed on a platform in the forepart of the boat. Ordinarily these craft were about sixty feet in length, and capable of carrying fifty warriors.

There were single canoes built in very much the same style as the others, hewn from the trunk of some tree, with rounded sides and sharp ends. Then there were the big double canoes, made from two tree-trunks, and sometimes over a hundred feet in length.

The very largest of the canoes were made from the trees that had drifted down there from the northwest coast of America, some giant pine caught by a gale and borne thither, a present of the waves attributed by them to be a gift of the gods. One of the single-trunk canoes has been known to be over a hundred feet in length. In case of the double-trunk canoe the builders had often to wait years before a proper mate to the one coming first would be sent to their shores. The coming of such was an event of great rejoicing, and a feast followed with a sacrifice made to the gods.

The canoes always bore particular names, which designated some important incident connected with the craft, or some peculiar characteristic of the boat or its owner.
The navigators of those days had a certain knowledge of the heavens, and the five planets, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn, were known to them as “the wandering stars,” while they grouped the fixed stars in constellations. They calculated the transit of the sun and fixed the equatorial line. With such understanding and a trained observation of the winds and currents, the floating debris of the deep, and the flight of birds, they were enabled to make their long, dubious voyages with comparative surety.

The social and civil conditions of the ancient Hawaiians smacked more of despotism than that of any other Polynesian race. The inhabitants were divided into three classes: the nobility, consisting of the kings and chiefs of different ranks; the priests ( kahunas ), including also sorcerers and doctors; the common people
( Makaainana ), or laborers. Between the first and last existed a wide gap, which was of a sacred and religious character. The chiefs claimed descent from the gods, and were allied with invisible powers. In support of this they compared their stature and physique with the common people, which was striking proof of what they said. As late as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Hawaii boasted of such kings as Kiha, Liloa, Umi, and Lono, each eight or nine feet in height, and correspondingly broad of shoulder and girth. Beyond these rises the gigantic figure of Kana, the son of Hina, whose height was measured by paces.

The chiefs were the sole owners of the soil, and considered not only that the land was theirs, but all which grew upon it, the fish swimming in the sea, the time and production of those under them. This was according to the belief that the king, of superior birth, naturally owned everything. He allowed certain portions to be held by his chiefs in trust, on the condition that they render him tribute and military support. Then these chiefs in turn divided their territory among under-chiefs, who in a smaller way paid a like return to them that they gave to the king. These divisions and sub-divisions never reached to the toilers, the slaves of the soil, who did the brunt of the work, and must feel amply rewarded if privileged to live as poor tenants.

The head chief of an island was styled moi, and his prestige and power were usually inherited. Of so much importance was he, that when he went abroad he was attended by a body-guard, the foremost of which bore plumed staffs of bright colors. Did he go by canoe, his sails were painted red, and he was the only person who could wear the feather cloak and helmet. The common people were expected to prostrate themselves on the ground as he and his retinue passed. It was the signing of his death-warrant for a common person to remain standing at the mention of the king’s name, at the mere taking past him of the monarch’s food, water, or raiment; to put on any article of dress belonging to him, to enter his presence without permission, to cross his shadow or even that of his dwelling. If a man dared to enter, after due consent from his sovereign, the latter’s abode, he must crawl flat on the ground, and depart in the same manner.

Lacking materials of all kinds, the early Hawaiians made their implements of war or industry from wood, bone, or stone, --- axes, adzes, hammers or stone, spades of wood, knives of flint and ivory. Needles were made of thorns or bones, and spears and daggers of hardened wood. With such tools as these they felled trees, from which they built their temples, canoes and barges, dwellings, manufactured cloth and cordage, walls of hewn stone, built roads and fish-ponds, and tilled the soil. They wove mats, cloths, sails, and from the inner bark of the paper mulberry beat out a thin cloth called tapa, which they sometimes ornamented with figures and made in different colors.

They ate the flesh of nearly everything living in the sea, as well as that of swine, dogs, and fowls, yams, sweet potatoes, fruits, berries, and several kinds of seaweed, besides the staple of their foods, poi, a sort of fermented paste made from taro, a bulbous root very similar to an Indian turnip. They drank an intoxicating beverage made from the sweet root of the ti plant ( Footnote: Introduced by Botany Bay convicts at the beginning of present century), and a stupefying liquor from the awa root. They did their cooking by wrapping their food in ti leaves and placing it in an underground oven. Their household utensils consisted of shells, gourds, calabashes of different sizes and shapes, and platters made of wood. They lighted their homes with the oily nuts of the ku-kui, or candlenut-tree.

The dress of the Hawaiian consisted simply of a narrow maro fastened around the loins for the male, a pau or skirt reaching from the waist to the knees for the female. These skirts were invariable made of five thick-nesses of tapa, and when the weather was cool a short cape was thrown over the shoulders. Generally the heads of both sexes were uncovered.

Besides the maro the king wore on state occasions the royal mantle, the mamo, so called for the little bird that furnished the feathers to make it. This mantle reached from the neck to the ankle, and it took over ten thousand feathers to make it. As each bird had but two of the kind of feathers desired, one under each wing, it took at least five thousand of them to afford the material for this costly garment.

The chiefs wore short capes of yellow feathers mixed with red. The color of the priest and gods was red. The nobility had feather head-dresses, and charms of bones suspended from the neck. Some of them tattooed their faces, breast, and thighs, while flowers were the universal ornament. At festivals, feasts and other gatherings, all wore garlands of beautiful fragrant leaves, crowns of flowers resting on the head, and wreaths encircling the neck. This beautiful custom still prevails.
The dwellings of the common people were constructed of upright posts planted in the ground with cross beams and rafters, roof and sides constructed of twigs woven together and filled in with a thatch of grass.

The houses of the nobility were larger, stronger, and frequently surrounded by wide verandas. These buildings were built so the main entrance faced east, the home of Kane, the supreme god. These homes consisted of six separate dwellings or apartments; first, the heiau, or idol house; second, the mau, or eating house of the males, from which the females were prohibited from entering; third, the hale-noa, or the house of the women, which men could not enter; fourth, the hale-aina, or eating-house of the wife; fifth, the kua, or the wife’s working house; sixth, the hale-pea, or nursery of the wife. The poorer classes followed as near as possible this plan, though they had often to use screens for partitions.

The Hawaiians enjoyed athletic sports of all kinds, running, boxing, jumping, wrestling, swimming, diving, and other games, but the two pastimes which delighted them most were holua and surf-riding. The former consisted of coasting on narrow sledges down steep descents, with the rider lying prone and borne on with the velocity of the wind. He who reached the foot first was the victor. These sportsmen did not require a snow path over which to fly on their strange sleds, but found the best race-course over slopes covered with dried grass or over lava-floored tracks.

The goddess of the volcano, Pele, was supposed to delight in these contests, coming disguised in some earthly form. As may be imagined, she always became a dangerous rival. Kahawali, a Hawaiian prince, once raced with her when she was impersonating a beautiful young woman. On the first trip he outdistanced her, and she asked for a second trial, claiming that her papa ( sled ) was inferior to his, he laughed at her and started alone down the descent. Hearing wild shouts and great confusion, he saw that she was pursuing him, riding on the crest of a lava wave. In his desperation he fled for the sea, where she could not follow him. But she threw stones after him, making the water so hot he perished. To him who doubts this tale the stones are pointed out on the beach, and the track of the lava stream is shown.

Their musical instruments were the pahus, or drums of different sizes, the ohe, or bamboo flute, the hokio, or rude clarinet, and a few ruder instruments than even these. They had several dances, of which the hula, participated in by males and females, was the most popular.

In their mourning customs the Hawaiians showed their wildest nature, often resorting to the most extravagant performances, excusing all by saying that grief had so unseated their reason as to not make them not responsible. The masses buried their dead in caves, but the kings were disposed of with the utmost care. There were royal burial-places at Honaunau, and on Maui at Iao valley; but not always did the remains of the king receive sepulture at those places. On account of fear that someone would make fish-hooks or other instruments out of them, for the charm they were supposed to give, all sorts of expedients were resorted to by faithful friends to conceal the bones.

The year was divided into twelve months of thirty days each. The days were named instead of being numbered. As their division gave but three hundred and sixty days to the year, they consecrated to Lono, the god of the elements, the balance, so as to complete the sidereal year regulated by the Pleiades. The new year began with the winter solstice. They had the lunar month by which they regulated their feasts. The seasons were two, wet and dry. In the counting they calculated by four and its multiples.

They had no written language, and their oral speech contained the sounds of but twelve letters, five vowels and seven consonants, as follows: a, e, i, o, u, and h, k, l, m, n, p, w. To these r, t, and b are sometimes added by writers, but r takes the sound of l, the t of k, and b of p. A is pronounced usually as in father; e as in they; i as in marine; o as in mole; u as in mute. W usually has the sound of v. The only exception to these rules is when the vowel has the long or short sound. Every syllable of every word in the language ends with a vowel, and two consonants never come together. The penultimate, or next to last syllable of a word, almost invariably receives the accent. The plural takes the prefix na. In Hawaiian conversation words fall from the tongue with the musical rhythm of a brook gliding over a pebbly bottom, a consonant thrown in now and then as rocks are found in a stream, not to check the current, but to break the monotony of its flow.

In order to maintain the distinction between the classes, the nobility had a language of their own, which was not understood by the common people. This was changed from time to time that it might not be learned by any one outside the favored circle.

If barbarians, the Hawaiians were never cannibals. They sacrificed their prisoners of war on the alters of their gods that they might gain further victories under arms, and bathed those same graven images in the blood of their kindred to appease the imaginary wrath of their over-rulers. In this respect they did not differ from the ancient Gauls and Saxons, whose temples were crimsoned with the blood of human beings, while a father in Israel sharpened his knife to slay his son that his body might be made an offering to the offended God of Abraham.

Marriage was forbidden only between mother and son, and yet the kingly line boasted of the finest specimens of manhood and womanhood. The people were in physical bondage to the king and in mental slavery to the priesthood, and yet they were a merry, easy-going, brave, and unselfish race of men and women. Their kings were ever at war, and yet no fear of a foreign invasion reached their hearts. Surrounded by the eight Hawaiian seas they were a little world by themselves, their lives filled with deeds of knightly chivalry, incidents of love and romantic devotion unto death, and examples of unfaltering patriotism and self-sacrifice. If an impassable gulf frowned between the rulers and their subjects, each party went its way careless and contented.

Following the second period of invasion the Hawaiians enjoyed a long spell of peace and isolation, six hundred years of non-intercourse with the outside world, when in 1778 Captain Cook led the way for further conquest, such as ancient history had not told.