Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands written by Charles Nordhoff

C >> Charles Nordhoff >> Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands

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The tabu was a most ingenious and useful device; and when you hear of the
uses to which it was put, and of its effectiveness, you feel surprised
that it was not found elsewhere as an appurtenance of the feudal
machinery. Thus the chief allowed his people to fish in the part of the
ocean which he owned--which fronted his "land," that is to say. He tabued
one or two kinds of fish, however; these they were forbidden to catch; but
as a fisherman can not, even in these islands, exercise a choice as to the
fish which shall enter his net or bite at his hook, it followed that the
tabued fish were caught--but then they were at once rendered up to the
chief. One variety of taro, which makes poi of a pink color, was tabued
and reserved for the chiefs. Some birds were tabued on account of their
feathers; one especially, a black bird which has a small yellow feather
under each wing. The great feather cloak of Kamehameha I., which is
still kept as a sign of royalty, is made of these feathers, and contains
probably several thousand of them, thus gathered, two from each bird.

Further, a tabu prohibited women from eating with men, even with their
husbands; and when, on the death of the first Kamehameha, his Queen
Kahumanu, an energetic and fearless virago, dared for the first time to
eat with her son, a cry of horror went up as though "great Pan was dead;"
and this bold act really broke the power of the heathen priests.

A tabu forbade women to eat cocoa nuts and some other articles of food;
and the prohibition appears to have been used also to compel sanitary and
other useful restraints, for I have been told that a tabu preserved girls
from marriage until they had attained a certain age, eighteen, I believe;
and to this and some other similar regulations, rigorously enforced in the
old times, I have heard old residents attribute the fertility of the race
before foreigners came in.

[Illustration: KAMEHAMEHA I.]

He who violated a tabu was at once killed. Capital punishment seems to
have been an effective restraint upon crime among these savages, contrary
to the theories of some modern philosophers; probably it was effective for
two reasons, because it was prompt and because it was certain. One wonders
how long the tabu would have been respected, had a violator of it been
lodged in jail for eighteen months, allowed to appeal his case through
three courts, and at last been brained amidst the appeals for mercy of
the most respectable people of his tribe, and had his funeral ceremonies
performed by the high-priest, and closed with a eulogy upon his character,
and insinuations against the sound judgment and uprightness of the chief
who ordered the execution.

The first Kamehameha, who seems to have been a savage of considerable
merit, and a firm believer in capital punishment, subdued the Islands to
his own rule, but he did not aim to break the power of the chiefs over
their people. He established a few general laws, and insisted on peace,
order, and obedience to himself. By right of his conquest all lands were
supposed to be owned by him; he gave to one chief and took away from
another; he rewarded his favorites, but he did not alter the condition of
the people.

[Illustration: QUEEN OF KAMEHAMEHA I.]

But as traders came in, as commerce began, as money came into use, the
feudal system began to be oppressive. Sandal-wood was long one of the
most precious products of these islands--their Chinese name, indeed, is
"Sandal-wood Islands." The chiefs, greedy for money, or for what the ships
brought, forced their unhappy retainers into the mountains to gather this
wood. Exposed to cold, badly fed, and obliged to bear painful burdens,
they died in great numbers, so that it was a blessing to the Islanders
when the wood became scarce. Again, supplies of food were sold by the
chiefs to the ships, and this necessitated unusual labor from the people.
One famous chief for years used his retainers to tow ships into the narrow
harbor of Honolulu, sending them out on the reef, where, up to their
middle in water, they shouldered the tow-line.

Thus when, in 1848; the king, at the instance of that excellent man and
upright judge, Chief-justice Lee, gave the kuliana rights, he relieved the
people of a sore oppression, and at a single blow destroyed feudalism.
The kuliana is the individual holding. Under the kuliana law each native
householder became entitled to the possession in fee of such land as
he had occupied, or chose to occupy and cultivate. He had only to make
application to a government officer, have the tract surveyed, and pay a
small sum to get the title. It is creditable to the chiefs that, under the
influence of the missionaries, they consented to this important change,
fully knowing that it meant independence to the common people and an end
of all feudal rights; but it must be added that a large part of their
lands remained in their hands, making them, of course, still wealthy
proprietors.

Thus the present system of land tenure on the Islands is much the same as
our own; but the holdings of the common people are generally small, and
the chiefs, or their successors in many cases foreigners, still maintain
their right to the sea fisheries as against all who live outside the old
boundaries of their own "lands."

The families of most of the great chiefs have become extinct. Their wealth
became a curse to them when foreigners came in with foreign vices and
foreign luxuries. They are said to have been remarkable as men and women
of extraordinary stature and of uncommon perfection of form. I have been
told of many chiefesses nearly or quite six feet in height, and many
chiefs from six feet two inches to six feet six, and in one case six feet
seven inches high. There is no reason to doubt the universal testimony
that they were, as a class, taller and finer-looking than the common
people; but the older missionaries and residents believe that this arose
not from their being of a different race, but because they were absolutely
relieved from hard work, were more abundantly and carefully fed, and used
the lomi-lomi constantly. It is supposable, too, that in the wars which
prevailed among the tribes the weaklings, if any such were among the
chiefs, were pretty sure to be killed off; and thus a natural selection
went on which weeded out the small and inefficient chiefs.

Their government appears to have been a "despotism tempered by
assassination," for great as was the respect exacted by a chief, and
implicit as was the obedience he commanded, if he pushed his tyranny too
far, his people rose and slew him. Thus on Kauai, in the lower part of
the Hanapepe Valley, a huge cliff is shown, concerning which the tradition
runs that it was once the residence of the chief who ruled this valley.
This person, with a Titanic and Rabelaisian humor, was accustomed to
descend into the valley in the evening, seize a baby and carry it to his
stronghold to serve him as a pillow. Having slept upon it he slew it next
morning; and thus with a refinement of luxury he required a fresh baby
every evening. When patience had ceased to be a virtue, according to our
more modern formula, the people went up one night and knocked his brains
out; and there was a change of dynasties.

[Illustration: ANCIENT GODS OF HAWAII.]

The Hawaiian of the present day reads his Bible and newspaper, writes
letters, wears clothes, owns property, serves in the Legislature or
Parliament, votes, teaches school, acts as justice of the peace and even
as judge, is tax collector and assessor, constable and preacher. In spite
of all this, or rather with it, he retains the oddest traces of the habits
and customs of another age. For instance, he will labor for wages; but
he will persistently and for years give away to his relations all his pay
except what he needs for his actual subsistence, and if he is prosperous
he is pretty sure to have quite a swarm of people to support. A lady told
me that having repeatedly clothed her nurse in good apparel, and finding
this liberal soul, every time, in a day or two reduced to her original
somewhat shabby clothing, she at last reproached her for her folly. "What
can I do?" the woman replied; "they come and ask me for the holaku, or the
handkerchief, or whatever I have. Suppose you say they are yours--then
I will not give them away." Accordingly, the next new suit was formally
declared to belong to the mistress: it was not given away. An old woman,
kept chiefly for her skill in lomi-lomi by an American family, asked her
master one day for ten dollars. He gave her two five-dollar gold pieces,
and, to his amazement, saw her hand them over immediately, one to a little
girl and one to a boy, who had evidently come to get the money--not for
her use at all. A cook in my own family asked for the wages due him, which
he had been saving for some time; he received forty-four dollars, and gave
the whole amount at once to his father-in-law, who had come from another
island on purpose to get this money. Nor was it grudged to him, so far as
any of us could see. "By-and-by, if we are poor and in need, they will do
as much for us," is the excuse.

As you ride along in the country, you will see your guide slyly putting a
stone or a bunch of grass on a ledge near some precipice. If you look, you
will see other objects of the same kind lying there. Ask him about it and
he will tell you, with a laugh, that his forefathers in other times did
so, and he does the same. It is, in fact, a peace offering to the
local divinity of the place. Is he, then, an idolater? Not at all; not
necessarily, at least. He is under the compulsion of an old custom; and
he will even tell you that it is all nonsense. The same force leads him
to treat with respect and veneration a chief or chiefess even if abjectly
poor, though before the law the highest chief is no better than the common
people.

They are hearty and even gross feeders; and probably the only
christianized people who live almost entirely on cold victuals. A Hawaiian
does not need a fire to prepare a meal; and at a _luau_, or feast, all the
food is served cold, except the pig, which ought to be hot.

Hospitable and liberal as he is in his daily life, when the Hawaiian
invites his friends to a _luau_ he expects them to pay. He provides for
them roast pig, poi, baked ti-root, which bears a startling resemblance in
looks and taste to New England molasses-cake; raw fish and shrimps, limu,
which is a sea-moss of villainous odor; kuulaau, a mixture of taro and
cocoa-nut, very nice; paalolo, a mixture of sweet-potato and cocoa-nut;
raw and cooked cuttle-fish, roast dog, sea-eggs, if they can be got; and,
if the feast is something above the ordinary, raw pickled salmon with
tomatoes and red-pepper.

The object of such a luau is usually to enable the giver to pay for his
new house, or to raise money for some private object of his own. Notice
of the coming feast is given months beforehand, as also of the amount each
visitor is expected to give. It will be a twenty-five cent, or a fifty
cent, or a dollar luau. The pigs--the centre-piece of the feast--have
been fattening for a year before. The affair is much discussed. It is
indispensable that all who attend shall come in brand-new clothing, and a
native person will rather deny himself the feast than appear in garments
which have been worn before. A few of the relatives of the feast-giver act
as stewards, and they must be dressed strictly alike. At one luau which I
had the happiness to attend the six men who acted as stewards were arrayed
in green cotton shirts and crimson cotton trowsers, and had green wreaths
on their heads. I need not say that they presented a truly magnificent
appearance.

To such a luau people ride thirty or forty miles; arriving often the
evening beforehand, in order to be early at the feast next day. When they
sit down each person receives his abundant share of pig, neatly wrapped in
ti-leaves; to the remainder of the food he helps himself as he likes. They
eat, and eat, and eat; they beat their stomachs with satisfaction; they
talk and eat; they ride about awhile, and eat again; they laugh, sing,
and eat. At last a man finds he can hold no more. He is "pau"--done. He
declares himself "mauna"--a mountain; and points to his abdomen in proof
of his statement. Then, unless he expects a recurrence of hunger, he
carefully wraps up the fragments and bones which remain of his portion
of pig, and these he must take with him. It would be the height of
impoliteness to leave them; and each visitor scrupulously takes away
every remaining bit of his share. If now you look you will see a calabash
somewhere in the middle of the floor, into which each, as he completes his
meal, put his quarter or half dollar.

In the evening there are dancing and singing, and then you may hear and
see the extremely dramatic meles of the Hawaiians--a kind of rapid chant,
the tones of which have a singular fascination for my ears. A man and
woman, usually elderly or middle-aged people, sit down opposite each
other, or side by side facing the company. One begins and the other
joins in; the sound is as of a shrill kind of drone; it is accompanied by
gesticulations; and each chant lasts about two or three minutes, and ends
in a jerk. The swaying of the lithe figures, the vehement and passionate
movements of the arms and head, the tragic intensity of the looks, and the
very peculiar music, all unite to fasten one's attention, and to make this
spectacle of mele singing, as I have said, singularly fascinating.

The language of the meles is a dialect now unused, and unintelligible even
to most of the people. The whole chant concerns itself, however, with a
detailed description of the person of the man or woman or child to which
or in whose honor it is sung. Thus a mele will begin with the hair, which
may be likened in beauty to the sea-moss found on a certain part of Kauai;
or the teeth, which "resemble the beautiful white pebbles which men pick
up on the beach of Kaalui Bay on Maui;" and so on. Indeed an ancient
Hawaiian mele is probably, in its construction, much like the Song of
Solomon; though I am told that the old meles concerned themselves with
personal details by no means suitable for modern ears. A mele is always
sung for or about some particular person. Thus I have heard meles for the
present king; meles for a man or woman present; meles for a chief; and on
one occasion I was told they sang a mele for me; and I judged, from the
laughter some parts of it excited, that my feelings were saved by my
ignorance of the language.

On all festive occasions, and on many others, the Hawaiian loves to dress
his head with flowers and green wreaths. Les or garlands are made of
several substances besides flowers; though the most favorite are composed
of jasmine flowers, or the brilliant yellow flowers of one kind of ginger,
which give out a somewhat overpowering odor. These are hung around the
neck. For the head they like to use wreaths of the maile shrub, which has
an agreeable odor, something like that of the cherry sticks which smokers
like for pipe stems. This ornamentation does not look amiss on the young,
for to youth much is forgiven; but it is a little startling, at a luau,
to see old crones and grave grandfathers arrayed with equal gayety; and I
confess that though while the flowers and leaves are fresh the decorated
assembly is picturesque, especially as the women wear their hair flowing,
and many have beautiful wavy tresses, yet toward evening, when the
maile has wilted and the garlands are rumpled and decaying, this kind of
ornamentation gives an air of dissipation to the company which it by no
means deserves.

Finally, the daily life of the Hawaiian, if he lives near the sea-coast
and is master of his own life, is divided between fishing, taro planting,
poi making, and mat weaving. All these but the last are laborious
occupations; but they do not make hard work of them. Two days' labor every
week will provide abundant food for a man and his family. He has from five
to ten dollars a year of taxes to pay, and this money he can easily earn.
The sea always supplies him with fish, sea-moss, and other food. He is
fond of fussing at different things; but he also lies down on the grass
a good deal--why shouldn't he?--he reads his paper, he plays at cards,
he rides about a good deal, he sleeps more or less, and about midnight he
gets up and eats a hearty supper. Altogether he is a very happy creature,
and by no means a bad one. You need not lock your door against him; and an
election and a luau occasionally, give him all the excitement he craves,
and that not of an unwholesome kind.

What there is happy about his life he owes to the fine climate and the
missionaries. The latter have given him education enough to read his Bible
and newspaper, and thus to take some interest in and have some knowledge
of affairs in the world at large. They and their successors, the political
rulers, have made life and property secure, and caused roads and bridges
to be built and maintained; and the Hawaiian is fond of moving about. The
little inter-island steamer and the schooners are always full of people
on their travels; and as they do not have hotel bills to pay, but live on
their friends on these visits, there is a great deal of such movement.

It would hardly do to compare the Hawaiian people with those of New
England; but they will compare favorably in comfort, in intelligence,
in wealth, in morals, and in happiness with the common people of most
European nations; and when one sees here how happily people can live in a
small way, and without ambitious striving for wealth or a career, he
can not but wonder if, after all, in the year 2873, our pushing and
hard-pushed civilization of the nineteenth century will get as great
praise as it gets from ourselves, its victims.

[Illustration: HAWAIIANS EATING POI.]

CHAPTER VI.

COMMERCIAL AND POLITICAL.

Commercial relations form and foster political alliances, especially
between a weak state and a strong one. The annual report for 1872 of
imports and exports, made up by the Collector-general of the Hawaiian
Kingdom, shows how completely the Islands depend upon the United States.

Of 146 merchant vessels and steamers entered at Hawaiian ports during
1872, 90 were American, only 15 were English; 6 were German, 9 belonged
to other nations, and 26 were Hawaiian. Of a total of 98,647 tons of
shipping, 73,975 were American, 6714 Hawaiian, and but 7741 British. Of 47
whaling vessels calling at Island ports during the year, 42 were American,
2 Hawaiian, and 3 British.

Of a little less than 16,000,000 pounds of sugar exported during the
same year, 14,500,000 were sent to the United States; of 39,000 pounds
of coffee 34,000 were sent to us; of 1,349,503 pounds of rice and paddy
exported, 1,317,203 pounds came to the United States. All the cotton, all
the goat-skins, nearly all the hides, all the wool, the greater part
of the peanuts and the pulu, in short, almost the whole exports of the
Islands, are sent to the United States.

On the other hand, of $1,234,147, the value of duty-paying merchandise
imported during 1872 into the Islands, $806,111 worth came from the United
States, $155,939 from Great Britain, and $205,396 from Germany. Besides
this, of the total value of bonded goods, $349,435, the large amount
of $135,487 was brought from sea by whalemen, almost all of whom were
Americans; and $99,567 worth was goods from the United States; or $235,000
of American products against $21,801 of British, and $23,904 of German
importation, in bond.

It is plain that the Island trade is so largely in our hands that no other
nation can be said to dispute it with us. If our flag flew over Honolulu
we could hardly expect to have a more complete monopoly of
Hawaiian commerce than we already enjoy. Moreover, almost all the
sugar-plantations--the most productive and valuable property on the
Islands--are owned by Americans; and the same is true of the greater
number of stock farms.

Our political predominance on the Islands is as complete as the
commercial. In the present cabinet all the ministers except one are
Americans. This was true also of the cabinet of the late king. Of the
Supreme Court, two of the judges are Americans, and one is German. Almost
all the executive and administrative offices are in the hands of Americans
or Hawaiians.

Nor can any foreign power rightly find fault with this state of things.
What the Islands are they are because of American effort, American
enterprise, American capital. American missionaries civilized them;
Americans gave them laws wisely adapted to the customs and habits of
their people; American enterprise and Boston capital established the sugar
culture and other of the important industries; perhaps I ought to add that
American sailors spread among the Islands the vices and diseases which,
more than all else, have caused the rapid decrease of the population,
and to combat and check which added toil and trouble to the labors of the
American missionaries.

The government of the Hawaiian Islands consists of a king and a
Parliament. The Parliament meets once in two years; and under the late
king consisted of but a single House. The present king has promised to
call together two Houses, of which but one will be elected. The other
consists of "Nobles," who are nominated or created by the king for life,
but have no title nor salary unless they are called to office. By the
Constitution the reigning king appoints his successor, but his nomination
must be confirmed by the Nobles. As, however, he may at pleasure increase
the number of Nobles, the appointment virtually rests with him. If he dies
without naming a successor, the Parliament has the right and duty to elect
a new sovereign.

There is a slight property qualification for voters, and a heavier one for
members of Parliament.

The revenue of the Government, which amounts to about half a million
per annum, is derived from the various sources specified in the official
returns of the Minister of Finance, which I copy below. It must be
understood that this report covers two years:

The balance in the Treasury at the close of the last
fiscal period (March 31, 1870) was . . . . . . . . $61,580.20

And there has been received from Foreign Imports 396,418.15
" " " Fines, Penalties, and Costs 47,289.13
" " " Internal Commerce 98,982.51
" " " Taxes 215,962.51
" " " Fees and Perquisites 22,194.45
" " " Government Realizations 124,071.37
" " " Miscellaneous Sources 60,038.23
----------- $964,956.35
-----------
$1,026,536.55

The expenditures during two years are detailed thus in the same report:

For Civil List . . . . . . . . $50,000.00
" Permanent Settlements . . . . 18,000.00
" Legislature and Privy Council . . 15,281.63
" Department of Judiciary . . . . 73,562.61
" " Foreign Affairs and War 98,028.24
" " Interior . . . . 396,806.41
" " Finance . . . . 141,345.29
" " Attorney-general . 88,412.17
" Bureau of Public Instruction . . 88,347.79
----------- $969,784.14
Balance on hand March 31, 1872 . . . . . . . $56,752.41
------------
$1,026,536.55

The internal taxes include the property tax, which is quite low, one and
a half per cent. Every male adult pays a poll tax of one dollar, a school
tax of two dollars, and a road tax of two dollars. The following is the
detail of the internal taxes for the two years 1870-72:

Real Estate and Personal Property $97,685.11
Horses . . . . . . . . . 53,006.00
Dogs . . . . . . . . . . 22,271.40
Mules . . . . . . . . . . 6,140.00
Carriages . . . . . . . . 3,125.00
Poll . . . . . . . . . . 27,841.00
Native Seamen . . . . . . . 5,894.00
-----------
$215,962.51

Among the licenses the monopoly of opium selling brings the Government
$22,248, a prodigious sum when it is considered that there are but
2500 Chinese in the Islands; these being the chief, though not the only
consumers. There is, besides, a duty of ten per cent. on the opium when
imported, and the merchant must make his profit. I had the curiosity
to look a little into the opium consumption. It is said that its use is
slowly spreading among the natives, particularly where these are employed
with Chinese on the plantations. But the quantity used by the Chinese
themselves is prodigious. I was shown one man, a cook, whose wages,
fourteen dollars per month, were entirely spent on opium; and whose master
supplied the poor creature with clothes, because he had nothing left out
of his pay. In other cases the amount spent was nearly as great.

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