Legends & Myths of Hawaii - King David Kalakaua

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next be referred to; and as the tabu was no less a religious than a secular prerogative, it may properly be considered in connection with the priesthood. A knowledge of the power, scope and sanctity of the tabu is essential to a proper understanding of the relations existing in the past between the people and their political and religious rulers, and this great governing force will now claim our attention.

      THE TABU.

      Strictly speaking, the ancient tabu, or kapu, was a prerogative adhering exclusively to political and ecclesiastical rank. It was a command either to do or not to do, and the meaning of it was, "Obey or die." It was common to the Polynesian tribes, and was a protection to the lives, property and dignity of the priest-hood and nobility.

      The religious tabus were well understood by the people, as were also the personal or perpetual tabus of the ruling families; but the incidental tabus were oppressive, irksome and dangerous to the masses, as they were liable to be thoughtlessly violated, and death was the usual penalty.

      Everything pertaining to the priesthood and temples was sacred, or tabu, and pigs designed for sacrifice, and running at large with the molested. It was a violation of perpetual tabu to cross the shadow of the king, to stand in his presence without Permission,or to approach him except upon the knees. This did not apply to the higher grades of chiefs, who themselves possessed tabu rights.

      Favorite paths, springs, streams and bathing-places were at intervals tabued to the exclusive use of the kings and temples, and squid, turtle, and two or three species of birds could be eaten only by the priests and tabu nobility.

      Yellow was the tabu color of royalty, and red of the priest-hood, and mantles of the feathers of the oo and mamo could be worn only by kings and princes. Feather capes of mingled red and yellow distinguished the lesser nobility.

      Women were tabued from eating plantains, bananas, and cocoanuts; also the flesh of swine and certain fish, among them the kumu, moano, ulua, honu, ea, hahalua and naia; and men and women were allowed under no circumstances to partake of food together. Hence, when Liholiho, in 1819, openly violated this fundamental tabu by eating with his queen, he defied the gods of his fathers and struck at the very foundation of the religious faith of his people.

      The general tabus declared by the supreme chief or king were proclaimed by heralds, while the puloulou—a staff surmounted by a crown of white or black kapa—placed at the entrance of temples, royal residences and the mansions of tabu chiefs, or beside springs, groves, paths, or bathing-places, was a standing notification against trespass. General tabus were declared either to propitiate the gods or in celebration of important events. They were either common or strict, and frequently embraced an entire district and continued from one to ten days.

      During the continuance of a common tabu the masses were merely required to abstain from their usual occupations and attend the services at the heiaus, or temples.; but during a strict tabu every fire and every light was extinguished, no canoe was shoved from the shore, no bathing was permitted, the pigs and fowls were muzzled or placed under calabashes that they might utter no noise, the people conversed in whispers, and the priests and their assistants were alone allowed to be seen without their places of abode. It was a season of deathly silence, and was thought to be especially grateful to the gods.

      Some of the royal tabus, centuries back in the past, were frivolous and despotic, such as regulating the wearing of beards and compelling all sails to be lowered on passing certain coast points; but, however capricious or oppressive, the tabu was seldom violated, and its maintenance was deemed a necessary protection to the governing classes.

      ANCIENT HAWAIIAN RELIGION.

      The ancient religion of the Hawaiians, of which the tabu formed an essential feature, was a theocracy of curious structure. It was a system of idolatrous forms and sacrifices engrafted without consistency upon the Jewish story of the creation, the fall of man, the revolt of Lucifer, the Deluge, and the repopulation of the earth.

      The legends of the Hawaiians were preserved with marvellous integrity. Their historians were the priests, who at intervals met in council and recited and compared their genealogical meles, in order that nothing might be either changed or lost. How did the Hawaiian priesthood become possessed of the story of the Hebrew genesis? It was old to them when the Resolution and Discovery dropped their anchors in Kealakeakua Bay; old to them when one or more chance parties of Spanish sailors in the sixteenth century may have looked in upon them for a moment while on their way to the Spice Islands; and it was probably old to them when the Hawaiians found their present home in the sixth century, and when the Polynesians left the coast of Asia four hundred years earlier.

      One theory is that the story was acquired through Israelitish contact with the ancestors of the Polynesians while the latter were drifting eastward from the land of their nativity. But the more reasonable assumption seems to be that the Hawaiian theogony, so strangely perpetuated, is an independent and perhaps original version of a series of creation legends common in the remote past to the Cushite, Semite and Aryan tribes, and was handed down quite as accurately as the Jewish version before it became fixed in written characters. In fact, in some respects the Hawaiian seems to be more complete than the Jewish version.

      From the beginning, according to Hawaiian story, a trinity of gods existed, who were the sole and all-pervading intelligences of chaos, or night—a condition represented by the Hawaiian word Po. These gods were:

      Kane, the originator;

      Ku, the architect and builder; and

      Lono, the executor and director of the elements.

      By the united will of Hikapoloa, or the trinity, light was brought into chaos. They next created the heavens, three in number, as their dwelling-places, and then the earth, sun, moon and stars. From their spittle they next created a host of angels to minister to their wants.

      Finally, man was created. His body was formed of red earth mingled with the spittle of Kane, and his head of whitish clay brought by Lono from the four quarters of the earth. The meaning of Adam is red, and it will be remarked that the Hawaiian Adam was made of earth of that color. He was made in the image of Kane, who breathed into his nostrils, and he became alive. Afterwards, from one of his ribs, taken from his side while he slept, a woman was created. The man was called Kumu-honua, and the woman Ke-ola-ku-honua.

      The newly-created pair were placed in a beautiful paradise called Paliuli. Three rivers of "the waters of life" ran through it, on the banks of which grew every inviting fruit, including the "tabued bread-fruit tree" and "sacred apple-tree," with which are connected the fall and expulsion of the man and woman from their earthly paradise. The three rivers had their source in a beautiful lake, fed by "the living waters of Kane" The waters were filled with fish which fire could not destroy, and on being sprinkled with them the dead were restored to life. Legends relate instances in which these waters were procured, through the favor of the gods, for the restoration to life of distinguished mortals.

      As a specimen of the chants perpetuating these traditions and embellishing the plainer prose recitals, the following extract relating to the creation is given:

      "Kane of the great Night,

      Ku and Lono of the great Night,

      Hika-po-loa the king.

      The tabued Night that is set apart,

      The poisonous Night,

      The barren, desolate Night,

      The continual darkness of midnight,

      The Night, the reviler.

      O Kane, O Ku-ka-pao,

      And great Lono dwelling in the water,

      Brought forth are Heaven and Earth,

      Quickened, increased, moving,

      Raised up into Continents.

      Kane,

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