the best of food was reserved for the nobles. their houses, bathing places, and domestic utensils, were tabu from vulgar use. they even used a language or courtly dialect unintelligible to their subjects. their deportment was based upon the innate consciousness of mental superiority and long inherited authority. rank was derived from the mother as the only certain fountain of ancestry. in size and dignity of personal carriage they were conspicuous from the crowd. in short, the difference was so marked in hawaii between the chief and his serf, as to suggest to a superficial observer the idea of two distinct races.
hospitality was a common virtue. there was no beggary, as there was no need of begging, for the simple wants of the natives were easily supplied. the poorest man never refused food to his worst enemy, should he enter his house and demand it. indeed so freely were presents made, that the absolute law of “meum and tuum,” as it exists among commercial races, with its progeny of judges and gaols, locks and fetters, had with them scarcely a defined meaning. where there was so much trust and generosity, any violation of them met with prompt and severe retribution. theft was visited upon the offender by the injured party, even if the weaker, by the seizure of every movable article belonging to him. in this wild justice they were sustained by the whole population. if the property of a high chief suffered, the thief was sometimes placed in an old canoe, bound hand and foot, and set adrift upon the ocean.
[78]
kiana’s people were wealthy in their simple way. his reign was the golden age of hawaii. this was owing mainly to his own character, which took delight in the happiness and prosperity of his subjects. no lands were so well cultivated as his. no rents were more ample or more cheerfully paid. his people had easy access to him. in their labors as in their sports he often mingled. if at times he was hasty or severe, it was owing rather to the quickened indignation of offended justice than to selfish passion.
a very striking reform in the rites if not in the principles of their religion had been peacefully brought about by him. in general, the savage mind is more influenced by fear than by love; that is, it seeks by worship to avoid harm from natural objects, which from ignorance of their laws he considers to be evil spirits, rather than to do homage to those whose direct beneficence is readily recognized. but kiana, like manco capac with the peruvians, taught them a less slavish ritual. instead of sacrifices of animals to deities whose attributes solely inspired dread, he led them to rejoice in the bounteous seasons, the vivifying sun, the winds that refreshed their bodies, and the clouds that watered their thirsty soil. he taught them that the waters that bore them so pleasantly from island to island, were much more to be regarded lovingly, than the devouring shark with superstitious fear. thus without fully, or perhaps in any degree recognizing the principles of the one god, the people were led more into harmony with those of his[79] works, which were suggestive of good and kind attributes, which they symbolized in idols, to which they offered chiefly the fruits of the earth. they were indeed idolaters, because their minds seldom, if ever, separated the image from the ideas, but it was an idolatry that made them cheerful and truthful, and not gloomy and cruel.
contented under their government, reposing on their religion, these islanders presented a picture of happiness, which, if we consider only the peaceful, joyous flow of the material life, we might well envy. they had no money to beget avarice, or to excite to the rivalries and dishonesties of trade. there were no more prosperous territories and bounteous soils for them to covet by arms; none of superior force to make them afraid. their diet was simple, and their diseases few. they had nothing to fear from famine, weather, noxious animals, or poisonous insects. their unbounded hospitality kept want from even the idler,—their agricultural games and fisheries gave ample scope for their physical energies, while their numerous festivals, the songs of the bards, and traditions and speeches of their historians and orators kept alive a national spirit, which made them proud of their origin and their country.
all their myths were connected with the great phenomena of nature, with which their island was so pregnant. hence in their minds there was a certain grandeur of sentiment, as well as loftiness of expression and suggestive imagery, that imbued them with the more elevating influences of the[80] great nature around them. then their joyous dances, particularly graceful and spirited among the children, though too expressive, perhaps, in action and words of the sensual instincts with the adults, caused the gayety of their sunny skies and the passionate enjoyments of their rare climate to come home to them with a fulness of sympathy that made them truly the children of material nature. they danced, they sang, they sported, and they feasted, as if the present hour had had no predecessor, and was to see no successor. if they labored, it was that they might enjoy. in all their exercises, whether of amusement, religion or work, the requirements of the chiefs, or the necessities of their families, there was a renunciation of all but the present moment, mingled with so full a sense of sportive humor, that no civilized spectator[81] could have looked unmoved upon their sensuous happiness, however much he might moralize upon its affinity to mere animal life.
if they ever thought of death, it was merely as a change to a world where their enjoyments would be still more complete. at the worst their spirits would only wander about their earthly abodes, vexed at the sight of pleasures which they could no longer participate in. the general idea the serfs had of heaven, was of some place specially given to the chiefs, into which if they entered at all, it was in the same servile and distinct relation to them as on earth. perhaps one great cause of their contentment sprung from their implicit acquiescence in the power and privileges of their rulers, as of beings too vastly their superiors to admit even for a moment of any equality of fate or aspirations in either life.
such in brief were the character and condition of the race among which alvirez and his party were now domesticated, and to all appearance for life. there was much to reconcile them to their new position, as will be shown, and especially in the peaceful contrast their present homes presented to the crime and devastation which had been their experience in mexico. true, there was no gold. but what need of gold, when all it represents was provided without price? after their long experience of perils and hardships, to the seamen their present lives seemed planted in eden. an occasional affray with some distant tribe that sought to spoil their more fortunate countryman under kiana’s[82] rule, gave them opportunities to exercise their courage for the benefit of their new friends. the reputation which they soon established, and the supernatural character with which they continued in some degree, still to be regarded, especially at a distance, contributed much towards keeping the frontiers quiet. juan and kiana, according to hawaiian custom, exchanged names, by which in friendship, power and property, they were viewed as one. but the better to appreciate the true position of each in reference to their new life, we must trace their individual experiences.
