Chapter VII: The Belief in Immortality Among the Hawaiians (3)

When all remedies had proved vain and death had followed, the bodies of common people were buried in a crouching position. The upper part of the body was raised; the face was bent forwards to meet the knees; the hands were put under the hams and passed up between the knees; then head, hands, and knees were bound together with cinnet or cord. Afterwards the corpse was wrapt up in a coarse mat and interred on the first or second day after death. But the corpses of chiefs and priests were not thus doubled up; they were laid out straight, wrapt up in many folds of native cloth, and buried in that posture. Priests were generally committed to the earth within the precincts of the temple in which they had officiated. A pile of stones or a circle of high poles marked their grave. But it was only the bodies of priests or of persons of some importance that were thus interred. For ordinary people natural graves were preferred, where suitable places could be found, such as caves in the face of cliffs or large subterranean grottos. Sometimes the inhabitants of a village deposited their dead in one great cavern, but generally each family had a distinct sepulchral cave. Their artificial graves were either simple pits dug in the earth or large enclosures, which might be surrounded with high stone walls so as to resemble the ordinary temples (_heiaus_). Occasionally they buried their dead in sequestered spots near their dwellings, but often in their gardens, and sometimes in their houses. The graves were not deep, and the bodies were usually placed in them in a sitting posture.[130] A rude method of embalming by means of the flower of the sugar-cane was often practised, whereby the entrails and brains were extracted and the body desiccated.[131] When the dead was interred in the dwelling, the house was not uncommonly shut up and deserted, the survivors seeking for themselves a new habitation.[132] The custom no doubt sprang from a fear of the ghosts, which were supposed to linger about their final resting-places and to injure such as came within their reach; hence their apparitions were much dreaded. For the same reason burials were conducted in a private manner and by night. If people were seen carrying a dead body past a house, the inmates would abuse or even stone them for not taking it some other way; for they imagined that the ghost would ply to and fro between the grave and his old home along the path by which his corpse had been carried.[133] Sometimes, apparently, to prevent the ghost from straying, his grave was enclosed by a sort of fence composed of long poles stuck in the ground at intervals of three or four inches and fastened together at the top. At all events Ellis saw a priest's tomb thus enclosed, and he received this explanation of the fence from some people; though others merely said that it was a custom so to inter persons of consequence.[134] Nightmare was believed to be caused by a ghost attempting to strangle the dreamer; under the influence of this belief a strong man has been seen to run shrieking down the street, tugging with both hands at his throat to tear the incubus away, till he reached the door of a neighbour's house and, bursting in, fell fainting on the floor. He thought that the ghost of a chief, who had died the day before, had a grip on his throat and was trying to throttle him.[135] Sometimes, however, affection for the dead sufficed to overcome the fear of the ghost, and the mouldering bones were carried about as relics by relations and friends.[136] When the Scotch sailor Archibald Campbell was in the islands in the early years of the nineteenth century, his patroness the queen kept by her the bones of her father wrapt up in a piece of cloth. Whenever she slept in her own house, the bones were placed by her side; in her absence they were set on a feather-bed which she had received from the captain of a ship, and which she used only for this purpose. On being asked by the Scotchman why she observed this singular custom, she replied that it was because she loved her father so dearly.[137] More usually, however, the bones of a beloved chief were carefully hidden to prevent his enemies from finding them and making arrow-heads out of them, with which to hunt rats, or otherwise profaning them. Hence there was a proverb to the effect that the bones of bad chiefs were not concealed. When the great King Kamehameha died in 1819, his bones were hidden and disappeared completely in some secret cave.[138]

[130] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 359 _sq._; J. J. Jarves, _op.
cit._ pp. 73 _sq._

[131] J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ p. 73; J. Remy, _op. cit._ p.
xlvii.

[132] Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 429.

[133] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 360 _sq._; J. J. Jarves, _op.
cit._ p. 74; A. Marcuse, _Die Hawaiischen Inslen_, p. 109.

[134] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 129.

[135] H. T. Cheever, _Life in the Sandwich Islands_ (London,
1851), pp. 11 _sq._, quoting Sheldon Dibble, _History of the
Sandwich Islands_, p. 99.

[136] O. von Kotzebue, _Neue Reise um die Welt_, ii. 98; A.
Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, p. 261.

[137] A. Campbell, _Voyage round the World_, pp. 206 _sq._

[138] J. Remy, _op. cit._ p. 153.

The death of a king or great chief in former days was the occasion for the observance of some singular ceremonies and customs. The grief, real or pretended, of the people found expression in many extravagant forms. Men and women knocked out some of their front teeth with stones; but the custom seems to have been observed even more extensively by men than by women. The kinsmen or friends of the deceased chief set the example, and their retainers were obliged to imitate them. Sometimes a man broke out his own tooth with a stone, but more usually the service was rendered him by another, who fixed one end of a stick against the tooth and hammered the stick with a stone till the tooth broke off. If the men deferred the operation, the women would perform it on them in their sleep. More than one tooth was seldom sacrificed at one time; but as the mutilation was repeated at the decease of every chief of rank or authority, few men of mature years were to be seen with a whole set of teeth, and many lost all their front teeth both in the upper and the lower jaw. Another mutilation practised at such times was to cut one or both ears, but it seems to have been comparatively rare. Much commoner was the custom of burning circles or semi-circles on the face or breast by means of strips of burning bark. The mourners also polled their hair in various ways. Sometimes they made bald a small round piece on the crown of the head, like the tonsure of Catholic priests; sometimes they shaved or cropped close the whole head except round the edge, where a short fringe was left to hang down; sometimes they made their heads quite bald on one side and allowed the hair to remain long on the other; occasionally they cut out a patch in the shape of a horse-shoe either at the back of the head or above the forehead; sometimes they shore a number of curved furrows from ear to ear or from the forehead to the neck. When a chief who had lost a relative or friend had his own hair cut after any particular pattern, his followers and dependants usually cropped their hair in the same style. Not to clip or shave the hair in mourning was regarded as disrespectful to the dead, but the particular manner of cutting it was left to the taste of the individual.[139] Some people in their frenzy knocked out their eyes with clubs and stones and cut as well as burned their flesh.[140] Another peculiar badge of mourning, adopted principally by the chiefs, was a black spot or line tattooed on the tongue. The painful operation was performed by puncturing the tongue with sharp fish-bones dipped in colouring matter.[141] But though these personal mutilations were popular and almost universal on the decease of chiefs, they appear not to have been practised by the common people among themselves. Thus a wife did not knock out her teeth on the death of her husband, and a son did not thus express his grief for the loss of his parents, nor they for the death of a child.[142]

[139] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 175 _sqq._, 181. Compare U.
Lisiansky, _op. cit._ p. 123; A. Campbell, _op. cit._ pp. 142
_sq._; J. Remy, _op. cit._ p. xlvii.

[140] C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the Sandwich Islands_, p.
166; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp. 65 _sq._

[141] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 177, 180 _sq._

[142] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 180.

Similar extravagances in the expression of grief were commonly exhibited by mourners, as we have seen, in other parts of Polynesia; but in Hawaii the rites observed at the death of a king or high chief were in so far peculiar that they assumed the character of a Saturnalia or orgy of unbridled lust and crime. On this subject the Russian navigator Lisiansky, who visited the islands while the ancient system of superstition was still in full vogue, reports as follows: "On the death of the king, a scene of horror takes place that is hardly credible. Twelve men are sacrificed; and shortly after the whole island abandons itself for a month to the utmost disorder and licentiousness. During this period, both sexes go entirely naked, and men cohabit with women without any distinction: the woman who should dare to make resistance, would be considered as violating the laws of the country. The same licentiousness is observed on the death of a noble; but it does not extend beyond the domains of the deceased, and is of a much shorter duration, not continuing, as Mr. Young informed me, more than a few days, though attempts are made by the youth of the party to prolong the period. Those who are put to death on the demise of the king, or any great personage, are such as have offered themselves for the purpose during the life of their master; and they are in consequence considered and treated by him as his best friends, since they have sworn to live and die with him. When I reflect upon the horrid nature of this ceremony, I hardly know how to credit its existence amongst a race of men so mild and good as these islanders in general appear to be; but Mr. Young, whose veracity I had no reason to doubt, assured me of the fact."[143]

[143] U. Lisiansky, _Voyage round the World_, pp. 122 _sq._

This John Young, who gave Lisiansky information as to the customs and religion of the Hawaiians, was an Englishman who had resided in the islands for many years at the time of the Russian navigator's visit in 1804. Originally a sailor, born at Liverpool, he had been compulsorily detained by the natives when he landed from his ship in Hawaii in March 1790. But from the first he received the kindest treatment from the king, Kamehameha, whose full confidence and high esteem he enjoyed and deserved. The king gave him a fine estate and appointed him to several responsible offices; in particular Young was governor of Hawaii for no less than nine years during the king's absence. He married a native woman of rank, by whom he had six children. While he remained warmly attached to his native country and rendered essential services to English vessels touching at the islands, he remained a voluntary exile for forty-five years in Hawaii, where he died at the patriarchal age of ninety-two in December 1835. During this long period he enjoyed the favour of the kings, chiefs, and people, and was highly respected and esteemed for his intelligence and good offices by European voyagers to the islands.[144] Thus he had the best opportunities for acquainting himself with the customs and beliefs of the natives, and it is much to be regretted that of the ample store of knowledge which he thus acquired nothing remains but a few scattered notices recorded by travellers to whom he had verbally communicated them.

[144] G. Vancouver, _Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific
Ocean and round the World_ (London, 1798), ii. 135 _sq._; W.
Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv. 96; Tyerman and Bennet,
_Journal of Voyages and Travels_, i. 377 _sq._; F. D. Bennett,
_Narrative of a Whaling Voyage_, i. 238 _sq._

In 1809, some five years after Lisiansky's visit to Hawaii, the Scotch sailor Archibald Campbell witnessed one of these Saturnalia held on the occasion of the death of the king's brother. He says: "The public mourning that took place on this occasion was of so extraordinary a nature that had I not been an eye-witness, I could not have given credit to it. The natives cut out their hair, and went about completely naked. Many of them, particularly the women, disfigured themselves, by knocking out their front teeth, and branding their faces with red-hot stones, and the small end of calabashes, which they held burning to their faces till a circular mark was produced; whilst, at the same time, a general, I believe I may say an universal, public prostitution of the women took place. The queens, and the widow of the deceased, were alone exempted. When the captain of a ship that lay in the harbour remonstrated with the king upon these disgraceful scenes, he answered, that such was the law, and he could not prevent them."[145]

[145] A. Campbell, _Voyage round the World_, pp. 142 _sq._

To these enormities the French navigator L. de Freycinet bore similar testimony a few years later. He says: "The despair which is affected after the loss of royal personages or great nobles presents also a remarkable resemblance to what takes place under similar circumstances among the inhabitants of the Marianne Islands. When we landed in Owhyhi [Hawaii], signs of sorrow everywhere presented themselves to our eyes and witnessed to the excesses that had been committed at the recent death of Tamehameha. At such a crisis anarchy displays all its horrors: the laws and the rules of taboo are broken without shame: the prohibited foods are devoured without scruple, chiefly by the women: the rights of property are ignored; force becomes the supreme law: the voice of chiefs is powerless: old enmities are avenged by blood or pillage: in a word, incredible scenes of disorder, of cruelty, and of lust are everywhere renewed under the stimulus of impunity. Calm does not begin to reign again until the heir is definitely invested with the royal power. Such is the mode in which the common people, freed for the moment from all restraint, express the grief which they are supposed to feel at the death of their sovereign."[146]

[146] L. de Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii.
602.

The early missionaries to Hawaii also testified to the disorders which prevailed on these occasions, though they seem not to have witnessed them. From their accounts we gather that at such times the rights of property were as little respected as the chastity of women. "On such an occasion," says Stewart, "every restraint was cast off, and all were in the habit of following the impulse of any and every wild passion that might seize them. Rights of person or of property were no longer regarded; and he who had the greatest muscular powers committed whatever depredation he chose, and injured any one he thought proper. Even the chiefs lost their ordinary pre-eminence, and could exert no influence of restraint on the excesses of their subjects. It was the time of redressing private wrongs, by committing violence on the property and person of an enemy; and everything that any one possessed was liable to be taken from him. Their grief was expressed by the most shocking personal outrages, not only by tearing off their clothes entirely, but by knocking out their eyes and teeth with clubs and stones, and pulling out their hair, and by burning and cutting their flesh; while drunkenness, riot, and every species of debauchery continued to be indulged in for days after the death of the deceased."[147] To the same effect Ellis writes that "as soon as the chief had expired, the whole neighbourhood exhibited a scene of confusion, wickedness, and cruelty, seldom witnessed even in the most barbarous society. The people ran to and fro without their clothes, appearing and acting more like demons than human beings; every vice was practised, and almost every species of crime perpetrated. Houses were burnt, property plundered, even murder sometimes committed, and the gratification of every base and savage feeling sought without restraint. Injuries or accidents, long forgotten perhaps by the offending party, were now revenged with unrelenting cruelty."[148] According to Jarves, the early historian of Hawaii, on these occasions no women were exempt from violation except the widows of the deceased.[149]

[147] C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the Sandwich Islands_, pp.
165 _sq._

[148] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv. 177.

[149] J. J. Jarves, _History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich
Islands_, p. 66. Compare J. Remy, _op. cit._ p. xlvii.

Such outbursts of passion, released from all restraints of custom or law, are not unknown elsewhere on the occasion of a death. Among the Ba-ila of Northern Rhodesia it is customary at funerals for the women to sing lewd songs. "Under ordinary circumstances it would be reckoned taboo for women to utter such things in the presence of men; but at funerals all restraints are removed. People do as they like. Grass may be plucked out of the thatched roofs; the fields may be robbed of the growing corn; all passions are let loose; and no complaint for damage, theft, or adultery can be made. This last item used to be the case; nowadays fines are claimed."[150]

[150] E. W. Smith and A. M. Dale, _The Ila-speaking Peoples of
Northern Rhodesia_ (London, 1920), ii. 113 _sq._

The number of human victims sacrificed at the death of a chief varied with his rank. For a king of Hawaii the general number would seem to have been ten or twelve.[151] But when King Kamehameha died in 1819, the priest declared somewhat differently the custom in regard to human sacrifice on such an occasion. When the corpse had been removed from the king's own dwelling to a consecrated house for the performance of the proper rites, a sacred hog was baked and offered to it by the priest; for the dead king was now deemed to be a god. Then addressing the chiefs and the new king, the priest spoke as follows: "I will now make known to you the rules to be observed respecting persons to be sacrificed on the burial of his body. If you obtain one man before the corpse is removed, one will be sufficient; but after it leaves this house four will be required. If delayed until we carry the corpse to the grave, there must be ten; but after it is deposited in the grave, there must be fifteen. To-morrow morning there will be a tabu, and if the sacrifice be delayed until that time, forty men must die." However, on this occasion, no human blood was shed, but three hundred dogs were sacrificed.[152] The victims who were killed at the death of the king, princes, and distinguished chiefs, and were buried with their remains, belonged to the lowest class of society. In certain families the obligation of dying with the different members of such or such a noble house was hereditary, so that at the birth of a child it was known at whose death he must be sacrificed. The victims knew their destiny, and their lot seems to have had no terror for them.[153]

[151] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 145; U. Lisiansky, _op. cit._ p.
122.

[152] J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ pp. 189, 190. Compare J. Remy,
_op. cit._ pp. 125, 127; H. Bingham, _Residence of Twenty-one
Years in the Sandwich Islands_, p. 71.

[153] O. von Kotzebue, _Voyage of Discovery into the South Sea
and Beering's Straits_ (London, 1821), iii. 247.

At Honaunau, in the island of Hawaii, there was a sort of mausoleum in which the bones of dead kings and princes were deposited. For some reason it was spared in the general destruction of pagan monuments which took place in 1819, and it was still almost intact when the missionary Ellis visited and described it a few years later. It was a compact building, twenty-four feet long by sixteen feet wide, built of the most durable timber, and thatched with leaves. It stood on a bed of lava jutting out into the sea, and was surrounded by a strong fence, leaving a paved area in front and at the two ends. 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 a tree, others on high posts planted on the jutting rocks which overhung the edge of the water. A number of effigies stood on the fence at unequal distances all around; but the principal assemblage of idols was at the south-east end of the enclosed space, where twelve of them stood in a semicircle on a crescent-shaped basement of stone raised about two feet above the pavement. Some of them rested on small pedestals, others on pillars eight or ten feet high. The principal idol, distinguished by the variety and superiority of the carving on its body and especially on its head, stood in the middle, the others on either side of it, "as if perpetual guardians of 'the mighty dead' reposing in the house adjoining."[154]

[154] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv. 164 _sq._

When a death had taken place, the house in which it occurred, was deemed defiled, and continued in that state until after the burial. But if the deceased was a chief, the whole land was polluted, and the heirs sought a residence in another part of the country, until the corpse was dissected and the bones tied in a bundle; for when that was done the season of defilement terminated. Hence on the death of King Kamehameha, his son and successor, Liholiho, had to retire for a time to another district.[155]

[155] J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ p. 191; H. Bingham, _Residence of
Twenty-one Years in the Sandwich Islands_, pp. 71 _sq._; J.
Remy, _op. cit._ pp. 127, 129.

Sec. 10. _Fate of the Soul after Death_

The Hawaiians in general believed that the human soul exists after death, but their notions on the subject were, as usual, vague, confused, and contradictory. Some said that all the souls of the departed went to the Po, or place of night, and were there annihilated or eaten by the gods.[156] According to another account, the souls of the dead that had no claim to divinity fluttered about their old homes till the moment arrived when they became the food of the gods. It is not certain, adds de Freycinet, that they recognised the immortality of the soul in the case of persons of the lowest class.[157] Others said that some souls went to the regions of Akea (Wakea) and Miru (Milu), two ancient kings of Hawaii. Of these two, Akea was reported to have been the first king of the island. When he died, he descended into the nether world and there founded a kingdom. His successor on the throne of Hawaii, by name Miru or Milu, also descended into the underworld at death, and shared the government of the infernal realm with his predecessor Akea. Their land is a place of darkness, their food, lizards and butterflies. But there are streams of water of which they drink, and wide-spreading trees under which they recline.[158] Milu is described as the Hawaiian Pluto, the lord of the lower world to whose dominions departed spirits go. His abode was in the west, hence the ghosts of such as died on the eastern shore of an island always had to cross to the western shore before they could set out for their final place of rest in the spirit land. Some said that Milu had his dwelling under the ocean, and that he was the prince of wicked spirits.[159] However, according to some accounts, the two ancient kings, Milu and Akea, ruled over separate regions in the spirit land, which were tabooed to each other, so that nobody could pass from the one to the other. Akea or Wakea dwelt in the upper region, and there the souls of chiefs dwelt with him; whereas Milu occupied the muddy lower region, and there the souls of common folk abode with him. In the upper region all was peaceful and orderly, and there persons who had faithfully complied with the precepts of religion in life were received after death. On the other hand the lower region, ruled over by Milu, was noisy and disorderly; evil spirits played their pranks there, and the souls of the dead subsisted on lizards and butterflies.[160] When persons recovered from a death-like swoon, it was supposed that their souls had gone to the underworld and been sent back to earth by Milu. The best account of the spirit land was given by one who had spent eight days in it, and on returning to life reported to his family what he had seen. According to his observations, the spirit land is flat and fruitful, it is tolerably well lighted, and everything grows there spontaneously, so that, contrary to some reports, the palace of Milu is a really delightful place. Milu himself is not married to any one particular wife; but from time to time he chooses for his consorts the most beautiful of the female ghosts when they arrive in deadland, and the women thus honoured are naturally taboo for the male ghosts. All souls live there in exactly the same state in which they quitted their bodies. The souls of those who died young, especially of those who fell in battle, are hale and strong; whereas the souls of those who perished of disease are sickly and weak, and weak, too, are the souls of such as died in old age.[161]

[156] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 365 _sq._

[157] L. de Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii.
594.

[158] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 366; J. J. Jarves, _op. cit._ p.
38; A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, p. 262. Ellis gives
Miru as the form of the name, but the correct Hawaiian form is
Milu; for in the Hawaiian dialect the ordinary Polynesian R is
replaced by L. See E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative
Dictionary_, p. xxiii. In New Zealand and Mangaia the name Miru
was given to the goddess of hell or of the dead. See E. Tregear,
_op. cit._ pp. 243, 244, _s.v._ "Miru."

[159] E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, pp.
243 _sq._, _s.v._ "Miru."

[160] H. T. Cheever, _Life in the Sandwich Islands_ (London,
1851), p. 12; A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, pp. 264
_sqq._; A. Marcuse, _Die Hawaiischen Inseln_, p. 99.

[161] A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, p. 264.

There were three places in the islands from which the ghosts took their departure for the other world. One was at the northern extremity of the island of Hawaii; one was at the western end of Maui; and one was at the southern point of Oahu.[162] According to one account, the ghosts on their passage to Milu's subterranean realm went westward in the direction of the setting sun, and either leaped from a rock into the sea or vanished into a hole in the ground.[163]

[162] H. T. Cheever, _Life in the Sandwich Islands_, p. 12; A.
Marcuse, _Die Hawaiischen Inseln_, p. 99.

[163] A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, p. 265.

But before bidding a last farewell to earth, the soul of the deceased was believed to linger for a time in the neighbourhood of the grave or of the house. It had now become an _akua_ or divine spirit, but during its stay on earth it was dreaded as an _akua-lapu_ or "terrifying spirit," because it appeared to the living as a spectre or ghost. In time, however, it grew weaker and weaker and gradually disappeared altogether, like the other spirits (_akuas_). By that time it had found a guide to show it the way to Milu's realm, from which there is no return. Sometimes, however, the guardian god of a family would oppose the passage of a soul to the other world, and send it back to life, so that the seemingly dead man recovered.[164] It is said to have been a firmly established belief that the dead appeared to the living and communicated with them in dreams.[165] The priests in particular were favoured with such messages from the other world.[166]

[164] A. Bastian, _op. cit._ p. 266.

[165] L. de Freycinet, _Voyage autour du Monde, Historique_, ii.
594.

[166] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv. 367.

A legend tells how a certain chief of Hawaii, sorrowing for the death of his wife, applied to a priest, who furnished him with a god called Kane-i-kou-alii (God of Chiefs), to guide him to the nether world of Milu, whither his beloved spouse had departed. Journeying together, the god and the man came to the end of the world, where grew a tree, which split open and allowed them to glide down into the depths. There the god hid behind a rock and allowed the chief to go on alone, but first he rubbed stinking oil over the chief's body. On arriving at Milu's palace the chief found the whole court full of spirits engaged in such noisy and tumultuous sports, that he could steal in among them unobserved, all the more because the nearest spirits mistook him for a ghost newly arrived with the stench of his dead body still on him, so that they turned away from him in disgust and made uncomplimentary remarks on his unsavoury condition. When they had played all sorts of games, the chief suggested that, as a new form of sport, they should all take out their eyes and throw them in a heap. The suggestion was accepted, and every one hastened to comply with it. But the chief took care to mark where the eyes of Milu fell, and snatching them up he hid them in the coco-nut beaker which he carried with him. As all the spirits were now blind, it was easy for the chief to make his way to the neighbouring realm of Akea or Wakea, which was tabooed to the spirits that swarmed in Milu's kingdom and might not be entered by them. However, after long negotiations, Milu was allowed to recover his eyes, on condition that the soul of the chief's wife should be sent back to earth and reunited to her body, which was happily accomplished.[167]

[167] A. Bastian, _Inselgruppen in Oceanien_, pp. 265 _sq._

The Hawaiians were not without some notion of a general resurrection of the dead. When the missionary William Ellis was conversing with some of the natives on that subject, they said that they had heard of it before from a native priest named Kapihe, who had lived at their village in the time of King Kamehameha. The priest told the king that at his death he would see his ancestors, and that hereafter all the kings, chiefs, and people of Hawaii would live again. When Ellis asked them how this would be effected, and with what circumstances it would be attended, whether they would live again in Hawaii or in Miru (Milu), the Hades of the Sandwich Islands, they replied that there were two gods, who conducted the departed spirits of their chiefs to some place in the heavens, where the souls of kings and chiefs sometimes dwelt, and that afterwards the two divine conductors returned with the royal and princely souls to earth, where they accompanied the movements and watched over the destinies of their survivors. The name of one of these gods was Kaonohiokala, which means the eyeball of the sun; and the name of the other was Kuahairo. Now Kapihe was priest to the latter god, and professed to have received a revelation, in accordance with which he informed King Kamehameha that, when the monarch should depart this life, the god Kuahairo would carry his spirit to the sky and afterwards accompany it back to earth again, whereupon his body would be restored to life and youth; that he would have his wives again and resume his government in Hawaii; that at the same time the existing generation would see and know their parents and ancestors, and that all the people who had died would rise again from the dead.[168] It is to be feared, however, that the priest was a deceiver; for King Kamehameha has not yet come to life again, and up to the present time the general resurrection has not taken place in Hawaii.

[168] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv. 144 _sq._

That must conclude what I have to say about the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead in Polynesia, The notions which the Polynesians entertained on this subject cannot but strike a civilised European as childish, while the customs which they based on them must appear to him in great part foolish, even where they were not barbarous and cruel. How far such childish notions and foolish customs tend to confirm or to refute the widespread, almost universal, belief in the survival of the human soul after death, is a question which I must leave my readers to answer for themselves.

NOTE

TABOO AMOUNG THE MAORIS

The power which Maori chiefs possessed of imposing, or at all events of enforcing, a taboo seems not to have been quite so absolute as might perhaps be inferred from the statement in the text.[1] We are told that the power of the taboo mainly depended on the influence of the person who imposed it. If it were put on by a great chief, it would not be broken, but a powerful man often violated the taboo of an inferior. A chief, for example, would frequently lay one of these sacred interdicts on a road or a river, and then nobody would dare to go by either, unless he felt himself strong enough to set the chief's taboo at defiance. The duration of the taboo was arbitrary, and depended on the will of the person who imposed it. Similarly with the extent to which the prohibition applied: sometimes it was limited to a particular object, sometimes it embraced many: sometimes it was laid on a single spot, at other times it covered a whole district.[2]

[1] Above, p. 47.

[2] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its
Inhabitants_, Second Edition (London, 1870), p. 168. Compare J.
Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage autour du Monde et a la recherche de
la Perouse, Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 530.

To render a place taboo a chief had only to tie one of his old garments to a pole and stick it up on the spot which he proposed to make sacred, while at the same time he declared that the prohibited area was part of his own body, such as his backbone, or that it bore the name of one of his ancestors. In the latter case all the persons descended from that particular ancestor were in duty bound to rally to the defence of the chief's taboo, and the more distant the ancestor, and the more numerous his descendants, the greater the number of the champions thus pledged to the support of the family honour. Hence the longer a man's pedigree, the better chance he stood of maintaining his taboo against all comers, for the larger was the troop of adherents whom he enlisted in its defence. Thus chiefs, with family trees which reached backward to the gods, were in a far better position to make good their arbitrary interdicts than mere ordinary mortals, who hardly remembered their grandfathers. In this as in other respects the taboo was essentially an aristocratic institution.[3]

[3] R. Taylor, _op. cit._ p. 169.

INDEX

Abortions, spirits of, dreaded, 49 _n._^1

Adam, the Hawaiian, 393

Adoption among the Marquesans, 339

Aesculapius, the Hawaiian, 398

_Afiatouca_, burial-place, 102, 103

Agriculture of Maoris, 8 _sq._;
of the Tongans, 59 _sq._;
Samoan, 164 _sqq._;
of the Hervey Islanders, 221 _sq._;
of the Society Islanders, 249;
of the Hawaiians, 378 _sq._

Air, gods of the, 277

_Aitu_, Samoan gods embodied in visible objects, animals, birds, etc.,
182, 201, 207

Akaanga, a god, spreads a net to catch ghosts, 242, 244

Akea (Wakea), king of the nether world, 427, 428, 430

_Akua_, god, in the Hawaiian dialect, equivalent to _atua_, 392, 398

_Akuas_, spirits, 429

Alai Valoo, a Tongan god, 74

Alo Alo, a Tongan god, 71 _sq._

Altars in the Society Islands, 291

Amable, Father, Catholic missionary, 367

Ambler, English sailor, 84

Amusements of the Marquesans, 339 _sqq._

Ancestors worshipped by Maoris, 32 _sqq._;
skulls of, brought out at marriages, 288, 311

Ancestral spirits watch over the living, 33;
do not follow their kinsfolk among strangers, 34;
cause disease, 49;
worshipped by Society Islanders, 300, 315;
guardians of newly wedded pairs, 311

Angas, G. F., 48 _n._^1

Animals, gods in form of, 66, 92 _sqq._, 182 _sqq._;
deified spirits of men resident in, 227 _sq._;
worshipped in Hawaii, 401 _sqq._

Anointing a king of Samoa, 177

Anuanu, vale of, 376 _n._^2

_Ao_, titles of chiefs in Samoa, 172 _sq._

Apolima, Samoan island, 149, 151

Apparitions dreaded, 205, 217

Araia, 241, 242

Aremauku, starting-place for spirit-land, 239

Areois, Society of the, 259 _sqq._

_Arii taboo_, sacred chiefs, 387

_Ariki_, sacred chief, 41;
king, 224

Astronomy of priests, 293

_Atua_, the Polynesian word for god or spirit, 35, 36, 37, 41, 42, 44,
46, 64 _n._^3, 89, 277, 322, 323, 348, 349.
_Compare akua, eatooa, etua_

_Atuas_, consecrated feathers called, 291;
inspired priests called, 294;
great national gods, distinguished from _oramatuas tiis_, the
spirits of dead relatives, 324

Auraka, a burial cavern, 233, 237, 238, 241

Avaiki, subterranean region, home of the dead, 238, 239, 241, 243, 244

Axes or adzes of stone, 61, 180, 233, 251, 335, 382

Ba-ila, their licence at funerals, 425

Baessler, A., 221 _n._^1, 279 _n._^1, 285, 286, 374

Baganda, superstition as to twins among the, 270 _sq._

Baldness as penalty of impiety, 95;
the penalty of breach of taboo, 209 _sq._

Baluba, of the Congo, customs as to twins among the, 273

Banishment of chiefs in Samoa, 176

Banqueting-halls of the Marquesans, 343 _sq._

Baptism among the Maoris, 16

Bark-cloth, manufacture of, 61, 168, 222, 251 _sq._, 334, 381;
not made in time of mourning, 234 _sq._

Baronga, of S.E. Africa, their superstitions concerning twins,
268 _sq._

Barundi, of E. Africa, customs as to twins among the, 272 _sq._

Bastian, Adolf, on sun-worship, 131 _n._

Bathing after burial, 21;
of king at installation, 255 _n._^1;
after contact with a corpse, 313

Bats, goddess incarnate in, 185;
local deity, 196

Bay of Plenty, 23

Bennett, F. D., 332 _sq._, 359, 360, 372

Best, Elsdon, 6 _n._, 33, 35

Birds, gods incarnate in, 187 _sq._;
sacred, 228;
small land birds formerly oracular, 228;
gods in the form of, 277, 294;
worshipped in Hawaii, 402

Birth, a man's god determined at, 200 _sq._, 223;
ceremonies after a, 288

Blackened faces in mourning, 231, 235

Blood of chief sacred, 45 _sq._;
human, acceptable offering to deity, 188;
offered to the dead, 209;
of relatives offered to bride at marriage, 289;
of bride's mother offered to bridegroom, 289;
of mourners offered to the dead, 303, 304, 311

Bolotoo (Boolotoo, Bulotu), fabulous island, residence of Tongan gods
and of noble dead, 65, 66, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89 _sq._,
92, 93, 98, 135

Bones of Captain Cook worshipped, 396

---- of dead dug up, 21;
painted red, 21;
concealed, 21;
profaned, 21;
festival at removal of, 22;
burned, 23;
of sacrificial victims not broken, 291;
of famous men carried off by enemies, 311;
thrown into volcano, 400;
carried about by relatives, 419 _sq._;
hidden to prevent profanation, 420

---- of dead chiefs buried in temples (_morais_), 311;
hidden in caves, 312, 420

Boolotoo Katoa, a Tongan god, 94

Borabora, one of the Society Islands, 246, 281, 317

Bows and arrows, unknown to Maoris, 10;
used by the Society Islanders as an amusement, 252 _sq._;
unknown to the Marquesans, 335;
found among the Hawaiians, 383

Boxing-matches in mourning, 211

Branch plucked from sacred trees, 255 _n._^1

Bread-fruit the staple food of the Society Islanders, 249;
of the Rarotongans, 222;
and of the Marquesans, 333, 334

Breath of chief sacred, 45

Brenchley, J. L., 124, 125 _n._^1

Brown, Dr. George, 56, 161, 173 _n._^1, 201, 204, 206 _n._^1, 212,
213, 214, 216 _n._^2, 218

Buffoonery in mourning for the dead, 211

Burial, Maori modes of, 20 _sq._;
in house, 20, 27;
on a stage, 20, 21;
on a tree, 20 _sq._;
secret, 21;
and mourning, rites of, in Tonga, 132 _sqq._;
by night, 419

Burial customs in Samoa, 209 _sqq._;
in the Hervey Islands, 231 _sqq._;
in the Society Islands, 308 _sqq._;
in the Marquesas, 356 _sqq._;
in the Hawaiian Islands, 418 _sqq._

---- ground dreaded, 27

---- places (_morais_) of the Marquesans, 357 _sq._

Burying the sins of the dead, 305

Busoga, superstition as to twins in, 270

Cabri, J. Baptiste, 371

Cain, the Hawaiian, 393

Campbell, A., 385, 412 _n._^1, 415, 419, 423

Cannibalism, 26, 62, 158 _sq._;
in the Hervey Islands, 221

Canoe-shaped coffins, 20, 353, 356, 363

Canoes, Maori, 9;
Tongan, 59;
Marquesan, 337;
provided for the dead to enable them to reach the spirit land,
364 _sqq._

Caterpillars, servants of owl-god, 188

Caves, bones or bodies of dead deposited in, 22, 232, 233, 237, 312,
320 _sq._, 357, 418

Centipedes, family god in, 188 _sq._;
worshipped in Mangaia, 228

Ceremonies, magical, of Maoris, 13 _sq._;
observed at death, 19 _sqq._;
to facilitate passage of soul to other world, 24 _sqq._, 29;
magical, of Tongans, 67 _sq._;
observed for unburied dead, 205 _sq._;
of mourning in the Hervey Islands, 234 _sqq._;
at the inauguration of a king, 254 _sq._, 255 _n._^1;
over dead Areoi, 261;
after childbirth, 288;
at marriage, 288 _sq._;
for the protection of the living against ghosts, 305 _sqq._
_See_ Rites

Ceremony of anointing a king of Samoa, 177;
performed by parents of twins to fertilise plantains, 271

Chiefs descended from the gods, 29;
their souls immortal, 29;
tabooed, 41 _sqq._;
physical superiority of, 58 _sq._, 377 _sq._;
Samoan, 171 _sqq._;
deified, 204;
embalmed, 205;
in the Marquesas, 344;
in Hawaii, 384 _sq._

Chiefs' language in Samoa, 173 _sqq._

Chieftainship hereditary in Samoa, 176

Children sacrificed, 75 _sq._, 81 _sq._

Christianity in Tonga Islands, 60

Circumcision, in the Tonga Islands, 81;
in the Hervey Islands, 223 _sq._;
invented by god Rongo, 224

Civil lords and sacred kings in Mangaia, 224 _sq._

Clans, gods of, in animals or other natural objects, 94, 95 _sq._

Clavel, Dr., 338, 374

Cockles, god in, 183; prayers to cockle-god, 188

Coco-nuts, god in, 183; offered to the dead, 233

Coffins shaped like canoes, 20, 353, 356, 363

Collocot, E. E. V., 65 _n._^2, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98 _n._^1, 267 _n._^2

Comedies acted in mourning, 236

Commoners, the question of their souls, 66, 85

Communistic system in Samoa, 170 _sq._

Confession of sins, 189

Cook, Captain James, 1, 9, 53, 55, 57, 59, 60, 61 _n._^2, 63, 81, 86,
100, 102, 103, 104, 105, 111 _n._, 117, 123, 128,
129, 132, 246, 248, 249, 251, 257, 258 _n._^5, 262,
275, 277 _n._^2 and ^4, 279, 280, 282, 283, 293,
297, 304, 310, 314 _n._^3, 315, 321, 328, 331, 371,
375, 379, 382, 383, 391, 395 _sq._, 406, 407, 408

---- or Hervey Islands, 219 _sq._

Cooking in ovens of hot stones, 222, 379

Coral reefs, their formation, 55 _sq._

Corpses, sent adrift on the sea or exposed on stages, 210;
broken in pieces, 362;
flayed, 367 _sq._

Courage seated in liver, 85

Cousin marriage, 223

Creation, Hawaiian tradition of the, 393

Cremation among the Maoris, 23

Crickets, omens from, 231

Crimes, Tongan ideas about, 67

Crook, William P., first missionary to the Marquesas, 328, 349, 361,
372

Cruise, R. A., 31 _n._^2

_Curse of Manaia_, 12

Curses, Maori, 15;
Tongan, 67;
of sisters specially dreaded, 207

Customs observed at the birth of twins, 268 _sqq._
_See_ Burial customs, Ceremonies, Rites

Cuttings in mourning for the dead, 19, 208 _sq._, 231, 302, 309, 311,
353;
in Tonga, 133 _sqq._;
intention of the, 145 _sq._

Cuttle-fish, household god in, 184;
omens from, 190;
temple of, 195;
myth of the, 202 _sq._;
a god in Mangaia,228;
myth of Maui and the, 275

Dances at the birth of twins, 270 _sqq._;
funeral, 139, 353 _sq._;
of widow, 353, 354

Dancing among the Marquesans, 340 _sq._

---- -places of the Marquesans, 340 _sq._

Danger Island, 230

Darwin, Charles, on coral reefs, 55

De Sainson, 112

D'Urville, J. Dumont, 11, 58, 110, 123, 357 _n._^3, 359 _n._^3, 373

Dead, disposal of the bodies of the (Maori), 20 _sqq._;
buried in sitting posture, 20;
spirits of, appear in dreams, 31, 91 _sq._;
spirits of the dead become gods, 31;
taboo entailed by contact with the, 39,137 _sq._;
buried in _morais_, 117 _sqq._, 282 _sqq._, 311;
worship of the, in Samoa, 204 _sq._;
blood offered to the, 209;
buried with head to the east, 210;
buried with the head to the rising sun, 232;
songs sung in honour of the, 236;
buried in sitting posture, 262;
images of spirits of the, 287 _sq._, 313 _sq._, 324 _sq._;
blood of mourners offered to the, 303, 304, 311;
fear of the spirits of the, 304 _sq._;
disposal of the, in the Society Islands, 308 _sqq._;
souls of the, in images, 313 _sq._;
worship of the, in the Society Islands, 322 _sqq._;
assimilated to deities, 327;
disposal of the, among the Marquesans, 356 _sqq._;
in the Hawaiian Islands, 418 _sqq._;
evocation of the, 370 _sq._;
buried in crouching posture, 418.
_See_ Ghosts

---- men deified, 276

Death, Maori notion as to the cause of, 16;
stories as to the origin of, 16 _sqq._, 392;
Maori goddess of, 18;
fate of the soul after, 24 _sqq._, 85 _sqq._, 213 _sqq._,
238 _sqq._, 313 _sqq._, 363 _sqq._, 427 _sqq._;
the second, 29;
theories of the Society Islanders concerning, 299 _sqq._;
Marquesan contempt for, 352 _sq._;
Hawaiian beliefs and customs concerning,417 _sqq._

Deaths caused by the anger of the gods or by sorcery, 229;
traced to the agency of gods or sorcerers, 405

Decadence of magic, 68

Deification of ancestors, 33, 35;
of kings in their lifetime, 255;
of dead men, 276;
of men after death, 351 _sq._, 397;
of animals, 402

Deified kings, priests, and warriors, 227

---- men, 276, 349;
the spirits of,resident in animals, 228

---- spirits of chiefs, 204

Deities, primaeval, personifications of nature, 32, 34

Deity, Maori conception of, 35 _sq._

Democratic spirit of Samoans, 171, 175

Desgraz, C., 118, 358, 373

Despotism in Hawaii, 63

Dieffenbach, E., 6 _n._^2, 8 _n._, 48 _n._^1

Diet of the Samoans, 164 _sq._;
of the Hervey Islanders, 222;
of the Society Islanders, 249;
of the Marquesans, 333 _sq._;
of the Hawaiians, 378 _sq._

Dirges in the Hervey Islands, 235 _sq._

Disease, caused by souls of ancestors, 49;
and death ascribed to agency of gods, spirits, or ghosts, 206 _sq._,
217;
theories of the Society Islanders concerning, 299 _sqq._;
of the Marquesans concerning, 325.
_See_ Sickness

Disorders, internal, supposed to be caused by entrance of a god into
the patient, 351

District gods, 182, 185

Divination, in Samoa, 190 _sq._;
to detect thieves, 298, 406;
to ascertain the cause of death, 301

Diviners consulted before battle, 397, 414;
Hawaiian, 404 _sq._, 414, 417

Division of labour among the Samoans, 166 _sqq._

Dogs, sacred, 94;
omens from, 190;
eaten, 379;
sacrificed, 405, 426

Doobludha, land of dead, 86

Dramatic performances of the Areois, 259 _sq._, 263, 266 _n._^4

Dreamers held in repute, 320

Dreams, Maori theories of, 12;
souls of the dead appear in, 31, 91 _sq._;
Samoan theory of, 205;
ideas of the Hervey Islanders concerning, 229;
ideas of the Society Islanders concerning, 297 _sq._;
souls of the dead communicate with the living in, 320, 429;
Marquesan ideas about, 352;
revelations to priests in, 405, 429;
Hawaiian ideas about, 417

Drums, special, beaten after the birth of twins, 271;
accompanying dances, 342, 354

Du Petit-Thouars, 373

Duke of York Island, 212

Earth cleft with axes, as a mourning rite, 235 _sq._;
fished up from the sea by Maui, 275

Earthquakes, Tongan theory of, 72;
caused by Maui, 275

_Eatooas_, gods, spirits of the dead, 277 _n._^4, 300, 322, 391, 392,
402.
See _Atua_

Eclipses, superstitions as to, 287

Eel-god, 227

Eels sacred, 95, 182, 184, 185

Eimeo or Mooerea, one of the Society Islands, 246, 266

Ella, S., 206 _n._^1, 212

Ellis, William, 117, 118 _n._^1, 247, 249, 256 _sq._, 262, 265 _n._,
267 _n._^2, 276, 277, 284, 286 _n._^5, 290 _n._^3,
292, 295, 298 _n._^2, 308 _n._^1, 311, 314 _n._^1,
315, 319, 323, 327, 401, 409, 410, 411, 419, 424,
426, 430, 431

Embalmment of the dead, 117, 205;
in Samoa, 210, 213;
in the Society Islands, 309, 310 _sqq._;
in the Marquesas, 356 _sq._;
in Hawaii, 418

Erskine, J. E., 114

Ethical influence of the Tongan religion, 146 _sq._

_Etua_, a god, 348.
Compare _Atua_

Eua, one of Tonga Islands, 52, 123

Euhemerism, 69

Eve, the Hawaiian, 393

Evocation of the dead, 370 _sq._

Exogamy, Samoan religious system independent of, 201;
in the Hervey Islands, 223

Exorcisers, 351

Exorcism practised for the healing of the sick, 206 _sq._, 417 _sq._

Expiation for sacrilege, 74 _sqq._;
for eating sacred animal, 184, 185

Eye, spirit or soul thought to reside in, 42, 417;
of human victim presented to king, 292

Fafa, subterranean abode of the dead, 215

Fakaofo or Bowditch Island, 394

Family gods embodied in visible objects, 182 _sqq._;
analogous to totems, 200

Fan or Fang, of West Africa, their superstition about a twin, 269

Farmer, Sarah S., 57 _n._^1, 61 _n._, 92, 97, 111 _n._

Fasting after a death, 210, 355

Fate of the soul after death, 213 _sqq._, 238 _sqq._, 313 _sqq._,
363 _sqq._, 427 _sqq_.

Fear of the dead, its humanising influence, 300;
of ghosts, 369 _sq._, 419.
_See_ Ghosts

Feast of Calabashes, 354

Feasts, funeral, 144, 355, 362 _sq._, 366;
annual, in honour of the gods, 187 _sq._
_See_ Festivals

Feathers, sacred red, 254;
gods conjured into, 265;
placed in images of the gods, 290 _sq._;
called gods, 291

Female line, nobility traced in, 75

Ferry-boat for souls of dead, 26

Fertilising virtue attributed to twins, 269 _sqq._

Festival, great annual, 289;
called "the ripening of the year," 326 _sq._

Festivals, of the Samoans, 188;
of the Marquesans, 341 _sq._;
Hawaiian, 414 _sqq._
_See_ Feasts

_Fiatooka_, place of burial and of worship, 103, 104, 105, 109, 116,
120, 132, 133

Fijian influence in Tonga, 59

Fingers mutilated in mourning, 19;
sacrificed, 80 _sq._

Finow, king of Tonga, 79, 80, 81, 82, 91, 92, 103, 105, 120, 121, 135,
136, 137, 139, 140;
obsequies of, 135 _sqq._

Finow the Second, king of Fiji, 135

Fire, Polynesian knowledge of, 56 _sq._;
kindled by friction of wood, 181;
robbed by Ti'iti'i from Mafuie, 203;
kept up in house after a death, 209, 212;
first brought to men by Maui, 226, 239;
hidden in wood by Mauike, 238;
stick and groove method of kindling, invented by Maui, 275, 335;
stolen by Maui, 350;
first given to men by Maui, 396

Fires not kindled near house of death, 355;
extinguished during periods of strict taboo, 389

First-born sons, sacrifice of, 89

First-fruits, offerings of, in Tonga, 122;
in the Society Islands, 257;
of taro presented to eel-god, 188

Fish, sacrifices of, 257, 291;
human victims called fish, 292;
worshipped, 402;
offered to shark god, 402

---- hooks made out of bones of dead, 21, 23, 311 _sq._

Fishing, modes of, 252, 337, 379

Flax cultivated by Maoris, 9

Flaying the dead, custom of, 367 _sq._

Flood, tradition of a great, 393, 394

Flying-foxes, gods in, 96;
incarnations of war-god, omens from, 190

_Fono_, representative assembly, parliament, 159, 179

Food buried with the dead, 24, 232;
not to be touched by tabooed person with his hands, 38, 44, 45, 137,
138, 209, 312;
not eaten in a house so long as a corpse is in it, 209;
offered at tomb, 362

Footprints in magic, 15

Forbes, Dr. Charles, 12

Forster, George, 262, 283, 287 _n._, 397, 314, 331

Forster, J. R., 117 _n._^1, 278 _n._^1, 287 _n._, 314, 323 _n._^1

Foundation sacrifices, 292

Fowls bred and eaten, 379

Freycinet, L. de, 423, 427

Friendly Islands. _See_ Tonga

Funeral dances, 139, 353 _sq._;
feasts, 144, 355, 362 _sq._, 366

---- games in Tonga, 140, 144;
in the Hervey Islands, 235 _sq._

---- rites in the Hervey Islands, 231 _sqq._

Futtafaihe or Fatafehi, family name of the Tuitongas, 108, 109

_Fytoca_, grave, burial-place, 67, 82, 102, 103, 137, 139, 141

G----, Father Mathias, 373

Games, funeral, in honour of the dead, 140, 144, 235;
athletic, at religious festivals, 188

Garment, evil magic wrought through, 67

Gerland, G., 266 _n._^4

Ghost personated by priest or kinsman, 306 _sqq._