[begin page 493]
CHAPTER 72
In the breezy morning we went ashore and visited the ruined temple of the
lostⒶ godⒶ LonoⒺ. TheⒶ high chief cook of this temple—the priest who presided over it and roasted the human
sacrifices—was uncle to
ObookiahⒶ, and at one time that youth was an apprentice-priest under him. ObookiahⒶ was a young native of fine mind, who, together with three other native boys, was
taken to New England by the captain of a
whaleship during the reign of Kamehameha I, and theyⒶ were the means of attracting the attention of the religious world to their country. This
resulted in the sending ofⒶ missionaries thereⒺ. And this ObookiahⒶ was the very same sensitive savage who sat down on the church steps and wept because his
people did not have the BibleⒺ. That incident has been very elaborately painted in many
a charming Sunday schoolⒶ book—aye, and told so plaintively and so tenderly that I have cried over it in Sunday
schoolⒶ myself, on general principles, although at a time when I did not know much and could
not understand why the people of the
Sandwich Islands needed to worry so muchⒶ about it as long as they did not know there was a Bible at all.Ⓐ
ObookiahⒶ was converted and educated, and was to have returned to his native land with the
first missionaries, had he lived. The other native youths made the voyageⒺ, and two of them
did good service, but the third,
WilliamⒶ Kanui, fell from grace afterward, for a time, and when the gold excitement broke
out in California he journeyed thither and went
to mining, although he was fifty years old. He succeeded pretty well, but the failure
of Page, Bacon & Co. relieved him of six thousand dollarsⒶ, and then, to all intents and purposes, he was a bankrupt in his old age and he resumed
service in the pulpit again. He died in Honolulu in 1864.Ⓔ
Ⓐ.
Quite a broad tract of land near the templeⒶ, extending from the sea to the mountain top, was sacred to the god Lono in olden
[begin page 494] times—so
sacred that if a common native set his sacrilegious foot upon it it was judiciousⒶ for him to make his will, because his time hadⒶ come. He might go around it by water, but he could not cross it. It was well sprinkled
with pagan temples and stocked with
awkward, homely idols carved out of logs of wood. There was a temple devoted to prayers
for rain—and with fineⒶ sagacity it was placed at a point so well up on the mountain side that if you prayed
there twenty-four times a day for rain you
would be likely to get it every time. You would seldom get to your Amen before you
would have to hoist your umbrella.
AndⒶ there was a large temple near at hand which was built in a single night, in the midst
of storm and thunder and rain, by the
ghastly hands of dead men! Tradition says that by the weirdⒶ glare of the lightning a noiseless multitude of phantoms were seen at their strange
labor far up the mountain side at dead of
night—flitting hither and thither and bearing great lava blocksⒶ clasped in their nerveless fingers—appearing and disappearing as the pallid
lustreⒶ fell upon their formsⒶ and faded away again. Even to this day, it is said, the natives hold this dread structure
in awe and reverence, and will not
pass by it in the night.
AtⒶ noon I observed a bevy of nude native young ladies bathing in the sea, and went and sat down
on their clothes to keep them from [begin page 495] being stolen. I begged them to come out, for the sea was rising and I
was satisfied that they were running some risk. But they were not afraid, and presently
went on with their sport. They were finished
swimmers and divers, and enjoyed themselves to the last degree. They swam races, splashed
and ducked and tumbled each other about, and
filled the air with their laughter. It is said that the first thing an Islander learns
is how to swim; learning to walk being a matter
of smaller consequence, comes afterward. One hears tales of native men and women swimming
ashore from vessels many miles at
sea—more miles, indeed, than I dare vouch for or even mention. And they tell of a
native diver who went down in thirty or
forty-foot waters and brought up an anvil! I think he swallowed the anvil afterward,
if my memory serves me. However I will not urge
this pointⒺ.Ⓔ
Ⓐ
I have spoken, several
times, of the god Lono—I may as well furnish two or three sentences concerning him.Ⓐ
The idol the natives worshippedⒶ for him was a slender, unornamented staff twelve feet long. TraditionⒶ says he was a favorite god on the island of Hawaii—a great king who had been deified
for meritorious services—just
our own fashion of rewarding heroes, with the difference that we would have made him
a Postmaster instead of a god, no doubt. In an
angry moment he slew his wife, a goddess named Kaikilani AliiⒶ. Remorse of conscience drove him mad, and tradition presents us the singular spectacle
of a god traveling “on the shoulder;”Ⓔ for in his gnawing grief he wandered
about [begin page 496] from place to place boxing and wrestling with all whom he met. Of course this pastime
soon lost its
novelty, inasmuch as it must necessarily have been the case that when so powerful
a deity sent a frail human opponent “to
grass” he never came back any more. Therefore, he instituted games called makahiki, and
ordered that they should be held in his honorⒺ, and then sailed for foreign lands on a
three-cornered raftⒺ, stating that he would return some day—Ⓐ and that was the last of Lono. He was never seen any more; his raft got swamped,
perhaps.Ⓐ But the people always expected his return, and thusⒶ they were easily led to accept Capt.Ⓐ Cook as the restored god.
SomeⒶ of the old natives believed Cook was Lono to the day of their death; but many did
not, for they could not understand how he
could die if he was a god.
OnlyⒶ a mile or so from Kealakekua Bay is a spot of historic interest—the place where the
last battle was fought for idolatryⒺ. Of course we visited it, and came away as wise as
most people do who go and gaze upon such mementoes of the past when in an unreflective
mood.
While the first missionaries were on their way around the Horn, the idolatrous customs
which had
obtained in the IslandsⒶ as far back as tradition reached were suddenly broken up. Old Kamehameha I was dead,
and his
son, Liholiho, the new King, was a free liver, a roystering, dissolute fellow, and
hated the restraints of the ancient tabu. His assistant in the Government, Kaahumanu, the Queen dowager, was proud and high-spirited,
and hated the tabu because it restricted the privileges of her sex and degraded all women very nearly
to the level of brutes. So
the case stood. Liholiho had halfⒶ a mind to put his foot down,
KaahumanuⒶ had a whole mind to badger him into doing itⒺ, and whisky did the rest. It was
probably the firstⒶ time whisky ever prominently figured as an aid to civilization. Liholiho came up to Kailua as
drunk as a piperⒺ, and attended a great feast; the determined Queen spurred his drunken
courage up to a reckless pitch, and then, while all the multitude stared in blank
dismay, he moved deliberately forward and sat down
with the women! They saw him eat from the same vessel with them, and were appalled!
Terrible moments drifted slowly by, and still the
King ate, still he lived, still the lightnings of the insulted [begin page 497] gods were withheld! Then conviction came
like a revelation—the superstitions of a hundred generations passed from before the
people like a cloud, and a shout went up,
“The tabu is broken! the tabu is broken!”
Thus did King Liholiho and his dreadful whisky preach the first sermon and prepare
the way for
the new gospel that was speeding southward over the waves of the Atlantic.
The tabu broken and destruction failing to follow the awful sacrilege,
the people, with that childlike precipitancy which has always characterized them,
jumped to the conclusion that their gods were a weak
and wretched swindle, just as they formerly jumped to the conclusion that Capt.Ⓐ Cook was no god, merely because he groaned, and promptly killed him without stopping
to inquire whether a god might not groan as
well as a man if it suited his convenienceⒶ to do it; and satisfied that the idols were powerless to protect themselves they
went to work at once and pulled them
down—hacked them to pieces—applied the torch—annihilated them!
The pagan priests were furious. And well they might be; they had [begin page 498] held the fattest offices in the land, and now they were beggared; they had been great—they
had stood above the
chiefs—and now they were vagabonds. They raised a revolt; they scared a number of people into
joining their standard, and KekuokalaniⒶ, an ambitious offshoot of royalty, was easily persuaded to become their leader.
In the first skirmish the idolaters triumphed over the royal army sent against them,
and full of
confidence they resolved to march upon Kailua. The King sent an envoy to try and conciliate
them, and came very near being an envoy
short by the operation; the savages not only refused to listen to him, but wanted
to kill him. So the King sent his men forth under
Major General Kalaimoku and the two hosts met at Kuamoo. The battle was long and fierce—men
and women fighting side by side, as
was the custom—and when the day was done the rebels were flying in every direction
in hopeless panic, and idolatry and the tabu were dead in the landⒺ!
The royalists marched gayly home to Kailua glorifying the new dispensation. “There
is no
power in the gods,” said they; “they are a vanity and a lie. The army with idols was
weak; the army without idols was
strong and victorious!”
The nation was without a religion.
The missionary ship arrived in safety shortly afterwardⒺ, timed by providential exactness to meet the emergency, and the gospel was planted
as in a
virgin soilⒺ.
Editorial Emendations CHAPTER 72
Ⓐ
CHAPTER 72 . . . The (C) •
CHAPTER LXXII. . . . The (A)
indented from right
Kealakekua
Bay, July, 1866.
centered
A Funny Scrap of
History. [¶] In my last I spoke of the old cocoanut stump, all covered with copper plates
bearing inscriptions commemorating
the visits of various British naval commanders to Captain Cook’s death-place at Kealakekua
Bay. The most magniloquent of these
is that left by “the Right Hon. Lord George Paulet, to whom, as the representative
of Her Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria, the
Sandwich Islands were ceded, February 25, 1843.” [¶] Lord George, if he is alive yet,
would like to tear off that plate
and destroy it, no doubt. He was fearfully snubbed by his Government, shortly afterward,
for his acts as Her Majesty’s
representative upon the occasion to which he refers with such manifest satisfaction.
[¶] A pestilent fellow by the name of
Charlton had been Great Britain’s Consul at Honolulu for many years. He seems to have
employed his time in sweating, fuming and
growling about everything and everybody; in acquiring property by devious and inscrutable
ways; in blackguarding the Hawaiian
Government and the missionaries; in scheming for the transfer of the islands to the
British crown; in getting the King drunk and
laboring diligently to keep him so; in working to secure a foothold for the Catholic
religion when its priests had been repeatedly
forbidden by the King to settle in the country; in promptly raising thunder every
time an opportunity offered, and in making himself
prominently disagreeable and a shining nuisance at all times. [¶] You will thus perceive
that Charlton had a good deal of
business on his hands. There was “a heap of trouble on the old man’s mind.” [¶] He
was sued in the Courts
upon one occasion for a debt of long standing, amounting to £3,000, and judgment rendered
against him. This made him lively. He
swore like the army in Flanders. But it was of no avail. The case was afterwards carefully
examined twice—once by a Commission
of distinguished English gentlemen and once by the law officers of the British Crown—and
the Hawaiian Court’s decision
sustained in both instances. His property was attached, and one Skinner, a relative
who had $10,000 in bank, got ready to purchase it
when it should be sold on execution. So far, so good. [¶] Several other English residents
had been worsted in lawsuits. They and
Charlton became loud in their denunciation of what they termed a want of justice in
the Hawaiian Courts. The suits were all afterwards
examined by the law officers of the British Crown, and the Hawaiian Courts sustained,
as in Charlton’s case. [¶] Charlton
got disgusted, wrote a “sassy” letter to the King, and left suddenly for England,
conferring his Consulate, for the time
being, upon a kindred spirit named Simpson, a bitter traducer of the Hawaiian Government—an
officer whom the Government at once
refused to recognize. Charlton left with Simpson a demand upon the Government for
possession of a large and exceedingly valuable tract
of land in Honolulu, alleged to have been transferred to him by a deed duly signed
by a native gentleman, who had never owned the
property, and whose character for probity was such that no one would believe he ever
would have been guilty of such a proceeding.
Charity compels us to presume that the versatile Charlton forged the deed. The boundaries,
if specified, were vaguely defined; it
contained no mention of a consideration for value received; it had been held in abeyance
and unmentioned for twenty years, and its
signer and witnesses were long since dead. It was a shaky instrument altogether. [¶]
On his way to England Charlton met my Lord
George in a Queen’s ship, and laid his grievances before him, and then went on. My
Lord sailed straight to Honolulu and began
to make trouble. Under threats of bombarding the town, he compelled the King to make
the questionable deed good to the person having
charge of Charlton’s property interests; demanded the reception of the new Consul;
demanded that all those suits—a great
number—which had been decided adversely to Englishmen (including many which had even
been settled by amicable arbitration
between the parties) should be tried over again, and by juries composed entirely of
Englishmen, although the written law provided that
but half the panel should be English, and therefore, of course, the demand could not
be complied with without a tyrannical assumption
of power by the King; he stopped the seizure and sale of Charlton’s property; he brought
in a little bill (gotten up by the
newly-created and promptly-emasculated Consul, Simpson) for $117,000 and some odd
change—enough to “bust” the
Hawaiian exchequer two or three times over—to use a popular missionary term—for all
manner of imaginary damages
sustained by British subjects at divers and sundry times, and among the items was
one demanding $3,000 to indemnify Skinner for having
kept his $10,000 lying idle for four months, expecting to invest it in Charlton’s
property, and then not getting a chance to do
it on account of Lord George having stopped the sale. An exceedingly nice party was
Lord George, take him all around. [¶] For
days and nights together the unhappy Kamehameha III was in bitterest distress. He
could not pay the bill, and the law gave him no
power to comply with the other demands. He and his Ministers of State pleaded for
mercy—for time to remodel the laws to suit
the emergency. But Lord George refused steadfastly to accede to either request, and
finally, in tribulation and sorrow, the King told
him to take the islands and do with them as he would; he knew of no other way—his
Government was too weak to maintain its
rights against Great Britain. [¶] And so Lord George took them and set up his Government,
and hauled down the royal Hawaiian
ensign and hoisted the English colors over the archipelago. And the sad King notified
his people of the event in a proclamation which
is touching in its simple eloquence: [¶] “Where are you, chiefs, people and commons
from my ancestors, and people from
foreign lands! [¶] “Hear ye! I make known to you that I am in perplexity by reason
of difficulties into which I have been
brought without cause; therefore I have given away the life of our land, hear ye!
But my rule over you, my people, and your privileges
will continue, for I have hope that the life of the land will be restored when my
conduct is justified.
indented from right KAMEHAMEHA III.” [¶] And then, I suppose, my Lord George
Paulet, temporary King of the Sandwich Islands, went complacently skirmishing around
his dominions in his ship, and feeding fat on
glory—for we find him, four months later, visiting Kealakekua Bay and nailing
his rusty sheet of copper
to the memorial stump set up to glorify the great Cook—and imagining, no doubt, that
his visit had conferred immortality upon a
name which had only possessed celebrity before. [¶] But my lord’s happiness was not
to last long. His superior officer,
Rear Admiral Thomas, arrived at Honolulu a week or two afterward, and as soon as he
understood the case he immediately showed the new
Government the door and restored Kamehameha to all his ancient powers and privileges.
It was the 31st of July, 1843. There was immense
rejoicing on Oahu that day. The Hawaiian flag was flung to the breeze. The King and
as many of his people as could get into the Great
Stone Church went there to pray, and the balance got drunk. The 31st of July is Independence
Day in the Sandwich Islands, and
consequently in these times there are two grand holidays in the Islands in the month
of July. The Americans celebrate the 4th with
great pomp and circumstance, and the natives outdo them if they can, on the 31st—and
the speeches disgorged upon both occasions
are regularly inflicted in cold blood upon the people by the newspapers, that have
a dreary fashion of coming out just a level week
after one has forgotten any given circumstance they talk about.
centered
A Lucrative Office. [¶] When I woke up on the schooner’s deck in the morning, the
sun was shining down right fervently, everybody was astir, and Brown was gone—gone
in a canoe to Captain Cook’s side of
the bay, the Captain said. I took a boat and landed on the opposite shore, at the
port of entry. There was a house there—I mean
a foreigner’s house—and near it were some native grass huts. The Collector of this
port of entry not only enjoys the
dignity of office, but has emoluments also. That makes it very nice, of course. He
gets five dollars for boarding every foreign ship
that stops there, and two dollars more for filling out certain blanks attesting such
visit. As many as three foreign ships stop there
in a single year, sometimes. Yet, notwithstanding this wild rush of business, the
late Collector of the port committed suicide several
months ago. The foreign ships which visit this place are whalers in quest of water
and potatoes. The present Collector lives back
somewhere—has a den up the mountain several thousand feet—but he comes down fast enough
when a ship heaves in sight.
centered
Washoe Men. [¶] I found two Washoe
men at the house. But I was not surprised; I believe if a man were to go to perdition
itself he would find Washoe men there, though
not so thick, maybe, in the other place.
centered
The
Holy Place. [¶] Two hundred yards from the house was the ruins of the pagan temple of Lono, so
desecrated by Captain Cook
when he was pretending to be that deity. Its low, rude walls look about as they did
when he saw them, no doubt. In a cocoanut grove
near at hand is a tree with a hole through its trunk, said to have been made by a
cannon ball fired from one of the ships at a crowd
of natives immediately after Cook’s murder. It is a very good hole.
centered
The Hero of the Sunday School Books. [¶] The (SU)
Ⓐ
Obookiah (C) •
Obookia (SU)
Ⓐ
Obookiah (C) •
Obookia (SU)
Ⓐ
country. This resulted in the sending of (A) •
country and putting it into their heads to send (SU)
Ⓐ
Obookiah (C) •
Obookia (SU)
Ⓐ
school (C) •
School (SU)
Ⓐ
school (C) •
School (SU)
Ⓐ
needed to worry so much (A) •
need care a cent (SU)
Ⓐ
all. (A) •
all. This was the same Obookia—this was the very same old Obookia—so I reflected,
and gazed upon the ruined
temple with a new and absorbing interest. Here that gentle spirit worshiped; here
he sought the better life, after his rude fashion;
on this stone, perchance, he sat down with his sacred lasso, to wait for a chance
to rope in some neighbor for the holy sacrifice; on
this altar, possibly, he broiled his venerable grandfather, and presented the rare
offering before the high priest, who may have said,
“Well done, good and faithful servant.” It filled me with emotion.
centered
Kanui the Unfortunate.
(SU)
Ⓐ
Obookiah (C) •
Obookia (SU)
Ⓐ
six thousand dollars (A) •
$6,000 (SU)
Ⓐ
in his . . . 1864. (A) •
community. Thus, after all his toils, all his privations, all his faithful endeavors
to gather together a competence, the
blighting hand of poverty was laid upon him in his old age and he had to go back to
preaching again. One cannot but feel sad to
contemplate such afflictions as these cast upon a creature so innocent and deserving.
[¶] And finally he died—died in
Honolulu in 1864. The Rev. Mr. Damon’s paper, referring—in the obituary notice—to
Page-Bacon’s unpaid
certificates of deposit in the unhappy man’s possession, observes that “he departed
this life leaving the most
substantial and gratifying evidence that he was prepared to die.” And so he was, poor
fellow, so he was. He was cleaned out, as
you may say, and he was prepared to go. He was all ready and prepared—Page-Bacon had
attended to that for him. All he had to do
was to shed his mortal coil. Then he was all right. Poor, poor old fellow. One’s heart
bleeds for him. [¶] For some time
after his bereavement in the matter of finances, he helped Rev. M. Rowell to carry
on the Bethel Church in San Francisco and gave
excellent satisfaction for a man who was so out of practice. Sleep in peace, poor
tired soul!—you were out of luck many a time
in your long, checkered life, but you are safe now where care and sorrow and trouble
can never assail you any more.
centered
Temple to the Rain God
(SU)
Ⓐ
the temple (A) •
that port of entry (SU)
Ⓐ
judicious (A) •
time (SU)
Ⓐ
And (A) •
centered
The House Built by the Dead
Men. [¶] And (SU)
Ⓐ
lava blocks (C) •
lava-blocks (SU)
Ⓐ
pallid lustre (A) •
fitful lightning (SU)
Ⓐ
forms (A) •
pallid forms (SU)
Ⓐ
At (A) •
centered
Venus at the Bath.
[¶] At (SU)
Ⓐ
and . . . point. (A) •
down to look at them. But with a prudery which seems to be characteristic of that
sex everywhere, they all plunged in
with a lying scream, and when they rose to the surface they only just poked their
heads out and showed no disposition to proceed any
further in the same direction. I was naturally irritated by such conduct, and there
| fore I piled their clothes
up on a bowlder in the edge of the sea and sat down on them and kept the wenches in
the water until they were pretty well used up. I
had them in the door, as the missionaries say. I was comfortable, and I just let them
beg. I thought I could freeze them out, may be,
but it was impracticable. I finally gave it up and went away, hoping that the rebuke
I had given them would not be lost upon
them
I went and undressed and went in myself. And then they went out. I never saw such
singular perversity. Shortly
a party of children of both sexes came floundering around me, and then I quit and
left the Pacific ocean in their possession,
centered
The Shameless Brown. [¶] I got uneasy
about Brown finally, and as there were no canoes at hand, I got a horse whereon to
ride three or four miles around to the other side
of the bay and hunt him up. As I neared the end of the trip, and was riding down the
“pathway of the gods” toward the
sea in the sweltering sun, I saw Brown toiling up the hill in the distance, with a
heavy burden on his shoulder, and knew that canoes
were scarce with him, too. I dismounted and sat down in the shade of a crag, and after
a while—after numerous pauses to rest by
the way—Brown arrived at last, fagged out, and puffing like a steamboat, and gently
eased his ponderous burden to the
ground—the cocoanut stump all sheathed with copper memorials to the illustrious Captain
Cook. [¶] “Heavens and
earth!” I said, “what are you going to do with that?” [¶] “Going to do with it!—lemme
blow a
little—lemme blow—it’s monstrous heavy, that log is; I’m most tired out—going to do
with it! Why,
I’m going to take her home for a specimen.” [¶] “You egregious ass! March straight
back again and put it
where you got it. Why, Brown, I am surprised at you—and hurt. I am grieved to think
that a man who has lived so long in the
atmosphere of refinement which surrounds me can be guilty of such vandalism as this.
Reflect, Brown, and say if it be right—if
it be manly—if it be generous—to lay desecrating hands upon this touching tribute
of a great nation to her gallant dead?
Why, Brown, the circumnavigator Cook labored all his life in the service of his country;
with a fervid soul and a fearless spirit, he
braved the dangers of the unknown seas and planted the banner of England far and wide
over their beautiful island world. His works
have shed a glory upon his native land which still lives in her history to-day; he
laid down his faithful life in her service at last,
and, unforgetful of her son, she yet reveres his name and praises his deeds—and in
token of her love, and in reward for the
things he did for her, she has reared this monument to his memory—this symbol of a
nation’s gratitude—which you
would defile with unsanctified hands. Restore it—go!” [¶] “All right, if you say so;
but I don’t see
no use of such a spread as you’re making. I don’t see nothing so very high-toned about
this old rotten chunk.
It’s about the orneryest thing for a monument I’ve ever struck yet. If it suits Cook,
though, all right; I wish him joy;
but if I was planted under it I’d highst it, if it was the last act of my life. Monument!
it ain’t fit for a
dog—I can buy dead loads of just such for six bits. She puts this over Cook—but she
put one over that
foreigner—what was his name?—Prince Albert—that cost a million dollars—and what did
he do? Why, he never done anything—never done anything but lead a gallus, comfortable
life, at home and out of danger,
and raise a large family for Government to board at £300,000 a year apiece. But with
this fellow, you know, it was different.
However, if you say the old stump’s got to go down again, down she goes. As I said
before, if its your wishes, I’ve got
nothing to say. Nothing only this—I’ve fetched her a mild or a mild and a half, and
she weighs a hundred and fifty I
should judge, and if it would suit Cook just as well to have her planted up here instead
of down there, it would be considerable of a
favor to me.” [¶] I made him shoulder the monument and carry it back, nevertheless.
His criticisms on the monument and its
patron struck me, though, in spite of myself
The creature has got no sense, but his vaporings sound strangely
plausible sometimes. [¶] In due time we arrived at the port of entry once more.
indented from right MARK TWAIN. (SU)
Ⓐ
I . . . him. (A) •
Kealakekua Bay, July, 1866.
centered
The Romantic God Lono. [¶] I have been writing a good deal, of late, about the great god
Lono and Captain Cook’s personation of him. Now, while I am here in Lono’s home, upon
ground which his terrible feet
have trodden in remote ages—unless these natives lie, and they would hardly do that,
I suppose—I might as well tell who
he was. (SU)
Ⓐ
worshipped (C) •
worshiped (SU)
Ⓐ
Tradition (A) •
Unpoetical history (SU)
Ⓐ
perhaps. (A) •
perhaps
(SU)
Ⓐ
Capt. (C) •
Captain (SU)
Ⓐ
Some (A) •
centered
The Poetic Tradition.
[¶] But there is another tradition which is rather more poetical than this bald historical
one. Lono lived in considerable style
up here on the hillside. His wife was very beautiful, and he was devoted to her. One
day he overheard a stranger proposing an
elopement to her, and without waiting to hear her reply he took the stranger’s life
and then upbraided Kaikilani so harshly
that her sensitive nature was wounded to the quick. She went away in tears, and Lono
began to repent of his hasty conduct almost
before she was out of sight. He sat him down under a cocoanut tree to await her return,
intending to receive her with such tokens of
affection and contrition as should restore her confidence and drive all sorrow from
her heart. But hour after hour winged its tardy
flight and yet she did not come. The sun went down and left him desolate. His all-wise
instincts may have warned him that the
separation was final, but he hoped on, nevertheless, and when the darkness was heavy
he built a beacon fire at his door to guide the
wanderer home again, if by any chance she had lost her way. But the night waxed and
waned and brought another day, but not the
goddess. Lono hurried forth and sought her far and wide, but found no trace of her.
At night he set his beacon fire again and kept
lone watch, but still she came not; and a new day found him a despairing, broken-hearted
god. His misery could no longer brook
suspense and solitude, and he set out to look for her. He told his sympathizing people
he was going to search through all the island
world for the lost light of his household, and he would never come back any more till
he had found her. The natives always implicitly
believed that he was still pursuing his patient quest and that he would find his peerless
spouse again some day, and come back; and
so, for ages they waited and watched in trusting simplicity for his return. They gazed
out wistfully over the sea at any strange
appearance on its waters, thinking it might be their loved and lost protector. But
Lono was to them as the rainbow-tinted future seen
in happy visions of youth—for he never came. [¶] Some (SU)
Ⓐ
Only (A) •
centered
The Field of the Vanquished
Gods. [¶] Only (SU)
Ⓐ
Islands (C) •
island, (A)
islands (SU)
Ⓐ
Kaahumanu (SU) •
Kaahumahu (A)
Ⓐ
first (SU) •
rest. It was probably the first (A)
Ⓐ
Capt. (C) •
Captain (SU)
Ⓐ
convenience (A) •
pleasure (SU)
Ⓐ
Kekuokalani (SU) •
Bekuokalani (A)
Explanatory Notes CHAPTER 72
Ⓔ
In . . . point.] Mark Twain based this portion of the text on his letter in the Sacramento
Union for 6 September 1866, revising it for inclusion in
Roughing It (
SLC 1866ff).
Ⓔ we went ashore and
visited the ruined temple of the lost god Lono] Clemens visited the ruins of Hikiau
temple, which had once
[begin page 730] housed the red-draped image of Lono.
In his
Union letter
published on 6 September he noted that it was the very temple “so desecrated by Captain
Cook. . . . Its
low, rude walls look about as they did when he saw them, no doubt” (
SLC 1866ff).
Cook desecrated the temple—apparently with the acquiescence of the temple priests,
who believed him to be the returned
Lono—by carrying off the wooden railings and the idols of the lesser gods for use
as firewood on his ship (
Kamakau, 99;
Kuykendall 1938, 16;
Cook and King, 3:6–8, 25–26;
MTH
, 67).
Ⓔ Obookiah
. . . was taken to New England . . . This resulted in the sending of missionaries
there] The
orphaned Henry Obookiah, also known as Opukahaia (1792?–1818), took passage—along
with two other Hawaiian youths,
William Kanui (see the note at 493.22–28) and Thomas Hopu—aboard the merchant ship
of Captain Caleb Brintnal and arrived
in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1809.
There Obookiah was tutored by Edwin Welles Dwight
(1789–1841) of Yale College, became a Christian, and actively encouraged the creation
of a mission to the Sandwich Islands.
Obookiah died of typhus at age twenty-six while a student at the newly created Foreign
Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut. His
story, incorporated into Dwight’s much-reprinted
Memoirs of Henry Obookiah, a Native of Owhyhee, became
a staple of missionary literature and influenced the decision to send the first missionaries
to the islands in 1819 (
Dwight, 3–129;
Rufus Anderson,
46–48;
Bradford Smith, 21–25;
Bradley, 123–24;
Boothby, 53–54).
Ⓔ savage who sat down on
the church steps and wept because his people did not have the Bible] According to
Anderson’s history of missionary
labors in the Sandwich Islands, Obookiah “was one day found sitting on the doorsteps
of one of
the Yale College
buildings, weeping because the treasures of knowledge were open to others, but were
not open to him. Mr. Edwin W. Dwight, who saw him
thus, had compassion on him, and became his religious teacher” (
Rufus Anderson,
46). Obookiah’s own memoir makes no mention of such an encounter (
Dwight,
18–20). Mark Twain’s version of the story may derive from an unidentified source.
Ⓔ The other native
youths made the voyage] The first missionary group, dispatched to the Sandwich Islands
in October 1819, included three Hawaiian
youths educated at the Foreign Mission School: William Kanui, Thomas Hopu, and John
Honolii (
Rufus Anderson, 46–49).
Ⓔ
William Kanui,
fell from grace . . . went to mining . . . was a bankrupt . . . died in Honolulu in
1864] Mark Twain learned these facts about William Kanui (1798?–1864) from an obituary
notice in the February 1864 issue
of the Friend, which he quoted and cited in the Union letter on which this passage is
based (SLC 1866ff). Kanui lost his money in 1855, when
the San Francisco bank of Page, Bacon and Company [begin page 731] suspended operations on 22 February and closed its
doors permanently on 2 May.
Kanui then, being obliged to exert himself
for a livelihood, opened a bootblacking stand, and continued it for some time. But
sad to relate, in his religious interests he became
quite reckless, and continued for a long time in a backslidden state. (“William Kanui
Still Alive,” report dated 20 June
1860 from San Francisco, Friend 10 [1 Feb 61]: 13)
Kanui’s
piety subsequently revived, and during his last years he “labored in San Francisco,
and was connected with the Bethel Church of
that city” (“Died,” Friend 13 [5 Feb 64]: 16; Rufus Anderson, 48–49 n. 1; Bradford Smith, 24, 58–59,
288; San Francisco Alta California: “The Crisis Past,” 23 Feb 55, 2; “Commercial,”
3 May 55, 2).
Ⓔ At noon I observed
a bevy of nude native young ladies . . . I will not urge this point] Mark Twain wrote
this paragraph on the
swimming prowess of the Hawaiians expressly for
Roughing It, to replace a comic passage in his 6 September
Union letter in which he claimed he “undressed and went in myself” (
SLC 1866ff).
Ⓔ The idol
. . . was a slender, unornamented staff . . . he . . . sailed for foreign lands on
a
three-cornered raft] Mark Twain’s description of the Lono idol and legend was apparently
summarized from Jarves’s
History (
Jarves 1847, 27–28).
Ⓔ “on the
shoulder;”] That is, looking for a fight. See Scotty Briggs’s description of Buck
Fanshaw in chapter 47
(312.21–29).
Ⓔ he instituted games
called makahiki, and ordered that they should be held in his honor] According to Jarves,
Lono instituted the games to
commemorate his wife’s death.
The makahiki season, which corresponded to the rainy months
from roughly October through January, was sacred to Lono. During this time the chiefs
gathered taxes and eschewed war, and on certain
festival days all labor and the usual religious practices were prohibited while everyone
enjoyed feasting, sports, and other
recreation (
Jarves 1847, 28;
Malo, 186,
189–91;
Kamakau, 180–81;
Kuykendall
1938, 7–8;
Beckwith, 33–35).
Ⓔ the place where the last battle
was fought for idolatry] Kuamoo: see the note at 498.3–15.
Ⓔ his son, Liholiho,
the new King . . . the gospel was planted as in a virgin soil] Mark Twain’s primary
source for the
information in this passage was probably Jarves’s
History (
Jarves
1847, 109–11).
Liholiho (1797–1824) was the son of Kamehameha I and the
chiefess Keopuolani. He was strictly raised by his parents and priests to prepare
him for succession to the throne. His reign as
Kamehameha II,
[begin page 732] from 1819 to 1824, was notable for the abolition of the tabu system, the arrival of
the
American missionaries, the growth of the sandalwood trade and the whaling industry,
and the removal of the seat of government from
Kailua to Honolulu. Liholiho shared his father’s pro-British attitude, and in 1823–24
he visited England, accompanied by
his wife Kamamalu and an official entourage. Kamamalu died of the measles in London
in July 1824, and Liholiho followed her in death
within a week. The other members of the royal party, however, were able to accomplish
the king’s mission—to confirm
Hawaii as a protectorate of Great Britain (
Kuykendall 1938, 71–81).
Ⓔ Kaahumanu had a whole
mind to badger him into doing it] Liholiho was urged by two women to indulge in traditionally
forbidden “free
eating”: Keopuolani, his mother, and Kaahumanu, his
kuhina nui (see the note at 471.8).
For some time both women had ignored certain eating tabus without suffering any ill
consequences.
Liholiho’s decision to follow their example was all the harder because as a child
he had been carefully instructed in the tabu
rites of the priestly order, and because tradition held that only a chief who respected
the ancient tabus, like Kamehameha I, would
have a long reign (
Kuykendall 1938, 67–68;
Kamakau, 222–23).
Ⓔ
Liholiho came up to Kailua
as drunk as a piper] The feast at Kailua took place during the first week of November
1819, six months after the death of
Kamehameha I (Kuykendall 1938, 68). According to
Jarves, Kaahumanu
sent word to the king, that upon his arrival at Kailua, she should
cast aside his god. To this he made no objection, but with his retainers pushed off
in canoes from the shore, and remained on the
water for two days, indulging in a drunken revel. Kaahumanu despatched a double canoe
for him, in which he was brought to Kailua.
(Jarves 1847, 109)
Ⓔ They raised a revolt
. . . idolatry and the
tabu were dead in the land] Kamehameha II’s forces,
commanded by the prime minister, Kalaimoku (see the note at 471.24), met the opposing
force, under Kekuokalani (or Kekuaokalani), at
Kuamoo on or about 20 December 1819.
Kekuokalani, an ambitious chief who clung to the traditional
ways, was Liholiho’s cousin, a son of Kamehameha I’s brother. He was killed at Kuamoo
and his forces were routed. Other
minor uprisings by disaffected traditionalists were quickly put down by Liholiho’s
forces (
Jarves 1847, 109–10;
Malo et al., 337–40;
W.D. Alexander, 170–71;
Kuykendall 1938,
69).
Ⓔ The missionary ship arrived in
safety shortly afterward] The first missionary party, comprising seventeen adults
and their children, left Boston in the brig
Thaddeus in October 1819 and arrived on the west coast of the island of Hawaii on 30 March
1820 (
Bingham, 69;
Kuykendall 1938, 102).
