In the former state of society the habits of the people were extremely licentious; men were living with several wives, and women with several husbands. Female virtue was an unknown thing, and there is no native word for it. This state of things has, however, been greatly altered by the exertions of the missionaries.
As regards cannibalism, it appears that the heart and liver of the human victims offered in the temples were eaten as a religious rite, and that the same parts of any prominent warrior slain in battle were devoured by the victor chiefs in the belief that they would thereby inherit the valour of the dead man. When, on the death of the great warrior Kamehameha I., the chiefs assembled to deliberate what should be done with his body, one suggested that they should eat it, but this did not find favour with the others.
The Hawaiians are a good-tempered, light-hearted, and pleasure-loving race. They have many games and sports, and the women spend much time in making flower garlands. Both sexes are passionately fond of riding, almost every one being in possession of a horse. They delight to be in the water, and swim with remarkable skill and ease. In the exciting sport of surf swimming, which always astonishes strangers, they balance themselves whilst standing or sitting on a small board which is carried landwards on the curling crest of a great roller.
In spite of moral and material progress—better food, better clothing, improved dwellings, and many other advantages of civilization—the race is dying out, and, indeed, is threatened with extinction in the course of a few years. Captain Cook estimated the number of natives at 400,000; in 1823 the American missionaries calculated them to be only 142,000; the census of 1832 showed the population to be 130,313; and the census of 1878 proved that the number of natives was no more than 44,088. To account for this it is said that the blood of the race has become poisoned by the introduction of foreign diseases. The women are much less numerous than the men; and the married ones have few children at the most; two out of three have none. Moreover the mothers appear to have little maternal instinct, and there is consequently a neglect of the offspring. Whilst the Hawaiians are decreasing, the Chinese are coming in large numbers, and threaten in time to take their place. To counteract this, as well as to supply the pressing need for labourers, the Government has considered many schemes for introducing other immigrants. Polynesians from other islands have been brought over, and a considerable number of Portuguese have come from Madeira.
The language is a branch of the widely-diffused Malayo-Polynesian tongue; and Hawaiians and New-Zealanders, although occupying the most remote regions north and south at which any of their race have been found, can understand each other without much difficulty. This language is soft and harmonious, being highly vocalic in structure, The only consonants are k, l, m, n, and p, which with the gently aspirated h, the five vowels, and the vocalic w, make up all the letters in use. The letters r and t have been suppressed of late years in favour of l and k, so that, for example, taro, the former name of the Colocasia plant, is now kalo. The language was not reduced to a written form until after the arrival of the missionaries.[1]
In the days of idolatry the only dress worn by the men was a narrow strip of cloth wound round the loins and passed between the legs. Women wore a short petticoat made of tapa (cloth prepared from the inner bark of the paper mulberry), which reached from the waist to the knee. But now the common class of men wear a shirt and trousers, whilst the better class are attired in the European fashion. The women are clad universally in the holoka, a loose white or coloured garment with sleeves reaching from the neck to the feet. A coloured handkerchief is twisted round the head or a straw hat is worn. Both sexes delight in adorning themselves with garlands (leis) of flowers and necklaces of coloured seeds.
The natives derive their sustenance chiefly from pork and fish both fresh and dried, and from the kalo (Colocasia esculenta), the banana, sweet potato, yam, bread-fruit, and cocoanut. The root of the kalo affords the national dish called poi after having been baked and well beaten on a board with a stone pestle it is made into a paste with water and then allowed to ferment for a few days, when it is fit to eat. There was formerly a particular breed of dog which, after being fed exclusively on poi, was considered a great delicacy. The filthy liquor called awa or kawa is still relished by the natives, and though it is only allowed to be made under licence, it is often prepared clandestinely.
The native dwellings are constructed of wood, or more frequently are huts thatched with grass at the sides and top. What little cooking is undertaken is done outside. The oven consists of a hole in the ground in which a fire is lighted and stones made hot; and the fire having been removed, the food is wrapped up in leaves and placed in the hole beside the hot stones and covered up until ready.
Leprosy is prevalent amongst the natives, and the Government has established a settlement on the island of Molokai where all persons found to be affected with the disease are kept entirely isolated from the healthy part of the community. The lepers number about 800.
Agriculture and Commerce.—Large capital has been embarked, chiefly by Americans, in the production of sugar, the soil and climate being well suited to the cane in those localities where the water supply is ample. There are between 60 and 70 sugar estates, and more are being planted. The principal difficulty is the want of labour. The average yield of sugar per acre is 2 tons, whilst in some favoured spots as much as 7 tons has been obtained. In 1878 the exports of sugar amounted to 17,187 tons. Rice is also largely cultivated, 2455 tons having been exported in the same year. Coffee is produced only to a small extent. Arrow-root is prepared from the root of the Tacca pinnatifida. The kalo plant (Colocasia esculenta) is extensively grown in wet places. It is said that a patch of kalo measuring 40 feet square yields sufficient food for a native for a whole year; a square mile of it would therefore support 17,000 persons. Maize and wheat are raised, and flour is manufactured. Pine apples, oranges, mangoes, custard apples, guavas, and many other fruits have been introduced, and flourish in gardens. A silky fibre called pulu, growing on the crown of tree-fern stems belonging to the genus Cibotium, is exported in large quantities to America, where it is used for stuffing cushions.
The owners of sheep are few, but they have large flocks, and the wool exported in 1878 amounted to 523,000 ℔). Some districts are well suited for cattle raising. The wild cattle of the mountains—a very inferior breed, descended from some left by Captain Vancouver—are shot or taken with the lasso for the sake of their hides, which are exported in large quantities. In one island 11,000 were killed in a single year. The natives used to entrap them by digging pits near pools of water, and it was through falling into one of these pits that Douglas, the botanical collector, met his death by being gored by a bull.
- ↑ See Chamisso, Ueber die Hawaiische Sprache (Leipsic, 1837); and Andrews, Grammar of the Hawaiian Language (Honolulu, 1854), and Dictionary (Honolulu, 1865).
