superior to that of other islanders; and excepting when improved and preserved by the influence of Christianity, it has suffered much from the vices of intemperance and licentiousness introduced by foreigners. Polygamy prevailed among the chiefs and rulers, and women were subject to all the humiliations of the tabu system, which subjected them to many privations, and kept them socially in a condition of inferiority to the other sex. Infanticide was practised to some extent, the children destroyed being chiefly females. Though less superstitious than the Tahitians, the idolatry of the Sandwich Islanders was equally barbarous and sanguinary, as, in addition to the chief objects of worship included in the mythology of the other islands, the supernatural beings supposed to reside in the volcanoes and direct the action of subterranean fires rendered the gods objects of peculiar terror. Human sacrifices were slain on several occasions, and vast offerings presented to the spirits supposed to preside over the volcanoes, especially during the periods of actual eruptions. The requisitions of their idolatry were severe and its rites cruel and bloody. Grotesque and repulsive wooden figures, animals and the bones of chiefs were the objects of worship. Human sacrifices were offered whenever a temple was to be dedicated, or a chief was sick, or a war was to be undertaken; and these occasions were frequent. The apprehensions of the people with regard to a future state were undefined, but fearful. The lower orders expected to be slowly devoured by evil spirits, or to dwell with the gods in burning mountains. The several trades, such as that of fisherman, the tiller of the ground, and the builder of canoes and houses, had each their presiding deities. Household gods were also kept, which the natives worshipped in their habitations. One merciful provision, however, had existed from time immemorial, and that was [the puuhonuas] sacred inclosures, places of refuge, into which those who fled in time of war, or from any violent pursuer, might enter and be safe. To violate their sanctity was one of the greatest crimes of which a man could be guilty.” The native religion was an admixture of idolatry and hero-worship, of some ethical but little moral force. The king was war chief, priest and god in one, and the shocking licence at the death of a king was probably due to the feeling that all law or restraint was annulled by the death of the king—incarnate law. The mythic and religious legends of the people were preserved in chants, handed down from generation to generation; and in like poetic form was kept the knowledge of the people of botany, medicine and other sciences. Name-songs, written at the birth of a chief, gave his genealogy and the deeds of his ancestors; dirges and love-songs were common. These were without rhyme or rhythm, but had alliteration and a parallelism resembling Hebrew poetry. Drums, gourd and bamboo flutes, and a kind of guitar, were known before Cook’s day.
When the islands first became known to Europeans, the Hawaiian family was in a stage including both polyandry and polygyny, and, according to Morgan, older than either: two or more brothers, with their wives, or two or more sisters with their husbands, cohabited with seeming promiscuity. This system called punalua (a word which in the modern vernacular means merely “dear friend”) was first brought to the attention of ethnologists in 1871 by Lewis H. Morgan (who was incorrect in many of his premises) and was made the basis of his second stage, the punaluan, in the evolution of the family. These conditions did not last long after the coming of the missionaries. Descent was more commonly traced through the female line. As regard 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, who believed that they would thereby inherit the valour of the dead man. Under taboo as late as 1819 women were to be put to death if they ate bananas, cocoa-nuts, pork, turtles or certain fish. In the days of idolatry the only dress worn by the men was a narrow strip of cloth wound around the loins and passed between the legs. Women wore a short petticoat made of kapa cloth (already referred to), which reached from the waist to the knee. But now the common class of men wear a shirt and trousers; the better class are attired in the European fashion. The women are clad in the holoka, a loose white or coloured garment with sleeves, reaching from the neck to the feet. A coloured handkerchief is twisted around 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 Hawaiians are a good-tempered, light-hearted and pleasure-loving race. They have many games and sports, including boxing, wrestling (both in and out of water), hill-sliding, spear-throwing, and a game of bowls played with stone discs. Both sexes are passionately fond of riding. They delight to be in the water and swim with remarkable skill and ease. In the exciting sport of surf-riding, which always astonishes strangers, they balance themselves lying, kneeling or standing on a small board which is carried landwards on the curling crest of a great roller. All games were accompanied by gambling. Dances, especially the indecent hula, “danse du ventre,” were favourite entertainments.
Even at the time when they were first known to Europeans, they had stone and lava hatchets, shark’s-tooth knives, hardwood spades, kapa cloth or paper, mats, fans, fish-hooks and nets, woven baskets, &c., and they had introduced a rough sort of irrigation of the inland country with long canals from highlands to plains. They derived their sustenance chiefly from pork and fish (both fresh and dried), from seaweed (limu), and from the kalo (Colocasia antiquorum, var. esculenta), the banana, sweet potato, yam, bread-fruit and cocoa-nut. From the root of the kalo is made 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 ready to be eaten. One of the table delicacies of former days was a particular breed of dog which was fed exclusively on poi before it was killed, cooked and served. Like other South Sea Islanders they made an intoxicating drink, awa or kava, from the roots of the Macropiper latifolium or Piper methysticum; in early times this could be drunk only by nobles and priests. The native dwellings are constructed of wood, or occasionally are huts thatched with grass at the sides and top. What little cooking is undertaken among the poorer natives is usually 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; or else, as is now more common, the cooking is done in an old kerosene-oil can over a fire.
The Hawaiian language is a member of the widely-diffused Malayo-Polynesian group and closely resembles the dialect of the Marquesas; Hawaiians and New Zealanders, although occupying the most remote regions north and south at which the race has been found, can understand each other without much difficulty. Various unsuccessful attempts have been made to prove the language Aryan in its origin. It is soft and harmonious, being highly vocalic in structure. Every syllable is open, ending in a vowel sound, and short sentences may be constructed wholly of vocalic sounds. 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 discarded in favour of l and k, as expressing more accurately the native pronunciation, 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. A Hawaiian spelling book was printed in 1822; in 1834 two newspapers were founded; and in 1839 the first translation of the Bible was published.
In spite of moral and material progress—indeed largely because of changes in their food, clothing, dwellings and of other “advantages” of civilization—the race is probably dying out. Captain Cook estimated the number of natives at 400,000, probably an over-estimate; in 1823 the American missionaries estimated their number at 142,000; the census of 1832 showed the population to be 130,313; the census of 1878 proved that the number of natives was no more than 44,088. In 1890 they numbered
