In
the
breezy
morning
we
went
ashore
and
visited
the
ruined
temple
of
the
last
god
Lono.
The
high
chief
cook
of
this
temple—the
priest
who
presided
over
it
and
roasted
the
human
sacrifices—was
uncle
to
Obookia,
and
at
one
time
that
youth
was
an
apprentice-priest
under
him. Obookia
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
Obookia
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. Obookia
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 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
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 Aiii.
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
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
Captain 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
island,
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, Kaahumahu had a
whole
mind
to
badger
him
into
doing it,
and
whiskey
did
the
rest.
It
was
probably
the
rest.
It
was
probably
the
first
time
whiskey
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
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
whiskey
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
Captain 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
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
Bekuokalani,
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
host met a 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.