It is why I come to you this day, an old man whose labour of
strength is not worth a shilling a week, and ask of you twelve
dollars to buy a jackass and a second-hand saddle and bridle. It
is why twice ten fool men of us, under these monkey-pods half an
hour ago, asked of you a dollar or two, or four or five, or ten or
twelve. We are the careless ones of the careless days who will not
plant the yam in season if our alii does not compel us, who will
not think one day for ourselves, and who, when we age to
On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales
33
worthlessness, know that our alii will think kow-kow into our
bellies and a grass thatch over our heads.
Hardman Pool bowed his appreciation, and urged:
“But the bones of Kahekili. The Chief Konukalani had just dragged
away Malia by the hair of the head, and you and Anapuni sat on
without protest in the circle of drinking. What was it Malia
whispered in Anapuni’s ear, bending over him, her hair hiding the
face of him?”
“That Kahekili was dead. That was what she whispered to Anapuni.
That Kahekili was dead, just dead, and that the chiefs, ordering
all within the house to remain within, were debating the disposal
of the bones and meat of him before word of his death should get
abroad. That the high priest Eoppo was deciding them, and that she
had overheard no less than Anapuni and me chosen as the sacrifices
to go the way of Kahekili and his bones and to care for him
afterward and for ever in the shadowy other world.”
“The moepuu, the human sacrifice,” Pool commented. “Yet it was
nine years since the coming of the missionaries.”
“And it was the year before their coming that the idols were cast
down and the taboos broken,” Kumuhana added. “But the chiefs still
practised the old ways, the custom of hunakele, and hid the bones
of the aliis where no men should find them and make fish-hooks of
their jaws or arrow heads of their long bones for the slaying of
little mice in sport. Behold, O Kanaka Oolea!”
The old man thrust out his tongue; and, to Pool’s amazement, he saw
the surface of that sensitive organ, from root to tip, tattooed in
intricate designs.
“That was done after the missionaries came, several years
afterward, when Keopuolani died. Also, did I knock out four of my
front teeth, and half-circles did I burn over my body with blazing
bark. And whoever ventured out-of-doors that night was slain by
the chiefs. Nor could a light be shown in a house or a whisper of
noise be made. Even dogs and hogs that made a noise were slain,
nor all that night were the ships’ bells of the haoles in the
harbour allowed to strike. It was a terrible thing in those days
when an alii died.
“But the night that Kahekili died. We sat on in the drinking
circle after Konukalani dragged Malia away by the hair. Some of
the haole sailors grumbled; but they were few in the land in those
days and the kanakas many. And never was Malia seen of men again.
Konukalani alone knew the manner of her slaying, and he never told.
And in after years what common men like Anapuni and me should dare
to question him?
“Now she had told Anapuni before she was dragged away. But
On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales
34
Anapuni’s heart was black. Me he did not tell. Worthy he was of
the killing I had intended for him. There was a giant harpooner in
the circle, whose singing was like the bellowing of bulls; and,
gazing on him in amazement while he roared some song of the sea,
when next I looked across the circle to Anapuni, Anapuni was gone.
He had fled to the high mountains where he could hide with the
bird-catchers a week of moons. This I learned afterward.
“I? I sat on, ashamed of my desire of woman that had not been so
strong as my slave-obedience to a chief. And I drowned my shame in
large drinks of rum and whisky, till the world went round and
round, inside my head and out, and the Southern Cross danced a hula
in the sky, and the Koolau Mountains bowed their lofty summits to
Waikiki and the surf of Waikiki kissed them on their brows. And
the giant harpooner was still roaring, his the last sounds in my
ear, as I fell back on the lauhala mat, and was to all things for
the time as one dead.
“When I awoke was at the faint first beginning of dawn. I was
being kicked by a hard naked heel in the ribs. What of the
enormousness of the drink I had consumed, the feelings aroused in
me by the heel were not pleasant. The kanakas and wahines of the
drinking were gone. I alone remained among the sleeping sailormen,
the giant harpooner snoring like a whale, his head upon my feet.
“More heel-kicks, and I sat up and was sick. But the one who
kicked was impatient, and demanded to know where was Anapuni. And
I did not know, and was kicked, this time from both sides by two
impatient men, because I did not know. Nor did I know that
Kahekili was dead. Yet did I guess something serious was afoot,
for the two men who kicked me were chiefs, and no common men
crouched behind them to do their bidding. One was Aimoku, of
Kaneche; the other Humuhumu, of Manoa.
“They commanded me to go with them, and they were not kind in their
commanding; and as I uprose, the head of the giant harpooner was
rolled off my feet, past the edge of the mat, into the sand. He
grunted like a pig, his lips opened, and all of his tongue rolled
out of his mouth into the sand. Nor did he draw it back. For the
first time I knew how long was a man’s tongue. The sight of the
sand on it made me sick for the second time. It is a terrible
thing, the next day after a night of drinking. I was afire, dry
afire, all the inside of me like a burnt cinder, like aa lava, like
the harpooner’s tongue dry and gritty with sand. I bent for a
half-drunk drinking coconut, but Aimoku kicked it out of my shaking
fingers, and Humuhumu smote me with the heel of his hand on my
neck.
“They walked before me, side by side, their faces solemn and black,
and I walked at their heels. My mouth stank of the drink, and my
head was sick with the stale fumes of it, and I would have cut off
my right hand for a drink of water, one drink, a mouthful even.
And, had I had it, I know it would have sizzled in my belly like
On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales
35
water spilled on heated stones for the roasting. It is terrible,
the next day after the drinking. All the life-time of many men who
died young has passed by me since the last I was able to do such
mad drinking of youth when youth knows not capacity and is
undeterred.
“But as we went on, I began to know that some alii was dead. No
kanakas lay asleep in the sand, nor stole home from their love-
making; and no canoes were abroad after the early fish most
catchable then inside the reef at the change of the tide. When we
came, past the hoiau” (temple), “to where the Great Kamehameha used
to haul out his brigs and schooners, I saw, under the canoe-sheds,
that the mat-thatches of Kahekili’s great double canoe had been
taken off, and that even then, at low tide, many men were launching
it down across the sand into the water. But all these men were
chiefs. And, though my eyes swam, and the inside of my head went
around and around, and the inside of my body was a cinder athirst,
I guessed that the alii who was dead was Kahekili. For he was old,
and most likely of the aliis to be dead.”
“It was his death, as I have heard it, more than the intercession
of Kekuanaoa, that spoiled Governor Boki’s rebellion,” Hardman Pool
observed.
“It was Kahekili’s death that spoiled it,” Kumuhana confirmed.
“All commoners, when the word slipped out that night of his death,
fled into the shelter of the grass houses, nor lighted fire nor
pipes, nor breathed loudly, being therein and thereby taboo from
use for sacrifice. And all Governor Boki’s commoners of fighting
men, as well as the haole deserters from ships, so fled, so that
the brass guns lay unserved and his handful of chiefs of themselves
could do nothing.
“Aimoku and Humuhumu made me sit on the sand to the side from the