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