sisters—all representing different elemental forces—she dwelt in state in the fiery abysses of the volcanoes, moving from one to another at her pleasure, and visiting with inundations of lava such districts as neglected to cast into the craters proper offerings of meats and fruits, or angered her in other respects. One of her forms was that of a beautiful woman, in which she sometimes sought human society, and numerous legends of her affairs of love have been preserved. She was regarded as the special friend of Kamehameha I., and the suffocation of a portion of the army of Keoua, near the crater of Kilauea, in 1791, was credited directly to her.
The last public recognition of the powers of Pele occurred as late as 1882 on the island of Hawaii. The village of Hilo was threatened. A broad stream of lava from Mauna Loa, after a devastating journey of twenty-five miles or more, reached a point in its downward course within a mile or two of the bay of Hilo. Its movement was slow, like that of all lava-streams some distance from their source, but its steadily approaching line of fire rendered it almost certain that the village, and perhaps the harbor, of Hilo would be destroyed within a very few days. Trenches were digged, walls were raised, and prayers were offered, but all to no purpose. Downward moved the awful avalanche of fire.
Ruth, a surviving sister of the fourth and fifth Kamehamehas, was then living in Honolulu. She was a proud, stern old chiefess, who thought too little of the whites to attempt to acquire their language. The danger threatening Hilo was reported to her. "I will save the fish-ponds of Hilo," said the old chiefess. "Pete will not refuse to listen to the prayer of a Kamehameha." She chartered a steamer, left Honolulu for Hilo with a large number of attendants, and the next day stood facing the still moving flow of lava. Ascending an elevation immediately back of the village, she caused to be erected there a rude altar, before which she made her supplications to Pele, with offerings fed to the front of the advancing lava. This done, she descended the hill with confidence and returned to Honolulu.
The stream of fire ceased to move, and to-day its glistening front stands like a wall around Hilo. "A remarkable coincidence," explained the whites. "The work of Pele," whispered the natives, although the last of the temples of that goddess had been destroyed sixty years before. Without discussing the cause—a natural one beyond a doubt—it may be remarked that the result has been something of a renewal with the natives of faith in the discarded gods of their fathers.
All of the minor gods of the Hawaiians seem to have been independent and self-controlling. It is not claimed that they derived their powers from, were directed by, or were responsible to the supreme godhead. Hence the mythology of the Polynesians, strong though it be in individual powers and personations of the forces and achievements of nature, presents itself to us in a fragmentary form, like an incongruous patchwork of two or more half. developed or half-forgotten religious systems.
One of the most noted of the independent deities of the group was Kalaipahoa, the poison-goddess of Molokai. Some centuries back she cam two or three of her sisters, from an unknown land, and left her mark in many localities. She entered a grove of trees on the island of Molokai, and left in them a poison so intense that birds fell dead in flying over their branches. The king of the island was advised by his high-priest to have a god hewn from one of the poisoned trees. Hundreds of his subjects perished in the undertaking, but the image was finally finished and presented to the king, wrapped in many folds of kapa. It came down the generations an object of fear, and was finally seized by the first Kamehameha, and at his death divided among his principal chiefs.
Kuula was the principal god of the fishermen on all the islands of the group. Rude temples were erected to him on the shores of favorite fishing-grounds, and the first fish of every catch was his due. His wife was Hina, and she was appealed to when her husband withheld his favors. Laeapua and Kaneapua were gods worshipped by the fishermen of Lanai, and other fish-gods were elsewhere recognized.
There were a number of shark and lizard gods. They were powerful and malignant, and greatly feared by the classes who frequented the sea. Heiaus were erected to them on promontories overlooking the ocean, and the offerings to them of fish and fruits were always liberal. They assumed the forms of gigantic sharks and lizards, and not unfrequently lashed the waters into fury and destroyed canoes. Moaalii was the great shark-god of Molokai and Oahu. Apukohai and Uhumakaikat were the evil gods infesting the waters of Kauai. Lonoakiht was the eel-god of all the islands, and Ukanipo was the shark-god of Hawaii.
Among the celebrated war-gods of the kings of the group was that of Kamehameha I. It was called Kaili, or Ku-kailimokuy and accompanied the great chief in all of his important battles. It had been the war-god of the Hawaiian kings for many generations, and was given in charge of Kamehameha by his royal uncle, Kalauiopuu. It was a small wooden image, roughly carved, and adorned with a head-dress of yellow feathers. It is said that at times, in the heat of battle, it uttered cries which were heard above the clash of arms. It is not known what became of the image after the death of Kamehameha.
The public heiaus, or temples, of the Hawaiians were usually walled enclosures of from one to five acres, and generally irregular in form. The walls were frequently ten feet in thickness and twenty feet in height, and the material used was unhewn stone, without mortar or cement. They narrowed slightly from the base upward, and were sometimes capped with hewn slabs of coral or other rock not too firm in texture to be worked with tools of stone.
Within this enclosure was an inner stone or wooden temple of small dimensions, called the luakina, or house of sacrifice, and in front of the entrance to it stood the lele, or altar, consisting of a raised platform of stone. The inner temple was sacred to the priests. Within it stood the anu, a small wicker enclosure, from which issued the oracles of the kaulas, or prophets, and around the walls were ranged charms and gods of especial sanctity. Beside the entrance to this sacred apartment were images of the principal gods, and the outer and inner walls were surmounted by lines of stone and wooden idols.
The enclosure contained other buildings for the accommodation of the high-priest and his assistants; also a house for the governing chief or king, some distance removed from the domiciles of the priest. It was used temporarily by him when on a visit of consultation to the temple, or as a place of refuge in a time of danger. On each side of the entrance to the outer enclosure was a tabu staff, or elevated cross, and near it was a small walled structure in which were slain the victims for the altar.
When an augury was required by the king he frequently visited the heiau in person and propounded his questions to the kaulas. If the answers from the anu were vague and unsatisfactory, other methods of divination were resorted to, such as the opening of pigs and fowls, the shapes of the clouds, the flights of birds, etc. After prayers by the priest the animals were killed, and auguries were gathered from the manner in which they expired, the appearance of the intestines—which were supposed to be the seat of thought—and other signs. Sometimes the spleens of swine were removed, if auguries of war were required, and held above the heads of the priests while prayers were offered.
Before engaging in war or any other important enterprise attended by doubt or danger, human and other sacrifices were made, of which there were fifteen different kinds, and the first prisoners taken in battle were reserved for the altar. The priests named the number of men required for sacrifice, and the king provided them, sometimes from prisoners and malefactors, and sometimes from promiscuous drafts along the highways. The victims were slain with clubs without the temple walls, and their bodies, with other offerings, were laid upon the altar to decay. When the king or other high chief made a special offering of an enemy, the left eye of the victim, after the body had been brought to the altar, was removed and handed to him by the officiating priest. After making a semblance of eating it the chief tossed it upon the altar.
During the construction of heiaus human sacrifices were usually offered as the work progressed, and when completed they were dedicated with great pomp and solemnity, and the altars were sometimes heaped with human bodies. In dedicating
