‘Ōpūkaha‘ia sought the strength to speak of his new desire. To a Native friend, he broached the subject, pleading with his companion to accompany him to Hawai‘i. Getting no encouragement, he suspected that his confidant might be influenced by the fearful consequences of attempting to introduce a new religion to the Kanaka Maoli. “You fraid?” Henry asked. “You know our Savior say, ‘He that will save his life shall lose it; and he that will lose his life for my sake, same shall save it.’”48
In April of 1815, ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia expressed his desire to become a formal member of an established church, and with the support of the senior Rev. Samuel Mills, Henry was received into the Church of Christ Congregational in Torringford.49 However, dissatisfaction resulted among many parishioners when Mills sat Henry and other Hawaiians in his own pew in front of the New England worshipers. The church had previously remodeled slave pews located in the gallery over the stairs, an area boarded-up so high that people of color would not have to be tolerated by the white assembly below.50 Mills rejected the idea of separation for the Hawaiians and had them seated prominently with him, much to the dismay of other church members.
By this time, “Father” Mills, as Henry called him, bestowed upon ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia all of the love and compassion of a true son. His powerful influence on the community gave the young Hawaiian a foothold into the congregation. Rev. Mills was a tall, well-proportioned man with a large face and round head. His eyes were bold, yet benignant. He was stately and gave his finest appearance standing at the pulpit. At times when he preached to the people attending worship, his religious themes seemed to border on the oddity, and his expressions would often solicit a smile, sometimes even provoke laughter. The great themes of Father Mills’ life were “souls and salvation,”51 and ‘‘Ōpūkaha‘ia was his spiritual son, loved as much as Samuel Mills, Jr., his biological son.
Venturing back to Amherst, Massachusetts, at the end of 1816, Henry lived with Rev. Nathan Perkins, an agent of the ABCFM. The board was moving forward in establishing a special “Foreign Mission School,” commonly referred to as the “School for Heathens,”52 choosing Litchfield County as its home since many of the Hawaiians and other potential candidates lived in the area, and it was situated away from the temptations and dangers presented by big city life. In his association with Perkins, Henry commenced a speaking tour through New England for the purpose of soliciting donations for the benefit of the “Heathen School.”53
The prevailing debate throughout Congregational New England and elsewhere among British Americans was whether the “heathen” possessed the mental capacity to comprehend the Bible, let alone preach it. This being unsure, previous financial and spiritual support was relatively lacking. “Obookiah,” with his personality and intellect, would change many minds about the scholarly capabilities of Indigenous Peoples and, consequently, untie many conservative purse strings. Reverend Perkins noted that wherever Henry travelled, “he was much beloved.”54 Visiting many towns and speaking to church congregations, Henry addressed his conversion and his knowledge of Christianity, never failing to impress. He always presented himself appropriately, solemnly, and interestingly. He aroused New Englanders, who had no expectations for the missions, to become satisfied that conversion of the “heathen,” by the “heathen,” and for the “heathen,” was attainable, even practicable.
Henry’s narratives of his fellow Hawaiians worshiping a multitude of gods, all manufactured from wood, and of priests performing rituals involving human sacrifice, convinced Congregationalists that the need to teach Christianity there was truly great. Dollars poured in. This “Native of Owhyhee” had lifted the dispositions of these fundamentalist, “cold” New Englanders to consider the propriety of “heathen” missionaries. He changed many minds, shattering many misconceptions, and parishioners eagerly reached into their pockets to contribute. In effect, Obookiah was already a missionary, converting, in this case, Congregational New Englanders to the confidence of his cause.55 His effect was all that the American Board of Commissioners could ever have hoped for.
With the donations Henry solicited, the Foreign Mission School became a reality. “Obookiah” would be the inspiration, the first student, the model, carrying the bursting excitement and expectation of Congregational New England on his broad shoulders. The time was approaching for ‘Ōpūkaha‘ia, accompanied by the leadership of Samuel Mills, Jr., to bring the Word and carry the “Cross” over the seas to deliver eternal salvation to his fellow Hawaiian islanders.
With an early start to the second day of the exhumation, I stepped onto a short wooden ladder descending more than four feet into the burial unit and balanced once again on the slender dirt platform prepared as my workspace. Ropes were tied to the handles of plastic buckets to hoist excess soil out of the grave shaft and through hardware mesh screens manned by our volunteers and students. I arranged my hand tools—primarily trowels, brushes of various sizes, bamboo picks, a small spatula, and dustpan—underneath my body as I hunched on all fours. The first task was to clean up the effects of the past evening’s thunderstorm. Once I removed the tarp that covered the excavation unit from the rain, the damp, eroded earth had to be leveled and crisply cut to restore the configuration of the hexagonal coffin established the day before, allowing accurate measurement: six-and-a-half feet in length, with widths of one foot at the head board, ten inches at the foot, and twenty inches across at the shoulder.56
Excavating within the coffin boundary, brass tacks and black painted hardwood appeared along the sideboards in the area of the chest cavity. My initial impression was that the tacks were aligned to the sides of the coffin to secure a decorative cloth lining the interior; however, it soon became apparent that they had been hammered into the coffin lid, which had split down the middle, compressed to the sides by earth pressure. The coffin was hardwood, painted black, and except for where the brass tacks neutralized adjacent soils, no other wood survived other than as soil shadows. When the reconstructed coffin lid was mended, the brass tack pattern yielded “H. O. AE 26” enclosed in a heart-shaped motif which are interpreted as the initials of the person lying in the coffin, the Latin “A.E.” for “age of,” followed by the age at death with the heart signifying a sign of Christian endearment. Even without knowing the story of “Henry Obookiah” in New England, the physical evidence of the coffin strongly suggested that the person lying here was very much loved by his contemporaries.
Small, broken fragments of window glass, some twenty in all, were encountered in the region of the cranio-facial complex, establishing that Henry’s coffin contained a viewing glass, allowing mourners to observe his face during the 1818 funeral without having to lift the entire lid. The glass also prevented mourners from cutting pieces of clothing or hair as memorial artifacts. The painted hardwood, brass tacks on the lid providing the deceased’s initials, and a viewing glass over the face represented innovative mortuary designs for early 19th century coffins and reflected state-of-the-art funerary technology for its time. The entire burial complex suggested the high status and importance given to the deceased; little expense57 was spared to give Henry a monument that would perpetuate his memory for a long time after his death.58
The first evidence of skeletal remains was the frontal bone of the forehead, the highest elevated area when the body is supine, which exhibited limited cortical loss for its age and suggested that the rest of the skeleton should possess excellent organic preservation. Excavation proceeded at the superior portion of the skeletal anatomy, concentrating on exposing the high points and maintaining horizontal control. Delicately I brushed around the broken pieces of glass to maintain their positions and reveal the face. Henry slowly emerged before me, the very image of his portrait.
Concentrating on the subtle work at hand, I had not noticed or heard the increasing assembly of bystanders that had accumulated in the cemetery to observe the disinterment until I rose to stretch my legs, giving myself a moment’s reprieve, eager to avoid carelessness through fatigue. As I stood, my shoulders were level to the
