🧚 Paao From Samoa · page 2

Bundles of feather robes were unrolled.134 Native cloth, brilliantly coloured, was taken from its wrappings.135 Paao robed himself in a high-priest’s tabu mantle of black feathers, wearing a white helmet ornamented with black plumes.136 Around the short masts they placed new mats as sails, inscribed with strange and mysterious emblems.137 All the people put on their most gorgeous and costly apparel.138

Thus, as the new morning dawned, they came to Hawaii.139 Thus they landed as if their journey had known nothing of starvation and death.140 Thus they met the wondering natives who hastened along the beach to the spot where the boats must land.141

Greetings were given.142 The language of the newcomers was almost identical in meaning and pronunciation with the native tongue.143 The priests with new gods were received with offerings.144 Food and clothing in abundance were given.145 Land in Puna, near Hilo, was set apart for their dwelling-place.146 Paao, aided by the Hawaiians, at once built a temple at Wahaula, which after being twice restored, was destroyed in 1820.147 From Paao, the high priest’s family, highest in priestly rank of all dwelling in the islands, was perpetuated, until Ka-meha-meha’s high priest, Hewa-hewa, a lineal descendant of Paao, in 1819, aided in destroying the temples of the gods.148 With his own hands Hewa-hewa set fire to shrines and idols, overthrowing the system of worship and sacred tabu which Paao had established nearly 700 years before.149 Some years later Hewa-hewa became a devoted adherent to Christianity.150

Some time during the fifth or sixth centuries two Polynesian brothers, sons of Kii, came to the Hawaiian group with a number of followers.151 They belonged to a high chief family and appeared to have assumed authority without opposition.152 They divided the islands.153 Ulu took Maui and Hawaii.154 Nanaulu settled on Oahu, taking possession of Oahu, Kauai and Molokai.155

Kapawa was the last high chief of unblemished blood in the Ulu line on Hawaii.156

The Nanaulu line maintained its independence through all the centuries, until it was finally absorbed by the Ka-meha-meha family.157 The Ulu line in Hawaii was replaced by a Samoan family of high chiefs brought into Hawaii by Paao, in connection with the overthrow of Kapawa.158

The high chiefs of “the good old days of Hawaii” had certain prerogatives which were never questioned.159 They were his by “divine right.”160 He visited the inferior chief of any district at pleasure.161 He was readily supplied with all the available kapa cloth of the district for clothing and sleeping mats for himself and followers.162 The hunters of the district were required to search the mountain forests for birds of rare plumage, whose feathers the women were required to weave in mantles and helmets.163 All the food of the district was subject to his command.164 He levied upon any canoe attracting his fancy.165 Food and cloth and canoes were the wealth of the islands.166 The high chief usually left each district impoverished.167 There was no complaint against Kapawa on this score, although he had used his “divine right” in the most burdensome manner.168 The idle, the dissolute, the depraved and the reckless among the sub-chiefs of the various islands flocked to Kapawa and became his “eating companions”—those who received from his bounty their food and clothing.169 The atrocious lives which such men lived in any community can be imagined.170 But this was not criminal.171

When the Hawaiian legends say “The Ulu line of high chiefs became extinct on account of the crimes of Kapawa,” something must be considered besides property, morality or human life.172 It was not until the sanctity of the temples was attacked that the chiefs decided that even royal blood of many generations might become too impure for a ruling chief.173

One day the district chief of Hilo came to the temple, asking to see “the priest of the brother tongue, who worshipped the two round white gods.”174

When he was brought before Paao he said:175

“I speak to you as to a brother.176 But I must first ask if the priest from afar will make his home by the burning mountain?”177

“Aye,” said Paao.178

“The priest is wise and knows the genealogies of the chiefs, the sons of the gods.179 He knows the chant of the royal line of Hawaii.”180

Paao bowed his head.181

“The priest understands that our high chief, Kapawa, is descended from Ulu.182 Is the priest aware that Kapawa is cruel and evil, that he tramples the life out of the land and that he violates the temples and drags out of the city of refuge the man who has safely entered therein?183 Does the priest know that the high chief is already planning to visit him, to examine his stores and secure whatever new ornaments have been brought from Samoa?”184

“I fear no king.185 I am the voice of the gods.186 I am the friend of ‘Lono, who walks on the sea.’187 I fear no man,” replied Paao, quietly.188

“True,” said the chief.189 “Nevertheless the gods aid the man who crosses the channel in a canoe a little more than the man who tries to cross by swimming.190 We must plan together and hew out our canoe.191 We want you to consult the gods and tell us their will.”192

Paao was practical.193 He knew that by becoming the high priest of the chiefs he would establish his position in Hawaii.194 He knew the value of advice that comes through mysterious channels.195

He went into the temple.196 After some time he returned and said to the chief:197

“The gods answer slowly.198 They show that you must gather the chiefs upon whom you can depend and have the hard wood prepared for making spears.”199

“The bird that speaks” flew to Kapawa with the news that the priest from afar was seeking the wisdom of the gods to use against him, and that the chiefs were organising a rebellion.200

Several weeks of weary warfare followed.201

Kapawa was driven from refuge to refuge.202 All the district chiefs finally deserted him, and gave adherence to Paao.203

The defeated king fled across the channel between the Islands of Hawaii and Maui.204

He sought the Maui branch of the Ulu descendants, a discouraged and ruined king.205

The legends say that here he died.206 His body was placed in the royal burial cave, in Iao Valley, back of the village Wailuku.207 The native custodians of this cave guard its secrets jealously.208 Probably none of the white residents have seen its mysteries.209

Thus the old royal family of Hawaii was overthrown, and the way prepared to introduce “Pili, the king, from a foreign land.”210

Paao was afraid that the district chiefs would ask him for a high chief as soon as they should come together.211 Some of the chiefs had already said, “It may be the will of the gods that the high priest become the high chief also.”212

But Paao knew the inherent reverence of the Polynesians for blood-royal.213 He knew his own power.214 He felt that his position as high priest was unassailable.215 He wanted no civil entanglements.216 He had managed through all the campaign, to surround himself with mysteries, and had gained unbounded influence through arousing superstitious fears as well as through warlike deeds.217

The Hawaiian legends tell us Pili, a very high chief of Samoa, was persuaded by messengers from Paao to move to the islands of the north.218

Pili journeyed with, what the legend called, a “cloud of boats.”219 It was an eleventh century migration of a small nation to a distant home.220

Thus was Pili set apart as King of Hawaii.221

From Hilo, the eleventh century king went to the beautiful Waipio Valley, taking Paao with him.222 Later he moved to the Kohala district.223 Here Paao built the Mookini temple, in a place to which he gave the name it still bears—Lae Upolu, the Cape of Upolu.224

Here, in Kohala, from the eleventh century to 1819, the high priests and the chiefs of Hawaii made their home.225 The priest and the king stand out from the mists of the past, representing two great forces of Hawaiian government—the religious and the civil.226 Independent of each other, the rights of each were jealously guarded.227

Paao gave Pili no chance for choice.228 While he granted to the king civil authority, he retained absolutely independent control over the minds of the chiefs and the people in religious matters.229

Ka-meha-meha, the most noted person of all Hawaiian history, was a descendant in a straight genealogical line from Pili, and Hewa-hewa, the Christian, was the last high priest of the Paao line.230

This is the story of the founding of the Ka-meha-meha family.231 The legends have been shorn of the fabulous element which naturally gathered around them, in order that the true names and customs of the time might be delineated.232

One of the most important results was the establishment of an Aha-alii—council of chiefs—or herald’s college, which demanded the genealogy and proof of high birth, before admission was granted to the privileges of rank.233 In meeting this demand genealogies became of great importance.234 The separation between chiefs and common people became a gulf fixed by custom.235

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