The Hawaiian Archipelago, Isabella Lucy Bird [list of ebook readers txt] 📗

HILO, February 22.

My sojourn here is very pleasant, owing to the kindness and sociability of the people. I think that so much culture and such a variety of refined tastes can seldom be found in so small a community. There have been pleasant little gatherings for sewing, while some gentlemen read aloud, fern-printing in the verandah, microscopic and musical evenings, little social luncheons, and on Sunday evenings what is colloquially termed, "a sing," at this most social house. One of the things I have specially enjoyed has been spending an afternoon at the Rev. Titus Coan's. He is not only one of the most venerable of the remaining missionaries, but such an authority on the Hawaiian volcanoes as to entitle him to be designated "the high-priest of Pele!" In his modest, quiet way he told thrilling stories of the old missionary days.

As you know, the islands cast off idolatry in 1819, but it was not till 1835 that Mr. and Mrs. Coan arrived in Hilo, where Mr. and Mrs. Lyman had been toiling for some time, and had produced a marked change on the social condition of the people. Mr. C. was a fervid speaker, and physically very robust, and when he had mastered the language, he undertook much of the travelling and touring, and Mr. Lyman took charge of the home mission station, and the boarding and industrial school which he still indefatigably superintends. There were 15,000 natives then in the district, and its extremes were 100 miles apart. Portions of it could only be reached with peril to limbs and even life. Horses were only regarded as wild animals in those days, and Mr. C. traversed on foot the district I have just returned from, not lazily riding down the gulch sides, but climbing, or being let down by ropes from tree to tree, and from crag to crag. In times of rain like last week, when it was impossible to ford the rivers, he sometimes swam across, with a rope to prevent him from being carried away, through others he rode on the broad shoulders of a willing native, while a company of strong men locked hands and stretched themselves across the torrent, between him and the cataract, to prevent him from being carried over in case his bearer should fall. This experience was often repeated three or four times a day. His smallest weekly number of sermons was six or seven, and the largest from twenty-five to thirty. He often travelled in drowning rain, crossed dangerous streams, climbed slippery precipices, and frequently preached in wind and rain with all his garments saturated. On every occasion he received aid from the natives, who were so kind and friendly, that when he used to sleep in the woods at night, he hung his watch on a tree, knowing that it was perfectly safe from pilfering or curious touch. Indeed the Christian teachers seem to have been regarded as tabu.

Before the end of that year, Mr. Coan had made the circuit of Hawaii, a foot and canoe trip of 300 miles, in which he nearly suffered canoe-wreck twice. In all, he has admitted into the Christian church by baptism, 12,000 persons, besides 4000 infants. He gave a most interesting account of one great baptism. The greatest care was previously taken in selecting, teaching, watching, and examining the candidates. Those from the distant villages came and spent several months here for preliminary instruction. Many of these were converts of two years' standing, a larger class had been on the list for more than a year, and a smaller one for a lesser period. The accepted candidates were announced by name several weeks previously, and friends and enemies everywhere were called upon to testify all that they knew about them. On the first Sunday in July, 1838, 1705 persons, formerly heathens, were baptised. They were seated close together on the earth-floor in rows, with just space between for one to walk, and Mr. Lyman and Mr. Coan passing through them, sprinkled every bowed head, after which Mr. C. admitted the weeping hundreds into the fellowship of the Universal Church by pronouncing the words, "I baptise you all in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." After this, 2400 converts received the Holy Communion. I give Mr. C.'s own words concerning those who partook of it, "who truly and earnestly repented of their sins, and steadfastly purposed to lead new lives." "The old and decrepit, the lame, the blind, the maimed, the withered, the paralytic, and those afflicted with divers diseases and torments; those with eyes, noses, lips, and limbs consumed; with features distorted, and figures depraved and loathsome: these came hobbling upon their staves, or led and borne by others to the table of the Lord. Among the throng you would have seen the hoary priest of idolatry, with hands but recently washed from the blood of human victims, together with thieves, adulterers, highway robbers, murderers, and mothers whose hands reeked with the blood of their own children. It seemed like one of the crowds the Saviour gathered, and over which He pronounced the words of healing."

Though the people cast off idolatry in 1819, before the arrival of the missionaries, they were very indifferent to Christian teaching until 1837, the year before the great baptism, when a great religious stir began, and for four years affected all the islands. I wish you could have heard Mr. C. and Mrs. Lyman tell of that stirring time, when nearly all the large population of the Hilo and Puna districts turned out to hear the Gospel, and how the young people went up into the mountains and carried the news of the love of God and the good life to come to the sick and old, who were afterwards baptized, when often the only water which could be obtained for the rite was that which dripped sparingly from the roofs of caves. The Hawaiian notions of a future state, where any existed, were peculiarly vague and dismal, and Mr. Ellis says that the greater part of the people seemed to regard the tidings of ora loa ia Jesu (endless life by Jesus) as the most joyful news they had ever heard, "breaking upon them," to use their own phrase, "like light in the morning." "Will my spirit never die, and can this poor weak body live again?" an old chiefess exclaimed, and this delighted surprise seemed the general feeling of the natives. From less difficult distances the sick and lame were brought on litters and on the backs of men, and the infirm often crawled to the trail by which the missionary was to pass, that they might hear of this good news which had come to Hawaii-nei.

There were but these two preachers for the 15,000 people scattered for 100 miles, who were all ravenous to hear, and could not wait for the tardy modes of evangelization. "If we die," said they, "let us die in the light." So this strange thing fell out, that whole villages from miles away gathered to the mission station. Two- thirds of the population of the district came in, and within the radius of a mile the grass and banana houses clustered as thick as they could stand. Beautiful Hilo in a short time swelled from a population of 1000 to 10,000; and at any hour of the day or night the sound of the conch shell brought together from 3000 to 6000 worshippers. It was a vast camp-meeting which continued for two years, but there was no disorder, and a decent quiet ruled throughout the strangely extemporized city. A new morality, a new social order, new notions on nearly all subjects, had to be inculcated as well as a new religion. Mrs. C. and Mrs. L. daily assembled the women and children, and taught them the habits and industries of civilization, to attend to their persons, to braid hats, and to wear and make clothes.

During this time, on November 7, 1837, one of the striking phenomena which make the islands remarkable occurred. The crescent sand- beach, said to be the most beautiful in the Pacific, the fringe of palms, the far-reaching groves behind, and the great ocean, slept in summer calm, as they sleep to-day. Four sermons, as usual, had been preached to audiences of 6000 people. There had been a funeral, the natives say, though Mr. C. does not remember it, and his text had been "Be ye also ready," and larger throngs than usual had followed the preachers to their homes. The fatiguing day was over, the natives were singing hymns in the still evening air, and Mr. C. "had gathered his family for prayers" in the very room in which he told me this story, when they were startled by "a sound as if a heavy mountain had fallen on the beach." There was at once a fearful cry, wailing, and indescribable confusion. The quiet ocean had risen in a moment in a gigantic wave, which, rushing in with the speed of a racehorse, and uplifting itself over the shore, swept everything into promiscuous ruin; men, women, children, dogs, houses, food, canoes, clothing, floated wildly on the flood, and hundreds of people were struggling among the billows in the midst of their earthly all. Some were dashed on the shore, some were saved by friends who hurried to their aid, some were carried out to sea by the retiring water, and some stout swimmers sank exhausted; yet the loss of life was not nearly so great as it would have been among a less amphibious people. Mr. C. described the roaring of the ocean, the cries of distress, the shrieks of the perishing, the frantic rush of hundreds to the shore, and the desolation of the whole neighbourhood of the beach, as forming a scene of the most thrilling and awful interest.

You will remember that I wrote from Kilauea regarding the terror which the Goddess of the Crater inspired, and her high-priest was necessarily a very awful personage. The particular high-priest of whom Mr. Coan told me was six feet five inches in height, and his sister, who was co-ordinate with him in authority, had a scarcely inferior altitude. His chief business was to keep Pele appeased. He lived on the shore, but often went up to Kilauea with sacrifices. If a human victim were needed, he had only to point to a native, and the unfortunate wretch was at once strangled. He was not only the embodiment of heathen piety, but of heathen crime. Robbery was his pastime. His temper was so fierce and so uncurbed that no native dared even to tread on his shadow. More than once he had killed a man for the sake of food and clothes not worth fifty cents. He was a thoroughly wicked savage. Curiosity attracted him into one of the Hilo meetings, and the bad giant fell under the resistless, mysterious influence which was metamorphosing thousands of Hawaiians. "I have been deceived," he said, "I have deceived others, I have lived in darkness, and did not know the true God. I worshipped what was no God. I renounce it all. The true God has come. He speaks. I bow down to Him. I wish to be His son." The priestess, his sister, came soon afterwards, and they remained here several months for instruction. They were then about seventy years old, but they imbibed the New Testament spirit so thoroughly