H3$^^ Bishop 55 M^'M *r A- A^ CO mm. Why are the Hawaiians dying out? — ^ <= X = 33 1 == 30 — ^^ m 5 m .i^ 1 m i ' ' 51 ^_ 3] mj^ 4 = 3 = 91 1 5 = THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES f^ CrA/ WHY ARE THE HAWAIIANS DYING OUT? OR, ELEMENTS OF DISABILITY FOR SURVIVAL AMONG THE HAWAIIAN PEOPLE. By Rev. S. E. Bishop. [Read to Honolulu Social Science Association, Novembei, 1888. 1 Mr. Darwin supplied an expression which has been much in vogue, "The survival of the fittest." This is scarcely ap- plicable in the present case, since in Hawaii nei there is no competitive "struggle for existence" between weaker and stronger races of men. The Hawaiian Islands have been far more than sufficiently productive for the ample supply of the needs of all the people living here since the beginning of this century. So far all the different races have lived in plenty, and in amity with each other. A crowded condition might be conceived as possible in the future, when the thrifty and capable classes would push the inefficient and improvi- dent classes into penury. In such case, one would think the Chinese to be the best fitted for the "struggle for exist- ence," and the Polynesian the least fitted. The former in- herits an education of hundreds of generations in living on the minimum of necessaries, also an unequaled patience of industry and tactful thriftiness for procuring those necessa- ries. The latter, thriftless and indolent in comparison, would be crowded out of the land. [ No such conditions exist. There is no struggle to find Subsistence. One race is as fit to survive as another, so far as obtaining a living is concerned, in a country where the wages of one day's unskilled labor will purchase all indis- pensable food and raiment for a whole week. Neither is the climate of Hawaii less favorable to the health of one race than to that of another. It is comparatively a perfect cli- mate, absolutely devoid of extremes of temperature, free from humidity, swept by the ever purging ocean airs, and seemingly incapable of long harboring malarial or zymotic 965641 diseases. Possibly an Esquimaux might not thrive here. For all other races, it is an Eden in salubrity. Yet it is the strange fact — in view of the amiable and at- tractive qualities of Polynesians, the distressingly sad fact— that simultaneously with the arrival of white men m these islands, the Hawaiian people began rapidly to melt away, and that this waste has continued up to the present with substantial steadiness. At the date of the discovery, Cap- tain Cook estimated the population at 400,000. Later his- torians have leaned to the more moderate estimate of 250,- 000. My father who was one of the first party of white men to travel around Hawaii in 1824, then observed such evidences of recent extensive depopulation in all parts of that island, that he very decidedly supported the estimate of Cook. There are now less than 40,000 pure Hawauans sur- viving. The later counts have been taken with reasonable accuracy. One is led to suspect that the earlier ones omit- ted considerable numbers, when one observes the compara- tive sparseness of native population in every district, as com- pared with the relatively dense population fifty years ago, when only 125,000 were counted, or little more than three times the present number. With the exception of the towns of Honolulu, Hilo, and Wailuku, every large and populous town in the islands has dwindled to a hamlet since ■ my boyhood, and the then frequent and considerable ham- lets scattered everywhere, have almost all disappeared. The recollections of fifty years since are of throngs and swarms of natives everywhere. Yet even then all the talk was oi how the islands had become depopulated; even then, in travelling, the deserted sites of villages and hamlets with abandoned plantations were constantly pointed out. Have we now one in six of the ancient numbers of natives, or have we only one in ten? It is immaterial; the fact re- mains of an enormous depopulation. And yet, in the total absence of any struggle for existence, all the more or less civilized races migrating here, appear to thrive and multiply abundantly, and the children surpass their parents in health and in stature. At first sight, these foreigners do not average as equal to the Hawaiian. The Chinaman is vastly his inferior in strength, in stature, in symmetry, and in apparent soundness. But the Chinaman lives and propagates, while the Hawaiian dies easily, and leaves few or no offspring. The Caucasian also comes with his family and multiplies amain. The query then is, under what peculiar disabilities does the Hawaiian labor, as to vitality and power of propagation, from which the foreign races living here, are exempt? This inquiry is farther complicated by the fact that these disabil- ities, whatever they are, seem to have first sprung into effi- ciency upon contact with the white race. The coming of that race appears to have mtroduced new deleterious influ- ence, and created new conditions, under which the Polyne- sian, somewhere weak, succumbs. We are to seek to clearly define what these unfavorable conditions are, and wherein the weakness of the native race to withstand these adverse influences, consists. I here limit our inquiry to the Hawaiians, because with this people onl}' do we possess any intimate acquaintance. A similar state of things prevails more or less throughout Polynesia, and ultimate extinction appears to threaten the native population of most of the groups of Polynesia. We are to endeavor to define the precise causes of depopula- tion. We should strive to indicate exactly what adverse in- fluences have been steadil}^ at work for five generations to kill off the Hawaiian people. There has been a great deal of vague generalization — of indefinite talk about a weak race succumbing tp the stronger. We want to quit vagueness and generalities, and find the answer to the question, "In what respects, particularly and precisely, are the Hawaiian people weaker than their white, or their Mongoloid guests?" This will prepare us for the further inquiry, by what means can this weak race be so invigorated that it will agam multi- ply? Our first effort— perchance unskilled and misdirected, is to diagnose the deadly malady which is slaying the people. As the leading and most efficient element of weakness in the Hawaiian race, tending to phj^sical decay, we predicate: 1. Uiichastity. This has always been general among females^s" well as males. The Hawaiian female was, like males of other races, aggressive in solicitation. It was matter of good form that all proposals should be expressed by the female. It is still so, except to the extent that for- eign ideas have permeated society. The records of Cook's discovery of the group indicate that state of things as origi- nall}^ existing. The account written by Dr. Ellis, Cook's chief surgeon, states how at Kauai where they first touched, Captain Cook was determined, on account of serious dis- ease among his men, to permit no intercourse with the wo- men so as not to introduce disease among the Hawaiians. It was, however, impracticable to prevent the women from swarming over the ships. The native account received from participants by the early missionaries, states that it was ar- ranged in public council that the women should take this course, as the easiest way of obtaming iron and other prized articles from the ships. Proceeding from Niihau to Alaska, and returning nine months later, Cook's ships made the coast of Hamakua, Ha- waii. He again sought to keep the women from his crew, but discovered that they were already infected with the mal- ady. So promiscuous were the habits of the people, that from the first center of infection at Waimea, the malady had in nine months, spread like a fire to the other extremity of the group. This again, is corroborated by the information ob- tained by the early missionaries as to the spread of the dis- ease. Dr. Ellis describes in words undesirable to here re- produce the grossly aggressive and impetuous action of the females. It was the universal practice of ordinary hospitality to visitors, to supply them during their sojourn, with the women of the family. Such a matter-of-course tender was a frequent cause of annoyance to the early missionaries in their. tours in remoter districts, enjoying the cordial hospi- tality of the most well-to-do people in their neat thatched cottages. I am not prepared to say how far this heathen custom has now lapsed into disuse. It is certainly one of the old customs sought to be maintained and revived to- gether with the hulas and idolatrous practices. One of the painful experiences of missionaries in the out-districts, was to hear of this practice being carried out in the chief house- holds of his parish when some great man came along with his suite. I speak from repeated personal experience as a missionary pastor. It may be said in general that chastity had absolutely no recognition. It was simply a thing unknown and unthought of as a virtue in the old domestic life of Hawaii. A woman who withheld herself was counted sour and ungracious. This did not exclude more or less of marital proprietorship, involving an invasion of the husband's right in enjoying his property without his consent. There was no impurity in it, any more than among brute animals. There was, however, a salutary limitation of some im- portance in a frequent stringent guarding of early virginity. Young maidens were quite commonly put under tabu for first use by the chief, after possession by whom all restric- tion ceased. No sense of a sacredness in chastity seems to have been involved in this, nor any sense of profanation in the contrar}'. It was only the thought of a special choice- ness in an article that was fresh and unused. In the tre- mendous disturbances of life ensuing upon the advent of the white man, even this solitary restriction perished. No severe moral reprobation is due to the primitive Ha- waiian for what seems to have been an ignorant innocence - of easy, promiscuous living, like the free life of animals, without sense of evil. None the less must we deem this social condition more than any other to have incapacitated the Hawaiians from holding their own after the advent of the white man. During the simplicity of aboriginal life, and in the total absence of sexual diseases, the evils resulting from promiscuous intercourse would be minimized. Pro- creative force remained largely in excess of mortality, so that the teeming population was kept down by infanticide. But to the malady which the white man imported, the un- guarded social condition was as tow to the flame. The scorching and withering disease ran like wildfire through the nation. Multitudes died at once, while the survivors re- mained with poisoned bodies and enfeebled constitutions. A general impairment of constitutional vigor in the people by venereal disease caused them to fall early victims to other maladies, both native and foreign. All diseases ran riot in their shattered constitutions. They became especially inca- pacitated to resist pulmonary maladies. The greatly in- creased prevalence of colds and consumption is doubtless due to this syphilitic diathesis, rather than to change of habits as to clothing, although the latter may have had some unfavorable eftect. Probably the pestilence called Okuii, whatever its nature, which carried off such a bulk of the population in 1804, owed most of its virulence to the im- paired physique of the people. Another destructive effect of the syphilitic taint is believed to have been an inflaming of sexual passion. It may have acted as a ferment thrown into the former more quiet pool of promiscuous social living. There can be no doubt that the advent of foreigners in large numbers was attended by an immense increase of debased and bestial living. Ten thousand reckless seamen of the whaling fleet annually fre- quented these islands and used it as their great brothel. This enormously aggravated and inflamed the normal un- chastity of the people. In the presence of the white hordes life became hideously brutalized. To multitudes of young women, gathered into the seaports for profit, from half the households in the country, life became a continuous orgie of beastly excess. All the former slender limitations and re- strictions upon an indiscriminate commerce fell to pieces. The stormy and reckless passion of the white man, exulting in his unwonted license, imparted itself to the warm but sluggish Hawaiian nature. Life became a wasteful riot of impurity, propagated from the seaports to the end of the land. There was thus no defense against the new and try- ing conditions of life through any existing sentiment of the sacredness of chastity. The inevitable consequence was de- population. The population of brothels and slums has no internal power of multiplying. In the Report on the subject of Purity adopted by the 144 Bishops convened in the late Pan-Anglican Conference at Lambeth Palace, are the following words; "We solemnly record our conviction that wherever marriage is dishonored, and sins of the flesh are lightl}^ regarded, the home life -will be destroyed, and the nation itself will sooner or later, decay and perish." The source of this language will lend it great weight. The Hawaiian nation is a sad witness to their truth. One of the most destructive consequences of the new phy- sical taint was the enfeeblement of infancy, rendering it difficult for the diseased babes to survive the ignorant and careless dealing of their nurses. The largest increase in the mortality of the Hawaiians was undoubtedly among their infants. The external influences adverse to infant survival among Hawaiians are very great. Chief among these are the practice of feeding with unsuitable nutriment in early infancy, the prevalence of unchecked cutaneous maladies, general lack of watchful care, and evil doses administered by ignorant or superstitious friends. Healthy and vigorous infants, as of the old times, would in good numbers, survive all these hostile conditions. Those born into the taint of syphi- Hs, with its inward and outward corrosions, had Httle pros- pect of surviving other maltreatments, unless some mis- sionary or other beneficent foreigner came to their aid with his simple regimen and alleviations. Under this general head of Unchastity, as the chief cause of the depletion of the race, a considerable share must be at- tributed to the extensive loss of procreative power in the males.' This loss was probably due in part to syphilitic taint, but is mainly owing to early sexual excess during puberty. In the aboriginal condition, there would seem to have been less tendency to very early indulgence among the males. The nervous irritations of the S3'philitic taint, and the exciting excesses pervading native society, may have been causes extending debauching influences even to the children. It is certain' that in many districts, deplora- ble excesses have been found to exist among the school children. It seems to be true that a majority of young Ha- waiian men never have children. Those placed earl}' under the discipline of foreigners, in boarding schools or otherwise show exceptions to the common rule. The incapacity seems to be mainly on the part of the males. Young women united to Chinamen or white men are usually quite as fruitful as women of other races. Per contra, it is to be noted that such men are apt to select the best conditioned females, also that they are accustomed to restrain and to protect their wives, as Hawaiians do not, and so keep them in healthier condition. The common record of Hawaiian families is, few or no chil- dren born, or perhaps several born, most or all of whom die in infancy. Itisexceedingly rare to find a large family surviving to adult age. Nearly all such that I have known were families un- der the immediate and very parental control of some missionary, with whom the parents had lived from early youth, learning habits of industry, self-control, and civilized domestic living. They were themselves kept in vigor and health, their chil- dren were well cared for, and well doctored in sickness. Natives so situated very frequently not only raised large families, but by means of their superior industry, skill and thrift, acquired considerable substance. Being thereby placed in a high social rank among their countrymen, it has too commonly resulted, that most of their children became dissolute, like the children of the wealthy elsewhere, and the family failed to be continued. Among other disastrous effects of the universal syphilitic taint was the frequency of miscarriages. It has been the testimony of missionaries and physicians, that a very con- siderable proportion of native births have been prevented by that cause. In my inquiries in native households, this has been assigned as frequently as any other, as the cause of the absence of children. To make such inquiries is indeed melancholy. One becomes glad to hear that even one or two children are surviving in a household. Abortion is often attributed to active horseback exercise during pregnancy. As native females used to be contin- ually 5-alloping about, no doubt this has contributed to the evil since 1H50, when the common people began gen- erally to possess horses. With the development of good roads, wheels are now coming into very common use by all classes. 2. Drunkenness. This should be assigned to no incon-" siderable place among disabling conditions. Before the haole arrived, the favorite narcotic was mva {piper methysticiun) more commonly known throughout Oceanica as kava. A beer of some strength was made by fermenting sweet pota- to. The sirupy Ki-root [Drac(ena Ti) was also macerated and fermented, becoming still more alcoholic than the pota- to. This was less acceptable, tending to produce irascibili- ty, while the sour potato swill only inflamed sexuality. No great orgies of drunkenness resulted from the use of any of the foregoing. The vice existed only in mild forms. Awa in excess tended to waste and paralyze the system. With the foreigner came the products of the still. Only then did drunkenness begin to reign. Drunken orgies were an essential part of the beach-combers paradise on Hawaiian shores. He found the Hawaiian an apt disciple, save that like all savages, he did not know how to stop. The story of the early missionaries is one of constant im- pediment in their labors from the inebriety of the King and Chiefs, and of frequent annoyance and disturbance from the riotous orgies of the common people. While Kamehameha lived, he put considerable check upon both his people and himself as to temperance. His youthful successor, Li- holiho, plunged, with his people, into a carnival of excess. The contribution of drunkenness to depopulation was 9 mainly indirect, although powerful. It tended to overturn and destroy whatever remains of wholesome social order and domestic life survived the general wreck consequent upon foreign intercourse. It stimulated the passions ; it solved the remaining bonds of self-restraint; it flung pru- dence to the winds ; thus it enhanced the effectiveness of the causes previously described. Intemperance is always a chief ally of impurity. The gin-mill and the brothel are close partners. 3. Opj>ression by the Chiefs. There was a considerable mortality during the first quarter of this century, when the sandal-wood trade was active, caused by the heavy exactions of the King and Chiefs upon the common people to procure this precious commodity, wherewith to liquidate their im- mense debts to the traders, incurred for yachts and costly luxuries. Great numbers of men were driven into the moun- tains upon this errand, passing many nights in cold and rain with slight protection and little food. The result was great waste of life, and the almost entire extirpation of the precio/ds tree.. Other severe exactions of labor were common. Qi'tat levies of labor and supplies were frequently made at a chief's caprice from the tenants uf remote estates, to be brought to the island capital. This was an evil much increased by the temptations of foreign trade. No doubt it materially con- tributed to the decimation of the people. Oppression by chiefs has ceased to be an operative cause for nearly half a century, or since Constitutional government began to exist. 4. Infectious and Epidemic Diseases. These have largely added to the destruction of the population. There seems to be good reason for accepting the theorj^ that new diseases attack with more severity and greater fatality races who are unaccustomed to them or to their like. No doubt any race becomes in time somewhat hardened to the diseases which infest it, the weaker and more susceptible individuals being weeded out, and the hardier ones transmitting their resisting power to descendants. Measles first appeared here in 1849. Great numbers died in all parts of the group. The excess of mortality was at- tributed to the patients' bathing in order to alleviate the ex- ternal heat and irritation of the malady. Small-pox first arrived in 1853. Before vaccination could 10 be efficiently administered to the natives, the infection had spread over the Island of Oahu, and one-half, or 15,000, of the people on that island perished in a few weeks. After their manner, the}^ rushed to visit their friends when at- tacked by the disease. Isolation and precaution against in- fection is foreign to their natures. By the energy of the then "missionary" government quarantine measures were vigor- ously enforced on the other islands, and the people thor- oughly vaccinated, so that only a few hundred deaths oc- curred. Foreigners were all promptly vaccinated, and nearly all escaped. Malarial and other epidemics have been repeatedly intro- duced, and from time to time have produced extensive mor- tality among the natives. The admirable climate, with its sea-air and the ozone of the mountain land-breezes, seemed in each case rapidly to mitigate the virulence with which earlier cases of the new malady would be characterized, later cases assuming milder forms, until the disease seemed to slowly die out. This was very marked in the instance of what was known as the " Boo-hoo" fever, which attacked all newly arrived foreigners. It was quite severe at its first appearance in 1851, but by 1857 had become a very trifling malady. Leprosy has been something of a scourge. Probably 4,000 lepers have died in these islands during the past thirty years. The number at present suffering from the disease cannot be more than 1,500, or four per cent, of the native population. For more than a year, or since the end of 1887, there has been a radical improvement in the work of segregating the lepers. There seems reason to believe that soon nearly every leper will have been removed to the excellent asylum at Molokai. The lepers are nearly all natives. The disease very rarely appears among the white or the Mongolian races livmg here, owing to their carefully avoiding intercourse with lepers. Hawaiians, on the contrary, mingle freely with lepers, in the most intimate daily intercourse. They commonly re- gard the segregation of their leprous relatives as a cruel and uncalled for severity. This is only one illustration of the habitual indifference of this people to sanitation, whether in physics or in morals. Indeed, the idea of disease being a product of natural 11 agencies, and a thing to be averted by ph)'sical preventives, seems to be one quite foreign to the Hawaiian's mind, and contrary to his mode of thought. In common with other uncivihzed races the world over, they were accustomed to attribute all diseases to the immediate agency of some per- sonal demon, who enters the patient and malignantly dis- tresses and destroys him. This brings us to another, and one of the most destructive of the agencies contributing to the diminution of the Hawaiian people. 5. Kahunas and Sonoy. The kahuna is the medicine man. He is properly a sorcerer or wizard, whose chief re- liance for the relief of disease is the employment of super- natural agencies, although he will also perhaps use drugs and hygienic treatment. From ancient times these men and their arts have been powerful agencies of death, al- though not seldom effecting a species of "faith cure." When a Hawaiian is ill, his superstitions relatives and friends im- mediately seek to persuade him that his sickness is owing to the malign presence of some demon, who must either be propitiated or expelled by force. Some kahuna is called in to accomplish this object. He is believed to enjoy special power with some patron demon, who may be the one need- ing to be propitiated, or whose agency may be called in to expel and ovecome the perhaps less powerful agent of the disease. If one kahuna proves insufficient to the task, others must be found who possess the special influence needed. The processes employed are always expensive to the patient, and very commonly quite severe. There are sacrifices of pigs and fowls; there are complex ' incantations. There are doubtless various efforts allied to mesmeric or hypnotic phenomena. Violent sweatings and purgings are frequently used to promote the expulsion of the demon, with great physical severities of different kinds, such as often are of themselves fatal to the patient. The tension of anxiety and dread is terrible and very weakening. A great mortality results directly from this violent and terrify- ing treatment. Furthermore, there is a large mortality caused by pure mental apprehension, where no disease ori- ginally existed. The sull'erer is told that a sorcerer is at work against him ; he at once sickens, and is prostrated, and soon dies. Or he is solemnly warned by a learned kahuna that he has symptoms of dangerous disease impending. Or 12 he is conscious of having committed some act, such as the violation of a vow, which has offended the family deity, or numakua, and through mental apprehension, the same effect of sickening ensues. All these things play into the hands of the medicine man, bring him dupes and victims, increase his revenue, and multiply the mortality of the people. It is difficult to determine to what extent these superstitious agencies are still at work. There is painful reason to be- lieve that their activity has been greatly revived of late years. There is much ground for thinking that a large proportion of the more intelligent and educated Hawaiians, when they fall ill, are prone to succumb to the inherited superstition. It is commonly remarked that the Hawaiian, when sick, shows a strange lack of recuperative power. He dies easily. He becomes depressed and surrenders, where other men would recover. Probably in most such cases, the cause is his superstitious belief in a demon, whom he feels working at his vitals, and whom it is hopeless to resist. • 6. Idolatry. This is intimately connected with the above-named agency. Its chief importance, however, in this discussion, is in its character as the most efficient of all the agencies that disorder the mental and debase the moral action of the people, and which frustrate and neutralize remedial influences. It resembles Drunkenness in this re- spect, but I think very far exceeds it in its evil ethical efficiency. All thinkers, of whatever creed or type of skepticism, con- sider a people's religion to have an immense formative power upon them. The institutions, the customs, and the conduct of a people are certain to be shaped and patterned, m a great degree, after whatever embodiments of moral ideals they believe in, such as deified heroes, and deities of whatever sort whom they fear and worship. If the gods of any nation, like those of early Egypt, are understood to ex- ercise substantial justice, to reward virtue, purity, and tem- perance, and to punish vice, treachery, and cruelty, such a nation will continue to cherish the higher, and to despise the baser qualities. Righteousness has the sanction of religion, and the nation grows and prospers. The Polythe- isms of Egypt, of Greece, of Rome, of Chaldaea, in their earlier and less corrupted forms, exalted much of the higher elements of character; hence a good degree of civilization 13 became possible under these religions. This was also true of the earlier Brahminism of the Vedas. There is strong evidence that these religions were all corruptions from an original Monotheism, retaining something of that earlier religious recognition of the Righteousness and Benevolence of the Heaven-P'ather, the Dyaus-Pitar, Zeus-Pater, or Jupiter of the Aryan races. It is most noticeable how, from debased races, these nations imported successively the wor- ship of evil gods — the Baals, Molochs, Astartes, Kalis, gods of lust, cruelty, falsehood, debauchery. These fastened as parasites upon the earlier and cleaner Polytheisms, and so corroded and poisoned the social and political life of those great nations. Whether, as Fornander maintains, any traces of an an- cient Monotheism can be discerned in the Polynesian Pan- theon, may be considered doubtful. It is certain, however, that the prevailing characteristics attributed to even the highest gods, such as Fornander's Trinity of Ku, Kane, and Kanaloa, were wretchedly evil and unclean. There are not merely strong tendencies to animalism and cruelty, with frequent lapses into crimes of lust and revenge, such as dis- figure Greek mytholog}-. These gods of the Hawaiians be- come absolute embodiments of bestiality and malignity, like Moloch and other gods of the Canaanites. The impure and malignant essence of Hawaiian deities is visibly embodied in their images. In contrast to the per- sonal beauty of the Greek gods, the aim and the effort of the carver is to depict an extreme of malignity and sensualit3\ The lineaments are made as revolting and horrific as the artist can combme them from vicious types of animal savagery, such as the shark or the boar. The first impres- sion is a just one, that a people who worshipped such deities as these images represent could not be otherwise than pro- foundly perverted in their ethical sentiments. The various legends of the chief gods abound in attributes of the most excessive bestiality. They are generally in- capable of being printed without extensive expurgation. A loathsome filthiness is not mere incident, but forms the groundwork of character, not merely of the great hog-god Kamapuaa, but even of the more human-like Ku and Kane of the chief Trinity. The moral ideas of the worshippers of such gods could u not fail to suffer extreme perversion.. Justice and Purity were in contempt. Cruelty and Lust were exalted into religion. The late Matthew Arnold, eliminating personality from the idea of the God of Christendom, defined Deity as "The Stream of Tendency in the Universe that makes for Righteousness." If we could eliminate these horrific per- sonalities from the Hawaiian Pantheon, we might well count the ideal residuum to stand for the stream of tendency that makes for all wickedness. It was an embodied Diabolism. As a shaping force upon character, and a moving force upon conduct, this diabolic religion takes its energy from Sorcery. Sorcery brings these evil gods down as living active powers interposing in all circumstances of life. By the arts of the kahunas the people were held, and, to a con- siderable extent, are still held, in habitual fear of these powerful gods and their subordinate demons. Their lives are continually threatened by them. Every internal sense of illness is the deadly touch, sensibly felt, of a god. So the people were held in abject slavery to their gods, and to the priests who could influence them. Slaves to such un- clean beings, they tend to be like them; their moral senti- ments arS overturned ; evil becomes good, and good evil. Lewdness, prostitution, indecency, drunkenness, being god- like, are exalted into virtues. Recent practical illustrations of this are not lacking. One of the foul florescences of this great poison tree of Idolatry is the Hula. This is most intimately connected with the whole system, and forms an essential part of its services, just as Sacred Music does of Christian worship. The hula dances are habitually idolatrous in practice, hav- ing their special patron gods, whom the dancers invoke and worship. The chief posturings and movements of the hulas are pantomimes of unnameable lewdness, illustrated and varied with elaborate art, and accompanied with chants of unspeakable foulness of diction and description. This is the Sacred Music of Idolatry, its Opera and its Drama. The multitudes of men, women and children who throng to these royal hula-operas there drink in the heathen ethics of social life in unmitigated directness and grossness, made sensational with vivid pantomime of beastliness, and em- bellished with foul wit and jest in song, extolling and dram- 15 atizing impurity. Against such schooling, it must be a powerful civilizing force that can make head and redeem any Hawaiian homes from becoming brothels. 7. Wifeless Chinese. This is an evil of recent growth, which acts most perniciously upon the social life of Hawaii- ans. There are some 20,000 Chinamen of the lowest class, without their women, distributed throughout the islands in close contact with the natives, and in many districts out- numbering the Hawaiian males. The effect is necessarily very destructive to the purity of native families, although not more so than the presence of a similar number of un- married whites would be. There is no doubt but that many native households in all parts of the country are maintained in comparative affluence by the intimacy of Chinese with their females. Some of the heads of these families are members in good standing in the Protestant churches, whose easy-going native pastors lack the energy and author- ity to deal with the offenders, while the moral sentiment prevailing both within and outside of the church is too feeble to put them to shame. The catalogue of destructive elements making for the death of the Hawaiian people, as enumerated above, is an appalling one. It certainly suffices to account for any amount of infertility and mortality. On the other hand, there are many sanative and restorative agencies at work, which inspire hope for the repression of these evils, and afford prospect for the reinforcement and augmentation of healing agencies. I brief!}' name some of the most efficient: 1. Government Medical Aid. Paid physicians are with- in reach of most of the people, whose services to them are free of charge. Their help should save many more lives than they do, or than they will, so long as the people are taught Idolatry, and to trust in the kahunas. It is not in itself a very easy thing for a skilled physician to gain the confidence of the native people in the degree that he needs for any considerable success. It is nearly impossible for him to do so, when contending as he generally is with active superstition in the minds of his patients, and their friends, and with the army of kahunas working with all their arts against him. His prescriptions will very commonly be neglected, and his injunctions disobeyed. I have not the slightest doubt that a hearty reception by 16 the Hawaiian people of the medical aid now provided, dis- carding their kahunas, would at once cause births to pre- ponderate over deaths. 2. Hygienic Instruction. There has been a great deal of instruction given upon the laws of health and simple re- medial treatment in the schools and churches, and by means of books. Dr. Judd's translation of Cutter's Anatomy and Physiology was printed nearly fifty years ago, and used as a text book in the leading high school. Such instruction has done great service. It has proved insufficient, however, to make head against the inveterate belief in the supernatural cause of disease. It is likel}' to continue inadequate, so long as the kahunas are encouraged to ply their arts. 3. ScJiool Education. Book knowledge, and even the much vaunted education in English, have sadly failed to arm Hawaiians against succumbing to superstition and its kindred impurity, either in the ranks of the lowly or the lofty. Domestic and Industrial Training in boarding schools has accomplished much more, and is doing excellent work for ' both sexes, by their practical training in the ethics, the con- duct, and the industry of Christian civilization. Several hundred youth of each sex are now enjoying the advantages of such schools conducted by Protestants, Anglicans, and Catholics. Adversely, the youth who go out of these schools are at once plunged into a sea of indescribable temptation. Yet much of our best hopes for the future of the race is in the increasing numbers of these well-trained Hawaiians. They tend to form an elevated and civilized social class of their own. This is opposed and disintegrated by a Hawaiian social leadership, whose tendencies are all adverse. 4. Christian Instruction will continue to be regarded by earnest' believers in Christianity as the chief effective agency in healing the nation's maladies. They hold that Faith in Christ has power to emancipate from fear of demon-gods: they believe that the implanting of the high ideal of right- eousness of which Jesus of Nazareth is the source, will in the end erect in all minds a standard of integrity and purity which will be more effectual than anything else in securing moral and healthy living among the people. Probably the most of the many true and earnest friends of 17 right living who do not accept the supernatural element of Christian doctrine would agree that for the Hawaiian, in his present mental stage of development, such a faith would be a more efficient antidote than any scientific or philosophical teaching could be. If it be asked why sixty-eight years of Christian teaching has not availed to lift the Hawaiian people out of the mire of impure living, if it be thus efficacious, its teachers would point to the great increase of adverse influences for the last thirty years, and to the direct fostering of sorcery and Jiiilas by authority during that time, and latterly to the promotion of hardly concealed worship of the gods. They would also point to the immense growth of foreign elements whose un- favorable influence has been illustrated in the case of the Chinese. They would also call special attention to the fact that, during the period of powerful missionary ascendancy, say from 1833 to 1853, while nearly the whole people be- came nominal adherents of Christianity, only a minority be- come actual members of the churches, while the great majority, although outwardly assenting, remained wedded to their habitual vice, and secretly to their superstitions, and that the more Christian minority gave place by death to an- other generation far less strongly impressed and less fervid in religious interest. In accordance with the foregoing statement of facts, as I clearly understand them, and whose substantial correctness I think cannot be gainsaid, there seems to be no radical remedy for the two great causes of infertility and mortality, viz: Unchastity and Sorcery, except a system of vigorously extirpating those two allied agencies in which they generate and are nourished, the Hulas and the Kahniuis. Both are purely heathen institutions of the most pronounced and de- testable type, and are totally incompatible with any true and wholesome civilization. They should both be hunted down and exterminated like the venomous reptiles that they are, poisoning and slaying the people. Until this is done with determined thoroughness, I see little prospect of arresting the decrease of the Hawaiian people. The Hawaiian Race is one that is well worth saving. With all their sad frailties, they are a noble race of men, physically and morally. They are manly, courageous, enter- prising, cordial, generous, unselfish. They are highly receptive of good. They love to look torward and upward. UNIVERSITY or CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles / This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 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