Among the celebrated war-gods of the kings of the group was that of Kamehameha I. It was called Kaili, or Ku-kaili-moku, 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 ordinary temples the kaiopokeo prayer was employed; but in consecrating heiaus of the first class the kuawili invocation was recited, a prayer continuing from sunrise to sunset. Oil and holy water were sprinkled upon the altars and sacred vessels, and the services were under the direction of the high-priest, and generally in the presence of the governing chief.
The ordinary services in the temples consisted of offerings of fruits and meats, and of chants, prayers and responses, in which the people sometimes joined. Women did not participate in the ceremonies of the temples, but the exclusion found ample compensation in their exemption from sacrifice when human bodies were required.
Temples of refuge, called puhonuas, were maintained on Hawaii, and possibly on Lanai and Oahu in the remote past; but concerning the latter there is some doubt. One of the puhonuas on Hawaii was at Honaunau, near the sacred burial-place of Hale-o-Keawe, and the other at Waipio, connected with the great heiau of Paa-kalani. Their gates were always open, and priests guarded their entrances. Any one who entered their enclosures for protection, whether chief or slave, whether escaping criminal or warrior in retreat, was safe from molestation, even though the king pursued. These places of refuge, with the right of circumcision, which existed until after the death of the first Kamehameha, suggest a Polynesian contact with the descendants of Abraham far back in the past, if not a kinship with one of the scattered tribes of Israel.
In further evidence of the wanderings of the early Polynesians in western and southern Asia, and of their intercourse with the continental races, it may be mentioned that a disposition toward phallic worship, attested by tradition and existing symbols, followed them far out into the Pacific; and that connected with their story of the creation, so closely resembling the Hebrew version, is the Buddhist claim of previous creations which either ran their course or were destroyed by an offended godhead. Nor is Hawaiian tradition content with the mere advancement of the theory of successive creations. It makes specific reference to a creation next preceding that of their Ku-mu-honua, or Adam, and gives the names of the man and woman created and destroyed. They were Wela-ahi-lani and Owe.
It has been mentioned that the birds pueo and alae were sacred and sometimes worshipped. Among the sacred fish were the aku and opelu. How they became so is told in a legend relating to the high-priest Paao, who migrated to the islands in the eleventh century and induced Pili to follow him. Before visiting Hawaii, Paao lived near his brother, probably on the island of Samoa. Both were priests and well skilled in sorcery and divination. The name of the brother was Lonopele. Both were affluent and greatly respected. Lonopele’s lands were near the sea and produced the choicest varieties of fruits. One season, when the fruits were ripening, Lonopele discovered that some one was surreptitiously gathering them in the night-time, and accused one of the sons of Paao of stealing them. Indignant at the charge, and discerning no better way of disproving it, Paao killed and opened his son, and showed his brother that there was no fruit in the stomach of the boy.
Grieved at the death of his son, and holding his brother accountable for it, Paao concluded to emigrate to some other land, and built strong canoes for that purpose. About the time they were completed a son of Lonopele chanced to be in the neighborhood, and Paao, remembering the death of his own son, ordered the boy to be killed. He was missed, and search was made for him, and his body was finally found near Paao’s canoes. Lonopele charged his brother with the murder. Paao did not deny it, and Lonopele ordered him to leave the island. To avoid further trouble Paao set sail at once with a party consisting of thirty-eight persons. One tradition says Pili was of the party; but he must have left Samoa some years later, as Paao sent or went for him after reaching Hawaii.
General Dominis, Consort of the Heir-Apparent.
As the canoes were moving from the shore several prophets, standing on the cliffs above, expressed a desire to join the party. “Very well,” was the answer of Paao; “if you are prophets, as you say, leap from the cliffs and I will take you aboard.” Several leaped into the sea and were dashed against the rocks and drowned. Finally Makuakaumana, a prophet of genuine inspiration, who was to have accompanied the expedition, reached the shore and discovered the canoes of Paao far out on the ocean. Raising his voice, he hailed Paao and asked that a canoe might be sent back for him. “Not so,” returned the