Hawaii - James Michener [137]
"Go back! Go back!” Keoki pleaded in Hawaiian, and gradually the four laughing daughters and their beautiful naked mother began to realize that on this ship, unlike all others, they were not wanted, and in some confusion they climbed back into the canoe, which their family had acquired by providing such services to passing ships. Sadly, the man of the house, his day's profit gone, paddled his employees back to Lahaina, and whenever he came to groups of girls swimming to the Thetis he called in bewilderment, "Turn back! No girls are wanted!" And the convoy of island beauties sadly returned to the shore and dressed.
Aboard the Thetis, Abner Hale, who had never before seen a naked woman, said dazedly to his brothers, "There's going to be a lot of work to do in Lahaina."
Now from the shore came out two other Hawaiians of sharply different character. Abner first saw them when a large canoe, with vassals standing at stern and prow bearing yellow-feathered staffs, became the center of an extraordinary commotion. Islanders moved about in agitation as among them appeared two of the most gigantic human beings Abner had so far seen.
"That's my father!" Keoki Kanakoa shouted to the missionaries, and by choice he came to stand with the Hales, repeating to Abner, "The tall man is my father, guardian of the king's estates."
"I thought he was King of Maui," Abner remarked with disappointment.
"I never said so," Keoki replied. "The people in Boston did. They thought it impressed the Americans."
"Who is the woman?" Jerusha inquired.
"My mother. She's the highest chief in the islands. When my father wants to ask her a question of state, he has to crawl into the room on his hands and knees. So do I." Along the railing the missionaries studied the enormous woman who half climbed, half relaxed as her subjects heaved her fantastic bulk into the canoe. Keoki's mother was six feet four inches tall, stately, long-haired, noble in every aspect, and weighed three hundred and twenty pounds. Her massive foreams were larger than the bodies of many men, while her gigantic middle, swathed in many layers of richly patterned tapa, seemed more like the trunk of some forest titan than of a human being. By her bulk alone it could be seen that she was a chief, but her most conspicuous features were her two splendid breasts, which hung in massive brown grandeur above the soft red and yellow tapa. The missionary men stared in wonder; the women gazed in awe.
"We call her the Alii Nui," Keoki whispered reverently, pronouncing the title Alee-ee. "It is from her that our mana flows."
Abner looked at his young Christian friend in amazement, as if some foul error had corrupted him. "It is from God and not from an alii nui that your spiritual consecration flows," he corrected.
The young Hawaiian blushed, and with attractive candor explained, "When you have lived a long time with one idea, you sometimes express better ideas in the same careless way."
Again Abner frowned, as if his labors with Keoki were being proved futile. "God isn't what you call a better idea, Keoki," he said firmly. "God is a superlative fact. He stands alone and brooks no comparisons. You don't worship God merely because He represents a better idea." Abner spoke contemptuously, but Keoki, with tears of considerable joy in his eyes, did not recognize that fact and accepted the words in love.
"I am sorry, Brother Hale," he said contritely. "I used the word thoughtlessly."
"I think it would be better, Keoki," Abner reflected, "if from now on you referred to me in the old way. Reverend Hale. Your people might not understand the title Brother."
Jerusha interrupted and asked, "Didn't we agree that we were to call one another Brother and Sister?"
"That was among ourselves, Mrs. Hale," Abner explained patiently.
"Isn't Keoki one of ourselves?" Jerusha pressed.
"I think the term ourselves