Hawaii - James Michener [140]
"Aloha! Aloha! Aloha!" she said repeatedly in a low, soft voice, her expressive eyes sweeping the row of black-frocked missionaries in their claw-hammer coats. But her warmest greeting was for the skinny yet attractive young women who stood sedately in the rear. It would have taken almost four Amanda Whipples to equal the bulk of this giant woman as she lay in the canvas sling. "Aloha! Aloha!" she kept crying in her musical voice as she swung over the women.
"For the love of God!" Janders shouted. "Take it easy now. Gently! Gently!" As the ropes were eased over the capstans, the canvas sling slowly dropped toward the deck. Instantly, Captain Janders, Kelolo and Keoki rushed forward to intercept the sling, lest the Alii Nui be bruised in landing, but her bulk was so ponderous that in spite of their efforts to hold the sling off the deck, it pressed its way resolutely down, forcing the men to their knees and finally to a sprawling position. Undisturbed, the noble woman rolled over on the canvas, found her footing, and rose to majestic height, her bundles of tapa making her seem even larger than she was. Quietly, she passed down the line of missionaries, greeting each with her musical "Aloha! Aloha!" But when she came to the storm-tossed women, whose voyage she could imagine and whose underweight she instantly perceived, she could not restrain herself and broke into tears. Gathering little Amanda Whipple to her great bosom she wept for some moments, then rubbed noses with her as if she were a daughter. Moving to each of the women in turn, she continued her weeping and smothered them in her boundless love.
"Aloha! Aloha!" she repeated. Then, facing the women and ignoring their husbands as she did her own, she spoke softly, and when her son interpreted the words, they said: "My adorable little children, you must think of me always as your mother. Before, the white men have sent us only sailors and shopkeepers and troublemakers. Never any women. But now you come, so we know that the intentions of the Americans must at last be good."
Malama, the Alii Nui, the most sacred, mana-filled human being on Maui, waited grandly while this greeting was being delivered, and when the missionary wives acknowledged it, she moved down the line again, rubbing noses with each of the women and repeating, "You are my daughter."
Then, overcome both by the emotion and the exertions of getting aboard the Thetis, Malama, her great moon-face sublime in new-found comfort, slowly unfastened the tapas that bound her great bulk. Handing the ends to her servants, she ordered them to walk away from her, while she unwound like a top until she stood completely naked except for a hair necklace from which dangled a single majestic whale's tooth. Scratching herself in gasping relief, she indicated that she would lie down, and chose the canvas sling as a likely place, but when she stretched out on her stomach the missionaries were appalled to see tattooed along the full length of her left ham the purple letters: "Tamehameha King Died 1819."
"Did the Russians do that, too?" Captain Janders asked.
"They must have," Keoki replied. He asked his mother about the memento, and she twisted her head to study it. Tears came into her eyes and Keoki explained. "She was the nineteenth wife of Kamehameha the Great."
Jerusha gasped, "Why she was no better than a concubine!"
"In many ways," Keoki continued, "Malama was the favorite of the king's last years. Of course, since she was the Alii Nui, she was entitled to other husbands as well."
"You mean she was married to your father ... at the same time?" Abner asked suspiciously.
"Of course!" Keoki explained. "Kamehameha himself consented, because my father was her younger brother, and their marriage was essential."
"Throw some water on that woman!" Captain Janders shouted, for one of the missionary wives,