Hawaii - James Michener [171]
All these conventions resulted in one of the most serious breaches between the Hawaiians and the missionaries. The former, who loved to bathe and who rarely did even twenty minutes' work without sluicing themselves afterwards, found the missionaries not only dirty people but actually offensive in smell. Sometimes Malama, irritated by their sweaty odors, tried to suggest that Abner and Jerusha might like to swim on the fine kapu beach of the alii, but Abner rejected the invitation as if it had come from the devil.
So all the accumulated wisdom of the islanders was ignored by the mission families. Perspiring in unbelievably heavy clothing, eschewing the healthful foods that surrounded them, they stubbornly toiled and grew faint and lost their health and died. But in doing so, they converted a nation.
IN 1823, when the building of the church was two thirds completed, Kelolo approached Abner one evening with his final plea. "We can still change the entrance," he argued. "Then the evil spirits will be sure to keep away."
"God keeps evil from His churches," Abner replied coldly.
"Will you come with me to the grounds?" Kelolo begged.
"Everything has been arranged," Abner snapped.
"I want to show you a simple way . . ." Kelolo began.
"No!" Abner cried.
"Please," the tall chief insisted. "There is something you must know."
Against his better judgment, Abner threw down his pen and grudgingly walked in the night air to the church grounds, where a group of elderly men sat on their haunches, studying his church. "What are they doing?" Abner asked.
"They are my praying kahunas," Kelolo explained.
"No!" Abner protested, drawing back. "I do not want to argue with kahunas about a church of the Lord."
"These men love the Lord," Kelolo insisted. "Ask them. They know the catechism. They want the church to be built strong."
"Kelolo," Abner explained patiently, drawing near to the solemn kahunas, "I understand perfectly that in the old days these kahunas accomplished much that was good. But God does not require kahunas."
"Makua Hale," Kelolo pleaded, "we have come to you as friends who love this church. Please do not keep the door where it is. Every kahuna knows that that is wrong for the spirits of this location."
"God is the supreme spirit!" Abner argued, but since the night was pleasant, with a pale crescent moon in the west and occasional clouds sweeping in from the roads, he sat with the kahunas and talked with them about religion. He was surprised at how much of the Bible they knew, and at the skill with which they could accommodate it to their ancient beliefs. One old man explained, "We believe you are correct in what you say, Makua Hale. There is only one God, and we used to call Him Kane. There is a Holy Ghost, and we called Him Ku. There is Jesus Christ, and He is Lono. And there is the king of the underworld, and he is Kanaloa."
"God is not Kane," Abner reasoned, but the kahunas merely listened, and when it came time for them to speak they said, "Now when Kane, that is God, wishes a church to be built, he supervises it. He always did when we built our temples."
"God does not personally supervise the building of this church," Abner explained.
"Kane did."
"But God is not Kane," Abner patiently repeated.
The men nodded sagely and continued: "Now, since Kane is concerned about this church, and since we have always loved Kane, we thought it proper to advise you that this door . . ."
"The door will be where it now is," Abner explained, "because that is where the door to a church has always been. In Boston the door would be here. In London it would be here."
"But in Lahaina, Kane would not like it to be here," the kahunas argued.
"Kane is not God," Abner stubbornly repeated.
"We understand, Makua Hale," the kahunas politely agreed, "but since God and