Hawaii - Jeff Campbell [15]
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DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLES
The purpose of the ancient Hawaiian kapu system was to preserve mana, or the manifest spirit of the gods animating the world. Mana could be strong or weak, won or lost; it expressed itself in one’s talents and the success of a harvest or battle. Chiefs inherited mana through their lineage to the gods, and maintaining this was most important of all.
The kapu system kept ali’i from mingling with commoners and men from eating with women (to avoid dissipating mana). It kept women from eating pork and shark and from entering luakini heiau, or sacrificial temples. Chiefs could declare temporary kapus, and they punished with death even small infractions, say, a commoner stepping on an ali’i’s shadow.
However, white foreigners, once they arrived in Hawaii, were clearly not governed by nor held accountable to the kapu system. Lesser ali’i saw you could possess power without following it, and women saw that breaking it – such as by secretly eating with sailors – didn’t incur the gods’ wrath. Kamehameha’s unruly, powerful wife, Ka‘ahumanu, particularly chafed under the kapu, as it kept her and all women from becoming leaders equal to men.
Eventually, even Hawaii’s head priest, Hewahewa, couldn’t justify the system. Upon Kamehameha’s death in 1819, he and Ka’ahumanu convinced Liholiho, Kamehameha’s heir, that the time had come. After observing the traditional mourning period, they arranged a huge feast where Liholiho was to sit and eat with women, thereby breaking and renouncing the kapu.
Such an act – effectively ending Hawaii’s religion – was nearly beyond the young king. He dawdled for several months, and the day before, to bolster his courage, he drank himself into a royal stupor. But act he did. To the shock of the gathered ali’i, Liholiho helped himself to food at the women’s table. Then Hewahewa, signaling his approval, noted that the gods could not survive without the kapu. ‘Then let them perish with it!’ Liholiho is said to have cried.
Immediately, and for months afterward, Ka’ahumanu and others set fire to the temples and pulled down and destroyed images of the gods. Most Hawaiians were happy to be released from the kapu, but many also continued to venerate the gods and secretly preserved religious idols.
Some, in fact, openly rebelled. Led by Hawaii’s second-highest priest, Kekuaokalani, a small army gathered to defend the gods, but in battle, Liholiho’s superior forces defeated them in fusillades of musket fire.
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At the same time, Pacific whaling ships found Hawaii an ideal place to reprovision and transfer their catch to ships heading for America. By 1824, over 100 ships were arriving annually, and this number grew exponentially for the next three decades. Particularly once the sandalwood trade collapsed in 1830 (after profligate ali’i allowed the trees to be pillaged to pay off their debts), whaling became the economic backbone of the islands, especially in ports like Honolulu and Lahaina. Supplying the whalers also influenced island agriculture – since sailors didn’t want poi (fermented taro) and breadfruit; they wanted beef, potatoes and green vegetables.
Additionally, sailors tended to conflict with the missionaries, since they enjoyed all the pleasures the missionaries censured. Amid these influences, it became clear to Hawaiian leaders that the only way to survive in a world of more-powerful nations was to adopt Western ways and styles of government.
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Born and raised on a Kona coffee farm, Gerald Kinro brings personal insight and scholarship to A Cup of Aloha (2003), a wonderful portrait of the Kona coffee industry and Hawaii’s agricultural life.
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MONARCHY &