Statewide County HI Archives News.....Letters of Isabella L. Bird Bishop. - Part 31: Letter # XIX. November 15, 2008
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Darlene E. Kelley donkeyskid@msn.com November 16, 2008, 9:11 am

Keepers Of The Culture, A Study In Time Of The Hawaiian Islands November 15, 2008

Contributed for use in
USGenWeb Archives
by Darlene E. Kelley
donkeyskid@msn.com
November 15, 2008
 
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HISTORICAL Collections of Hawai'i
Keepers of the Culture
A Study in Time, of the Hawai'ian Islands
Isabella L. Bird Bishop Letters
" Six Months Among the Palm Groves,
Coral Reefs and Volcanoes of the 
Sandwich Islands."
Letter # XIX
Transcribed
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Letter # XIX
 
" Six Months Among the Palm Groves,
Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes of the
Sandwich Islands."
 
 
Hawaiian Hotel, Honolulu
 
My latest news of you is five months old, and though I have not the slightest
expectation that I shall hear
from you, I go up to the roof to look out for the " Rolling Moses" with more
impatience and anxiety than those
whose business journeys are being delayed by her non-arrival. If such an
unlikely thing were to happen as that
she were to bring a letter, I should be much tempted to stay five months longer
on the islands rather than try the climate of Colorado, for I have come to feel
at home, people are so very genial, and suggest so many plans for my future
enjoyment, the islands in their physical and social aspects are so novel and
interesting, and the climate is unrivalled and restorative.
 
Honolulu has not yet lost the charm of novelty for me. I am never satisfied with
its exotic beauties, and the
sight of a kaleidoscopic whirl of native riders is always fascinating. The
passion for riding, in a people who only learned equitation in the last
generation, is most curious. It is very curious, too, to see women incessantly
enjoying and amusing themselves in riding, swimming, and making leis. They have
few home ties in the shape of children, and I fear make them fewer still by
neglecting them for the sake of riding and frolic, and man seems rather the
helpmeet than the " oppressor " of woman; though I believe that the women have
abandoned that right of choosing husbands, which, it is said, that they
exercised in the old days. Used to the down-trodden look and harassed care-worn
faces of the over-worked women of the same class at home and in the colonies,
the laughing, careless faces of the Hawaiian women have the effect on me of a
perpetual marvel. But the expression generally has little of the courteousness,
innocence, and childishness of the negro physiognomy. The Hawaiians are a
handsome people, scornful and sarcastic-looking even with their mirthfulness;
and those who know them say that they are always quizzing and mimicking the
haoles, and that they give everyone a nickname, founded on some personal
peculiarity.
 
The women are free from our tasteless perversity as to colour and ornament, and
have an instinct of the
becoming. At first holuka, which is only a full, yoke nightgown, is not
attractive, but I admire it heartily now, and the sagacity of those who devised
it. It conceals awkwardness, and benefits grace of movement; it is fit for the
climate, is equally adapted for walking and riding, and has that general
appropriateness which is desirable in costume. The women have a most peculiar
walk, with a swinging motion from the hip at each step, in which the shoulder
sympathizes. I never saw anything at all like it. It is neither the delicate
shuffle of the Frenchwoman, the robust, decided jerk of the Englishwoman, the
stately glide of the Spaniard, or the stealthiness of the squaw, and I should
know a Hawaiian woman by it in any part of the world. A majestic wahine with a
small, bare feet, a grand, swinging, deliberate gait, hibiscus blossoms in her
flowing hair, and a lei of yellow flowers falling over her holuku, marching
through the streets, has a tragic grandeur of appearance, which makes the
diminutive, fair-skinned haole, tottering along hesitatingly in high-heeled
shoes, look grotesque by comparison.
 
On Saturday, our kind host took Mrs. D. and myself to the market, where we saw
natives in all their glory. The women, in sqauds of a dozen at a time, their
Pa-us streaming behind them, were cantering up and down the streets, and men and
women were thronging into the market-place; a brilliant, laughing, joking crowd,
their jaunty hats trimmed with fresh flowers, and leis of the crimson ohia and
orange lauhala falling over their costumes, which were white, green, black,
scarlet, blue, and every colour that can be dyed or imagined. The market is a
straggling, open space, with a number of shabby stalls partially surrounding it,
but really we could not see the place for the people. There must have been 2000
there.
 
Some of the stalls were piled up with wonderful fish, crimson, green, rose,
blue, opaline-- fish that have spent their lives in coral groves under the warm,
bright water. Some of them had wonderful shapes too, and there was one that
riveted my attention and fascinated me. It was, I thought at first, a heap,
composed of dog fish, some limpets, and a multitude of water snakes, and other
abominable forms; but my eyes slowly informed me of the fact, which I took in
reluctantly and extreme disgust, that the whole formed one living monster, a
revolting compound of a large paunch with eyes, and a multitude of nervy, snaky,
out-reaching, twining, grasping, tentacular arms, several feet in length, I
should think, if extended, but then lying in a crowded undulating heap; the
creature was dying, and the iridescence was passing over what seemed to be its
body in waves of colour, such as glorify the last hour of a dolphin. But not the
colours of the rainbow could glorify this hideous, abominable form, which ought
to be left to riot in ocean depths, with its loathsome kindred. You have read "
Les Travailleurs du Mer," and can imagine with what feelings I looked upon a
living Devil-fish ! The monster is much esteemed by the natives as an article of
food, and indeed is generally relished. I have seen it oil foreign tables,
salted, under the name of squid. [ This monster is a cephaloped of the order
Dibranchiata, and has eight flexible arms, each crowded with 120 pair of
suckers, and two long feelers about six feet in length, differing considerably
from the others in form.]
 
We passed on to beautiful creatures, the kihi-kihi, or sea-cock, with alternate
black and yellow transverse bands on his body; the hinalea, like a glorified
mullet, with bright green, longitudinal bands on a dark shining head, a purple
body of different shades, and a blue spotted tail with a yellow tip. The Ohua
too, a pink scaled fish, shaped like a trout; the opukai, beautifully striped
and mottled; the mullet and flying fish as common here as mackerel at home; the
hala, a fine pink-fleshed fish, the albicore, the bonita, the manini striped
black and white, and many others. There was an abundance of opilu or limpets,
also the pipi, a small oyster found among the coral; the ula, as large as a
clawless lobster, but more beautiful and variegated; the turtles which were
cheap and plentiful. Then there were purple-spiked sea urchins, black-spiked sea
eggs or wana, and ina or eggs without spikes, and many other curiosities of the
bright Pacific. It was odd to see the pearly teeth of a native meeting in some
bright-coloured fish, while the tail hung out of his mouth, for they eat fish
raw, and some of them were obviously at the height of epicurean enjoyment.
Seaweed and fresh-water weed are much relished by Hawaiians, and there were four
or five kinds for sale, all included in the term limu. Some of this was baked.
and put up in balls weighing one pound each. There were packages of baked fish,
and dried fish, and of many other things which looked uncleanly and disgusting;
but no matter what the package was, the leaf of the Ti tree was invariably the
wrapping, tied round with sennet, the course fiber obtained from the husk of the
cocoa-nut. Fish here, averages about ten cents per pound, and is dearer than
meat; but in many parts of the islands it is cheap and abundant.
 
There is a ferment going on in this kingdom, mainly got up by the sugar planters
and the interests dependent on them, and two political lectures have lately been
given in the large hall of the hotel in advocacy of ther views; one, on
annexation, by Mr. Phillips, who has something of the oratorical gift of his
cousin, Wendell Phillips; and the other, on a reciprocity treaty, by Mr. Carter.
Both were crowded by ladies and gentlemen, and the first was most
enthusiastically received. Mrs. D. and I usually spend our  evenings in writing
and working in the verandah, or in each other's rooms; but I have become so
interested in the affairs of this little state, that in spite of the mosquitoes,
I attended both lectures, but was not warmed into sympathy with the views of
either speaker.
 
I daresay that some of my friends here would quarrel with my conclusions, but I
will briefly give you the data on which they are based. The census of 1872 gives
the population at 49,044 souls; of whom, 700 are lepers, and it is decreasing at
the rate of from 1,200 to 2,000 a year, while the excess of native males over
females on the islands is 3,216. The foreign population is 5,366 and is
increasing at the rate of 200 a year and the number of half-castes of all
nations has increased at the rate of 140 a year. The Chinese, who came here
originally as plantation coolies, outnumber all the other nationalities
together, excluding the Americans; but the Americans constitute the ruling and
the monied class. Sugar is the reigning interest on the islands, and it is
almost entirely in American hands. It is burdened here by the difficulty of
procuring labor, and at San Francisco by a heavy import duty. There are
thirty-five plantations on the islands, and there is room for fifty more, the
profit, as it is, is hardly worth mentioning, and a few of the planters do more
than keep their heads above water. Plantation that cost $50,000 have sold for
$15,000; and others, which cost $150,000 have sold for $40,000. If the islands
were annexed, and the duty taken off, many of these struggling planters would
clear $50,000 a year and upwards. So, no wonder that Mr. Phillip's lecture was
received by enthusiastic plaudits. It focused all the clamor I have heard on
Hawaii and elsewhere, exalted the " almighty dollar," and was savory with the
odor of coming prosperity. But he went far, very far; he has aroused a cry among
the natives " Hawaii for the Hawaiians," which, very likely, may breed mischief;
for I am very sure that this brief civilization has not quenched the " red fire
" of race; and his hint regarding the judicious disposal of the king in the
advent of annexation, was felt by many of the more sober whites to be highly
impolitic.
 
The reciprocity treaty, very lucidly advocated by Mr. Carter, which means the
cession of a lagoon with a potion of circumjacent territory on this island, to
the United States, for a Pacific navel station, meets with more general favor as
a safer measure; but the natives are indisposed to bribe the great Republic to
remit the sugar duties by the surrender of a square inch of Hawaiian soil; and,
from a British point of view, I heartily sympathize with them. Foreign, --
American feeling is running high upon the subject. People say things are so bad
that something must be done, and it remains to be seen whether natives or
foreigners can exercise the strongest pressure on the king. I was unfavorably
impressed in both lectures by the way in which the natives and their interests
were quietly ignored, or as quietly subordinated to the sugar interest.
 
It is never safe to forecast destiny; yet it seems most probable thaat sooner or
later in this century, the closing catastrophe must come. The more thoughtful
among the natives acquiesce helplessly and patiently in their advancing fate;
but the less intelligent, as I had some opportunity of hearing at Hilo, are
becoming restive and irritable, and may drift into something worse if the
knowledge of the annexationist views of the foreigners is diffused among them.
Things are preparing for change, and I think that the Americans will be wise in
their generation if they let them ripen for many years to come. Lunalilo has a
broken constitution, and probably will not live long. Kalakaua will probably
succeed him, and " after him the deluge." unless he leaves a suitable successor,
for there are no more chiefs with pre-eminent claims to the throne. The feeling
among the people is changing, the feudal instinct is disappearing, the old
despotic line of Kamehamehas is extinct; and kingmaking by paper ballots,
introduced a few months ago, is an approximation to president making, with the
canvassing, stumping, and wrangling, incidental to such a contested election.
Annexation, or peaceful absorption, is the "manifest destiny" of the islands,
with the probable result lately most wittily prophesied by Mark Twain in the New
York Tribune, but it is impolitic to hasten it. Much as I like America, I shrink
from the day when her universal political corruption and her unrivalled
political immorality shall be naturalized on Hawaii nei ....
 
Sunday evening. The " Rolling Moses " is in, and Sabbath quiet has given place
to general excitement. People thought they had heard her steaming in at 4 a.m.,
and got up in great agitation. Her guns fired during morning service, and I
doubt whether I or any other persson heard another word of the sermon. The first
batch of letters for the hotel came; but none for me; the second, none for me;
and I had gone to my room in cold despair, when someone tossed a large package
in at my verandah door, and to my infinate joy I found that one of my benign
fellow passengers in the Nevada, had taken the responsibility of getting my
letters at San Francisco and forwarding them here. I don't know how to br
grateful enough to the good man. With such late and good news, everything seems
bright; and I have at once decided to take the first schooner for the leeward
group, and remain four months lnger on the islands.
 
 
I.L.B.
 
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