Statewide County HI Archives News.....Letters of Isabella L. Bird Bishop. - Part 21: Letter # XII - Part 1. October 28, 2008
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/hi/hifiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Darlene E. Kelley donkeyskid@msn.com November 16, 2008, 8:59 am

Keepers Of The Culture, A Study In Time Of The Hawaiian Islands October 28, 2008

Contributed for use in 
USGenWeb Archives 
by Darlene E. Kelley
Donkeyskid@msn. com
October 28, 2008

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Historical Collections of Hawai'i
Keepers of the Culture
A Study in Time, of the Hwai'ian Islands
Letters of Isabella L. Bird Bishop
" Six Months Among thePalm Groves, Coral Reefs, and Volcanoes of the
Sandwich Islands. "
Letter # XII - Part 1.
Transcribed

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Letter # XII

Part1.

Hilo
February 22.

My sojourn here is very pleasant, owing to the kindness and sociability
of the people. I think that so much culture and such variety of refined
tastes can seldom be found in so small a community. There have been
pleasant little gatherings for sewing, while some gentlemen read aloud,
fern-printing in the verandah, microscopic and musical evenings, little
social luncheons, and on Sunday evenings what is colloquially termed " a
sing. " at this most social house. One of the things I have specially
enjoyed has been spending an afternoon at the Rev. Titus Coan's, He is
not only one of the most venerable of the remaining missionaries, but
such an authority on the Hawaiian volcanoes as to entitle him to be
designated " the high-priest of Pele!" In his modest quet way he told
thilling stories of the old missionary days.

As you know, the islands cast off idolatry in 1819, but it was not until
1835 thet Mr. and Mrs. Coan arrived in Hilo, where Mr. and Mrs Lyman had
been toiling for some time, and had produced a marked change on the
social condition of the people. Mr. Coan was a fervid speaker, and
physcally very robust, and when he had mastered the language, he
undertook much of the travelling and tourng, and Mr. Lyman took charge
of the home mission station, and the boarding and industral school,
which he still indefatigably superintends. There were 15,000 natives
then in the district, and its extemes were 100 miles apart. Portions of
it could only be reached with peril to limbs and even life. Horses were
only regarded as wild animals in those days, and Mr. Coan traversed on
foot the district I have just returned from, not lazily riding down the
gulch sides, but climbing, or being let down by ropes from tree to tree,
and from crag to crag. in times of rain, like last week, when it was
impossible to ford the river, he sometimes swam across, with a rope to
prevent him from being carried away, though others he rode on the broad
shoulders of a willing native, while a company of strong men locked
hands and stretched themselves across the torrent, between him and the
cataract, to prevent him from being carried over in case his bearers
should fall. This experience was often repeated three or four times a
day. His smallest weekly number of sermons was six or seven, and the
largest from twenty-five to thirty. He often travelled in drowning rain,
crossed dangerous streams, climbed slippery precipices, and frequently
preached in wind and rain with all his garments saturated. On every
occasion he received aid from the natives, who were kind and friendly,
that when he used to sleep in the woods at night, he hung his watch on a
tree, knowing perfectly well, that it was safe from pilfering or curious
touch. Indeed the Christian teachers seem to hve been regarded as tabu.

Before the end of that year, Mr. Coan had made the circuit of Hawai'i, a
foot and canoe trip of 300 miles, in which he nearly suffered
canoe-wreck twice. In all, he has admitted into the Christian church by
baptism, 12,000 persons, besides 4000 infants. He gave a most
interesting account of one great baptism. The greatest of care was
previously taken in selecting, teaching, watching, and examining the
candidates. Those from the distant villages came and spent several
months here for preliminary instruction. many of these were converts of
two years' standing, a larger class had been on the list for more than a
year, and a smaller one for a lessor period. The accepted candidates
were announced by name serveral weeks previously, and friends and
enemies everywhere were called upon to testify all they knew about them.
On the first Sunday in July, 1838, 1705 persons, formally heathens, were
baptized. They were seated close together on the earth-floor in
rows,with just space between for one to walk, and Mr. Lyman and Mr. Coan
passing through them, spinkled every bowe ead, after which Mr. oan
admitted the weeping hundreds into the fellowship of the universal
Church by pronouncing the words, " I baptise you all in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Ghost." After this, 2400 converts
received the Holy Communion. I give Mr. Coan's own words concerning
those who partook of it," who truly, and earnestly repented of thier
sins, and steadfastly purposed to lead new lives." " The old and
decrepit, the lame, the blind, the maimed, the withered, the paralytic,
and those afflicted with divers diseases and torments; those with eyes,
noses, lips, and limbs condemed; with features distorted, and figures
depraved and loathsome; those came hobbling upon their staves, or led
and borne by others to the table of the Lord. Among the throng you would
have seen the hoary priest of idolatry, with hands but recently washed
of the blood of human victims, together with thieves, adulterers,
highway robbes, murderers, and mothers whose hands recked with the blood
of their own children. It seemed like one of the crowds the Saviour
gatherd, and over which He pronounced the words of healing."

Though the people cast off idolatry in 1819, before the arrival of the
missionaries, they were very indifferent to Christian teaching until
1837, the year of the great baptism, when a great religious stir
began,and for four years affected all the islands. I wish you could have
heard Mr. Coan and Mrs. Lyman tell of that stirring time, when nearly
all the large population of the Hilo and Puna districts turned out to
hear the Gospel, and how the young people went up into the mountains and
carried the news of the love of God and the good life to come to the
sick and old, who were afterwards baptized, when often the only water
which could be obtained for the rte was that which dripped sparingly
from the roofs of caves. The Hawaiian notions of a future state, where
any existed, were peculiarly vague and dismal, and Mr. Ellis says the
greater part of the people seemed to regard the tidings of ora loa ia
Jesu  (endless life by Jesus ) as the most joyful news they had ever
heard, " breaking upon them," to use their own phrase, " like light in
the morning." Will my spirit never die, and can this poor weak body live
again? " and old chiefess exclaimed, and this delighted surprise seemed
the general feeling of the natives. From less difficult distances the
sick and lame were brought on litters and on the backs of men, and the
infirm often crawled to the trail by which the missionary was to pass,
that they might hear of this good news which had come to Hawaii-nei.

There were but these two preachers for the 15,000 people scattered for
100 miles, who were all ravenous to hear, and could not wait for the
tardy modes of evengelization. " If we die," said they, " let
us die in the light." So this strange thing fell out, that whole
villages from mile away gathered to the mission station. Two-thirds of
the population of the ditrict came in, nd within the radius of a mile
the grass and banana houses clustered as thick as they could stand.
Beautiful Hilo in a short time swelled from a population of 1000 to
10,000; and at any hour of the day and night the sound of the counch
shell brought together from 3000 to 6000 worshippers. It was a vast
camp-meeting which continued for two years, but there was no disorder,
and a decent quiet ruled throughout the strangely extemporized city. A
new morality, a new social order, new notions on nearly ll subjects, had
to be inculcated as well as a new religion.
Mrs. Coan and Mrs. Lyman daily assembled the women and children, and
taught them the habits and industries of civilization, to attend to
their persons, to braid hats, and to wear and make clothes

During this time, On Novembr 7, 1837, one of the striking phenomena
which make the islands remarkable occurred.. The crescent sand-beach,
said to be the most beautiful in the Pacific, the fringe of palms, the
far-reaching groves behind, and the great ocean,slept in summer calm, as
they sleep today. Four sermons, as usual, had been preached to audiences
of 6000 people. There had been a funeral, the natives say, though Mr.
Coan does not remember it, and his text had ben " Be ye also ready," and
larger throngs than usual had followed the preachers to their homes. The
fatiguing day was over, the natives were singing hymns in the still
evening air, and Mr. Coan had gatherd his family for prayers in the very
room in which he told me this story, when tey were startled by " a sound
as if a heavy mountain had fallen on the beach."  There was at once a
fearful cry, wailing, and indescribable confusion. The quiet ocean had
risen in a moment in a gigantic wave, which, rushing in with the speed
of a race-horse, and uplifting itself over the shore, swept everything
into promiscuous ruin; men, women, children, dogs, houses, food, canoes,
clothing, floated wildly on the flood, and hundreds of people struggling
among the billows in the midst of their earthly all. Some were dashed on
the shore, some were saved by friends who hurried to their aid, some
were carried out to sea by the retiring water, and some stout swimmers
sank exhausted; yet the loss of lives was not so great as it would have
been among a less amphibious people.Mr. Coan described the roaring of
the ocean, the cries of distress, the shrieks of the perishing, the
frantic rush of hundreds to the shore, and the desolation of the whole
neighborhood of the beach, as forming a scene of the most thrilling and
awful interest.

You will remeber that I wrote from Kilauea regaring the terror wihich
theGoddess of the Crater inspired, and her high-priest was necessarily a
very awful personage. That particular high-priest of whom Mr. Coan told
me was six feet five inches in height, and his sister, who was
co-ordinate with him in authority, had a scarcely inferior altitude. His
chief business was to keep Pele appeased. He lived on theshore, but
often went up to Kilauea with sacrifices. If a human victim was needed,
he had only to point to a native, and the unfortunite wretch was at once
strangled. He was not only the embodiment of heathen piety, but of
heathen crime. Robbery was his pasttime. His temper was so fierce and so
uncurbed that no native dared even to tread on is shadow. More than
once, he had killed a man for the sake of food and clothes not worth
fifty cents. He was a throughly wicked savage. Curiosity attracted him
into one of the Hilo meetings, and the bad giant fell under the
resistless, mysterious influence which was metamorphosing thousands of
Hawaiians. " I have been deceived," he said," I renounce it all. The
true God has come. He speaks. I bow down to him. I wish to be His son."
The 
Priestess, his sister, came soon afterwards, and they remained here
several months for instruction. They were then about seventy years old,
but they inbibed the New Testament spirit so throughly that they became
as gentle, loving, and quiet as little little children. After a
probationary period they were baptized, and after several years of pious
and lowly living, they passed gently and trustfully awy.   

The old church which was the scene of these earlier assemblages, came
down with a creash after a night of heavy rain, the large timbers, which
were planted in the moist earth after a fashion of the country to
support the framework, having become too rotten to support the weight of
the saturated thatch. Without a day's loss of time the people began a
new church. All were volunteers, some to remove the wreck of the old
building and collect such timbers as might still be of service; some to
quarry stone for a foundation, and extravagance never before dreamed of
by an islander; some to bring sand in gourd shells upon their heads, or
labouriouly gathered in the folds of bark-clothed aprons; some to bring
lime from the coral reefs twent feet under water; whilst the majority
hurried to the forest belt, mile away on the mountain side, to fell the
straightest and tallest trees. Then 50 to 100 men ( for in that day
horses and oxen were known only as wild beasts of the wilderness,)
attched themselves to the butt ends of logs, and dreagged them away
through the brush and brake, through broken ground and river beds, till
they deposited them on the site of the nw church. The wild, monotonous
chant, as the men hauled in the timber, lives in the memories of the
missionaries' children, who say that it seemed to them a if the
preparations for Solomon's temple could not hve exceeded the
accumulations of the islanders!

I think that the greater number of the converts of those four years must
have died ere this. In 1867 the old church at Hilo was divided into
seven congregations, six of tem with ative pastors. To meet the wants of
the widely-scatterd people, fifteen churches have been built, holding
from 500 to 1000. The present Hilo church, a very pretty wooden one,
cost about $14,000. All these have been erected mainly by native money
ad labour. Probably the native Christians on Hawaii are not much better
or worse than Christian communities elsewhere, but they do seem a
singularly generous people. Besides liberally sustaining their own
clergy, the Hilo Christians have contributed altogether $100,000 for
religious purpses. Mr. Coan's native conregation, sorely dwindled as it
is, raises over $1200 annually for foreign missions, and twelve of its
members has gone as missionaries to the islands of Southern Polynesia.

Poor people! It would be unfair to judge of them as we may legitimately
be judge of, who inherit the influences of the centuries of
Christianity. They have only just emerged from a bloody and sensual
heathenism, and to the instincts and vioatility of these dark Polynesian
races, the restraining influences of the Gospel are far more severe than
our cold, unimpulsive northern natures., The greatest of their
disadvantages has been that some of the vilest of the whites who roamed
the Pacific had settled on the islands before the arrival of the
Christian teachers, dragging the people down to even lower depths of
depravity than those of heathenism, and that there are stil resident
foreigners who corrupt and destroy them.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Next Part 2 of Letter XII



File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/hi/statewide/newspapers/letterso99nnw.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/hifiles/

File size: 15.2 Kb