The Legends and Myths of Hawai'i Quotes

“To render the kings and higher nobility still more exclusive, they had a court language which was understood only by themselves, and which was changed in part from time to time as its expressions found interpretation beyond the royal circle. Some portions of this court language have been preserved.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii

“Instances are given in Hawaiian tradition of the tide of battle being turned, on more than one occasion, by desperate women transformed from camp-followers into warriors; and as late as 1819 we behold Manona, wife of Kekuokalani, the last sturdy champion of the gods of his fathers, falling lifeless in battle upon the body of her dead husband at Kuamoo, while Kaahumanu and Kalakau, widows of the great Kamehameha, commanded the fleet of canoes operating with the land forces under Kalaimoku.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii

“bones. In the fear that the bones of the mois and distinguished chiefs might fall into the hands of their enemies and be used for fish-hooks, arrow-points for shooting mice, and other debasing purposes, they were usually destroyed or hidden.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii

“All implements of war or industry known to the early Hawaiians were made either of wood, stone, or bone, as the islands are destitute of metals; but with these rude helps they laid up hewn-stone walls, felled trees, made canoes and barges, manufactured cloths and cordage, fashioned weapons, constructed dwellings and temples, roads and fish-ponds, and tilled the soil. They had axes, adzes and hammers of stone, spades of wood, knives of flint and ivory, needles of thorn and bone, and spears and daggers of hardened wood. They wove mats for sails and other purposes, and from the inner bark of the paper mulberry-tree beat out a fine, thin cloth called kapa, which they ornamented with colors and figures.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii

“The chiefs inherited their titles and tabu privileges quite as frequently through the rank of one parent as of the other. As Hawaiian women of distinction usually had more than one husband, and the chiefs were seldom content with a single wife, the difficulty of determining the rights and ranks of their children was by no means easy; but the averment of the mother was generally accepted as conclusive and sufficient evidence in that regard.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii

“The people made their own household gods, and destroyed them when they failed to contribute to their success. For example, at Ninole, on the southeast coast of Hawaii, is a small beach called Kaloa, the stones of which, it was thought, propagated by contact with each other. From the large stones the people made gods to preside over their games. When a stone was selected for a god it was taken to the heiau where certain ceremonies were performed over it. It was then dressed and taken to witness some game or pastime. If the owner was successful it was accepted as a god; if unsuccessful more than once or twice, it was thrown away or wrought into an axe or adze.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii

“When the high-priest Paao arrived with Pili he introduced some new gods while recognizing the old, strengthened and enlarged the scope of the tabu, and established an hereditary priest-hood independent of, and second only in authority to, the supreme political head. Different grades of priests also came into existence, such as seers, prophets, astrologers and kahunas of various function, including the power of healing and destroying. In fact, the priesthood embraced ten distinct grades or colleges, each possessing and exercising powers peculiar to it, and the mastery of all of them was one of the qualifications of the high-priesthood. The tutelar deity of the entire body was Uli.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii

“In 1840 the first written constitution was given to the people, guaranteeing to them a representative government. In February, 1843, Lord Paulet, of the English navy, took formal possession of the islands, but in the July following their sovereignty was restored through the action of Admiral Thomas. In November of the same year France and England mutually agreed to refrain from seizure or occupation of the islands, or any portion of them, and the United States, while declining to become a party to the agreement, promptly acknowledged the independence of the group.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii

“And now let it be remarked with emphasis that the value of missionary labors in the Hawaiian group should not be measured by the small number of natives who to-day may be called Christians, but rather by the counsel and assistance of these thrifty religious teachers in securing and maintaining the independence of the islands, and by degrees establishing a mild and beneficent constitutional government, under which taxation is as light and life and property are as secure as in any other part of the civilized world.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii

“On the 30th of March, 1820—some months after this strange religious revolution—the first party of Christian missionaries arrived at the islands from Massachusetts. They were well received. They found a people without a religion, and their work was easy. Other missionary parties followed from time to time, and found the field alike profitable to the cause in which they labored and to themselves individually. They acquired substantial possessions in their new home, controlled the government for the fifty or more years following, and their children are to-day among the most prosperous residents of the group. This is not said with a view to undervalue the services of the early missionaries to Hawaii, but to show that all missionary fields have not been financially unfruitful to zealous and provident workers.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii

“A battle was fought at Kuamoo, at first favorable to the defenders of the gods; but the fire-arms of the whites in the service of the king turned the tide of war against them, and they were defeated and scattered. Kekuaokalani was killed on the field, and Manono, his brave and faithful wife, fighting by his side, fell dead upon the body of her husband with a musket-ball through her temples. A rude monument of stones still marks the spot where they fell; and it is told in whispers that the kona, passing through the shrouding vines, attunes them to saddest tones of lamentation over the last defenders in arms of the Hawaiian gods.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii

“If Captain Cook was not the first of European navigators to discover the Hawaiian Islands, he was at least the first to chart and make their existence known to the world. It has been pretty satisfactorily established that Juan Gaetano, the captain of a Spanish galleon sailing from the Mexican coast to the Spice Islands, discovered the group as early as 1555. But he did not make his discovery known at the time, and the existence of an old manuscript chart in the archives of the Spanish government is all that remains to attest his claim to it.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii

“The story in this book entitled "Kaiana, the Last of the Hawaiian Knights" concerns them both, but Kalakaua's description of Cook's character as Exacting, dictatorial, and greedy" is uninformed. One feels that Kalakaua was reflecting a fashion of the time to downgrade the contribution of Captain Cook and to justify Hawaiian treatment of him.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii

“As he proceeded his voice became louder, and every word was breathlessly listened to. He spoke of the coming conquest of the group by Kamehameha, whom he designated as the son of Kahekili, and also as the lone one." He also predicted the early extinction of the Kamehameha dynasty, the domination of the white race, the destruction of the temples, and finally the gradual death of the Hawaiian people.”
― King David Kalakaua, Legends & Myths of Hawaii