Polynesian. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu], Hawaii) 1844-1864, 1862-05-31
No. 5.

oe wondered at, seeing that Juries OF white men
have the same temper. have heard a case often
CITED, and seemingly with appreciation, where
married white man was found in a house Of no good
repute, undressed, and asleep, by the side OF
woman oil bad repute, in which the jury found that
this was no proof. This temper of juIies neees-
sarly influences the decision of the magistrate for
whatever his real Judgment in the case may be, he
thinks 1t unfit and useless to give decision which
the verdict of jury would set aside Thus, as if
every step of the procedure had been doomed to
plunge deeper and deeper into evil, whereas ut first
when the authority of husbands and fathers had
not yet lost it's power, almost any suspicious cir
cumstance was held sufficient proof, now, after
that severity of the law has brought their authority
10 nanght, it so relaxes its grasp that there are
many who set it at defiance, and live in open adul
terry, because they arrange matters that, in the
way IN which its mechanism is managed, they know
1t cannot lay hold on them. Than this, nothing
can be oil more evil and dangerous example, for it
Is one not dithcult to f1llow and thus these laws
may everywhere be openly set at naught and de-
fed in every quarter.
have said that such laws are ALWAYS bad, be-
cause, in ADDITION to the other evils they induce,
they manitestly tend to weaken the religious
tlment in any people. They have been eminently
successful in that respect here.
The old idea of Deity among these people
was that of powers, capricious indeed, but potent
in moving, controlling governing all the things of
this world. When they embraced the new faith
their first conception of the Christian Deity was
inevitably that he was of the same nature as the
old, but that he still more potent, for the
ancient idols had fallen before him. They were
taught better. Still the daily invoking Jehovah
to bear witness to the truth of falsehood, and
his seeming to take note of it runs, so counter
to what we may call their hereditary notion of a
very present and powerful Deity, ever ready to
punish any insult to his majesty, that it either
shakes their faith in his existence removes him
to that shadowy land of the future of which, If
they have belief, they have but a dim and I'M
perfect conception. | have heard men high in the
membership of the church and in the estimation
of the clergyman, when they have found that no
redress could be had for heavy wrongs, owing to
the perjuries in the courts. thus lamenting over
the condition of things 1t is all the fault OF the
new religion. 1t is good, it is merciful religion,
but 1t Is without power. Ii has no power at all.
The ancient religion one of power. Very
powerful was it. In the old times one would have
only had to apply to the priest and the property
would have been returned or the men had been
dead, but now we are helpless. | have heard an
old woman, the mother of several children thus
bewalling her impotence to bring some of them to
submission: 'Oh, We once had gods; the old
prayed to them and the young prayed to them, and
children feared to disobey. But our gods left
with Kamehameha, and now there is none to whom
we can apply, children have no iear-there is no
obedience. no reverence, no authority" This
longing Of the native mind for very present Deity,
ready to stretch out his arm to save from evil and
protect from wrong, is manifested in many other
ways. in the personality of their prayers to Jeho
yah, IN the proofs they bring of his existence--he
saved such q one from shipvreck, he recovered such
another from sickness, etc. It is obvious that
nothing could run counter to this idea, nothing
could more tend in the native mind to remove the
Christian Deity from the things of this world and
all care over them, than the continual practice Of
blasphemously calling on him to bear witness to
talsehoOd. and the blasphemer not only seeming
to escape his vengeance but actually mocking at
the idea Of consequent evil.
After perjuries have obviously been committed
before me by either or other party. have fire.
quenty endeayored to set before those assembled
the bad results of such doings and have eontrasted
the condition of things here with what 1t Is IN this
respect in other lands; and more than once after
my short lecture was over, and had mixed with
the crowd at the door. heard it said and that by
men among them esteemed to be of superior intel
ligence: How these things be; there is surely
God (he akua pahn) in these Countries Even In
open Court have known q belief in the power of
Pele and the shark admitted, and again have
known disbelief in the existence of the Supreme
Being avowed.
These things have wrought on the native
mind, that there is tendency to return to the an
cent faith Under all that tide of light which
foreign intercourse pours the land. there is
strong under current setting towards heathendOm.
In of severe Sickness for instance, invocation
OF the ancient deites and sacrifice to them is very
common, and men ofhciate there whom you would
never suspect being concerned in such affairs. 1t
is true that in copies of these nvocations. of which
have obtained sight, the name OF the Christian
God is not omitted. but he at the tail of the
others. under the title Of the Lord OF Heaven. |
am told by very good authority, that if natives
take an oath to each other, it is never a Bible
| hryf fho old daft II acko n
a native why a man and woman who had been re-
peatedly fined and suffered other punisbments for
improper connection, continued for many years,
and who at last had abandoned considerable pro-
perty and wandered to some distant part in order
that it might be continued asked this native
how it was that they were so firmly attached that
nothing could break the connexiOn. Oh, he said,
they are hoohikI, and cannot part till one die.
Again, should man suspect his wife-should he,
for instance have been absent in Oahu, for two or
three weeks, and on his return hear stories to her
disadvantage, he will challenge her with having
been untrue to him. She disayows the imputation,
and offers to take her oath that it is false. Does
any one suppose that she means what, in my coun-
try of Scotland, is called Bible oath, and reck-
oned the most solemn Of transactions. By no
means. Her husband would mock ut such friyOlity.
But if she take heather oath-if, for example.
she swear by Pele and the shark, he is satisfied.
Perhaps, however, she was really guilty, and IN
her eagerness to clear herself of suspicion, had
sworn falsely. In such cases. am assured, SUPER
stiogs fears generally disturb her that distress
of mind betrays her, and she is obliged to make q
full confession TO her husband. What is to be
done Some great calamity broods over them.
They must avert it. Accordingly, the man slaugh-
ters hog, makes feast in honor Of the offended
gods, they together pray that the wrath of these
may be averted, and thus peace is restored to the
household.
have a few words to say, and they shall be but
q very few, concerning another unhappy evil which
has devastated, and continues to deyastate, these
islands. | alude to a too prevalent disease. 1t
is one we'll known to be iasidious in its approach
es, painful and loathsome in its progress, and, if