The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1871-03-18
The NightDanoers of waIpM.


known all the facts.
The Night-Dancers of WaipIS.
Mr.. Charles Warren Stoddsrd is a Bohemian of the
first water, who having some time ago bestowed upon
these islands the light of his countenance. has, ever
since bis return to California, from time to time filled
numerous pages of the Overland Monthly with what
purports to sketches of life and scenery among US
savages. They are doubtless entertaining enough
reading to those who have never visited the islands,
and to those who know that they generally lack the
essential element of truth, they are amusing as evil
dences of the fertility of the writer's imagination.
He tries very hard, for instance, to make a second
Typee of the valley of Waipio, and dismissing the
beautiful and rare scenery with two or three COM
mon-place lines of appreciation. he fairly revels In
his description of the hulahula girls and their per-
formances. On his way to the valley however, he
finds time to poke a little fun at the missionaries of the
region
Two venerable and warm-hearted missionaries,
whose good works seemed to have found dissimilar
expression, equally effective l trust, found their
specialities to be churh-building.
Grey. Mr.. A seemed to think the more the merrier.
and his cunning little meeting-hOuses looked as
though they had been baked in the lot, like a sheet
of biscuits while Rev. MIR. b condensed his efforts
into the umm of one resplendent ediice.
Mr.. A was always wondering why MIR. B should
waste his money in & single church, while Mr.. b
vas nonplussed at seeing Mr.. a break out in a rash
of diminutive chapels."
He and his companion-a foil. whom he calls Felix
undergo the ~iomitomi, of which he thus discourses
cat this period, enter to us the host, with several
young, native girls, who seat themselves at our feet,
clasping each u bootleg encasing the extremities of
Felix aud myself.
Felix kicked violently and left the room with
some embarrassment, and L appealed, to the hospit-
able gentleman of the house, who was smiling some
what audibly at our perplexity.
He assured me that if [ would throw myself upon
the mats In the corner, two of these maids would
speedily relieve me of any bodily pain l might at
that moment be suffering with.
/ did so the two proceeded as set down in the
verbal prospectus and whatever bodily pain l may
have possessed at the beginning of the process speed
lily dwindled into insignificance by comparison with
the tortures of my novel cure. Every limb had TO
be unjointed and set over again. Places were made
for new joints, and L think the new joints were tenn
pOraTlly set in, for my arms and legs went into ALI
giles l had never before seen them in, nor have L
since been able to assume those startling attitudes.
The stomach was then kneaded like dough. The ribs
were crushed down against the spine, and then
forced out by well directed blows in the back. The
spinal column was undoubtedly distracted, and some
mechanical substitute now does its best to help me
through the world. The arms were tied in bow-knots
behind, and the skull cracked like the shell of 4
hard-boiled egg, worked into shape again, and left to
heal"
After witnessing a family eating their meal of poi,
Disgusting 20 gasped Felix, as he returned to
the water-side. / thought him unreasonable in his
harsh Judgment, assuring him that our own flour
was fingered as often before it came, at last, to our
lips in the form of bread. Moreover 1 added,
60 this poi is glutinous the moment a finger enters
it, a thin coating adheres to the skin, and that finger
may wander about the calabash all day without
touching another particle of the substance. There
fore, six or sixteen fellows lingering in one dish for
dinner are in reality saier than we, who eat steaks
fhn hAVn hnan nHn thA hnnAy &c AbA
butcher and the cook"
The following description of the Sc unlawful hula -
is, to draw it Enthusiastically colored /:
Then the leader of the band, who sat, gray
headed and wrinkled, at one end of the room, throw
ing back his head, uttered q long, wild, and shrill
guttnral-a sort of invocation to the goddess of the
hula-hutd. There had, no doubt, been some sort
of sacrifice offered in the early part of the evening
such as a pig or a fowl-for the dance has a reli-
giOus Significance, and is attended by its appropriate
ceremonies. When this clarion cry had ended, the
dance began, all joining in with wonderfully accurate
rhythm, the body swaying slowly backward and for
ward, to left and right the arms tossing, or rather
waving, in the air above the head, now reckoning
some spirit of light, so tender and seductive were the
emotions of the dancers, go graceful and free the
movements of the wrists now, in violence and fear,
they seem to repulse a host of devils that lowered in
visibly about them.
The spectators watched and listened breathlessly,
fascinated by the terrible wildness of the song and
Presently the excitement increased. Swifter and
more wildly the bare arms beat the air, embracing,
as it were, the airy forms that haunted the dancers,
who rose to their knees, and, with astonishing agil-
lty, caused the clumsy turbans about their loins to
CULVER with an undulatory motion, increasing or de-
creasing with the sentiment of the song and the en-
thusiasm of the spectators.
Felix wanted to know " how long they could keep
that up and live?'
Till daybreak, as we found I There was a little
resting-spell-a very little resting-spell, now and
then-for the gourd's sake, or thu IL whiffs at a pipe
that would poison a White Man in ten minutes and
before we half expected it. or ban, Q thought of urg-
ing the unaagging dancers to rt It their marvellous
gyrations, they were at IT in terrible earnest.
From the floor to their kpses. from their knees to
spun and ambled, till th Z was deafened with
cheers and boisterous, hala.s4hken, wholly passion
ate laughter.
seemed encircled with living serpents, in the act of
swallowing big Jumps of something from their threats
clear to the tips of their tails, and the commissions
continued till the hysteriAl dancers staggered and
fell TO the floor, overcome byIunutterable fatigue"
But the writer's imagination absolutely runs riot
when he describes a supposed grand ball among the
lepers on Molokai
"At an early hour the stfSnge company assembled.
The wheeling of voices mo longer musical. the
shutting of half-paralyzed limbs over the bare floor,
the melancholy droning of those bamboo flutes, and
the wild sea moaning in the wild night, were the
sweetest sounds that greeted them. And while the
flutes piped to this unlovely spectacle, there was a
rushing to and fro of unlovely figures a bleeding,
halGblind leper, seizing another OF the accused
beings-snatching her, as it were, from the grave,
in all her loathsome clay-dragged her into the be-
wildering maelstrom of the waltz"
The foregoing specimens viii be sufficient to give
an approximate idea of how :" life in the tropics % on
these islands is painted by our ~visiters of the Bohe-
milan school. The Overland is deceived and mis-
leads its readers by publishing such trash.
There are many people in America who would
NOT accent Rnll-Rmn RnsSel's nnsnnnnrfnd assertion