The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1880-03-13
Communicated
Licentiousness.

In the Hawaiian Islands ancient heathenism had
more protection, (snch as it was) for the family
than has modern civilization. Low as were the
ideas and conceptions of the family. such as they
were. they were sacred, and they were maintained
by a merciless tabu. Licentious as were those old
times, still Licendoasness had a limit. : thus far
and no farther - because the inexorable tabu pen
atty was death. No adult. no child dare violate
that Inevitable tabu. The land was then full of
people. The cry of the child then came from ev-
cry hut; even infsnticidr was in practice to dimi-
nish a too great population. The Gilbert Island
and the Marshal Island pagan family is likewise
protected. The execution of the law by their Gus
tom is in the hands of every head OF a family, and
the penalty for invading the rights OF a family is
death.
In these modern days of chaste christian law
more immoralities are prohibited than OF old in
deed, all immoralties are forbidden, but none are
now tabu in the original sense of the word Rdpu
The penal code IS so often evaded, its penalties are
enforced so unequally, that the law is a Kissing
and a contempt. Practically the native family
has no protection. Unless old, or otherwise out of
request, no native woman is absolutely safe, not
even a native school child.-ove ten years of age.
The churches, he ministers. are not entirely in
fault in this. because every effort to enforce the law
made by them, (and they have not been altogether
remiss) has been so met as to result in-not sue
cess nor yet failure, but so as to be abandoned.
The higher judges of the Kingdom and its higher
police are not at fault in this behalf. They have
acted in all cases brought to Information and judg-
ment without fear. But they fail because a power
inteTposes, a power behind the throne; an iron
hand in an iron glove, and that hand not black; it
is joined to an arm that touches first families,
whose sensitive members on any general enforce
ment of the law ask, Where will this end ?'
While others, less timid, say with contemptuous
scorn. LET them throw stones who have no glass
in their houses -
The evil is so ancient, it has gone so far and so
long, its roots art so deep and wide spread. that
no common remedy seems adequate. The land
has come where it seems as if a pure native Ha-
waiian home was impossible; as if all the Christian
care of girls in Our seminaries and private schools
was labor thrown away. The increase of the Ha-
waiian race is a minimum and its perpetuity APP
parently impossible. To such a humiliating pass
have the people come that the sad question can be
asked, what native husbands honor is secure?
What native father, what native mother is perfect
ly or ordinarily sure they are able or will be able
to protect the honor of their daughter in early wo-
manhood ?
The Hawaiian race is doomed to extinction"
say many intelligent observers, and so also say
some of the Hawaiian people themselves. But this
dreadful fatality is not because of leprosy. nor
from hereditary faint or impurity in the blood; but
because the righteous laws that protect the Hawa-
iian home and the Hawaiian families have no ter
ror to the hoodlam, the stranger from abroad, or to
the low minded at home. Why Because they are
not and cannot DE equally enforced. Again. Why!
Because of the white hand in the iron glove. Is
there no remedy ? Yes; one remains. Self defense
is a first law of nature. Self defense is a right in
alienable. Killing in self defense is j~ustifable
homicide. The wild beast fights for its cub; the
wolf and the bear will die in defense of their lam
lily. And here the question rises May not a
father, a mother or a brother fight to maintain the
purity OF their home. 1t is not a pleasant thing to
say, or to believe. but the killing Of one seducer of
an Hawaiian wife or daughter by an outraged man
will do more to maintain and to protect the puri-
ty of native girls and women than all the present
police. And the knowledge by the native that
whosoever in defense of his family honor does vio-
lence, even to the manning and killing of the white
seducer or the dark skinned adulterer, will be par
doned by the King, acquitted by a jury and sus-
tanned by all moral people, will do more to save
this people than all the laws and courts in the
kingdom. This woultI be a form of tabu revived.
Shall this be taught? And if so, how? And by
whom?