The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1894-01-08
MADNESS OF THE SOUTH
SCENES AT THE HAwAitAN LUNA.
TIC ASYLUM.
Some Strange Expressions OF Insanit,
There-A Dyak Head Hunter aud u
Human Telephone.

Every visitor to Honolulu, saws q
writer in the New York Sun. hears o.
the leper settlement on grim Molokai
and some ardent students OF the pitiiu
and repulsive venture across the short
island sea to the abode OF the Twins
death. Very few visitors. however
hear OF the receiving hospital, or corral
where the leper roundup is brought in
before shipments are made; and fewer
still hear of or visit the insane asylum,
near Honolulu, where the true Soutb
Sea madness is to he seen.
! have called il an asylum, hut this
term is hardly correct one--that is. il
is not correct If it conveys to the reader
the idea OF imposing administration
buildings and constant expert medical
attendance. The place is mile or two
outside the city, past the coral prison on
the reef, and, Judging by what one sees
from the road, might be farm or
plantation with the modest mansion of
the proprietor and several extensive out
buildings set down at the foot OF Il steep
bit OF vocanic-hill land, and with its
confines outlined By more or less we'll
even stockade-or SO il was when
recently visited it. The male patients
were scattered all over the grounds,
while the few keepers were still more
scattered. The women, who were quite
numerous, were confined in low, com
pactly-built house, and were closely
looked after, but neither of these, nor OF
the methods OF treatment, nor of the
system of care do intend to write, but
only of the peculiar forms OF insanity
which ! saw that August forenoon, when
the air felt like that OF kitchen with a
days heavy washing in full swing.
Here, said DR.. Webb, the visiting
physician, who at one time had been on
the staff OF Blackwell's Island, "here is
Marquesas Islander who speaks
English very nearly as well as you or |;
now ask him any question you like
about his history"
So began in the usual catechism OF
the police station:
''What is your name?"
John Taurekka, sir.
How old are your"
81 shall be fifty-four on the Goth of
next October"
"What has been your occuptaion?"
"Cook on board Pacific whaler Tor
nearly twenty years, SIR"
"Well," said turning to the doctor
"of course there is no doubt as to his
having sanely answered my questions.
What's the joker
His answers to my questions" said
the doctor. Listen. Who made that
tree, John2"
81 did, sir; made il last night, and
that one" (pointing to big guaya, II
made the day before yesterday, about
half-past B."
"Yes," asserted the doctor, "and who
made that sun?"-that boiling, broiling
sun, he might have added.
"I did" said Taurekka, land it was
the hottest days work ever had
burned my fingers so couldn't make
anything else."
And so it was with the answer to
every question asked; he had made
everything, his replies being as simple
in their faith as though he had said: 81
stand" where he stood.
THAT'S fine case of magalomania,"
said the doctor, "Why, no, OF course
not; he's not here because he thinks he
has made everything, but because he
carved up the mate OF his ship when the
mate said there was too much salt in the
SOUP"
All through this talk booming sound
had made itself heard like the bourbon
note of the choir organ through priest =
prayer.
els that noise OF the country?"
asked at last, wearied mt its persist
ency.
NO." said the doctor, THAT noise
belongs really to Borneo. That's our
Dyak orator-a head-hunter by the way.
Do you want to see himP needn't ask
ii you want to hear him."
| certainly did, and there ut the porch
OF the barracoon we saw him, standing
with the scorching August sun envelop-
ing his nearly naked body in a glow,
through which his glistening skin shone
and CLEANED like polished kettle. His
throat outside was column of tense
cords and swollen veins, while inside it
must have been made OF triple brass.
"San-n-nku lirang koti natuna." he
shouted in deep cultural below.
"San-n-noku lirang bulangan!" with
both hands nipping hard at the big pee
toral muscles and with long deep in
spiration on the IN
yokohama! kokokama!" the whole
body brought rigidly around on the
heels.
"Bulangan kodakaia !" the hands slid
den down with quick whip to the hips
and the head thrown back until the skin
frightened ON the big Adams apple like a
black drum head. With another man 8
neck in that position, and good, heavy
chopping kriss in his own hand he could
have sliced off the trophy with the same
neat expedition and despatch with which
you would slice crisp radish. What
his Grafton meant no one had ever found
out. 1t sounded to me like an invoca-
4 atat tnn, Il
mandatory about it, and it might have
been to dread silva herself for aught
knew. He had so harangued ever since
he had been an inmate OF the asylum
30 declaiming Tor an hour or two when
the sun came holly spying out the porch
taking up the story when the sun was
afar Off, a fierce and unwinking eye in the
meridian; thirdly and lastly, repeating
his shouting apostrophe when the cop
perry orb dropped quickly behind the
volcanic hills OF the west.
No one-with an exception seemed
to .eed the brazen tongued orator OF
Sarawak, and, although there were a
dozen men near by, they paid no more
attention to his uumpeting than they
did to the breeze from the Pail, SC
wrapped up was each in the exaggerated
self-absorption of insanity. The excep-
ton was a japanese, an athlete who had
at one time been star at the Kwong-hi
theatre in San Francisco. He had not
such a gladiatorial torso as the oratorica
Dyak, but his arms and legs DIR. Sargent
would consider splendid, and on these
four shapely and sinewy spokes, Will
his trunk for hub, he would go turning
''cartwheels," or handsprings, all oyei
the grounds, up the bills as easily a.
went the King OF France, and down tn,
hill as rapidly as tumbled the unsym,
pathetic Jill. Most OF the time his
gyrations led him afeld, but no matter
where he might be, AZ the sound OF the
Bornese boom he would turn his feet
and his hands too, toward the sound
and the yellow athlete would soon be
seen trunding himself backwards, his
tireless smokes flashing in the sun like