Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-04
RELIGIOUS ROMANCE OF TRANS
FORMED HAWAI-.

Travelled omitted room No. 49, So the
kanaka has not a monopoly of superstition.
These religious leaders say that Prof.
Brighams intense hostility to the entire
missionary idea disqualifies him from rem
dering fair judgment, and l must confess
that the latter told me that he believed
'the heather" should be let alone, and that
zone religion is as good as another
statement which l thought rather remark
able, coming from man of real scholar
ship, in that it puts Christianity, Bud
.dhism and Confucianism, with their lofty
ethical teachings. upon the same level as
the human sacrificing devil worship Of the
Hawaiians, and the gross cannbalism of
the islands farther south.
Before setting down the conclusions of
first hand investigation of religious and
cal conditions these islands (Which in
vestigaton has included interviews with
thoroughly Informed representatives of all
parties, and a study Of a great mass of doc
umentary evidence. available only here) 1t
Is necessary to tell the story Of Obookiah
and of the islands as the missionaries
found them.
The Sandwich Islands, as the Hawaiian
group were named by their discoverer,
Capt Cook, were populated by race Of re-
mote Aryan origin who in the sixth CEN
fury before had been driven north from the
Samoan Islands, over thousands OF miles OF
sea- In canoes Of their own making. AS
late the thirteenth century they main
tanned relations, mostly warlike, with the
people of the southern Polynesian archi-
pelago. They never practiced cannfbalism,
though human sacrifice was one of their re-
ligious rites. They were race Of unusual
vigor. longevity and comeliness. Their
skill in handicraft is attested by the mar
Vicious feather cloaks once worn by Ha-
waiian royalty, and now the almost price
less pOSSeSSiOQ of few museums
Such was the stock from which came the
fourteen-year boy, bearing the eupho-
NOUS name of Obookiah. who, in 1909, was
found weeping the doorsteps of Yale
College. He had fed from Hawaii having
seen his parents slain before his eyes in
civil war; and had made his way to Amer
lea in one of the New England ships which
then piled all waters His thirst for know
ledge and religion attracted widespread at
tention. Samuel J. Mills, young who
had come to New Haven from Williams
College, especially interested in this
latest man from Macedonia and he took
Obookiah to his own home, at Torring
ford.
Mills was a missionary enthusiast. He
was the prime mover in the little band of
Williams students who had devoted them
selves to the cause of foreign missions,
and whose historic prayer meeting in 1906.
under Willamstown haystack. is regarded
as the beginning of the American foreign
mission enterprise which today embraces
practically all Christian churches in the
land and has made the American mission
airy conspicuous figure on all the CONT
that haystack meeting - the site is now
marked by monument-grew the Ameri-
can board. then representing both Congre-
gationalists and Presbyterians. The Gen.
tennial is this fall being widely observed.
Obookiah's pleadngs pointed to Hawaii
as the first stronghold Of heathenism to be
attacked by the new movement and the
young zealots who were Its real leaders.
q W
seven Of whom were wives and five chill
dren. set sail for the long journey around
the Horn. their departure being made the
occasion for solemn celebrations in New
England. They arrived at the end of
March, to learn that, by dramatic coin
cidence. unparalleled in religious history,
the idols had been burned, the affairs and
the deadly taboo had been abolished. and
that conditions were most extraordinarily
ripe for missionary effort.
Things had been in a bad way in the
Hawaiian Islands. Civil war had for CEN
turtles been the rule until Kamehameha
the Great, sort of dusky Napoleon, had
consolidated the islands under one rule
Vice at its worst was common and open.
Two-thirds of all the children born, it is
estimated. were killed in infancy and aged
parents were often buried alive. Human
sacrifice was an essential part Of the relig-
ious system. Stealing was a fine art; even
kings and chiefs kept servants for the ex-
press purpose of committing theft. Gam
bling went on by wholesale. When food
was plentiful the native would gorge him
self six or seven times day, even rising
in the night to eat. At other times he
would eat but once a day, or go hungry
altogether. Science they had none; no
written language, nor the least conception
of any mode of communicating thought but
by oral speech
Government was oppressive; lands, prod
ucts and occupants all belonged to the
chiefs and the king. A system of taboo
safeguarded the power of these; 1t was
taboo and death for q common man to let