The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-12-10
RELIGION IN HAWAII
AS DR.. BRIGHAM SEES It
Work of Christianizing and Civzing the Ha'
waiian People Is Superficial --One Faith
as Good as Another.

William T. Ellis, writing in the New
York Tribune says:
AS a paradise of natural beauty Ha-
wall is of interest to the tourist, but
to the student of religious. social and
political questions its greatest impor-
tance lies in the swiftness of its
transition from a savage community,
bound by the practice of human sac
rffice and the allied and greater curse
of the taboo, into a self-governing,
orderly and prosperous community, ad-
mitted into the sisterhood of the Amer
after the time it began to emerge from
rank barbarism. AS a fading race
also. the kanakas, or native Hawai-
ians are worth studying, for the 400,-
600 inhabitants whom Captain Cook
estimated as living on these Sandwich
Islands in 177S had dwindled to 142,
600 in 1923, to 81, 900 in 1853 and to about
10000 in this present year.
AS a widely heralded completed
product of missions Hawaii has long
-ers 1t has been said times without
number that this is one of the few
places on--the globe where the mis-
sionaries finished their task, leaving
to support and direct themselves as
Christian nation the people whom lit
tie more than a generation before they
had found naked savages. For in 1863
the American Board formally with
drew from the Hawaiian islands, which
it had entered in 1920.
There, broadly stated is one side of
the situation. On the other hand, it
has been charged by many persons
and publications that while the mis-
sionaries to Hawaii pointed the be-
nighted native to mansions in the
skies, they at the same time quietly
took possession of the natives earthly
real estate. That the whole island,
even since it has become a Territory,
is the private graft of the mission
aries and their sons is familiar ac-
cusation.
A man who spoke as from absolute
knowledge declared to me aboard ship
that "the missionaries are the curse
of Honolulu" 1 later found that he
we were at the moment None the
less even the parrot may speak an i'm
portant truth.
STILL wORSHIPING DEVILS.
Even more serious. to my mind, was
the charge made by Professor William
T. Brigham, director of the famous
Bishop Museum of Polynesian objects
in Honolulu. Professor Brigham has
spent a lifetime in the study of the
South Sea Island history, manners and
customs. He declared to me that the
work of the Christianization and CIV
iliza;ion Of the Hawaiian people has
been altogether superficial, and that'
If the whites were to move out tomor-
row. the native would be found restor-
ing his old affairs and worship the
very next day.
As proof of this he said that he had
the Honolulu courts worshiping at an
old native altar in one of the remote
parts of the Island of Oahu. Within
a stones throw of the Bishop Museum.
where we were talking. was bfokeh
down altar. which, at the time OF the
politfcal overthrow in 1898, was re-
estabIfshe1. along with a somewhat
general recrudescence of luoidliy
throughout the islands. Within three
miles he further said, in the city OF !
Honolulu itself, native priest nS'u
fallen dead while conducting heathen
rites before the altar The worship
.ers fearful that the devil would eaten .
them also, quickly bundled up the ap
pIiances of idol worship and carrie"
them to Professor Brigham, Tor, lheS
said. he would know what TO DO with
the devil better than any other man
OF their acquaintance.
Local missionary authorities aIlrli'
with reservations. the facts upon "h1ch
Professor Brigham bases his ooserHa-
tions. while not all accepting his con-
cIusions, Instances of idolatry in the
regions Of the TERRITORY ana
the existence of these doctors, they
grant. and dozen years ago IieIe
was a tendency 10 revert to the oiu
gods The strong strain OF superstI-
tfon still persisting in the native is au-
mitted with additions and variations
imported from the white sailors
was called to my attention that, IKE
So many big hotels in America, the
steamer on which 1 Travelled othltteu