The Hawaiian gazette., 1906-06-29
By Sol N. Sheridan.

ttIe tuHI once ndllOWe0 IL uOeS MalplO
Gulch speak in these days of the life of
old Hawaii. And yet, in the lofty
green pals that arise thousand feet
on either side of the gorge; in the white
waterfalls springing from the forests
far overhead to fall in spray upon the
black rocks of the valley and gather
again in the strong, clear stream rush
ing down the vale; in the sounding
waves of the sea that dash in to die at
the feet of the cocoanut trees marking
the site of the ancient temple; above
all, in the stone walls enclosing kule-
anas long since abandoned, Waipio
Gulch tells, without words, the story of
a people passed away.
Once, long ago, this valley teemed
with its inhabitants, and there was
peace and plenty-with wholesome
fear of gods now dead as their people,
and no lack of victims when the time
came for the sacrifice. Then the mis-
sionaries came, setting up new gods;
but there was still peace and plenty
One land, in its time, sees many gods.
| Now, the Pake rice planter has set up
his joss in a rude room behind his
store, the only store in the village of
| Waipio, and the same rice planter har
nesses a red steer to his plow and turns
over in the rice field two shark gods of
the old Hawaiians so fallen from their
high state, so covered with black mud,
so generally forlorn and helpless and
hopeless that it may be they are glad
of the refuge they have found in the
museum of the Catholic Mission at
Honolulu, content to swallow the hu-
initiation of having been sold, in a job
lot, for $35. Old gods pass-and what
does it matter in time when men no
longer deem it worth while to take heed
of any god but Mammon! 1t may be
that the time will come when this wor-
ship, too, will pass and the rice planters
of future day will turn over minted
money in the black mud and wonder at
old tales of how the men of an age that
is gone gave of their hearts blood,
drop by drop, for this dross-to find, at
the end, that it left them helpless and
hopeless, even as the shark gods have
been left by their worshipers. For who
sets up god, let him look that it take
not all that he has and at the last give
him but the wisdom of the fool for his
devotion.
The old life is gone, the old worship
is gone, but even in it's decadence as a
rice plantation which does not pay,
Waipio Gulch is well worth sight by a
man who has seen the other wonders of
the world. 1t is said that the fathers
of the great Kamehameha lived here.
1t is almost certain that of the first
Hawaiians who came to these islands
from the South Seas, some must have
landed in the mouth of the gulch and
found shelter and running water. The
gulch, thousand feet deep at the sea
and fronting the ocean for width of a
mile, perhaps, cuts right back toward
the middle of the island of Hawaii and
makes barrier, passable on horseback
only, between Hamakua and Kohala.
1t is reached, from either side, by steep
trails that it is pleasanter to walk than
to ride down-trails that have been
bettered of late years, but that are still
abrupt and very rocky. And journey
down the trail from the Hamakua side
is something like the flight of a bird,
circling down from the higher levels of
the air. The valley, at the seaward
end, is given over to the Chinese rice
planters. Higher up the natives who
remain still grow taro and papaias and
there are few grass huts of the older
time. But these, like the natives, are
passing
Three-quarters of mile from the
foot of the trail the village of Waipio
stands--a village of deserted houses
for the most part but with some of
them occupied-and from these the
wayfarer feels, rather than sees, that
the eyes of hidden ones peer out at
him. They will venture from their hid
ing places presently, these natives, but
they must first feel assurance that the
stranger rides between the rough stone
walls that line the streets crookedly
making them little more than bride
p paths, with no hostile purpose,
Beyond the deserted houses stands the
deserted church of the missionary
fathers, is bell silenced, lis Windows
boarded, iis doors nailed fusl. Beyond
that, a little way, a Catholic chapel OF
much later construction ronrs its cross
and ils bell sends out over the valley .
note that 10 like u warning NJ the com
ing Of strangers. one land, Ia iis time
hnoNs many gods.
just laYnnd tbs eutFHnro "a tbs VII