The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-06-27
Bx Sol. n. Sheridan.

HILO, Hawaii, June 1S.-Only as a
deserted home is eloquent of the family
life that once hallowed it does Waipio
Gulch speak in these days of the life of
old Hawaii And vet, 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 a wholesome
fear of gods now dead as their people,
came for the sacrifice Then the mis-
slonaries 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 pillow 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 hui
initiation of having been sold, in 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? It may be
that the time viii 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 heart g 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 a 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 its 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.
It is almost certain that of the first
who came to these islands
from the South Seas, some must have
found shelter and running water. The
gulch, thousand feet deep at the sea
and fronting the ocean for a 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 a journey
Town the trail from the Hamakua side
is something like the flight of a bird,
,ircling down from the higher levels of
he air. The valley, at the seaward |
md, is given over to the Chinese rice
planters. Higher up the natives who
remain still grow taro and papaias, and
here are a few grass huts of the older
ime But these, like the natives, are
passing.
Three-quarters of mile from the
'oot of the trail the village of Waipio
,tands-a village of deserted houses,
For the most part, but with some of
hem occupied--and from these the
yayfarer feels, rather than sees, that
he eyes of hidden ones peer out at
lin. They will venture from their hid
ng places presently, these natives, but
hey must first feel assurance that the
stranger rides between the rough stone
walls that line the streets crookedly,
making them little more than bride
paths, with no hostile purpose.
Beyond the deserted houses stands thet