Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-04
Three-Quarters Of a Century
From Gross Barbaristn to
Citizenship How Mis-
sionaries Made a Nation.
BY WILLIAM T. ELLIS.
Copyright. 1906, by Joseph B. Bowles.)

HONOLULU, i. b., August.
AS paradise of natural beauty, Hawaii
is of interest to the tourist but to the stu
dent of religious. social and political ques-
lions It's greatest Importance lies in the
swiftness of its transition from a savage
community bound by the practice of hu-
man sacrifice and the allied and greater
curse of the taboo. into self-governing.
orderly and prosperous community. ad-
mitted into the sisterhood of the American
Union within seventy-five years after the
time 1t began to emerge from rank barbar-
ism. AS fading race" also. the Kama
kas, or native Hawaiians. are worth study
ing, for the 100000 inhabitants whom Capt
Cook estimated as living on these Sand
witch Islands in ITS had dwindled to 49,
GEO in 1923, to $1,000 in 1866 and to about
10000 in this present year.
AS a widely heralded completed product
of missions Hawaii has long been adver
tised by missionary workers. 1t has been
said, times without number, that this is
one of the few places the globe where
the missionaries finished their task-leaving
to support and direct themselves as a
Christian nation the people whom, little
more than a generation before, they had
found naked savages. For in 1863 the
American board formally withdrew from
the Hawaiian Islands, which it had en-
tered in 1920.
There, broadly stated, is one side of the
situation. On the other hand. 1t has been
charged. by~innumerable persons and pub
locations, that, while the missionaries to
Hawaii pointed the benighted native to
mansions in the skies, they at the same
time quietly took possession of the natives
earthly real estate. That the whole is
land. even since it has become a territory
is the private graft of the missionaries
and their sons Is an accusation familiar to
almost everybody.
A man who spoke as from absolute knowl-
edge declared to me aboard ship that 1.-The
missionaries are the curse of Honolulu"
l later found that he had never been nearer
the islands than We were at the moment
None the less, even the parrot may speak
an important truth.
Even more serious. to my mind, was the
charge made by Prof. William T. Brigham,
director Of the famous Bishop Museum of
Polynesian objects, in Honolulu. Prof
Brigham has spent lifetime in the study
Of South Sea Island history, manners and
customs. He declared to me that the work
of the Contamination and civilization of
the Hawaiian people has been altogether
superficial, and that If the whites were to
move out tomorrow the native would be
found restoring his old affairs and worship
the very next day.
AS proof Of this he said that he had re-
Gently found native judge in one of the
Honolulu courts-I think he said a United
States court-worshiping at an old native
altar in one of the remote parts Of the
Island Of Oahu. Within stones throw Of
the Bishop museum, where we were talk
ing, was a broken down altar, which, at the
time Of the political overthrow in 1893, was
re-established, along with a somewhat gen.
eral recrudescence Of idolatry throughout
the islands Within three months, he fur
Their said, in the city Of Honolulu itself. a
native priest had fallen dead while con-
Quoting heather rites before the altar. The
worshipers, fearful that the devil would
catch them also, quickly bundled up the ap-
plances of idol worship and carried them
| to Prof Brigham, for, they said, he would
know what to do with the devil better than
any other man of their acquaintance.
Local missionary authorities affirm, with
great reservations, the facts upon which
Prof. Brigham bases his observations, while
not all accepting his conclusions. Instances
Fof idolatry in the untraveled regions of the
territory and the existence of witch doc
| tors they grant, and a dozen years ago
| there was a tendency, somewhat like the
ante bellum nationalism of the Japanese, to
revert to the old gods. The strong strain
| of superstition still persisting in the native
| is admitted, with additions and variations
| imported from the white sailors 1t was
| called to my attention that, like 30 many
| big hotels in America, the steamer on which