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Island Love On The Pacific, a non-fiction book by Henry Theophilus Finck |
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Vagaries Of Hawaiian Fondness |
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_ It is quite possible that the events related in the cave-story did occur; but a Hawaiian, untouched by missionary influences, would have told them very differently. It is very much more likely, however, that if a Hawaiian had found himself in the predicament of Kaaialii, he would have sympathized with the king's contemptuous speech: "What! would you throw your life away for a girl? There are others as fair. Here is Ua; she shall be your wife." This would have been much more in accordance with what observers have told us of Hawaiian "heart-affairs." "The marriage tie is loose," says Ellis (IV., 315), "and the husband can dismiss his wife on any occasion." "The loves of the Hawaiians are usually ephemeral," says "Haeole," the author of _Sandwich Island Notes_ (267). The widow seldom or never plants a solitary flower over the grave of her lord. She may once visit the mound that marks the repose of his ashes, but never again, unless by accident. It not unfrequently happens that a second husband is selected while the remains of the first are being conveyed to his "long home." Hawaiian women seem more attached to pigs and puppies than to their husbands or even their children. The writer just quoted says whole volumes might be written concerning the "silly affection" of the women for animals. They carry them in their bosoms, and do not hesitate to suckle them. It is one of their duties to drive pigs to the market, and one day "Haeole" came across a group of native women who had taken off their only garments and soaked them in water to cool their dear five hundred-pounder, while others were fanning him! As late as 1881 Isabella Bird wrote that |
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