Life in the Out-districts and at the King’s Residence
From Hawaiian Antiquities by David Malo, 1903.
From: 1903 C.E. To: 1903 C.E.
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
Life in the Out-districts and at the King’s Residence.
From Hawaiian Antiquities by David Malo, 1903.
The manner of life in the out-districts was not the same as that about the residence of the chief. In the former the people were cowed in spirit, the prey of alarm and apprehension, in dread of the chiefs man.
They were comfortably off, however, well supplied with everything. Vegetable and animal food, tapa for coverings, girdles and loin-cloths and other comforts were in abundance.
To eat abundantly until one was sated and then to sleep and take one's comfort, that was the rule of the country. Sometimes, however, they did suffer hunger and feel the pinch of want. The thrifty, however, felt its touch but lightly; as a rule they were supplied with all the comforts of life.
The country people were well off for domestic animals. It was principally in the country that pigs, dogs and fowls were raised, and thence came the supply for the king and chiefs.
The number of articles which the country (kua-aina) furnished the establishments of the kings and chiefs was very great.
The country people were strongly attached to their own home- lands, the full calabash, the roasted potatoes, the warm food, to live in the midst of abundance. Their hearts went out to the land of their birth.
It was a life of weariness, however; they were compelled at frequent intervals to go here and there, to do this and that work for the lord of the land, constantly burdened with one exaction or another.
The country people were humble and abject; those about the chiefs overbearing, loud-mouthed, contentious.
The wives of the country people were sometimes appropriated by the men about court, even the men were sometimes separated from their country wives by the women of the court, and this violence was endured with little or no resistance, because these people feared that the king might take sides against them. In such ways as these the people of the kuaaina were heavily oppressed by the people who lived about court.
Some of the country people were very industrious and engaged in farming or fishing, while others were lazy and shiftless, without occupation. A few were clever, but the great majority were inefficient. There was a deal of blank stupidity among them.
These country people were much given to gathering together for some profitless occupation or pastime for talk's sake (hoolua nui), playing the braggadocio (hoo-pehu-pehu), when there was nothing to back up their boasts (oheke wale). The games played by the country people were rather different from those in vogue at court or at the chief's residence. Some people preferred the country to the court.
Many people, however, left the country and by preference came to live near the chiefs. These country people were often oppressive toward each other, but there was a difference between one country district and another.
The bulk of the supplies of food and of goods for chiefs and people was produced in the country districts. These people were active and alert in the interests of the chiefs.
The brunt of the hard work, whether it was building a temple, hauling a canoe-log out of the mountains, thatching a house, building a stone- wall, or whatever hard work it might be, fell chiefly upon the kua-ainas.
Life about court was very different from that in the country. At court the people were indolent and slack, given to making excuses (making a pretense of) doing some work, but never working hard.
People would stay with one chief awhile and then move on to another (pakaulei). There was no thrift; people were often hungry and they would go without their regular food for several days. At times there was great distress and want, followed by a period of plenty, if a supply of food was brought in from the country.
When poi and fish were plentiful at court the people ate with prodigality, but when food became scarce one would satisfy his hunger only at long intervals (maona kalawalawa. Kawalawala is the received orthography). At times also tapa-cloth for coverings and girdles, all of which came from the country, were in abundance at court.
At other times people about court, on account of the scarcity of cloth, were compelled to hide their nakedness with malos improvised from the narrow strips of tapa (hipuupuu) that came tied about the bundles of tapa-cloth. A man would sometimes be compelled to make the kihei which was his garment during the day, serve him for a blanket by night, or sometimes a man would sleep under the same covering with another man. Some of the people about court were well furnished with all these things, but they were such ones as the alii had supplied.
Of the people about court there were few who lived in marriage. The number of those who had no legitimate relations with women was greatly in the majority. Sodomy and other unnatural vices in which men were the correspondents, fornication and hired prostitution were practiced about court.
Some of the sports and games indulged in by the people about court were peculiar to them, and those who lived there became fascinated by the life. The crowd of people who lived about court was a medley of the clever and the stupid, a few industrious workers in a multitude of drones.
Among those about court there were those who were expert in all soldierly accomplishments, and the arts of combat were very much taught. Many took lessons in spear-throwing (lono-maka-ihe,) spear-thrusting, pole-vaulting (ku-pololu), single-stick (kaka-laau), rough-and-tumble wrestling (kaala),and in boxing (kui-alua). All of these arts were greatly practiced about court.
In the cool of the afternoon sham fights were frequently indulged in; the party of one chief being pitted against the party of another chief, the chiefs themselves taking part.
These engagements were only sham fights and being merely for sport were conducted with blunted spears, (kaua kio) or if sharp spears were used it was termed kaua pahu-kala. These exercises were useful in training the men for war.
In spite of all precautions many of the people, even of the chiefs, were killed in these mock battles. These contests were practiced in every period in the different islands to show the chiefs beforehand who among the people were warriors, so that these might be trained and brought up as soldiers, able to defend the country at such time as the enemy made war upon it. Some of the soldiers, however, were country people.
One of the games practiced among the people about court was called honuhonu. Another sport was lou-lou. Another sport was urna. Hakoko, wrestling; kahau, lua.
The people who attended the chiefs at court were more polite in their manners than the country people, and they looked disdainfully upon country ways. When a chief was given a land to manage and retired into the country to live, he attempted to keep up the same style as at court.
The people about court were not timid nor easily abashed; they were not rough and muscular in physique, but they were bold and impudent in speech. Some of the country people were quite up to them, however, and could swagger and boast as if they had been brought up at court.
There was hardly anybody about court who did not practice robbery, and who was not a thief, embezzler, extortionist and a shameless beggar. Nearly everyone did these things.
As to the women there was also a great difference between them. Those who lived in the country were a hardworking set, whereas those about court were indolent.
The women assisted their husbands; they went with them into the mountains to collect and prepare the bark of the wauke, mamake, maaloa and bread-fruit, and the flesh of the fern-shoot (pala-holo) to be made into tapa.. She beat out these fibres into tapa and stamped the fabrics for paus and malos, that she and her husband might have the means with which to barter for the supply of their wants.
The country women nursed their children with the milk of their own breasts, and when they went to any work they took them along with them. But this was not always the case; for if a woman had many relations, one of them, perhaps her mother (or aunt), would hold the child. Also if her husband was rich she would not tend the child herself; it would be done for her by some one hired for the purpose, or by a friend.
The indolent women in the country were very eager to have a husband who was well off, that they might live without work. Some women offered worship and prayers to the idol-gods that they might obtain a wealthy man, or an alii for a husband. In the same way, if they had a son, they prayed to the idols that he might obtain a rich woman or a woman of rank for his wife, so that they might live without work.
It was not the nature of the women about court to beat tapa or to print it for paus and malos. They only made such articles as the alii specially desired them to make.
All the articles for the use of the people about court, the robes, malos, paus, and other necessaries (mea e pono ai) were what the chiefs received from the people of the country.
One of the chief employments of the women about court was to compose meles in honor of the alii which they recited by night as well as by day.
Malo, David. Hawaiian Antiquities: (Moolelo Hawaii). Translated by Nathaniel Bright Emerson, Hawaiian Gazette Co., 1903.
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