34 



BRIG HAM ON HAWAIIAN FEATHER WORK 



arranged for the posthumous cession of his kingdom, and thus the sovereignty of the 

 whole group came to the foster son of Kalaniopuu. After suppressing an insurreftion 

 on Hawaii peace came at last to the chief, and he devoted his energies to promoting the 

 comfort of his people: he was also friendly to foreigners and prote(?ted their commerce. 

 Among his orders was one to the bird-catchers: "When you take a bird do not strangle 

 it, l)ut having plucked the few feathers for which it is sought, set it free that others 

 may grow in their place." They inquired, "Who will possess the bird set free? You 



are an old man." He added, "My sons will possess 

 the birds hereafter.'"'' 



As death drew near and the priests could not 

 heal the increasing infirmitv of the king, a special 

 house was built for Kukailimoku at Kailua, on Ha- 

 waii, where the king was living at the time, and 

 human sacrifices were proposed, but tlie dying king 

 declared, "The men are sacred to the king" (his son 

 Iviholiho). And so the head of network covered willi 

 red feathers which had been his deity, and the object 

 of all his pravers and offerings, was held to still as 

 Kamehameha went to his grave. There is little 

 doubt that the image once in the cabinet of the 

 American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- 

 sions in Boston, and now in the Bishop Museum 

 I No. 7855 ] was the particular one to which the 

 dviug king turned for unavailing help. Certainly 

 those carried awav by Cook's officers aiul by Van- 

 couver, and now in London and \'ieuna could not 

 have been, and it is improbable that the idol of the 

 founder of the family would have been destroyed in 

 the general destru(5lion of the temples and gods in the 

 beginning of the reign of Liholiho. 

 And how is it that we have still extant a number of these feather-covered heads 

 of varied form and more or less repulsive featiires? I do not know that there are more 

 than those now stored in the museums of X'ienna, London and Honolulu, but it is 

 quite possible that others were hidden in caves at the time of the overthrow of the an- 

 cient Hawaiian religious system, as tradition claims. It must be remembered that 

 although to the present generation Kukailimoku is known as Kamehameha's war-god, 

 the deity had been the object of an ancient cult,'' and many images may have been made 

 in various parts of Hawaii, and the process of manufa<5lure, as will be seen below, lent 



FIG. 26. 



-'■History of the Sandimh hlainis. By Sheldon Uibble. Lahaina- 

 hina, 1849; p. 75. 



=5Krik.<iili-nioku in Hawaiian means Ku that seizes the islands. 



Many authorities claim that this god idea was not anterior to the time 

 of Unii. and was naturally adopted by the ambitious young Kameha- 

 meha as a suitable promotor of his designs. 



