FEATHER KAHILIS. 



17 



battle and were thus honored bv the conqueror.'^ It was an old Hawaiian custom to 

 outrage the memor^' of an enemy by placing bits of his skeleton or teeth in some vessel 

 of dishonor, or by making fishhooks or arrow points'' of them; hence the care taken to 

 hide the bones of prominent chiefs. On the other hand it was honorable to have one's 

 bones placed on a kahili handle or inlaid in a poi uniekc. The old men a generation 

 ago knew the names of the chiefs whose bon}' relics are preserved in these kahilis while 

 the rest of their anatom\' has long been dust, but probably no one can now tell the tale. 

 When a chief is at the point of death these bones are supposed to rattle, but as the 

 chiefs are all dead they seem now to have abandoned their heraldic vocation. Another 

 similar handle, but without feathers | B. M. No. 117], shown in tlie same illustration, 

 was given by Paki nearly half a century ago to Gorham D. Gilman to whom he told 

 all the names of the bones in order; but when Mr. Gilman gave the handle to the 

 Museum he had long since forgotten the interesting list. 



The feathers {//ii/i/ii/aiiii) were of every variety known to the Hawaiians, includ- 

 ing such foreign ones as ostrich and peacock; but the old ones were of the tropic-bird, 

 00 (both yellow and black), frigate-bird, pueo, iiwi and the barnyard fowl. In later 

 degenerate times dyed duck feathers were 

 used. The method of the modern florist 

 who fastens his short-stemmed flowers to 

 wires that they may have due prominence 

 in his boucpiet was praAised by the isl- 

 ander of olden time, but as he liad no wire 

 he pressed into service the tough, slim 

 midrib of the coconut leaf. Several of 

 these, or of other stiff fibres, he bound 

 together with the thread of olona, attach- 

 ing by the same thread the feathers to 

 the separated ends of the main stem in a 

 way shown more clearly in Fig. 12, p. 19. 

 These feathered branches are tied together 

 in small bundles and kept in quantity for 

 use. How they were finally fastened to 

 the kahili pole is shown in Fig. 13, p. 19. 



I believe that anciently, before 

 white influence was felt, no thought was 

 given to fitness of color to occasion, and it was only by foreign teaching that reds and 

 yellows were reserved for coronations or general state funcTiions, while black and the 

 sombre colors were appropriated to funerals. At the funeral of the Princess Pauahi 



''Doubtless bones of Kaiana. a chief of distincftion, and of Kalaui- 'sThe only arrows used by Ihe Hawaiians were direc'ted solely 



kupule, the last king of Oahu, are among these trophies. against mice. 



Memoirs of the Berxice p.\t".\hi Bishop Musei'm. Wji.. I. (2) 



FIG. 10. NAHIENAENA, IX 1825. 



