42 NATURAL HISTORY OF HAWAII. 



Mauy find a suggestive parallelism of expression in the Hawaiian meles 

 comparable with the Hebrew psalms, others to tlie rugged poetry of Walt Whit- 

 man. No better illustration of this dignified form of Hawaiian poetry can be 

 found, perhaps, than the passage from the dirge, "In the ^Memory of Keeau- 

 moku," as preserved by tlie Rev. William Ellis: 



"Alas, alas, dead is my chief. 

 Dead is my lord and friend; 

 My friend in the season of famine, 

 My friend in the time of drought. 

 My friend in my poverty, 

 My friend in the rain and the wind. 

 My friend in the heat and the sun, 

 My friend in the cold from the mountain. 

 My friend in the storm. 

 My friend in the calm, 

 My friend in the eight seas, 

 Alas, alas, gone is my friend, 

 And no more will return. ' ' 



As SO frequently happens with people gifted with a lyric talent, the Ha- 

 waiians were also possessed of an extraordinary musical talent. There were 

 many among them at the time of their discovery that sang with skill, after their 

 own fashion, and they were by no means slow to acquire the technique of our 

 own more intricate written music, a fact which soon revolutionized their form of 

 musical expression. 



]\Iarriage. 



Passing now to the more domestic customs of the people it may l)e said that 

 among the Hawaiians, marriage was entered into with very little ceremony, 

 except, perhaps, in the case of a few of the more important chiefs. Among all 

 classes the relations among the sexes w^ere very free and it is difficult to determine, 

 with accuracy, what the exact condition was originalh^ with reference to chastity. 

 All the evidence goes to show that the habits of the people in this regard were far 

 better formerly than they afterwards became. Whatever may have lieen 

 brought about by the coming of white men, and we refer to the hardy seamen 

 of the early days, it is a mistake to assume that wholesale promiscuity existed 

 originally among them comparalile to the debasing type found among certain 

 classes in our own scheme of social civilization. Although there was much free- 

 dom on the part of both parties in the marriage relation and scarcely any re- 

 straint at all among the young previous to entering the more settled domestic 

 arrangement, it is an error to suppose that there was an absence of a definite 

 marital relationship, accompanied l\v well understood obligations between the 

 parents and their offspring. 



Polygamy. 



By such Hawaiians as could afford and command more than one wife, 

 polygamy was practiced to some extent, rather more as a mark of distinction 



