262 BUREAU OF AMEEICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 38 



It will not do for us to brush aside contemptuously the notions 

 held by the Hawaiians in religion, cosmooony, and mythology as 

 mere heathen superstitions. If they were heathen, there was noth- 

 ing else for them to be. But even the heathen can claim the right 

 to be judged by their deeds, not by their creeds. Measured by this 

 standard, the average heathen would not make a bad showing in 

 comparison with the average denizen of Christian lands. As to 

 beliefs, how much more defensible were the superstitions of our own 

 race two or three centuries ago, or of to-day, than those of the Ha- 

 waiians? How much less absurd and illogical were our notions of 

 cosmogony, of natural history; how much less beneficent, humane, 

 lovable the theology of the pagan Haw^aiians than of our Christian 

 ancestors a few centuries ago if looked at from an ethical or practical 

 point of view. At the worst, the Hawaiian sacrificed the enemy he 

 took in battle on the altar of his gods; the Christian put to death 

 •with exquisite torture those who disagreed with him in points of doc- 

 trine. And when it comes to morals, have not the heathen time and 

 again demonstrated their ability to give lessons in self-restraint to 

 their Christian invaders? 



It is a matter of no small importance in the rating of a people to 

 take account of their disposition toward nature. If there has been 

 a failure to appreciate truly the mental attitude of the " savage," 

 and especially of the Polynesian savage, the Hawaiian, toward the 

 book of truth that was open to him in nature, it is always in order 

 to correct it. That such a mistake has been made needs no further 

 proof than the perusal of the following passage in a book entitled 

 " History of the Sandwich Islands : " 



To the heathen the book of nature is a sealed book. Where the word of God 

 is not, the works of God fail either to excite admiration or to impart instruc- 

 tion. The Sandwich Islands present some of the sublimest scenery on earth, 

 but to an ignorant native — to the great mass of the people in entire heathen- 

 ism — it has no meaning. As one crested billow after another of the hea\ing 

 ocean rolls in and dashes upon the unyielding rocks of an iron-bound coast, 

 which seems to say, " Hitherto shalt thou come and no farther," the low-minded 

 heathen is merely thinking of the shellfish on the shore. As he looks up to 

 the everlasting mountains, girt with clouds and capped with snow, he betrays 

 no emotion. As he climbs a towering cliff, looks down a yawning precipice, 

 or abroad upon a forest of deep ravines, immense rocks, and spiral mountains 

 thrown together in the utmost wildness and confusion by the might of God's 

 volcanoes, he is only thinking of some roots in the wilderness that may be 

 good for food. 



There is hardly a poem in this volume that does not show the utter 

 falsitj^ of this view. The writer of the words quoted above, now in 

 his grave for more than sixty years, was a man for whose purity and 

 moral character one must entertain the highest esteem. He enjoyed 

 the very best opportunity to study the minds of the "" heathen " about 

 him, to discern their thoughts, to learn at first hand their emotions 



