Hawaiian Ancient Dress in New Etigland Eyes. 187 



admiration. After this presentation was over, lier majesty lay down again upon the 

 ground and vinrolled the cloth b}^ reversing the process of clothing." 



I cannot give a portrait of the handsome Hawaiian queen, but I present a 

 photograph of a Samoan girl of the same age, whose costume answers the description. 

 Add the yellow feather lei and remove the fan and Kamamalu is before us. Mrs. 

 Thurston tells us that the king usuallj^ dressed only in his malo. 



In a former essay*" we have considered the magnificent feather cloaks worn 

 by the highest chiefs on great occasions or in battle, and as counterpart to these the 

 female chiefs had a pa'u decorated with feathers in the same way. One made for 

 Nahienaena, daughter of Kamehameha I, is now in the Bishop Museum, but in 1825 

 when Lord Byron brought back to their native kingdom the remains of Iviholiho and 

 Kamamalu, this superb garment 30 inches wide and 20 feet 8 inches long had already 

 become old-fashioned to the fancy of the 3'oung princess then ten years old, and it 

 was difficult to persuade her to put on the pa'u which a few 3'ears before would have 

 been greatly prized. **' Even in these early days foreign dress was creeping in to 

 smother the comfort of Eden. Mrs. Thurston gives us glimpses of the transition 

 stage which show how the little-dressed Hawaiians appeared to New England eyes. 

 Kalanimoku, the most intelligent chief the}- had met, was dressed fvilly in foreign 

 clothes and made an excellent impression. The court ladies, including two of the 

 five dowager queens of Kamehameha I, were also dressed, from the account we might 

 infer were overdressed ; but I 3'ield the account of this to Mrs. Thurston, a most 

 competent reporter. 



" Kalakua and a sister queen came on board. .. .They had limbs of giant 

 mould. I was taught to estimate their weight at three hundred pounds and even more. 

 Kalakua was the mother of three of the wives of the young king. Two wives of 

 Kalanimoku followed. They were all attired in a similar manner, a dress, then the 

 pa'u which consisted of ten thicknesses of the bark-cloth three or four yards long, 

 and one yard wide, wrapped several times round the middle, and confined by tucking 

 it in on one side. The two queens had loose dresses over these. 



" Trammeled with clothes and seated on chairs the queens were out of their 

 element. They divested themselves of their outer dresses. Then the one stretched 

 herself at full length on a bench and the other sat down upon the deck. Mattresses 

 were then brought for them to recline in their own way. 



" After reaching the cabin, the common sitting room for ladies and gentlemen, 

 one of the queens divested herself of her only remaining dress, simply retaining her 



^"Memoirs B. P. Bishop Museum, vol. i, p. i. 



"This princess died in 1836, and since then the pa'u has been cut in halves and the parts united lengthwise to 

 form a royal pall, last used over the coffin of Kalakauii. It is No. 6831 in the Bishop Museum. 



