H A W A 1 1 A N G R O U p. 37 



person, and instances occurred where all the moos which composed 

 an ili, were possessed by one individual. 



Every feudatory was bound to his particular land-owner, after the 

 same manner as the chief or land-owner was bound to the king ; and 

 thus a feudal connexion was established between the king- and his 

 lowest subject, by which tie the society or clan was held together. 



The king and chiefs having power even to depriving a chief not 

 only of his rank, but also of his possessions, had complete control over 

 the whole, and had them firmly bound to their purposes. 



This was the only system of government known to the Hawaiians, 

 and even the older chiefs cannot be persuaded that authority or go- 

 vernment can be successfully maintained by any other means. Their 

 argument is, " If they cannot take the people's lands away from them, 

 what will they care for their authority ?" 



But, what appears extraordinary, this bond was more often severed 

 by the superiors than by their vassals, notwithstanding the landlord 

 had not only a right to require military service, to tax his particular 

 tenants at pleasure, and demand other things, among which might be 

 daily labour in any or every kind of employment, so that a labourer 

 seldom received on an average more than one-third of the value of his 

 work, while the different chiefs pocketed the rest. But this was not 

 all ; even this portion of one-third was not secure, for they had no line 

 of demarcation by which the tenant could separate the profits of his 

 labour from the property of his chief; and if he by any chance was 

 industrious, and brought his farm into a good state of cultivation, he 

 was at once marked out as a subject for taxation. No tenant, in short, 

 could call any thing he had his own. Favouritism, jealousy, and 

 fickleness of character were so general, that no landholder could con- 

 sider himself sure of the fruits of his own exertions, and therefore 

 would make no improvements, and even ridiculed the idea of attempt- 

 ing them. 



These exactions came so heavily at times from particular chiefs, 

 that the landholders found it necessary, in order to avoid starvation, 

 to hold lands at the same time under different chiefs, so that their 

 chance might be greater of retaining a portion, and that the neces- 

 sities of one of them could not entirely sweep away the whole. 



All that restrained a chief in demanding taxes or from dispossessing 

 his tenants was a certain sense of propriety, which forbade the ejection 

 of the actual cultivator of the land, notwithstanding the changes 

 which might take place above him, so that those possessing the moos 



VOL. IV. 10 



