KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 57. NIO 4. 141 



taking possession of the temple, in which holy spöt they were not only safe from pursuit. but also had 

 plenty of food, as such was daily brought as sacrifice to the idols there erected. In this way they lived 

 very comfortably, and as they had made their way direct to the temple, and as the story of Opuna, 

 enshrined in a song, was generally known among the people, they soon became regarded as envoys 

 from Rono, to whom he had committed the care of his beloved spouse's tomb. 1 This belief won them 

 still greater worship than that which was shown to the idols themselves. The priests alone had the 

 right to provide them with all that they needed, and they performed this duty in the most conscientious 

 maimer. The people did not even dåre to come near the temple. The time soon passed too slowly, 

 however, for the white men in their loneliness. They mixed freely with the priests, and performed the 

 holy ceremonies in combination with them in the temple. At last they even appeared amongst the 

 people; and though they were now convinced that the newcomers were real men and only distinguished 

 from the natives by colour, yet they remained highly respected owing to their wisdom and good 

 behaviour. They received the noblest girls in marriage, and they became riders each in his own island. 

 The descendants of these strangers, including most of the nobility of the islands, were still distinguished 

 by their whiter skin. 



There is no reason to doubt that Ellis and Kotzebue correctly understood and 

 reported these traditions, as these were told to them. But it is obvious that not much 

 can be built on such oral traditions, more especially when they are so vague as these. In 

 particular, one may ha ve well-grounded reason to question whether the strangers of whom 

 the legends speak were really white men. It has to be remembered that, when the tra- 

 ditions were noted down, forty-five years had already elapsed since the natives had made 

 acquaintance with Europeans, 2 a time which seems fully sufficient to enable earlier stories 

 to be modified and unconsciously adapted, in the imagination of the natives, to the new 

 kinds of people with whom they had meanwhile come into contact. It is striking, too, 



1 The story of Rono or Lono and his wife is told by Ellis (op. cit., p. 119): "Amoiig the kings who 

 governed Hawaii during what may in its chronology be called the fabulous age, was Rono or Orono; who, on 

 some account, became otfended with his wife, and murdered her; but afterwards lamented the act so much, as 

 to induce a state of mental derangement. In this state he travelled through all the islands, boxing and wrestling 

 with every one he met. He subsequently set sail in a singularly shaped canoe for Tahiti, or a foreign country. 

 After his departure he was deified by his countrymen, and annual games of boxing and wrestling were instituted 

 to his honour. As soon as Captain Cook arrived, it was supposed and reported that the god Rono was returned." 

 The song about Rono and his queen Kaikiranee-Aree-Opuna is given in a translation, made by the American 

 missionaries, in the narrative of Lord Byron's voyage (Voyage of H. M. S. Blonde to the Sandwich Islands 

 in the years 1824—1825, Lond. 1826, p. 20). Several features in this song are repeated in the story about 

 Lono and Kaikilani-alii-wahine-o-Puna published by Fornander {op. cit., II, pp. 114 — 127); but it is there said 

 that the latter came to life again after the blow which the jealous husband had aimed against her, and that 

 the spouses were afterwards reconciled and lived till their death on Hawaii. Of Lono's departure and the 

 prophecy of his return Fornander in this connection has nothing to tell us: he merely says that Lono was "one 

 of the great gods of the Hawaiian trinity" (op. cit., p. 169). On the same subject N. B. Emerson says the 

 following: "Kane, Ku, Kanaloa, and Lono were the maior gods of the Hawaiian pantheon'' (Univritten Litera- 

 ture of Hawaii, Wash. 1909, p. 24); and further: "The cult of god Lono was milder, more humane, than that of Kane 

 and the other maior gods . . . The statement in verse 26 [of a prayer to the goddess Laka] accords with the 

 general belief of the Hawaiians that Lono dwelt in foreign parts, Kukulu o Kahiki, and that he would some 

 time come to them across the waters. When Captain Cook arrived in his ships, the Hawaiians worshipped him 

 as the god Lono" (ibid., p. 18). 



2 Louis de Freycinet, who visited Hawaii in August 1819, says: "Il serait d'un haut intérét pour 1'histoire et 

 pour la philosophie que ces morceaux intéressans fussent recueillis avec exactitude et publiés par les personnes qui, 

 ayant fait un long séjour dans ce pays, en connaissent bien le langage" (Voyage autour du Monde 1817—20. 

 Historique. T. II, P. II, Paris 1839, p. 591). Probably, when this was said, it was already too late to follow 

 the advice given; or at least it would have required greater critical capacity than the låter collectors of the 

 traditions revealed to distinguish between the older and newer elements in the traditions preserved. 



