146 



HA WAIL 



[letter XV. 



surrounded by a number of inferior deities, for the Hawaiians 

 had " gods many, and lords many." Here also was the anm 

 a lofty frame of wickerwork, shaped like an obelisk, hollow, 

 and five feet square at its base. Within this, the priest, who 

 was the oracle of the god, stood, and of him the king used to 

 inquire concerning war or peace, or any affair of national im- 

 portance. It appears that the tones of the oracular voice were 

 more distinct than the meaning of the utterances. However, 

 the supposed answers were generally acted upon. 



On the outside of this inner court was the lele, or altar, on 

 which human and other sacrifices were offered. On the day 

 of the dedication of the temple to Tairi, vast offerings of fruit, 

 dogs, and hogs were presented, and eleven human beings 

 %vere immolated on the altar. These victims were taken from 

 among captives, or those who had broken Tabu, or had ren- 

 dered themselves obnoxious to the chiefs, and were often 

 blind, maimed, or crippled persons. Sometimes they were 

 dispatched at a distance with a stone or club, and their bodies 

 were dragged along the narrow passage up which I walked 

 shuddering : but oftener they Avere bound and taken alive into 

 the heiau to be slain in the outer court. The priests, in slaying 

 these sacrifices, were careful to mangle the bodies as little as 

 possible. From two to twenty were offered at once. They 

 were laid in a row with their faces downwards on the altar 

 before the idol, to which they were presented in a kind of 

 prayer by the priest, and, if offerings of hogs were presented at 

 the same time, these were piled upon them, and the whole mass 

 was left to putrefy. 



The only dwellings within the heiau were those of the priests, 

 and the " sacred house " of the king, in which he resided 

 during the seasons of strict Tabu. A doleful place this heiau 

 is, haunted not only by the memories of almost unimaginable 

 terrors, but by the sore thought that generations of Hawaiians 

 lived -and died in the unutterable darkness of this ignorant 

 worship, passing in long procession from these grim rites int 

 the presence of the Father whose infinite compassions they h 

 never known. 



Every hundred feet of ascent from the rainless, fervid beach 

 of Kawaihae increased the freshness of the temperature, and 

 rendered exercise more delightful. From the fringe of palms 

 along the coast to the damp hills north of Waimea, a distance 

 of ten miles, there is not a tree or stream, though the scorched 

 earth is deeply scored by the rush of fierce temporary torrents 



