THROUGH HAWAII. 
Ill 
the last, manifesting a steadfastness which even their 
enemies admired, and a degree of courage worthy of 
being exercised in a better cause. 
Kekuaokalani was first cousin to Rihoriho. He is 
represented by some as having been an enterprising and 
restless young man, aspiring to share the government 
with his cousin, if not to reign in his stead. The late 
king Tamehameha, a short time before his death, left 
the government of the islands to his eldest son Riho- 
riho, and the care of the gods, their temples, and the 
support of their worship, to the king and Kekuaoka¬ 
lani, together with the rest of the chiefs. 
Almost the first public act of the young king Riho- 
riho, was the abolition of the national idolatry, and all 
the restrictions of the tabu system by which it was 
upheld. This system, with all its superstitious cruelty, 
had existed, and had exerted its degrading yet almost 
supernatural influence over the people, from time imme¬ 
morial ; and it required no small degree of courage 
by one single act to abrogate its inflexible laws, and 
destroy its dreaded power. But several acts of Riho- 
rilio’s reign shew that he possessed a mind well adapt¬ 
ed for such undertakings. 
His motives for this decisive measure appear to 
have been, in the first place, a desire to ameliorate the 
condition of his wives, and the females in general, 
whom the tabu sunk into a state of extreme wretched¬ 
ness and degradation, obliging them to subsist only on 
inferior kinds of food, and not allowing them to cook 
their provisions, such as they were, at' the same fire, 
or even eat in the same place where the men took 
theirs. And in the second place, he seems to have 
been influenced by a wish to diminish the power of 
