“Aloha! Aloha!” she repeated. Then, facing the women and ignoring their husbands as she did her own, she spoke softly, and when her son interpreted the words, they said: “My adorable little children, you must think of me always as your mother. Before, the white men have sent us only sailors and shopkeepers and troublemakers. Never any women. But now you come, so we know that the intentions of the Americans must at last be good.”
Malama, the Alii Nui, the most sacred, mana-filled human being on Maui, waited grandly while this greeting was being delivered, and when the missionary wives acknowledged it, she moved down the line again, rubbing noses with each of the women and repeating, “You are my daughter.”
Then, overcome both by the emotion and the exertions of getting aboard the Thetis, Malama, her great moon-face sublime in new-found comfort, slowly unfastened the tapas that bound her great bulk. Handing the ends to her servants, she ordered them to walk away from her, while she unwound like a top until she stood completely naked except for a hair necklace from which dangled a single majestic whale’s tooth. Scratching herself in gasping relief, she indicated that she would lie down, and chose the canvas sling as a likely place, but when she stretched out on her stomach the missionaries were appalled to see tattooed along the full length of her left ham the purple letters: “Tamehameha King Died 1819.”
“Did the Russians do that, too?” Captain Janders asked.
“They must have,” Keoki replied. He asked his mother about the memento, and she twisted her head to study it. Tears came into her eyes and Keoki explained. “She was the nineteenth wife of Kamehameha the Great.”
Jerusha gasped, “Why she was no better than a concubine!”
“In many ways,” Keoki continued, “Malama was the favorite of the king’s last years. Of course, since she was the Alii Nui, she was entitled to other husbands as well.”
“You mean she was married to your father … at the same time?” Abner asked suspiciously.
“Of course!” Keoki explained. “Kamehameha himself consented, because my father was her younger brother, and their marriage was essential.”
“Throw some water on that woman!” Captain Janders shouted, for one of the missionary wives, overcome by Malama’s nudity and marital complications, had fainted.
Keoki, sensing the reasons, went to his mother and whispered that she ought to cover herself, for Americans hated the sight of the human body, and the great sprawling woman assented. “Tell them,” she said enthusiastically, “that henceforth I shall dress like them.” But before Keoki could do this she quietly asked Captain Janders if he could provide her with some fire, and when a brazier was fetched she fed into its flames the tapas she had been wearing. When they were consumed she announced grandly: “Now I shall dress as the new women do.”
“Who will make your dress?” Abner asked.
Imperiously, Malama pointed to Jerusha and Amanda and said, “You and you.”
“Tell her you’d be happy to,” Abner hastily whispered, and the two missionary women bowed and said, “We will make your dress, Malama, but we have not so much cloth, because you are a very big woman.”
“Don’t make her angry,” Abner warned, but Malama’s quick intelligence had caught the burden of Jerusha’s meaning, and she laughed.
“In all your little dresses,” she cried, indicating the mission women with a sweep of her mighty arm, “there is not enough cloth for my dress.” And she signaled her servants to fetch bundles from the canoe, and before the startled eyes of the mission women, length after length of the choicest Chinese fabric was unrolled. Settling finally on a brilliant red and a handsome blue, she pointed to the housedress worn by Amanda Whipple and announced quietly, “When I return to shore, I shall be dressed like that.”
Having given the command, she went to sleep, her naked bulk protected from flies by servants who swept her constantly with feathered wands. When she woke, Captain Janders inquired if she would like some ship’s food, but she refused haughtily and ordered her servants to lift great calabashes of food from the canoe, so that while the mission wives perspired over the tentlike dress they were building, she reclined and feasted on gigantic portions of roast pig, breadfruit, baked dog, fish and three quarts of purple poi. Midway in the meal her attendants hammered her stomach in ancient massage rituals so that she could consume more, and during these interruptions she grunted happily as the food was manipulated into more comfortable positions inside her cavernous belly.
Keoki explained proudly, “The Alii Nui has to eat huge meals, five or six times a day, so that the common people will see from a distance that she is a great woman.”
Into the evening the missionary women sewed while their husbands prayed that Malama would receive them well and allow them to lodge a mission at Lahaina; but the seamen of the Thetis prayed no less devoutly that soon both the missionaries and the fat woman would leave so that the girls waiting anxiously on shore could swim out to the brig and take up their accustomed work.
At ten the next morning the enormous red and blue dress was finished, and Malama accepted it without even bothering to thank the mission women, for she lived in a world in which all but she were servants. Like an awning protecting a New England store, the great dress was lowered into position over her dark head, while her streams of black hair were pulled outside and allowed to flow down her back. The buttons were fastened; adjustments were made at the waist, and the great Alii Nui jumped up and down several times to fit herself into the strange new uniform. Then she smiled broadly and said to her son, “Now I am a Christian woman!”
To the missionaries she said, “We have waited long for you to help us. We know that there is a better way of living, and we seek instruction from you. In Honolulu the first missionaries are already teaching our people to read and write. In Maui I shall be your first pupil.” She counted on her fingers and announced firmly: “In one moon, mark this, Keoki, I will write my name and send it to Honolulu … with a message.”
It was a moment of profound decision, and all aboard the Thetis save one were impressed with the gravity of this powerful woman’s determination; but Abner Hale perceived that Malama’s decision, while notable in that an illiterate heathen of her own will sought instruction, was nevertheless a step in the wrong direction, so he moved before her and said quietly, “Malama, we do not bring you only the alphabet. We have not come here merely to teach you how to write your name. We bring you the word of God, and unless you accept this, nothing that you will ever write will be of significance.”
When the words were translated to Malama her enormous moon-face betrayed no emotion. Forcefully she said, “We have our own gods. It is the words, the writing that we need.”
“Writing without God is useless,” Abner stubbornly reiterated, his little blond head coming scarcely to Malama’s throat.
“We have been told,” Malama answered with equal firmness, “that writing helps the entire world, but the white man’s God helps only the white man.”
“You have been told wrong,” Abner insisted, thrusting his stubborn little face upward.
To everyone’s surprise Malama did not reply to this but moved to face the women, asking, “Which one is the wife of this little man?”
“I am,” Jerusha said proudly.
Malama was pleased, for she had observed how capably Jerusha managed the work of making the big dress, and she announced: “For the first moon, this one shall teach me how to read and write, and for the next, this one,” indicating Abner, “shall teach me the new religion. If I find that these two new learnings are of equal importance, after two moons I shall advise you.”
Nodding to the assembly, she went gravely to the canvas sling, commanding her servants to unbutton her dress and remove it. Then she ordered Jerusha to show her how to fold it, and in massive nakedness lay down crosswise upon the canvas, her feet dangling aft, her arms forward, with her chin resting upon the rope edging. The capstans groaned. The sailors hefted the ropes and swung them over the ea
ves, and Captain Janders shouted, “For Christ’s sake, things are going well. Don’t drop her now!”
Inch by inch the precious burden was lowered into the canoe until finally the Alii Nui was rolled off the canvas and helped into an upright position. Clutching the new dress to her cheek she cried in full voice, “You may now come ashore!” And as the ship’s boats were lowered to convey the missionaries to their new home, they fell in line behind Malama’s canoe, with its two standard-bearers fore and aft, its eager servants brushing away the flies, and with tall, naked Malama holding the dress close to her.
Prior to Malama’s arbitrary choice of the Hales as her mentors, there had been some uncertainty as to which missionaries should be assigned to Maui and which to the other islands, but now it was apparent that the first choice, at least, had been made, and as the boats neared shore, Abner studied the intriguing settlement to which he was now committed. He saw one of the fairest villages in the Pacific, ancient Lahaina, capital of Hawaii, its shore marked by a fine coral strand upon which long waves broke in unceasing thunder, their tall crests breaking forward in dazzling whiteness. Where the surf finally ended, naked children played, their teeth gleaming in the sunlight.
Now for the first time Abner saw a coconut palm, the wonder of the tropics, bending into the wind on a slim resilient trunk and maintaining, no one knew how, its precarious foothold on the shore. Behind the palms were orderly fields reaching away to the hills, so that all of Lahaina looked like one vast, rich, flowering garden.
“Those darker trees are breadfruit,” Keoki explained. “They feed us, but it’s the stubby ones with the big heads that I used to miss in Boston … the kou trees with their wonderful shade for a hot land.”
Jerusha joined them and said, “Seeing the gardens and the flowers, I think I am at last in Hawaii.”
And Keoki replied proudly, “The garden you are looking at is my home. There where the little stream runs into the sea.”
Abner and Jerusha tried to peer beneath the branches of the kou trees that lined the land he spoke of, but they could see little. “Are those grass houses?” Abner queried.
“Yes,” Keoki explained. “Our compound holds nine or ten little houses. How beautiful it seems from the sea.”
“What’s the stone platform?” Abner asked.
“Where the gods rested,” Keoki said simply.
In horror Abner stared at the impressive pile of rocks. He could see blood dripping from them and heathen rites. He mumbled a short prayer to himself, “God protect us from the evil of heathen ways,” then asked in a whisper, “Is that where the sacrifices …”
“There?” Keoki laughed. “No, that’s just for the family gods.”
The boy’s laugh infuriated Abner. It seemed strange to him that as long as Keoki remained in New England, lecturing to church audiences about the horrors of Hawaii, he had sound ideas regarding religion, but as soon as he approached his evil homeland, the edge of his conviction was blunted. “Keoki,” Abner said solemnly, “all heathen idols are an abomination to the Lord.”
Keoki wanted to cry, “But those aren’t idols … not gods like Kane and Kanaloa,” but as a well-trained Hawaiian he knew that he should not argue with a teacher, so he contented himself with saying quietly, “Those are the friendly little personal gods of my family. For example, sometimes the goddess Pele comes to talk with my father …” With some embarrassment he realized how strange this must sound, so he did not go on to explain that sharks also sometimes came along the shore to talk with Malama. “I don’t think Reverend Hale would understand,” he thought sadly to himself.
To hear a young man who hoped some day to become an ordained minister speak in defense of heathen practices was unbearable to Abner, and he turned away in silence, but this act seemed cowardice to him, so he returned to the young Hawaiian and said bluntly, “We shall have to remove the stone platform. In this world there is room either for God or for heathen idols. There cannot be room for both.”
“You are right!” Keoki agreed heartily. “We have come to root out these old evils. But I am afraid that Kelolo will not permit us to remove the platform.”
“Why not?” Abner asked coldly.
“Because he built it.”
“Why?” Abner pressed.
“My family used to live on the big island, Hawaii. We had ruled there for countless generations. It was my father who came here to Maui … one of Kamehameha’s most trusted generals. Kamehameha gave him most of Maui, and the first thing Kelolo did was to build the platform you saw. He insists that Pele, the volcano goddess, comes there to warn him.”
“The platform will have to go. Pele is no more.”
“The big brick building,” Keoki interrupted, pointing to a rugged edifice rising at the end of the stunted pier that edged cautiously out to sea, “is Kamehameha’s old palace. Behind it is the royal taro patch. Then, you see the road beyond? That’s where the foreign sailors live. Your house will probably be erected there.”
“Are there Europeans in the village?”
“Yes. Castaways, drunks. I worry about them much more than I do about my father’s stone platform.”
Abner ignored this thrust, for his eyes were now attracted by the most conspicuous feature of Lahaina. Behind the capital, rising in gentle yet persistent slopes, cut by magnificent valleys and reaching into dominant peaks, stood the mountains of Maui, majestic and close to the sea. Except for the ugly hills at Tierra del Fuego, Abner had never before seen mountains, and their conjunction with the sea made them memorable, so that he exclaimed, “These are the handiwork of the Lord! I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills!” And he was overcome by an urge to say a prayer of thanksgiving to a Lord who had created such beauty, so that when the little mission band stepped ashore for the first time on the beach at Lahaina, he convoked a meeting, smoothed out his claw-hammer coat, took off his beaver hat, and lifted his sallow face toward the mountains, praying: “Thou hast brought us through the storms and planted our feet upon a heathen land. Thou hast charged us with the will to bring these lost souls to Thy granary. We are unequal to the task, but we beseech Thee to give us Thy constant aid.”
The missionaries then raised their voices in the hymn that had recently come to summarize such efforts around the world, “From Greenland’s icy mountains,” and when the surging second verse was reached, each sang as if it had been written with Hawaii alone in mind:
“What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o’er Ceylon’s isle,
Tho’ every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile;
In vain with lavish kindness
The gifts of God are strown.
The heathen in his blindness
Bows down to wood and stone.”
It was unfortunate that this was the first hymn to be sung in Lahaina, for it crystallized a fundamental error in Abner’s thinking. As long as he lived he would visualize Lahaina as a place “where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.” He would perpetually think of the Hawaiian as both heathen and blind; and now, as the singing ended, Abner saw that he and his mission band were surrounded by a huge crowd of naked savages, and he was instinctively afraid, so that he and his friends huddled together for mutual protection.
Actually, no missionaries in history had so far visited a gentler or finer group of people than these Hawaiians. They were clean, free from repulsive tropical diseases, had fine teeth, good manners, a wild joy in living; and they had devised a well-organized society; but to Abner they were vile.
“Almighty God!” he prayed. “Help us to bring light to these cruel hearts. Give us the strength to strike down each heathen idol in this land where only man is vile.”
Jerusha, however, was thinking: “Soon these people will be reading. We will teach them how to sew and to clothe themselves against the storm. Lord, keep us strong, for there is so much work to do.”
The prayers were broken by the noise of men running up with a canoe, one that had nev
er touched the sea, for it was carried aloft by ten huge men with poles on their shoulders. With ceremony they deposited it before Malama and she climbed in, for since the Hawaiians had not discovered the wheel they had no carriages. Standing aloft, Malama unfolded her new dress and ordered her servants to slip its enormous folds over her head. As it cascaded past her huge breasts and the tattooed shank with its memory of Kamehameha, the Alii Nui wiggled several times and felt the blue and red masterpiece fall into place. “Makai! Makai!” squealed the women in the crowd, approving their Alii Nui in her new garb.
“From now on I shall dress like this!” she announced solemnly. “In one moon I am going to write a letter to Honolulu, because I have good teachers.” Reaching down, she touched Abner and Jerusha, indicating that they must join her in the canoe. “This man is my teacher of religion, Makua Hale,” she announced, and in Hawaiian style she called his name Halley, by which he was known thereafter. “And this is my teacher of words, Hale Wahine. Now we will build my teachers a house.”
The bearers raised the canoe aloft, adjusted the poles to their shoulders, and at the head of a mighty procession containing feathered staffs, drums, court attendants and more than five thousand naked Hawaiians, the Hales set forth on their first magical journey through Lahaina, with Keoki trotting along beside the canoe, interpreting for his mother as she identified the subtle beauties of her island.