Hawaii

by James Michener

  Jerusha rose from her mat on the side, walked forward to the alii area, reached down and grasped the hand of the slave. In slow, careful Hawaiian she said, "This kanaka Kupa is known in all Lahaina as a saintly man. He shares his goods with others. He cares for children that have no parents." By her forceful enumeration of the man's extraordinary virtues, which were acknowledged by all, Jerusha made the consecration of the slave logical to the congregation. "In your hearts, people of Lahaina, you know that Kupa is a Christian man, and because you know him to be such, we are going to accept him into the church of God."

  Abner took Kupa's hand and cried, "Kupa, are you prepared to love Jehovah?" The slave was so terrified by the experiences the missionaries were forcing upon him that he could only mumble, and Abner announced: "In six months you will no longer be Kupa the Foul Corpse. You will be Kamekona." And he gave the slave this treasured name, Solomon.

  The audience was stunned, but before there could be any murmuring against the radical move, Abner said in his powerful and persuasive voice, "Keoki Kanakoa, rise and bring forth the second member of the church."

  And it was with the greatest excitement and joy that Keoki rose, went to the alii area and reached down for his sister Noelani, the Mists of Heaven. That morning she was dressed in white, with a yellow feather lei about her head and white gloves on her capable hands. Her dark eyes were ablaze with sanctity and she moved as if God and not her brother had reached down to touch her. From a distance she heard the joyous acceptance of her nomination as the Hawaiians whispered, and then she was aware that Abner was addressing her: "You have been faithful to the Lord's ways. You have Studied and learned to sew, for all women, alii and commoner alike, should know how to sew, for does not the Bible say of the virtuous woman, 'She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.' But more than this, Noelani, you have been an inspiration to this island. In six months you will become a member of the church."

  In her sweet resonant voice Noelani replied, "I shall make the learning and the law of Jehovah my guide," and Abner hid his irritation at the way these stubborn alii still insisted first upon the alphabet.

  That night Malama summoned Abner, and when he was perched cross-legged on the tapa before her reclining bulk she said solemnly, "For the first time today, Makua Hale, I understood what humility was. I saw, even though imperfectly, what a state of grace would be. Makua Hale, I have sent Kelolo to live in the other house. Tomorrow I am willing to lead a procession through the streets and announce the new laws for Maui. We must have a better way of living here. Will you have the laws ready for us to study at dawn tomorrow?"

  "Today is the Sabbath," Abner said flatly. "I cannot work today."

  "An island waits to be saved," Malama commanded. "Bring me the laws in the morning."

  "I will," Abner surrendered.

  And on his way home, he stopped at the new house outside the wall and said, "Kelolo, will you work with me tonight?" And the outcast husband agreed, and they gathered Keoki, too, and Noelani and went to the mission house.

  "The laws must be simple," Abner said with a show of statesmanship. "Everyone must understand them and approve them in his heart. Kelolo, since you will be the man who will have to organize the police and enforce the laws, what do you think they should be?"

  "The sailors cannot roam our streets at night," Kelolo said forcefully. "It is at night that they do their damage." So Lahaina's first and most contentious law was written into Abner's rudely folded book: "A drum will sound at sunset, at which signal all sailors must return to their ships on pain of instant arrest and incarceration in the Lahaina jail."

  "The next law?" Abner asked.

  "There must be no more killing of girl babies!' Noelani suggested, and this became law.

  "The next?"

  "Should we stop the sale of alcohol altogether?" Jerusha asked.

  "No," Kelolo argued. "The storekeepers have already paid for their supplies and they would be ruined."

  "It is killing your people," Abner pointed out.

  "I am afraid there would be riots if we stopped the sale," Kelolo warned.

  "Could we stop the import of new supplies?" Jerusha proposed.

  "French warships made us promise to drink lots of their alcohol each year," Kelolo pointed out.

  "Could we forbid sales to Hawaiians?" Jerusha asked.

  "French warships said we had to make the Hawaiians drink their alcohol, too," Kelolo explained, "but I think we should refuse to do so any longer."

  Without ever insisting upon his own opinion, Abner extracted from his group a short, sensible body of law, but when it was finished he saw that one of the most typical of all Hawaiian problems had been overlooked. "We need one more law," he suggested.

  "What?" Kelolo asked suspiciously, for he feared some action against kahunas and the old gods.

  "The Lord says," Abner began in some embarrassment, "and all civilized nations agree . . ." He paused, ashamed to go on. After a moment's hesitation he blurted out: "There shall be no adultery."

  Kelolo thought about this for a long time. "That would be a hard law to enforce," he reflected. "I wouldn't want to have to enforce that law . . . not in Lahaina."

  To everyone's surprise, Abner said, "I agree, Kelolo. Perhaps we could not enforce it completely, but could we not get the people to understand that in a good society, adultery is not encouraged?"

  "We could say something like that," Kelolo agreed, but then a look of considerable perplexity came over his features and he asked, "But which adultery are you talking about, Makua Hale?"

  "What do you mean, which adultery?"

  Kelolo, Keoki and Noelani sat in silence, and Abner thought they were being obstinate until he realized that each was thinking very seriously. In fact, he saw Kelolo's fingers moving and judged that the big alii was counting. "You see, Makua Hale," the tall nobleman said, "in Hawaii we have twenty-three different kinds of adultery."

  "You what?" Abner gasped.

  "And this would be our problem," Kelolo carefully explained. "If we said simply, 'There shall be no adultery,' without indicating which kind, everyone who heard would reason, 'They don't mean our kind of adultery. They mean the other twenty-two kinds.' But on the other hand, if we list all the twenty-three kinds, one after the other, somebody will surely say, 'We never heard of that kind before. Let's try it!' and things would be worse than before."

  "What do you mean, twenty-three kinds?" Abner asked weakly.

  "Well," Kelolo replied, from expert knowledge, "there is a married man and a married woman. That's one. Then there's the married man and the wife of his brother. That's two. Then the married man and the wife of his son. That's three. Then we have the married man and his own daughter. That's four."

  "That's enough," Abner protested.

  "It goes on through brothers and sisters, boys and their mothers, almost anything you could think of," Kelolo explained matter-of-factly. "As long as one of the pair is married, we call it adultery. So how can we stop it?" he asked, palms up. "If we name all twenty-three kinds we're going to have more trouble than we already have."

  It was long after midnight and Abner sat chewing his pen. Like every religious leader in history, he knew that a good society started with a stable home, and that stable homes--either by design or accident--were usually founded on the disciplined sexual relationship of one man and one woman joined after due consideration of the world's accumulated judgment on such matters. It was not good for a man to marry his sister. It was not good for families to interbreed endlessly. It was not good for girls to be taken when they were too young. But how could this accumulated wisdom be summarized for the Hawaiians?

  Finally, he came up with an answer so simple, so sweetly right, that generations of Hawaiians smiled every time they heard Abner Hale's profound directive. They smiled, because they understood exactly what he meant. It was a law that covered their experience on a tropical island, and of all the minor things Abner accomplished on Maui, this happy
choice of words was most affectionately remembered among the people. For his final law read: "Thou shall not sleep mischievously."

  On Monday morning Abner presented his simple forthright laws to Malama, and she studied them. Two she threw out as too meddling in the lives of her people, but the rest she liked. Then she summoned her two maids-in-waiting, and the three enormous women, dressed in fine China silks and broad-brimmed hats, formed a procession which was headed by two drummers, two men sounding conch shells, four with feathered staves, Kelolo in charge of eight policemen, Keoki, Noelani and a brassy-voiced herald. Abner and Jerusha stayed away, for this was the work of Hawaiians for Hawaiians.

  The drums began to beat, and when the conches sent their shrill blast through the kou trees, Malama and her two attendants started walking past the fish pond, along the dusty road beside the alii's houses, and into the center of the town. Whenever more than a hundred people assembled, coming running from all sides, Malama would command the drums to cease and direct her herald to cry: "These are the laws of Maui. Thou shalt not kill! Thou shalt not steal! Thou shalt not sleep mischievously!"

  The drums resumed, leaving people gasping in the morning sunlight. Fathers, who had been earning their poi by rowing their daughters out to the whalers, were stunned and some tried to argue with Kelolo, but he silenced them and marched on.

  At the little pier Malama halted and had the bugle blown four times, assembling such sailors as were available at that hour. Two captains were present, and stood with their caps in their hands, listening to the astonishing news: "Sailors shall not roam the streets at night. Girls shall not swim out to the whaling ships."

  "By God!" one of the captains muttered. "There'll be hell to pay for this."

  "You'll find it was the missionary who did it," the other predicted.

  "God help the missionary," said the first, running by a back way to Murphy's grog shop, but he had barely exploded the news when Malama and her two stout ladies hove majestically into view with the rumpled paper containing the new laws. This time, as the drums finished beating before Murphy's establishment, there were two special laws promulgated: "Girls shall no longer dance nude in Murphy's grog shop. From today no more alcohol may be sold to Hawaiians." The drums resumed beating. The bugles sounded, and Malama and her two enormous ladies-in-waiting retired. The laws had been handed down. It would now be Kelolo's job to enforce them.

  That night there were riots. Sailors from several ships stormed through the town fighting with Kelolo's inadequate policemen. Girls were ripped away from their beds and hauled against their wills out to the ships. And toward midnight a body of some fifty sailors and Lahaina merchants gathered at the mission house and began cursing Abner Hale.

  "He done the laws!" a sailor howled.

  "He talked the fat lady into it!" another cried.

  "Let's hang the little bastard!" a voice called, and cheers greeted the suggestion.

  No immediate action was taken, but someone in the crowd started throwing rocks at the grass house, and occasionally one would ricochet into the room and fall harmlessly to the floor. "Let's burn his damned house down!" a voice screamed.

  "We'll teach him to meddle in our affairs!"

  "Come out here, you damned little worm!" a harsh voice called.

  "Come out! Come out!" the crowd roared, but Abner kept huddled on the floor, protecting Jerusha and the two babies with his body lest the increasing storm of rocks find them.

  The long night progressed with its vile insults, but toward morning the crowd dispersed, and as soon as the sun rose, Aimer hurried to consult with Kelolo. "It was a bad night," the big alii said.

  "I think tonight will be worse," Abner predicted.

  "Should we discard the laws?" Kelolo asked.

  "Never!" Abner snapped.

  "I think we had better ask Malama," the tall chief suggested, but when they found her, townspeople were already there, bombarding her with their fears, and it was then that Abner realized what a tremendous woman she was. "Malama has spoken," she said sternly. "The words are law. I want you to assemble all the ships' captains in this room within an hour. Get them!"

  When the Americans appeared, rough, rugged, good-looking veterans of the whaling grounds, she announced in English, "The law, me I gib you. More better you t'ink so, too."

  "Ma'am," one of the captains interrupted. "We been comin' to Lahaina for a dozen years. We always had a good time here and behaved ourselves pretty well. I can't say what's goin' to happen now."

  "I can say!" Malama cried in Hawaiian. "You are going to obey the laws."

  "Our men got to have women," the captain protested.

  "Do you riot in the streets of Boston?" Malama demanded.

  "For women? Yes," the captain replied.

  "And the police stop you, is that not right?" Malama pressed.

  The captain wagged his forefinger and threatened, "Ma'am, no police on this pitiful island better try to stop my men."

  "Our police will stop you!" Malama warned. Then she changed her tone and pleaded with the captains: "We are a small country, trying to grow up in the modern world. We have got to change our ways. It is not right that our girls should swim out to the ships. You know that. You have got to help us."

  "Ma'am," one of the captains growled stubbornly, "there's gonna be trouble."

  "Then there will be trouble," Malama said softly and sent the captains away.

  Kelolo wanted to back down. Keoki was afraid there would be serious rioting, and Noelani counseled caution, but Malama was obdurate. She sent messengers to summon all the biggest men from the outward areas. She went in person to the new fort to see if its gates were strong, and she told Kelolo, "Tonight you must be ready to fight. The captains are right. There is going to be trouble."

  But when her people had gone about their tasks, and when they could not spy upon her, she summoned Abner and asked him directly, "Are we doing the right thing?"

  "You are," he assured her.

  "And there will be trouble tonight?"

  "Very bad trouble, I am afraid," he admitted.

  "Then how can we be doing the right thing?" she pressed.

  He told her of a dozen incidents in the Old Testament wherein men faced great adversaries in defense of God's way, and when he was through he asked her in a low voice, "Malama, do you not know in your heart that the laws you read were good?"

  "They are part of my heart," she replied cryptically.

  "Then they will prevail," Abner assured her.

  Malama wanted to believe, but the cowardice of her other advisers had infected her, so now she towered above Abner, stared down at him and said, "Little mikanele," using the Hawaiian pronunciation of missionary, "tell me the truth. Are we doing the right thing?"

  Abner closed his eyes, raised his head toward the grass roof, and cried in the voice that Ezekiel must have used when addressing the Jewish elders: "The islands of Hawaii will live under these laws, for they are the will of the Lord God Jehovah."

  Assured, Malama turned to other matters and asked, "What will happen tonight?"

  "They won't bother you, Malama, but I think they may try to burn my house. Can Jerusha and the children stay with you?"

  "Of course, and you too."

  "I'll be in the house," he said simply, and as he limped away, Malama loved her stubborn little mikanele.

  That night the streets of Lahaina were a shambles. At dusk a drunken sea captain, in conjunction with Murphy, led a group of men to the fort and dared the policemen there to blow the conch shell. When the warning to sailors sounded, the mob grabbed every policeman in sight and threw them into the bay. Then they stormed back to Murphy's, where Pupali's three oldest daughters were dancing in the nude to wild shrieks of joy. As bottles were passed, sailors shouted, "Drink up. When this is done, the missionary says we can't have no more." The reiteration of this cry so maddened the mob that someone shouted, "Let's have done with that little pisser for all time." And they stormed into the street, heading for
the mission house, but on the way someone proposed a better plan: "Why bother him? Why not burn his goddamned church? It's made of grass!" And four men scurried through the night with torches, pitching them high onto the grass roofing. Soon the night breezes had whipped the flames across the top of the structure and had started them down the sides.

  The great beacon thus lighted had consequences that the rioters had not foreseen, for the people who had worked upon this church had grown to love it as a symbol of their town, and now that it was ablaze, they rushed to save it. Quickly the area around the church was filled with sweating, silent, urgent men and women who beat at the walls to keep them from going up in flames, and by the incredible labors they performed that night, they saved more than half the walls, drenching them with water and beating at them with brooms and bare hands. The sailors, aghast at the bravery with which these illiterate islanders worked, withdrew and watched in wonder.

  But when the people of Lahaina saw how little was left of their beloved church, where words of great hope had been preached to them, they became furious to the point or hysteria, and an islander cried, "Let us throw the sailors into jail!" The fire fighters greeted this challenge with cheers, and a wild manhunt was launched.

  Wherever a sailor was spotted, three or four big natives crashed down upon him, often leaving him unconscious under some heavy woman who sat on him, banging his head while her men went off in search of others. Bo's'ns, captains, common sailors were treated alike, and any who resisted had their arms or jaws broken. When the assault was over, Kelolo sent official policemen around, searching for bodies which he pitched into the new jail. Then, with the foresight of a politician, he went personally among the piles of Americans and searched out all the captains, saying to each in his most fatherly voice, "Kapitani, I sorry inside me. We no see good, we t'ink you crew, we boom-boom good too much. No pilikia, I take care of you." And he took them to Murphy's and bought each man a drink, but as they pressed their broken lips to the glass, he was pleased to see how badly scarred they were.