The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
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The Kingly Office Was Hereditary, And The King's Power Absolute.
On
the different islands the kings and chiefs who together constituted
a privileged class, admitted the priesthood to some
Portion of their
privileges, probably with the view of enslaving the people more
completely through the agency of religion, and held the lower
classes in absolute subserviency by the most rigorous of feudal
systems, which included hana poalima, or forced labour, and the
tabu, well known throughout Polynesia.
A very interesting history begins with Kamehameha the Great, the
Conqueror, or the Terrible; the "Napoleon of the Pacific," as he has
been called. He united an overmastering ambition to a singular gift
of ruling, and without education, training, or the help of a single
political precedent to guide him, animated not only by the lust of
conquest, but by the desire to create a nationality, he subjugated
every thing that his canoes could reach, and fused a rabble of
savages and chieftaincies into a united nation, every individual of
which to this day inherits something of the patriotism of the
Conqueror.
His wars were by no means puny either in proportions or slaughter,
as, for instance, when he meditated the conquest of Kauai, his
expedition included seven thousand picked warriors, twenty-one
schooners, forty swivels, six mortars, and an abundance of
ammunition! His victories are celebrated in countless meles or
unwritten songs, which are said to be marked by real poetic feeling
and simplicity, and to resemble the Ossianic poems in majesty and
melancholy.
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