The households of the chiefs were in one sense almost patriarchally constructed. “My people” had a meaning as significant as upon a slave plantation in America, with the difference that here they were only transferred with the soil. They were literally “my people;” and as with all purely despotic institutions, their welfare depended mainly upon the character of their lords.

In some respects there existed a latitude of deportment between the chiefs and their serfs, which gave rise to a certain degree of social equality. This freedom of manner is common to that state of society in which the actual gulf between the different classes is irrevocably fixed. It grows out of protection on the one hand and dependence on the other. On Hawaii there existed a partial community of property; for although all that the serf possessed belonged to his lord, yet he had the use and improvement of the property in his charge, and besides certain direct interests in it, was protected by what might be termed their “common law.” The chief was both executive and judiciary, as obtains in all rude society. Self-interest became a powerful incentive to humanity, because cruelty or injustice towards his tenantry was a direct injury to his own property, and a provocation to desert his lands. There was also the family bond, derived from direct intermingling of blood, the perpetuity of estates and the familiarity of personal intercourse between the chiefs and their dependents, fortified by a condition of society that knew no contrasts to this state. The lack of other commerce than barter and a partial feudal system, which required the people not only to furnish their own arms, but upon all occasions to follow their lords to the field, helped to develop this social union of extremes.

All lands were in reality held in fief of the supreme chief. His will was in the main the code of law, and indeed the religious creed; that is, the ultimate appeal in all questions was vested in him. But public opinion, based upon old habits and certain intuitive convictions of right and justice common to all mankind, held even him in check; so that while rarely attempting any forcible violation of what was understood to be the universal custom, he had it in his power indirectly to modify the laws and belief of his people. While to some extent the spirit of the clan existed, giving rise to devotion and attachments similar to those recorded of the Highlanders of Scotland, there prevailed more extensively the servile feeling common to Oriental despotism. Numerous retainers of every grade and rank surrounded each chief, forming courts with as varied and as positive an etiquette as those of Europe or Asia. The most trivial necessity was dignified into an office. Thus there were “pipe lighters,” masters of the pipe as they might be called, masters of the spittoon, of the plumes or “kahilis,” and so on, while there was no lack of idle clients, the “bosom friends” of the chief, his boon companions, buffoons, pimps and every other parasitical condition in which the individual merges his own identity into the caprices or policy of his ruler, or by deceit, flattery, or superior address, seeks to advance his own selfishness at the general expense.

In this arrangement the analogy to the courts of Europe is so evident as to form a striking satire upon them. Here we find amid petty, semi-naked tribes, the same masters and mistresses of royal robes and other useless paraphernalia; the same abject crowd of parasites quarrelling and intriguing for honors and riches they are too lazy or dishonest rightfully to earn; the same degrading etiquette which exalts a knowledge of its absurdities above all morality, and imposes penalties upon its infringement, not bestowed upon crime itself: in fine, a parody of all that in European monarchies tends to make human nature base and contemptible.

Justice, however, requires me to state, that while the vices of the systems were allied, their virtues were no less in common. Despotism corrupts the many, but there are a choice few in all aristocracies who receive power and homage only as in deposit for the public good. Its conditions are favorable to their moral growth, when perhaps the rugged necessities of life, in conflicts of equality, would dwarf their souls to the common level of material wants or selfish interests. Besides these exceptions, as familiar to savage as to civilized life, because founded not upon acquired knowledge, but upon natural instincts, the very superiority of position begets desire for superior manners and external advantages. Thus we find in not a few of the privileged orders, rare politeness and outward polish, and a chivalric loyalty to the institution of titled aristocracy, as if in partaking of its birthright, it brought with it a loftier and more refined standard of feeling and action than that of the masses.

The best of food was reserved for the nobles. Their houses, bathing places, and domestic utensils, were tabu from vulgar use. They even used a language or courtly dialect unintelligible to their subjects. Their deportment was based upon the innate consciousness of mental superiority and long inherited authority. Rank was derived from the mother as the only certain fountain of ancestry. In size and dignity of personal carriage they were conspicuous from the crowd. In short, the difference was so marked in Hawaii between the chief and his serf, as to suggest to a superficial observer the idea of two distinct races.

Hospitality was a common virtue. There was no beggary, as there was no need of begging, for the simple wants of the natives were easily supplied. The poorest man never refused food to his worst enemy, should he enter his house and demand it. Indeed so freely were presents made, that the absolute law of “meum and tuum,” as it exists among commercial races, with its progeny of judges and gaols, locks and fetters, had with them scarcely a defined meaning. Where there was so much trust and generosity, any violation of them met with prompt and severe retribution. Theft was visited upon the offender by the injured party, even if the weaker, by the seizure of every movable article belonging to him. In this wild justice they were sustained by the whole population. If the property of a high chief suffered, the thief was sometimes placed in an old canoe, bound hand and foot, and set adrift upon the ocean.

Kiana’s people were wealthy in their simple way. His reign was the golden age of Hawaii. This was owing mainly to his own character, which took delight in the happiness and prosperity of his subjects. No lands were so well cultivated as his. No rents were more ample or more cheerfully paid. His people had easy access to him. In their labors as in their sports he often mingled. If at times he was hasty or severe, it was owing rather to the quickened indignation of offended justice than to selfish passion.

A very striking reform in the rites if not in the principles of their religion had been peacefully brought about by him. In general, the savage mind is more influenced by fear than by love; that is, it seeks by worship to avoid harm from natural objects, which from ignorance of their laws he considers to be evil spirits, rather than to do homage to those whose direct beneficence is readily recognized. But Kiana, like Manco Capac with the Peruvians, taught them a less slavish ritual. Instead of sacrifices of animals to deities whose attributes solely inspired dread, he led them to rejoice in the bounteous seasons, the vivifying sun, the winds that refreshed their bodies, and the clouds that watered their thirsty soil. He taught them that the waters that bore them so pleasantly from island to island, were much more to be regarded lovingly, than the devouring shark with superstitious fear. Thus without fully, or perhaps in any degree recognizing the principles of the One God, the people were led more into harmony with those of his works, which were suggestive of good and kind attributes, which they symbolized in idols, to which they offered chiefly the fruits of the earth. They were indeed idolaters, because their minds seldom, if ever, separated the image from the ideas, but it was an idolatry that made them cheerful and truthful, and not gloomy and cruel.

Contented under their government, reposing on their religion, these islanders presented a picture of happiness, which, if we consider only the peaceful, joyous flow of the material life, we might well envy. They had no money to beget avarice, or to excite to the rivalries and dishonesties of trade. There were no more prosperous territories and bounteous soils for them to covet by arms; none of superior force to make them afraid. Their diet was simple, and their diseases few. They had nothing to fear from famine, weather, noxious animals, or poisonous insects. Their unbounded hospitality kept want from even the idler,—their agricultural games and fisheries gave ample scope for their physical energies, while their numerous festivals, the songs of the bards, and traditions and speeches of their historians and orators kept alive a national spirit, which made them proud of their origin and their country.