Horror in Paradise (38 page)

At last, after many months, my wife’s health began to be affected, and at length quite to fail under the effects of much nervous prostration brought on by these continued uncanny visitations, aided by the great humidity of the district, so that it was deemed advisable we should remove to a more healthy place, which we did, at much loss and inconvenience. Our house was left, and with the removal we were happily freed from any further ghostly visitations.

Very much astonishment was expressed by the natives as to what they thought was the occasion of these extraordinary visitations. Some thought the house had been unwittingly built upon an old native burying-ground, others that the
ifi
tree was an old
malumalu,
or temple of an
aitu.
If so, the wrath of the various
folaunga-aitu,
or parties of voyaging spirits, must have been aroused at seeing the sanctity of their temple invaded.

In after years I often visited the spot, but the house was dismantled and, if I mistake not, was not occupied after, certainly it was not by any European.

One old chief and orator, Sepetaio, from Mulinu’u, seemed much concerned at our frequent annoyances, and often discussed them with us. One day he came and, to my amusement, he gravely proposed to capture some one of the
aitus
that caused us so much annoyance. If I would let him have one of my servants named Mu, he declared, he could capture the
aitu
and bring him before me. I thanked him very much, but declined his offer to make me personally acquainted with the
aitu.
Among other things, he told me of an adventure that had happened to this same man Mu many years before, in which he had successfully laid his plans to capture an
aitu.

Tradition records that an
aitu
was accustomed to sit upon the limb of a tree somewhere near the neighborhood of Palauli (black mud), Savaii, from which he so constantly assaulted travellers as to become the bugbear of the place. At length a traveling party from Falelatai, happening to stay there, were duly informed of the trouble of the villagers, on which Mu proposed to capture the
aitu,
provided the villagers would lend him their assistance and support him in his plans, which they gladly consented to do.

He then procured some putrid fish, with which he rubbed himself over as the night advanced, and started alone for the haunt of the
aitu,
having previously arranged with his companions that they should light a big fire in the marae and appear as if they were having a merrymaking, while some of their number were to lie in ambush near the fire with their clubs.

On nearing the spot Mu saw the
aitu
seated upon a branch, and at once accosted him.

After a little time the
aitu
said, “What a nice smell comes from you.”

“Yes,” said the man, “I have been feasting upon a dead man, and a famous feast I have had. Would you not like to have some of what is left?”

“Indeed, I should,” said the
aitu,
“but if I go you must carry me.”

“All right,” said Mu, “I will carry you part of the way and you shall carry me the rest.”

On this Mu started with the
aitu
on his back, taking the road towards the village, which they reached after mutual carryings. The
aitu
made some remark as to the noises and shouts of laughter that came from the village, when Mu said to his companion, who was riding, “Don’t hold so tightly, you will choke me; sit loosely upon my back, and hold lightly by my throat, for as we must pass through this village I shall have to walk quickly, as I know they are a bad lot; so don’t stop my breathing.” The
aitu,
anxious to get to the promised feast, did as he was told, and Mu trudged onwards, taking care to pass close by the fire, into which he pitched his burden, then the ambush rushed to the spot and beat fire and
aitu
to pieces with their clubs, and were thus enabled to rid themselves of their tormentor.

George Anson, Lord Byron

This report on observing in 1825 a ceremony of
pule anaana
or “praying to death” is given by the commander of the British Navy vessel that brought back in state to Hawaii the bodies of King Ka-mehameha II and his wife, who had died in London of a fatal attack of measles.

George Anson, Captain the Right Honorable Lord Byron, R.N. (1789-1858), unlike his famed poet cousin, was always affable and tactful. At a time when the Hawaiian Kingdom was still considered to be under the protection of Great Britain, he quietly encouraged the ruling chiefs to consider making and enforcing modern laws, such as trial by jury.

His account is taken from a compilation of notes made by gentlemen on the voyage under the title of
Voyage of
H.M.S. “
Blonde
”
to the Sandwich Islands, 1824-25,
published in London in 1826.

February 28 [1825]

RETURNING from a walk this morning, I witnessed, for the first time, a rite of sorcery. My attention was attracted by a group of people near the path I was crossing. On approaching it, though ignorant of the particular ceremony performing, I at once judged it to be idolatrous.

A small mat was spread on the ground, on which was spread several pieces of tapa, a native cloth, and on those again two of the large leaves of the
ape
(one of the largest of the vegetable productions of the islands—I do not know its scientific name). These last seemed to have been prepared with special care; they were both of the same size; were placed the one directly above the other, both of the stems being split entirely up to the point of the leaves. They were carefully held together by a man kneeling at one end, while the priest or sorcerer, kneeling at the other, repeated prayers over them. These, with two or three others who appeared engaged in the ceremonies, were as solemn as the grave; the rest of the company were light and trifling, and some of them turned to me, and laughing at what they seemed to think the folly of their friends, said,
ino, itio—
bad, bad—
pupuka—
foolish—
debelo—
devilish! On inquiring what it meant, they told me a pipe had been stolen from one of the men, and the incantation was making to discover the thief, and to pray him to death. On reproving them for their superstition and wickedness, they became disconcerted, and the man holding the leaves made some unfortunate movement, which the man praying said had destroyed the effect, and immediately ceased to pray.

Perhaps there is no superstition more general and deep-rooted in the minds of this people than the belief that some have the power of destroying the lives of others by their incantations and prayers. There is not a doubt that many yearly become victims to their credence in this device of darkness, which holds thousands in the bondage of cruel fears. A person gains the displeasure of one of these praying men. He is told that the
kanaka anaana
is exercising his power over him, and that he will die. He cannot shake off the dread of that which he believes to be possible; his imagination becomes filled with pictures of death—his spirits become affected—his appetite fails—these, the natural consequence of his fears are believed to be the effect of the sorcery of his enemy. Under this conviction he takes no nourishment, pines, languishes, and dies, the victim of his own ignorance and superstition. This is no fiction, but a reality that is constantly occurring.

The less enlightened of the people think no one dies a natural death. Every instance of mortality is assigned to the effect of poison administered by some foe, or to the more insidious, but, in their opinion, equally fatal influence of the
pule anaana.

Before a sorcerer can gain power over the life of a chief, he must possess himself of something that has belonged to the person of the chiefj as spittle, or
any excrement,
an article of clothing, etc. In this superstition we find the origin of the care taken of the spittle, etc. of a chief, which is always in charge of a confidential attendant. When a chief became unwell, or had any fear that one of the praying-men had obtained an article which had been worn by him, or had touched his person, he had immediate recourse to sacrifices to counteract the prayer against his life.

The last instance of the kind occurred in October, 1824. According to the custom of disposing of the old clothes of the chiefs, the princess had several boxes of garments she had thrown by carried out from Lahaina and secretly buried in the sea. It was reported that one dress had been stolen with a design of praying her to death, from the power it would give the sorcerer over her life. The consequence was that her ignorant attendants prevailed on her to sacrifice to her old gods to escape the evil. For this purpose she went to a village eight miles from Lahaina (which was said to be too much under the influence of Jehovah to secure success in the rite) under pretext of visiting her plantations in that neighborhood, and sacrificed to the gods of her fathers. This is the last, and probably will remain the last, sacrifice ever made in the islands by order of a high chief.

Owen Chase

The first authentic account of the ramming and sinking of a ship by a whale was written by Owen Chase, first mate of the whaler
Essex.
His
Narrative
(1821) gives not only the details of the attack by the furious whale in the equatorial Pacific, but also describes an open-boat voyage twice as long as that made by the celebrated Captain William Bligh of the
Bounty.

The attack on the
Essex
is memorable not only in itself but in literary history, for Herman Melville used the incident as the basis for the climax of his classic novel
Moby Dick.

ON THE 20th of November [1819] (cruising in latitude 0° 40’ S., longitude 119° 0’ W.), a shoal of whales was discovered off the lee bow.

The weather at this time was extremely fine and clear, and it was about eight o’clock in the morning that the man at the masthead gave the usual cry of “There she blows.” The ship was immediately put away, and we ran down in the direction for them. When we had got within half a mile of the place where they were observed, all our boats were lowered down, manned, and we started in pursuit of them. The ship, in the meantime, was brought to the wind, and the main-topsail hove aback, to wait for us. I had the harpoon in the second boat; the captain preceded me in the first.

When I arrived at the spot where we calculated they were, nothing was at first to be seen. We lay on our oars in anxious expectation of discovering them come up somewhere near us. Presently one rose, and spouted a short distance ahead of my boat; I made all speed toward it, came up with, and struck it; feeling the harpoon in him, he threw himself, in an agony, over toward the boat (which at that time was up alongside of him), and giving a severe blow with his tail, struck the boat near the edge of the water, amidships, and stove a hole in her.

I immediately took up the boat hatchet, and cut the line, to disengage the boat from the whale, which by this time was running off with great velocity. I succeeded in getting clear of him, with the loss of the harpoon and line; and finding the water to pour fast in the boat, I hastily stuffed three or four of our jackets in the hole, ordered one man to keep constantly bailing, and the rest to pull immediately for the ship; we succeeded in keeping the boat free, and shortly gained the ship.

The captain and the second mate, in the other two boats, kept up the pursuit, and soon struck another whale. They being at this time a considerable distance to leeward, I went forward, braced around the mainyard, and put the ship off in a direction for them; the boat which had been stove was immediately hoisted in, and after examining the hole, I found that I could, by nailing a piece of canvas over it, get her ready to join in a fresh pursuit sooner than by lowering down the other remaining boat which belonged to the ship.

I accordingly turned her over upon the quarter and was in the act of nailing on the canvas when I observed a very large spermaceti whale, as well as I could judge, about eighty-five feet in length; he broke water about twenty rods off our weather bow, and was lying quietly, with his head in a direction for the ship. He spouted two or three times and then disappeared. In less than two or three seconds he came up again, about the length of the ship off, and made directly for us, at the rate of about three knots. The ship was then going with about the same velocity.

His appearance and attitude gave us at first no alarm; but while I stood watching his movements, and observing him but a ship’s length off, coming down for us with great celerity, I involuntarily ordered the boy at the helm to put it hard up; intending to sheer off and avoid him. The words were scarcely out of my mouth before he came down upon us with full speed and struck the ship with his head, just forward of the forechains; he gave us such an appalling and tremendous jar as nearly threw us all on our faces. The ship brought up as suddenly and violently as if she had struck a rock, and trembled for a few seconds like a leaf.

We looked at each other with perfect amazement, deprived almost of the power of speech. Many minutes elapsed before we were able to realize the dreadful accident; during which time he passed under the ship, grazing her keel as he went along, came up alongside of her to leeward, and lay on the top of the water (apparently stunned with the violence of the blow) for the space of a minute; he then suddenly started oft in a direction to leeward.

After a few moments’ reflection, and recovering, in some measure, from the sudden consternation that had seized us, I of course concluded that he had stove a hole in the ship, and that it would be necessary to set the pumps going. Accordingly they were rigged but had not been in operation more than one minute before I perceived the head of the ship to be gradually settling down in the water; I then ordered the signal to be set for the other boats, which scarcely had I dispatched before I again discovered the whale, apparently in convulsions, on the top of the water, about one hundred rods to leeward. He was enveloped in the foam of the sea that his continual and violent thrashing about in the water had created around him, and I could distinctly see him smite his jaws together, as if distracted with rage and fury. He remained a short time in this situation and then started off with great velocity across the bows of the ship to windward.