Note 10 — Traditional Hawaiian History.

That the people of this group, whether chiefs or commoners, previous to this period, were of Polynesian—or as they themselves call it—Tahitian origin, there is no good ground for doubting, and every reason to believe. But the time of their arrival and settlement, the mode of their arrival, their point of departure, and their political, religious and social condition, will probably always remain insoluble problems. That they arrived here long ages before these later Tahitians,—before their kapu-system, heiau-building, religious ceremonial, etc., had developed into that complex, fanciful and stern rule of life, which it had already become when we first are made acquainted with them,—I think may generally be conceded. From the traditions and meles of these Tahiti-Hawaiians I gather that they found the previous inhabitants of this group living in a primitive manner, without any political organization beyond the patriarchal, and without kapus—at least of any stringent nature—and without heiaus;10 and, with a feeling of pride in their superior powers and attainments, although they acknowledged Hawaii as a “Kama na Tahiti” (a child of Kahiki), yet they looked upon it as a natural appanage of themselves, to be taken possession of and reconstructed by them and their posterity. They established political supremacy and the kapus, they built heiaus, introduced circumcision, the pahu, the ohe and the hula. Tattooing commenced with them. The division of the people into aliis, kahunas, makaainanas and Kauwa-makawela, if not original with them, received a distinctness and permanency from them that hardened almost into castes. In short, whatever the condition in which they found the country, they moulded, reorganized and arranged everything on their own pattern and, while they with most elaborate care have left us numerous mementoes of their own time and work, they have left us nearly none of the predecessors.