Kiana. James Jackson Jarves

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of only fruits of the earth, to its symbolized phenomena or the images of departed men once venerated for their moral worth, in some degree connected their souls through refining influences with the Great Maker.

      In closing the festival, the procession was formed with great state and solemnity, preparatory to its final departure from the sacred plain. First came a thousand men in regular files, armed with swords of sharks’ teeth and slings. Each had a laurel wreath on his head, and a tapa mantle of bright red thrown loosely over his shoulders. This corps led the way to the noise of rude drums and other barbarous music. Behind them marched a more numerous body in detached companies, armed with javelins and spears, and a species of wooden mace, which, dexterously used, becomes a formidable weapon. In addition, each man carried a dagger of the same material, from sixteen inches to two feet long. All wore helmets of wicker work, shaped like the Grecian casque and covered with various colored feathers. These helmets in connection with their bright war cloaks, gave to the whole array a classical look not unworthy of the heroic days of Greece. The appearance of the men was martial, and their step firm and regular.

      In the centre of their array there was a selected corps of one hundred young chiefs, armed with still better weapons. Their costume was also much richer than that of the common men. They wore scarlet feather cloaks and helmets. Conspicuous amid them, borne upon a litter hung about with crimson drapery, sat Kiana. His helmet was surmounted by a graceful crest from which lightly floated a plume taken from the long and beautiful feathers of the tropic bird. Both the helmet and his war cloak were made of brilliant yellow feathers, so small and delicate as to appear like scales of gold. These two articles were the richest treasures in the regalia of Hawaii. The birds from which the feathers are obtained—one only from under each wing—are found solely in the most inaccessible parts of the mountains and ensnared with great difficulty. Nearly one hundred and fifty years, or nine generations of Kiana’s ancestors had been occupied in collecting a sufficient number to make this truly regal helmet and cloak. This was the first occasion he had had to display them. He bore himself in consequence even more royally than ever before; for savage though he was, the pride of ancestry and the trappings of power warmed his blood as fully as if he had been a civilized ruler.

      Immediately behind him was borne a colossal image of Lono. It was carved with greater skill than common, and surrounded by a company of white-robed priests, chanting the “mele” or hymn, which had been composed upon his disappearance. At particular parts the whole people joined with a melancholy refrain, that gave a living interest to the story, and showed how forcible was the hold it had upon their imaginations. On either side of Kiana, were twelve men of immense size and strength, naked to their waist-cloths, two by two, bearing the “kahilis,” as were called the insignia of his rank. These were formed of scarlet feathers, thickly set, in the shape of a plume, of eighteen inches diameter, about ten feet high, and tipped to the depth of a foot with yellow feathers. With the handles, which were encircled with alternate rings of ivory or tortoise-shell, their entire height was twenty feet. As they towered and waved above the multitude, they conveyed an idea of state and grandeur inferior to nothing of the kind that has ever graced the ceremonies of the white man.

      The women of his household followed close to the chief. Their aristocratic birth and breeding were manifest in their corpulency and haughty bearing. To exaggerate their size—which was partly a criterion of noble blood—they had swelled their waists with voluminous folds of gaudy cloths, under the pressure of which, added to their own bulk, they waddled rather than walked. Helped by young and active attendants, their pace was, however, equal to the slow progress of the procession. A numerous retinue of their own sex, bearing their tokens of rank, fans, fly-brushes, spittoons, sunscreens, and lighter articles of clothing, waited upon them. Some of these young women were gracefully formed, fair and voluptuous, with pleasant features, without any excess of flesh. In contrast with their mistresses, they might have been considered as beauties, as, indeed, they were the belles of Hawaii. Small, soft hands, delicate and tapering fingers, satin-like in their touch and gentle and pleasant to the shake, were common among all.

      The women in general were a laughing, merry set, prone to affection, finery, and sensuous enjoyment. But the lower orders were workers in the fullest sense, the men being their task-masters, treating them as an inferior caste by imposing upon their sex arbitrary distinctions in their food, domestic privileges, duties, and even religious rites, so that their social condition was wantonly degraded. Yet females were admitted to power and often held the highest rank.

      Besides this state there was a vast throng of attendants carrying burdens, or driving before them their domestic animals. The families of the soldiery followed the procession, in irregular masses, as it defiled from the plain into the valleys that led towards the coast. In advancing, its numbers gradually lessened by the departure of warriors, and minor chiefs with their retainers, for their respective destinations. With the exception of those immediately about Kiana, all order of march soon ceased, and the crowd spread themselves over hill and valley shouting and jeering, in their good-natured hurry to reach their homes. The fowls cackled, the dogs barked. The swine with ominous grunts charged in all directions, upsetting impartially owners and neighbors, amid the laughter and cheers of the lookers on. Children grew doubly mischievous in the turmoil, running hither and thither, with frantic cries, pushing and crowding each other over rocks into the rapid streams, in which they were as much at home as the fishes. They tripped up their heavily laden parents in their gambols about their footsteps, dodging the quick blow in return with the slipperiness of eels, or repaying with equally noisy coin the threats of future floggings, which they well knew would be forgotten over the first meal. The more sedate vented their enthusiasm in deep toned songs, which, as they swelled into full chorus, filled the air with a wild music, in keeping with the scene. In forest and grove the birds listened and replied in musical notes that thrilled sweetly on the ear amid the medley of sounds. Nature was awake to the scene. From every tree and rock, out of each dell and off each hill-top, there came voices to mingle in the general jubilee. The mountain breezes poured their anthems in joyous harmony through branch and leaf. Buds and blossoms bowing before balmy airs, shook out their fragrance. Cascades sparkled and leaped, foamed and roared in the bright sun. Rivulets, looking in the distance like silver threads, stole with soothing murmurs along the plains, while the startled wild fowl with defiant note fled deeper into the forest or skulked closer in the thicket as the living current swept by.

      While all was thus life and motion in the uplands, the solitude of the sea coast remained as described in the last chapter. Alvirez and his party had disposed themselves for the night as best suited their individual convenience. There was no lack of accommodation or retirement. Each might have selected a village to himself, but they all remained within the enclosure where we left them. Juan and Beatriz occupied the principal house. Olmedo chose one near, and the good man was soon dreaming of his early Castilian cell. Tolta watched long and late, and then stretched himself, mastiff-like, upon a mat at the threshold of the house in which Beatriz slept. The three seamen, after sundry explorations, which seemed to give them small satisfaction, cursed their luck in being wrecked on a land which had not even copper, much less gold or silver, in short, anything whatever which came up to their ideas of spoil, and closing their eyes, muttered their discontent even in their sleep.

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, СКАЧАТЬ