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They could do no more than crawl on hands and knees to the door. In spite of the many changes infused into Hawaiian institutions, the kauwa families remain branded with a stigma, in the opinion of the natives, and the laws, which accord them the same rights as other citizens, can not reinstate them. It seems certain that the origin of slavery among the Hawaiians must be sought in conquests.
They point the finger at people of kauwa extraction, lampoon them, and touch the soles of their feet when they speak of them, to mark the lowness of their origin. If they were independent, and even rich, an ordinary islander would deem himself disgraced to marry his daughter to one of these pariahs. The slaves were not permitted to cross the threshold of the chiefs' palace.
They ate in advance the price of their labor, which usually consisted of hogs and fowls, and they died of starvation before the leaves ceased to sprout on the tree their adze had transformed into a canoe. The kauwa, servants, must not be confounded with the kauwa maoli, actual slaves. A high chief, even a wohi, would call himself without dishonor ke kauwa a ke 'lii nui, the servant of the king.
At present, their excellencies the ministers and the nobles do not hesitate to sign their names under the formula kou kauwa, your servant; but it is none the less true, for all that, that formerly there were among the common people a class, few in number, of slaves, or serfs, greatly despised by the Hawaiians, and still to our days so lowered in public opinion that a simple peasant refuses to associate with the descendants of this caste.
The class of Makaainana comprises all the inhabitants not included in the two preceding classes; that is to say, the bulk of the people. There were two degrees of this cast: the kanaka wale, freemen, private citizens, and the kauwa or servants. The Hawaiians honored canoe-builders and great fishers as privileged citizens.
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