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Updated: June 1, 2025
They assemble together for everything that has to be made or done, and their occupations and amusements are shared by both sexes. In old days it is said that a king of Hawaii assembled most of the adults of the then populous island, and formed a human chain three miles long to pass up stones for the building of the great Heiau in Kona.
Knowing the heiau was nearing completion the fishermen guessed the reason for the king's early morning visit and had no intention of remaining to receive him. Paradise Eng. Landing safely, yet with the prow of the big canoe not a spear's length behind, the poor fellows made all speed over the open lava beds that lie between the shore and the jungle at this point.
A foreign store, a number of native houses, a great heiau, or heathen temple on a height, a fringe of cocoa-nut palms, and a background of blazing hills, flaring with varieties of red, hardly toned down by any attempt at vegetation, a crystalline atmosphere palpitating with heat, deep, rippleless, clear water, with coral groves below, and a view of the three great Hawaiian mountains, are the salient features of this outlet of Hawaiian commerce.
And this man, so civilized and Christianized, only now in middle life, was, he said, "a big boy when the first teachers came," and may very likely have witnessed horrors in the heiau, or temple, close by, of which little is left now. This bedroom is thoroughly comfortable.
The priests would not sell their religious emblems and belongings for "thirty pieces of silver," or any remuneration, but they were willing to offer up the entire Heiau, and themselves on the top of it, as a holocaust to Lono, if he had requested it. So long as Cook was regarded as a god in their eyes they could not refuse him.
Sometimes they were dispatched at a distance with a stone or club, and their bodies were dragged along the narrow passage up which I walked shuddering; but oftener they were bound and taken alive into the heiau to be slain in the outer court. The priests, in slaying these sacrifices, were careful to mangle the bodies as little as possible. From two to twenty were offered at once.
Today a careful observer may, by peering beneath the Armory Hall, make out the few remaining stones which were once a part of the foundation of the last heiau built on Hawaii. This volume of Hawaiian Legends is bound in genuine tapa, a cloth or more properly speaking a strong paper made by hand from the inner bark of the wild mulberry.
He it was who built the heiau situated on the great plain of Makanau. The sea worn pebbles may still be seen, which Kohaokalani had his people carry up on to the height, about two leagues from the shore. These pebbles were intended for the interior pavement of the temple.
Following one of his great victories King Kamehameha I established his court on the largest island of the Hawaiian group, Hawaii, and prepared to make his headquarters there for the time. Of course a heiau must be built, and he ordered construction to begin immediately, selecting a site near the mouth of the Wailuku where today stands the armory of the National Guard of Hawaii.
This heiau was unusually large and considerable time was consumed in building it. Finally it was completed, but before it could be used the customary human sacrifice had to be offered. Not willing to take one of his own men, the king went in search of another.
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