Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
Instantly priests and people let go the cord, and the enormous god, rolling upon the chief, crushed him at once. The death of Kohaokalani is attributed chiefly to the Kahuna. Koihala reigned at Ka'u. He was a very great chief perhaps the entire island recognized his authority. An abuse of power hastened his death.
The sacerdotal order had its origin in Paao, whose descendants have always been regarded as the Kahuna maoli. Paao came from a distant land called Kahiki. According to several chiefs, his genealogy must be more correct than that of the kings.
Several other instances have been told me of persons who have actually died under the influence of the terror and despair produced by being told that the kahuna was "praying them to death." I cannot learn whether these over-efficacious prayers are supposed to be addressed to the true God, or to the ancient Hawaiian divinities.
But among the servants of the alii, if there were any who had offended the priest or his partisans, nothing more was necessary to condemn to death such or such an attendant of even the highest chief. From this it may be seen how dangerous it was not to enjoy the good graces of the kahuna, who, by his numerous clan, might revolutionize the whole country.
But, mark you this! It is only those who believe in, and fear, the power of the Voodoos that are so affected. In Hawaii, the Kahunas or native magicians are renowned for their power to cause sickness and death to those who have offended them; or to those who have offended some client of the Kahuna, and who have hired the latter to 'pray' the enemy to sickness or death.
The poor, ignorant Hawaiians, believing implicitly in the power of the Kahunas, and being in deadly fear of them, are very susceptible to their psychic influence, and naturally fall easy victims to their vile arts, unless they buy off the Kahuna, or make peace with his client.
This imposes on the victim the necessity of hiring a kahuna to pray down the other one, or of running away, if he cannot afford the expense.
Though this young woman was enlightened, had travelled and studied in Europe and America, and presumably disbelieved in the superstitions of her ancestors, it is whispered that the rumor of kahuna influence against her shortened her days by many.
It is still most potent in its evil, grotesque, and barbaric forms, in Fetichism, Voodooism, Bundooism, Obeahism, and Kahunaism, in the devil and animal ghost worship of the black races, completely exemplified in the arts of the Fetich wizard on the Congo; in the "Uchawi" of the Wasequhha mentioned by Stanley; in the marriage customs of the Soudan devil worshipers; in the practices of the Obeah men and women in the Caribbees notably their power in matters of love and business, religion and war in Jamaica; in the incantations of the kahuna in Hawaii; and in the devices of the voodoo or conjure doctor in the southern states; in the fiendish rites and ceremonies of the red men, the Hoch-e-ayum of the Plains Indians, the medicine dances of the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, the fire dance of the Navajos, the snake dance of the Moquis, the sun dance of the Sioux, in the myths and tales of the Cherokees; and it rings in many tribal chants and songs of the East and West.
The kahuna tells him that his conduct has displeased some god or goddess and that he must die. Every kahuna claims what statesmen call a "pull" with his deities that enables him to have his prayers answered, while opposition kahunas are snubbed.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking