Kaua'i - Hawaii - page 1056

kept women from becoming leaders equal to men. Eventually even Hawaiʻi's highest-
ranking kahuna (priest), Hewahewa, couldn't defend the system.
Soon after Kamehameha's death, Hewahewa conspired with Kamehameha's favorite
wife Kaʻahumanu, who ruled as kahuna nui (co-regent) with her stepson Liholiho, and
Keopulani, who possessed more mana than any of Kamehameha's other royal wives. The
trio arranged a feast where Liholiho would eat with women, thereby breaking the kapu.
This act - effectively ending Hawaiʻi's religion - was nearly beyond the young king. He
delayed for months, and drank himself into a stupor the day before.
Then to the shock of the gathered aliʻi at the feast, Liholiho helped himself to food at
the women's table. Hewahewa, signaling his approval, noted that the gods could not sur-
vive without kapu. 'Then let them perish with it!' Liholiho is said to have cried. For
months afterward, Kaʻahumanu and others set fire to the temples and destroyed the kiʻi
(deity images). Many Hawaiians were relieved to be free from kapu, but some continued
to venerate the old gods and secretly preserved kiʻi .
In Legends and Myths of Hawaii , King David Kalakaua (1836-91) captures the shimmer-
ing nature of ancient Hawaiian storytelling by seamlessly mixing history (of Kame-
hameha, Captain Cook, the burning of the temples) with living mythology.
Missionaries & Whalers Come Ashore
After Cook's expedition sailed back to Britain, news of his 'discovery' of Hawaiʻi soon
spread throughout Europe and the Americas, opening the floodgates to seafaring ex-
plorers and traders. By the 1820s, whaling ships began pulling into Hawaiʻi's harbors for
fresh water and food, supplies, liquor and women. To meet their needs, ever more shops,
taverns and brothels sprang up around busy ports including at Honolulu on Oʻahu, La-
haina on Maui and Koloa on Kauaʻi. By the 1840s, the islands had become the unofficial
whaling capital of the Pacific.
To the ire of 'dirty-devil' whalers, Hawaiʻi's first Christian missionary ship sailed into
Honolulu's harbor on April 14, 1820, carrying staunch Calvinists who were set on saving
the Hawaiians from their 'heathen ways.' Their timing could not have been more oppor-
tune, as Hawaiʻi's traditional religion had been abolished the year before, leaving
Hawaiians with a spiritual vacuum. Both missionaries and the whalers hailed from New
England, but soon were at odds: missionaries were intent on saving souls, while to many
sailors there was 'no God west of the Horn.' Sailors repeatedly clashed, sometimes viol-
ently, with the missionaries, because they enjoyed all the pleasures that the Calvinists
censured.