Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The missionaries arrived expecting the worst of Hawaiʻi's indigenous 'pagans,' and in
their eyes, that's what they found: public nudity, 'lewd' hula dancing, polygamy,
gambling, drunkenness and fornication with sailors. To them, kahuna were witch doctors
and Hawaiians hopelessly lazy. Because the missionaries' god was clearly powerful,
Christianity attracted converts, notably Queen Kaʻahumanu. But many of these conver-
sions were not deeply felt; Hawaiians often quickly abandoned the church's teachings,
reverting to their traditional lifestyles.
In the 19th century, New England missionaries needed six months to sail from Boston
around Cape Horn to Hawaiʻi. Early 20th-century Matson steamships embarking from
San Francisco took just five days to reach Honolulu.
The missionaries found one thing, however, that attracted avid, widespread interest:
literacy. The missionaries established an alphabet for the Hawaiian language, and with
this tool, Hawaiians learned to read with astonishing speed. In their oral culture, Hawaii-
ans were used to prodigious feats of memory, and
aliʻi
understood that literacy was a key
to accessing Western culture and power. By the mid-1850s, Hawaiʻi had a higher literacy
rate than the USA and supported dozens of Hawaiian-language newspapers.
DEFYING THE VOLCANO GODDESS
One of Christianity's early champions in the Hawaiian Islands was a chief on the
Kona side of the Big Island. Her name was Kapʻiolani (not to be confused with
Queen Kapʻiolani). People living near active Kilauea volcano, many of whom had
experienced its deadly 1790 eruption, were less enthusiastic about worshiping the
Christian god. They feared that if they failed to propitiate Pele, goddess of volca-
noes and fire, the consequences might be dire.
When missionaries toured Kilauea in 1823, Hawaiians were astonished to see
them flagrantly violate kapu by exploring the crater and eatingʻoheloberries (a
food reserved for Pele) with impunity. This primed the ground for chief Kapiʻolani
to challenge Pele directly and to prove that the Christian god was more powerful.
In 1824, the story goes, she walked about 60 miles from her home to the brink of
the steaming crater and, dismissing pleas from her people and defying curses
from the priests of Pele, descended into the vent at Halemaʻumaʻu. Surrounded by
roiling lava, Kapiʻolani ate consecratedʻoheloberries, read passages from the Bible
and threw stones into the volcano without retribution, demonstrating Pele's impot-
ence before the missionaries' god.
