Plumed helmet worn by the great chieftains
With regard to Greek resemblances, they may be classed under the following heads. First, the form of the feather helmet of the chiefs, which bears a considerable likeness to the metal casque and crest of the Grecians. Secondly, the employment of the dual number in the Hawaiian language. Thirdly, the use of the spear and the bow and arrow, and the recumbent position at meals. Fourthly, sortilege by the entrails of slain animals before battle.
As to the form of the helmet, it is probably a mere coincidence. A covering for the head will generally conform to the shape of the head (although the hats worn in Europe are a large exception to such a rule); and hence some resemblance must be established. As defensive armour, the Hawaiian helmet was useless, being formed of feathers closely arranged on a network. The people, instead of using armour in war, like the Greeks, went into battle with nothing on but the maro, a girdle round the loins,—the smallest quantity oflothing conceivable. They used no shield, and it was the chiefs only who wore the feather helmets, and that for distinction and as insignia of their rank.
The dual form in speaking may have been introduced into the language by the native courtesy which characterises the chiefs, and have been followed by plebeians in the same manner in which ' you' has superseded 'thou' in the speech of Europe. The Hawaiians had a double form of dual for their pronoun ; the first including the speaker and the spoken-to, the second embracing the speaker and the person spoken-of.* In other respects there is little in common in the two languages. The Hawaiian alphabet contains only seven consonants f and five vowels. It has no sibilants,} or sound equivalent to the / or <£. It is so destitute of consonant diphthongs that the natives cannot pronounce two consonants together without the interposition of a vowel; and their words have invariably a vowel termination.
With regard to the bow and arrow, although these instruments are complex and involve a practical acquaintance with some physical laws, the weapon is found so frequently among savage nations as well as civilised that one is almost tempted to say that the bow and arrow is an innate idea. The recumbent position at meals may have been experimentally found an easy one in a warm climate, and have suited well with a people whose indoles is indolence.
Sortilege by the entrails of slain animals is more difficult to account for.
HEBREW SIMILARITIES. 69
There are a few words having au apparent similarity to the Greek. Little weight, however, is due to a small number of coincident vocables in two languages, when the proper deduction is made for necessity and accident. The following examples have been adduced:— Hawaiian. English. Greek.
mele a song
aroha love
arii a chief "Ap>jc.
rani the heavens ovpav6s.
mahina the moon ^v.
The similarity of sound in the last example is greater than is at first apparent. When the universal terminal vowel is thrown off, the two first syllables, pronounced quickly, come very near the Greek word for month. The three words which in the list contain the letter r, lose their resemblance to the Greek when written with an I, which has been invariably substituted in modern orthography for the former letter.
The number of customs among the Hawaiians corresponding to Hebrew practices is admitted at once to be very remarkable. But even if such proofs were considered strong enough to substantiate the fact of Jews having reached the islands, it would not necessitate an emigration from the Mediterranean; the probability would be as great of their course having been in the opposite direction. As, however, the tribes of North America have been claimed to have a Hebrew origin, the points of Jewish resemblance may be properly enumerated here. These consisted of—
1. Circumcision, which, previous to the establishment of the American missionaries, was commonly practised among the natives as a religious ceremony.
2. Separation and purification of women after childbirth, &c., enforced under penalty of death.
3. Cities of refuge,—an institution found in no other heathen nation.
4. Pollution by touching a dead body, and purification therefrom by religious ceremonies.
5. Offering of the first-fruits to their gods.
6. Wearing sackcloth in mourning.
7. The custom of the chiefs of washing their hands before and after eating.
8. Traditions resembling those in the Hebrew Scriptures.
9. A resemblance which Mr. Dibble perceived between the poetry of the Hebrews and the Hawaiians; and a structural likeness in the two languages, especially in the causative form of the Hawaiian verb, which is precisely the same as the Hiphil of the Hebrew.*
Of the similarity of the native traditions to the histories of the Old Testament, the following examples will serve; and they are probably the most striking that Mr. Dibble could adduce.
Hawaiian tradition relates, that man was originally made of the dust of the earth, by Kane and Kanaloa, two of their principal deities.
In the story of Waikelenuiaiku, we have a pretty close counterpart of that of Joseph. His father had ten
* ' The Hawaiians have no auxiliary verb "to be;" there are no variations in nouns for case, number, or person ; but the moods and tenses of verbs are pretty clearly distinguished by simple prefixes an.l suffixes. The mode of conjugating verbs, the existence of a causative form, and the derivation of words from roots of two syllables, arc thought to indicate a resemblance and cognate origin with the Hebrew and other Oriental tongues.'—Chccver, Life in the S. Islands. London. 1851.
Mr. Cheever also remarks a coincidence relating to the very frequent addition of the word wai to names of places, and the similar addition in the East of wadf, both words meaning water,—the changed Hawaiian form arising from a consistent rejection of consonants where practicable.
CORRESPONDING TRADITIONS. 71
sons and one daughter. He was beloved by his father and hated by his brethren, who cast him into a pit; his eldest brother having, moreover, a greater pity for him than the rest. He escaped into a country, the king of which was Kamohoalii, by whom he was confined in a dark place underground, together with many persons imprisoned there for various crimes. Whilst in prison he bid his companions dream, and he interpreted the dreams of four of them. One had seen a ripe ohia, and his spirit ate it; the second saw a ripe banaua, which his spirit ate; the third had seen a hog, which his spirit ate; the fourth dreamed that he saw awa, that he pressed out the juice, and his spirit drank it. Like Joseph, he interpreted the three first visions unfavourably to their dreamers, and they were afterwards slain; to the last he gave an interpretation of deliverance and life, and he was accordingly saved. The king being informed by this person of the wonderful powers of Waikelenuiaiku, the latter was liberated and made a principal chief in the kingdom.
There is also a tradition of a person who, like Jonah, was swallowed by a fish, and afterwards cast out upon dry land.
The natives also believed that a state of perpetual night, or chaos, had preceded creation, in which antecedent state nothing existed but some of the gods. The myth relating to Maui, a demi-god, has an analogy to Joshua when he commanded the sun to stand still. This same Maui was an important person in the Pantheon of New Zealand. The Hawaiians preserved a tradition of a deluge, when rain fell, and the waters rose up until all the land was covered, except the summit of Mauna Kea. Some of the inhabitants saved themselves in a laau, a vessel the height, length, and breadth of which were equal; it was filled with men, animals, and their food; and after floating for some time, finally rested on the mountain Mauna Kea.
It must be remembered, however, that whilst these myths of the Hawaiians bear a considerable resemblance to the relations of the Hebrew Scriptures, the evidence of their coming from Jewish sources is not conclusive. The belief of the North American Indians in a Great Spirit, has been regarded as the inheritance of ages: Captain Burton, in his recent work on the Mormon States, looks upon it as derived from the teaching of Christian missionaries, and denies that the Indian theology embraced any notion of the immortality of the soul. These traditions of Hawaii (it may as easily be supposed), have arisen from casual intercourse with Europeans. It is unnecessary to remark, that in Hawaiian society, as in that of the Greek heroic age, a very short time will suffice to impart an air of antiquity to recently imported legends.
A great danger, too, exists in claiming cognation between two distant peoples from the coincidence of a few words in both languages. The Persian name for slipper is said to be almost the same as the North American Indian word, mocassin. This coincidence should not be allowed to prove that the Persians and the Indians of 'Canada are kindred. The Sanscrit name tala (wine made from the juice of palms), closely resembles the Hawaiian name of their universal edible, talo; but we do not thence jump at the conclusion that the Polynesian language is a derivative of the Sanscrit; The human organs of voice are the same throughout our race, and are only capable of producing a certain number of sounds and articulations, the great majority of which articulations are common to all people, and must be employed by them in expressing ideas. Then, if the copia verborum of each of two nations consisted of 5000 separate words, there would he several probabilities of coincidence, viz., that in each language the same articulation should be used to express one idea, and that only accidentally; and the chances of selection in the case of onomatopes would be still greater. The coincidence, therefore, of a few corresponding words is a meagre proof of identity of nations.*
Plumed helmet worn by the great chieftains
ping