The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
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They Are A Most Gregarious People, Always Visiting
Each Other, And Living In Each Other's Houses, And So Hospitable
That No Hawaiian, However Poor, Will Refuse To Share His Last
Mouthful Of Poi With A Stranger Of His Own Race.
These people
looked very poor, but probably were not really so, as they had a
nice grass-house, with very fine mats, within a few yards.
A man went out, cut off the head of a fowl, singed it in the flame,
cut it into pieces, put it into a pot to boil, and before our feet
were warm the bird was cooked, and we ate it out of the pot with
some baked kalo. D. took me out to see some mango trees, and a pond
filled with gold-fish, which she said had been hers when she was a
child. She seemed very fond of her relatives, among whom she looked
like a fairy princess; and I think they admired her very much, and
treated her with some deference. The object of our visit was to
procure a le of birds' feathers which they had been making for her,
and for which I am sure 300 birds must have been sacrificed. It was
a very beautiful as well as costly ornament, {165} and most
ingeniously packed for travelling by being laid at full length
within a slender cylinder of bamboo.
We rode on again, somewhat unwillingly on my part, for though I
thought my apprehensions might be cowardly and ignorant, yet D. was
but a child, and had the attractive wilfulness of childhood, and she
was, I saw, determined to get back to her husband, and the devotion
and affection of the young wife were so pleasant to see, that I had
not the heart to offer serious opposition to her wishes, especially
as I knew that I might be exaggerating the possible peril.
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