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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 13, 1916)
THE SUXDAY OKEGOXIAX, TOKTLAXD, - AUGUST 13, 1916. Honolulu, One of the World's Greatest Melting Pots, Where All Races Study- hut Strange ' Superstitions Still Cling BY HARRIET GEITHMAXN. FOR three glorious Summer months It was my good fortune to teach In the Girls' Industrial School, a Hawaiian territorial institution situ ated on the open stretch of Kapahula. between Manoa Valley and the sea. Di rectly In front of the campus boomed the noble old crater Diamond Head, which Is now heavily fortified. Uncle Sam built the school on the cottage plan on an 11-acre campus. Through one corner ran a noisy brook on its way to the Pacific The banks were shaded wlt'a the native mango &nd g-uava trees, both of which are dear to the heart of the Hawaiian girl. Back of my cottage flourished & healthy banana and papaia grove. Be yond the grove was our real old-fashioned farmyard, barn, chicken house and pig pen. We boasted of eight head of cattle, a rollicking family of 11 pigs waxing fat for future luaus (feasts), one ancient, battle-scarred mule good for Fall ploughing; 100 chickens and 10 ducks'. In the pad dock bordering on the brook the for age crops were raised for the cattle. While I found the setting full of fascinating Interest. I found the native girl much more so. I shall never for got her with her wealth of possibilities and complex problems. ! All Races at School. Almost all the races and nationali ties are represented at the Girls' In dustrial School at one time or another. Honolulu is one of the world's busy melting pots, and from It pours an endless stream of half castes. The ma jority of our girls were Hawalians and half castes, with a goodly sprinkling of Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Ko rean. Filipino, Eamoan, Puerto Rlcan, Spanish and Russian. To see the Dure Hawaiian one must visit the Islands now. They, too, are a , "vanishing race." I found the Hawaiian girl essen tially primitive, generous to a fault, good natured. affectionate and In idolent. Never will I forget how I struggled 'with their names. I was tongue-tied '.kef ore such names as Ekekela Kaln akupuna. Kealoha Kahlwalanl and Kinl XJlunehele. There are only 13 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet and half of them are vowels. These vowel Bounds are like those In the German language. The girls are masters of brevity ef speech, their knowledge of English be ing limited. Cach afternoon during the bathing hour I heard from all di rections In the vicinity of my cottage. "Pau bath. Miss G." "Fau" Is a pow erfully expressive word which equals 'finished, stop, no more, hush, through, etc." Crossing the campus with a 9-year-old Kauai child, Mokihana, we passed Kulia tatting. Mokihana looked at Kulia and then at me and said, "Kulia, smart tat." In this respect they remind me of the wise Japanese in the islands who. In stead of taking a picture bride, goes to Japan nd finds his bride and later defends his Judgment with, "More bet ter I see." How to Eat HOI. The Hawaiian girl thrives better on the native foods such as rice, pot, taro, salt salmon, fresh fish and frits. I learned easily to like pol in spite of Mark Twain's description: "The buck Kanakas bake It under ground, then mash it up well with a heavy lava pestle, mix water with it until It be comes a paste, set It aside and let It ferment, and then it is pol and an unseductive mixture it Is. almost taste less before It ferments and too sour for a luxury afterward." But nothing is more nutritious. When solely used, however, it produces acrid humors, a fact which sufficiently accounts for the humorous character of the Kanakas, I think there must , be as much of knack in handling pot as there is In eating with chopsticks. The fore- 3usiness Affairs AH Arranged Pure Hawaiian Strain Fast Dying Out; Kanaka Girls Are Masters in Brevity of Speech American School Teacher Tells How to Eat Poi Life Carefree and Happy. ilhifoVLQund .Diamond Hecul-icitktheraafic! L'., V '-.''" ; S : V ''.".AS i OceanaUheJeftr Eg- 1 ' 'Vi-' ' C - Y . ;; i!aB.ivJv-vf 4- ;'--' u" --w, v . I JLilUclJajjanesesisler.mothcrs'Jcarriiinijlthcu: T-tt '-V 4fQ v " - i preciousburdt:nsJ . W-haatoa88j fc Andtive. grass Jwtju nderajtiffbyjhejsea finger Is thrust Into the mess and stirred as quickly out, thickly coated. Just as If It were poulticed; the head is thrown back, the finger inserted in the mouth and the delicacy stripped off and swallowed the eye closing gently, meanwhile. In a languid sort of ecstacy. Many a different finger goes into the same bowl and many a different kind of dirt and shade and quality of flavor is added to the virtues of Its contents. I might add that poi Is made from the bulb of the taro plant. , Nothing was more thrilling than the picnics we had over native fruit gath ering. We. had mango picnics, where the duskyyoungsters raced up trees on their toes and fingers and madly filled "their flour sacks with the green as well as ripe fruit; paninl picnics, wbyere we gathered the wine red prickly pear from the cactus bushes beyond the campus, and date and guava VV ; &Ft' ??X,JLf-?' ' 'W' sClfl' - , i.!Wv. . . III 8 - in? . . . JTfeA f V . 1 o. v picnics. For days afterward the penalty by treading on pits, paninl skins and date I paid mango stones scattered broadcast. Moklhana used to save her mangoes by hiding them high in the arch of the lanai (veranda). Often her store was pilfered. That night at devotional services Mokihana wouldr invariably startle me and her comrades by the following Bible verse, "Thou shalt not steal." All Expert Swimmers. It was my pleasure to take the good deportment girls to the pool In the hills for a swim. What a' joyous group they were and what a picture they Salute!- , mmum Departing for the mainland. One of the prcttiett cu tonjs of the. is lands is the givng of lets ( wreaths) when' a friend sails axes;. Statue JMokihuaiu. a kdnui girl, una gala day, made In their blue holokus as they stood high on the. lava rocks and plunged headlong Into the sleepy pool. They are all powerful swimmers. On- red letter days we hiked to Wal kiki Beach and swam in the surf of the Pacific. They frolicked with the breakers dashing over the rough coral rocks, ate the slimy seaweed and dug in the fand lor crabs. ply And BO Jt Koes. Qn every hand Whenever these primitive youngsters we are met In modern furniture ex were keen for a hike or a swim they hlblts with "adaptations" and "modi were "queeck" to hoomullmuli (flat- ficatlons? of this or that period style. ter me with gay flower lels (wreaths) though the adapter has gone to such .-.trc iss.-? - 1 of Kamclm.fLe first king of tie Sand? tvich Islands' .Their Napoleon for my neck, and nosegays of brilliant hue. The following Hawaiian words were more or less convenient In the daily discipline: Plllkla (trouble), pupuli (stupid), pau -(finished), wlklwlkl (hurry), wal (water), no (yes), kan aka (man), huhu (angry), wahina (woman), mallhinl (newcomer), kau kau (food), luau (Nast). mahopl (by and by), hanahana (work), and hole hole (play). We never said north, south, east or west but makat (toward the sea), mauka (toward the mount ains), ewa (plantationward) and Wa( kikl (south or Diamond Head way). I never liked the wriggling centi WORSHIP OF ANTIQUE BV VIRGINIA EARLK CHANCE led us to the" door of a very exclusive firm of Interior decorat ors not long ago and the object of our quest was to find, if possible, 'a photograph of an especially interest ing, bedroom. The picture which the head of the house brought out from an inner sanc tum was interesting, very, from a dec orator's viewpoint, and the details of color scheme and furniture arrange ment had been exceedingly well worked out. But the furniture itself was of mediocre design. It was almost but not quite good. A tactful question elicited the information that It was of "exclusive design." and especially built for the room in question. The next question was more blunt than tactful: "How should this furni ture be described In the caption be neath the picture?"' And the head of the house, after thoughtful delibera tion, replied, "Mahogany, in Adam style." "Surely, though, we could hardly call it a pure Adam?" was the next ques tion. "Not exactly, of course, but modification." came the unblushing re lierTribijte. 1 I "l pedes which visited up "with 43 legs on a side and each one hot enough to burn its way through a rawhide." I liked them still less after hearing one of the other teachers tell us of the nice. long. Juicy centipede In the Irish stew which was prepared for the teachers' table by an angry girl. After prayers at eight P. M. ray IS young children were ready for bed; then came the thrilling period of pills and cough syrup. They clustered around me In the hall like srf many little brown sparrows with wide-open bills and crooked necks. With a spoonful of black syrup in each little red throat, a gurgle of keen satisfac tion and they slip away to bed. Half the time the sore yiroat Is a myth. A Weird Superstition. With the Christian influence of the sturdy New England missionaries - of the nineteenth century in the Islands the ancient Hawaiian superstitions could not live. However, at this time there are still a few natives, who be lieve in the old superstition of being prayed to death by a duhuna (priest) employed for that purpose by the enemy. The Industrial classes of the school are rug-weaving, basketry woven from the leaf of the lauhale (pandauus odor atisslmus), sewing, lace and cooking. The girls soon learn to be proficient with their fingers In any one of these departments. In addition to these classes folk dancing, music and the three R'a are taught. The native hula dance Is not allowed at the school. The entire work of the Institution, cooking, dining-room service, launder ing, sewing and gardening, is done by the girls themselves. Thus they learn daily the lessons of faithful service and the compensation of work well done. When 18 years old they leave the school. Many ef them are capabls young women, full of hope and prom ise and with a real appreciation of Christian ideals. My last day came, as all last days are bound to come. I was scheduled to sail for the Island of Maul to climb Haleakala. one of the world's largest extinct craters. The girls knew It and expressed their feelings by gathering outside my window, where they sang their plaintive airs and played "Aloha Oe" on their ukuleles until my heart was sad. length, or the modification Is o far removed from the thing original, that one cannot but wonder what Chippen dale and Sheraton and Adam and Hep pie white and all the rest, harking back to good Queen Bess and even including Louis XVI, would say if they could pay a visit to our furniture shops today and see the various creations which bear their names. Now it is all very well to modify and to adapt the masterpieces of the past so as to meet our present-day needs, thus preserving the beauty which Is our heritage from the past while still conforming to modern Ideals of comfort. But in our strenuous ef forts to display a knowledge and ap preciation of the various furniture pe riods, are we not carrying things too far? Must every piece of furniture bear a tag reading "Jacobean" or "Queen Anne" or "Adam." as the case may be, before it can hope to Interest the possible buyer? To look over the furniture assembled now for the com ing midsummer sales this would seem to be true. Ancestor worship was, we are told, a practice of the decaying civilization of the East. . And. in the opinion of many who speak with authority, the popular artistic worship of antiques Is but an evidence of the decayed ances try of the West. i I
