CANOES, EVERYWHERE. NOT DOZENS, NOT HUNDREDS, but over a thousand canoes streaming out from the headlands and the shore, bearing men, women and children. Drums beat out a pulsating refrain, and as the paddles dipped and rose, singing drifted across the water and reached the ships. Certain words were repeated, over and over. ‘Aloha! Aloha!’ ‘He hale kou! He hale kou!’ ‘Lono! Lono! Lono!’ Hundreds more people were lined up on the shore, and along the cliff-top above the bay were still more. It seemed that the whole of O-why-hee had heard of the two great vaka and had turned out to greet them.
In minutes the canoes had surrounded both ships and the natives were scaling the hulls and swarming aboard. Others stayed in the water, ducking and diving like porpoises as they swam around the vessels, hanging from the cables, lunging at the figurehead, climbing over the rudder stock. Those who had reached the decks dropped the baskets of food they carried and thronged the ships. As they roamed they picked up anything they could—boat hooks, buckets, ropes, belaying pins, fishing lines. Some men scrambled up the rat lines and into the rigging.
The crew viewed the chaos with amazement. Then the women, not all of them young, approached the crewmen, stroking their arms, running their hands through their hair, caressing their groins. All resistance vanished, replaced by shameless lust. Within minutes James’s ban on fornication was being blatantly breached. The women took the lead, flinging their arms around the seamen, tugging at their belts, reaching for their cocks. The crew responded with alacrity, hauling off their breeches and embracing the lithe brown bodies. Couples dashed below to do their fucking. Minutes later the women returned, brandishing the currency of copulation—nails, knives, spoons, mirrors, items of clothing.
James and his officers watched the inundation helplessly from the quarterdeck, realising they could do nothing to stem this floodtide. Staring across at Discovery, Gore cried, ‘Good God, look at that!’ So many people were hanging onto the larboard side of her hull that the ship was heeling.
Staring at the tumult below, King shook his head. ‘This is not a welcome,’ he murmured, ‘it’s an invasion.’
For James, this was too much. Infuriated by the way his decree was being so flagrantly violated, and the blatant attempts at stealing, he yelled down to Phillips, standing beside the mainmast, musket at his side. ‘Fire at the thieves! Small shot only.’
Shambolically, those of the marines who were not below fornicating turned their scatterguns on the crowd. The natives who were struck with small shot flinched and cried out, but were otherwise undeterred. The decks and rigging continued to seethe with the O-why-heeans, jostling for material and sexual favours.
Gore gave James a resigned look. ‘It cannot be stopped, Captain. It is out of control.’
James picked up his stick. ‘It must be stopped.’
As he moved towards the steps that led down to the mid-deck, two more male figures climbed the hull steps. They were both tall, one unusually so. One was young and slender, the other much older. Both wore feathered cloaks and the woven headdresses that denoted them as chiefs.
At the sight of the pair, the activities of the people on the decks ceased. Their arms fell to their sides and they stared respectfully at the two latest arrivals. Both men went up to James, who with his tricorn, sword and dress uniform was obviously the ship’s authority figure. The older chief patted his chest and said, ‘Kanina’; the other did the same and announced his name as Palea. James nodded to them, then waved at the crowd of natives on the ship, who were already reverting to unruliness. ‘Tell them to stop!’ he demanded.
At that moment a naked woman ran up from below, her long hair flying. She brandished her trophy for the crowd: a pair of sailor’s cotton drawers. Shouting with delight, she ran straight into Lieutenant Williamson, then collapsed in a heap on the deck.
Palea scowled, dragged her over to the rail by her hair and in one deft movement scooped her up and hurled her overboard. The other O-why-heeans shrieked with delight, then the clamour began to subside again. Gradually, a semblance of order was restored.
With Gibson and King acting as interpreters, and the other natives observing the discussion closely, Kanina and Palea explained something of their island’s authority structure. The older chief pointed towards the island and said that O-why-hee also had an ali’i nui, a paramount chief. ‘He is like our king is to us,’ Gibson added. Palea then told Gibson that he helped the King of O-why-hee.
‘In what way does he help the king?’ asked Gore.
Gibson translated the question. Palea grinned and made vertical stroking movements with his right hand. Puzzled, James asked Gibson, ‘What does he mean?’
‘Palea says he is one of the king’s lovers.’ Gibson shuffled his boots in embarrassment. ‘He services the king. After the manner of Onan.’
Palea seemed not the slightest bit embarrassed at his disclosure. Tapping his chest proudly, he said, ‘’Aikane.’
Gibson and King understood. Male lover. Blushing, King said to James, ‘It seems that here it is a great privilege to … frig the king.’
It was James’s turn to feel disgust. In no way did he approve of this custom. Why did their king not practise the time-honoured method of release, fornication exclusively with a woman? They had observed other men of that type in the South Sea islands, especially in the Society group. King had included the various names for them in his lexicon, such as ‘raerae’ (Otaheite) and ‘fakaleiti’ (the Friendly Isles). No shame or embarrassment seemed to attach to these sexually versatile persons.
At that moment another figure climbed aboard, inducing more quietness in the natives. Introduced to James by Kanina as Koa, he was unprepossessing in appearance. A diminutive, hunched figure, he had the scaly skin and pink eyes of a hardened kava drinker. Koa was a kahuna, Kanina explained.
‘That means he is a priest,’ Gibson said. ‘So he is also a very important person on this island.’
Koa walked up to James, chanting a greeting. He draped a red cloak around James’s shoulders and presented him with three piglets, some coconuts, fruit and sweet potatoes. After James accepted the gifts gratefully, the three leaders were invited below to dine with the officers in the Great Cabin.
Over the midday meal, Gibson’s linguistic skills again proved valuable. James and his officers learned that the bay in which they had anchored was called Kealakekua and that this name meant ‘Pathway of the Gods’. The great cliff that rose above the bay was called Pali Kapu O Keoua, which meant ‘The Forbidden Cliff of Keoua’. Koa explained that Keoua had been a great chief of O-why-hee, and that his bones were kept in one of the caves in the cliff, which was why it was sacred to the people here. Most people who lived around the bay were maka’ainana—commoners—and their role was to tend the land and provide food for the chiefs and priests like themselves, Kanina explained. King took down these names and their meanings diligently in his notebook.
The talk continued, haltingly and with much gesticulating on the part of Kanina, Palea and Koa. They said that the volcano overlooking the coast was called Mauna Loa, which meant ‘Long Mountain’. It erupted regularly, Koa said, miming explosive movements with his peeling hands. The exploding volcano they had seen from the ships three weeks ago was called Killa-way-ah; within its crater dwelt Pele, the O-why-heean goddess of fire. This time of the year was known as Makahiki, Kanina said. It was a time when the season of fertility was celebrated, and coincided with the appearance of the Pleiades star cluster on the horizon. At Kanina’s mention of the word Makahiki, Koa closed his eyes and intoned something that sounded like a prayer.
Throughout the talking and translating, James became acutely aware that the three men were staring at him in a very strange way. They seemed unable to take their eyes off him, and their stares began to unnerve him. Again Koa mentioned the word ‘Makahiki’, then uttered some sort of prayer, which included repetitions of the word ‘Lono’. As he did so, Kanina and Palea bent their heads reverently. Raising his hands, Koa made another speech while inclining his head towards James at the head of the table.
‘What’s he saying now?’ James asked. Gibson related what the priest had said, speaking slowly and shifting uncomfortably on his chair as he did so. The others listened attentively, their eyes widening in amazement at what they heard.
19 JANUARY 1779
My dearest Elizabeth,
Three days ago we anchored off an island called O-why-hee. Here, as for you, it is mid-winter, but as we are well to the south of the Tropic of Cancer, the climate is winterless. Temperatures are constantly over 90 degrees and there are frequent squalls and downpours of warm rain, especially in the afternoons.
Three O-why-heean leaders who came aboard Resolution told us that this time of the year is called by them Makahiki. It is a traditional annual wet-season festival, a celebration of the time of fertility. The natives believe that Makahiki coincides with a time when their ancestor god and sacred leader, Lono, will reappear.
By a most remarkable coincidence, our arrival in this bay coincided with the Makahiki festivities. So, like the Kow-ay-eeans whom we visited a year ago, the people here believe that I am the god, Lono, come back in another guise. The conviction that I am Lono reincarnate explains the tumultuous welcome we received upon arrival.
This belief is preposterous, of course. But it is one which I will not strenuously disabuse them of so long as we can benefit from its associated bounties, viz, abundant supplies of fresh food, water and wood. Our coming was accompanied by an outbreak of copulation—part of the fertility celebrations, I assume—which to my chagrin I, like King Canute attempting to halt the incoming tide, was unable to prevent. My men are desperate for women, and those here are only too willing to help them consummate their lust. Although my ban on having the women stay aboard can be enforced, I have given up trying to stop the fornication on land. To attempt to do so is futile, with so many of the men having to go ashore and carry out essential duties. But the spread of venereal distempers as a consequence of their carnality is a lamentable prospect to me.
My health continues to give me cause for concern. The pain in my gut is worse and I find it harder than ever to sleep. I have also been passing blood. My demon self still appears to me, especially in my dreams, to the extent that I feel I am being haunted by him. I continue to have outbursts of temper that I am unable to control. When events turn against me I erupt like the volcano on this island, in spite of the consternation that these tantrums cause.
The leading priest of this area, a man called Koa, invited me to visit his shrine. So two days after we anchored in the bay, I was rowed ashore.
James, Clerke, King and Gore sat in the stern as the launch was pulled towards the southern end of the bay. The water was translucent, the bay’s bottom clearly visible. Manta rays sped away at the launch’s approach, skimming above the sand like dark ghosts, and a pair of spinner dolphins began to accompany the vessel, twisting and turning just ahead of its bow. High above them, red-tailed tropicbirds, trailing long, thin tails, performed displays of aerial courtship, and frigate birds, their bent wings extended, rode the air waves streaming from the lip of the great lava cliff.
Staring landward, Gore remarked, ‘Such a dramatic place. That cliff must be a thousand feet high.’
Breakers crashed against the rubbly base of the cliff, where at some stage there had obviously been a huge rock fall. They could also see, above the bay, plots of cultivated land separated by walls of basalt, while on still higher land—the steep slopes of the volcano—there were more gardens, of sugar cane, plantains and potatoes. The upper slopes and summit of Mauna Loa were hidden by dense cloud.
As it reached the centre of the bay the launch was joined by several double-hulled canoes which had come out from the southern promontory, each hull bearing five men. As the canoes moved closer, James and his officers saw that the men’s heads were encased in round gourd helmets. Decorated on top with ferns, the gourds had a section cut out at the front, revealing the wearer’s eyes, cheeks and nose. Strips of coloured cloth hung from the bottom of the masks, so that from the neck up the canoeists resembled medieval knights. As they paddled they chanted incantations, suggesting that they too were holy men of some sort.
Closer to the shore, James and the others witnessed another surprising sight. Naked men, women and children lay on their stomachs on planks of thin wood, paddling with their hands in order to overtake the waves which were forming in the bay. When they had caught a wave in this way, it swept them in towards the beach. Some paddlers were even able to stand up on the planks, as if they were riding circus ponies. The landing party watched, fascinated by their skills. Other naked natives were borne along by the waves without planks, their naked brown bodies swept shoreward. ‘They’re like the dolphins,’ observed Clerke admiringly.
This sight was superseded by yet another spectacle. King pointed at the shore. ‘Good grief, look at them all!’ Spread along the stony beach and foreshore were thousands of natives, awaiting the arrival of the visitors from another world. More spectators stood on the sloping ground above the foreshore, and on the crest of the great cliff. These multitudes were waiting in an utter and unnerving silence.
The launch was pulled into the shallows and James stepped out. The people on the shore immediately fell forward, pressed their foreheads to the ground and remained prostrate. ‘Welcome to Kealakekua Bay, Captain Lono,’ said Gore. ‘If this place is the pathway to the gods, then the chief god has followed it.’
James ignored this comment, staring instead at the shore, where Koa was waiting to greet him. The white-caped, helmeted holy man was accompanied by a quartet of attendants, each bearing a long white wand, the top of which was covered with a tuft of dog’s hair.
Koa bowed to James and the other officers, then led the party along the shore, stumbling and puffing as he went. At the southern end of the bay, a little way inland, they came upon a raised stone platform surrounded by a rickety wooden fence made of vertical staves. This was a heiau, a place of worship, Koa told them, and it was called Hikiau. The clearing occupied by the shrine was surrounded by mature palms and breadfruit trees. Mounted on the fence was a score of human skulls. They were the heads of the O-why-heeans’ enemies, Koa explained, warriors from the island of Mow-wee whom they had slain. Placed at one end of the large platform were a maggoty pig, some breadfruit, coconuts and plantains. ‘Offerings to the gods,’ King explained after asking Koa why they were there.
The air was thick and sticky, and James was sweating profusely under his jacket. Aware that the support of the priest was vital to them, he allowed himself to be guided by Koa during the protracted rituals that followed. He joined the priest on a raised wooden dais, on which had been placed several carved god images, some wrapped in cloth. A red cloak was placed around his shoulders by one of the attendants. Koa then kissed each carving and indicated that James should do the same. He did so, while his officers observed the proceedings from a distance. The priest held up James’s right hand and recited a series of incantations. The loinclothed male onlookers, whose foreheads had been pressed to the ground, looked up and began to chant: ‘Lono! Lono! Lono!’ Other men came forward and presented James with baskets of sugar cane, coconuts, yams and plantains.
The ceremony now melded into a feast. Koa was handed a dead piglet with rotting flesh. Although it stank terribly, the priest tore off some of the flesh and ate it. He tore off some more and offered it to James.
Gagging at the stench, James shook his head. This he could not stomach. Koa popped the rotten meat into his own mouth, chewed it, took it out and handed it to James. Again he declined the offer, as politely as he could, thinking, The first time I have been offered food I cannot eat. To do so would have made him vomit, an un-Lono reaction. Seemingly unfazed, Koa ate the putrid meat himself.
Further rituals followed—chanting, singing, praying, kava drinking—all of which were led by Koa and were meaningless to James and the others. When masticated coconut flesh was rubbed over James’s face and head, it appeared to conclude the rituals. He nodded his thanks to Koa and his attendants, then took several pieces of iron from his pack and handed them to the priest, who smiled. ‘Ah, maholo, maholo, Lono.’
James now longed to return to the ship. He was weary, queasy and anxious to get on with what they had to do. His gut and his hand ached. They didn’t need any more idol worship and rotten pig; they needed to trade for food, water and wood, and they needed to repair the ships. Days of hard work lay ahead.
Trying to disguise their relief, James and his party farewelled Koa and were led back to the launch by more of Koa’s assistants. They passed crowds of the maka’ainana, who again lowered their foreheads to the ground and cried out repeatedly, ‘Lono! Lono! Lono!’
The launch waited in the shallows, guarded by the oarsmen. As the party was rowed out into the bay, James and the others stared back at the land. King said, ‘I was told by Kanina that Kawaloa, the village to the north, is the domain of the island’s king and the chiefs. To the south, where we were today, Koa and the other priests hold sway.’
Wiping some of the coconut flesh from his forehead, James said thoughtfully, ‘Chiefs at one end of the bay, priests at the other. Like our parliamentarians and bishops. I wonder if there is ever conflict between the two?’
As James and Clerke had both hoped, from now on the ships’ companies’ time was in the main spent productively. On board the sloops, sails were patched and bolt-ropes renewed, spars and masts repaired and cordage replaced. Cleveley and his mates wielded their caulking hammers on Resolution’s decks and hulls, while across on Discovery her carpenter Reynolds and his assistants did the same. Bligh punctiliously charted the bay and the clerks busily supervised the taking aboard and stowing of provisions for the long voyage ahead. Onshore, Webber roamed the area with his drawing pad, sketching its coastal features and the O-why-heeans’ outrigger and double-hulled canoes. He drew the heads and shoulders of particularly striking men and women, who were delighted to see themselves portrayed. Botanist Nelson explored the land above the shore and bagged many new plant specimens, which Webber later illustrated. Just south of the Hikiau shrine, Bayly and King erected their astronomy tent, set their telescopes and sextants up inside it and made their observations. The bay’s co-ordinates were 19° 28’ North and 155° 55’ West, they reported.
Produce flowed from shore to ship, Koa and his priestly assistants instructing the commoners to supply food to satisfy the returned deity Lono and his followers. Most prized by the visitors, the priests soon learned, was pua’a—pig. The maka’ainana produced hundreds of them. Taken out to the ships, the pigs were butchered, salted down and crammed into casks in the holds. It was also the maka’ainana who supplied other foods, such as fruit, sugar cane and potatoes, for the sloops’ 181 sailors. The food was paid for either with trifles—beads, coins, pieces of linen—or was given in tribute, with no payment expected. After a week of supplying the visitors, the garden plots of the maka’ainana were becoming visibly depleted.
Two items of supply the bay lacked in sufficient quantities were fresh water and firewood. Few trees grew on the exposed lava slopes above the bay, and there was no river in the area, only a stream and some springs. Recalling their time spent on the other Sandwich Isles a year ago, James and Clerke decided that on their way back north they would call at Kow-ay-ee to obtain water and wood. There had been ample quantities of both there.
During this time there was a free trade in sex, with the incurably lustful Samwell leading the coupling. The Welshman was disgusted when one of the O-why-heean men asked him if he was James’s ’aikane. Affronted by this slur, and to demonstrate that he was exclusively heterosexual, he promptly bought the man’s sister for a nail and had sex with her in front of him. He later remarked to Law, ‘What I really love about this part of the world is its open season on rutting. The women here will take no denial; they almost use violence to force you into their embrace.’
Law laughed. Mimicking Samwell’s sing-song accent, he said, ‘A bit diff-rent from the Welsh ladies then, eh, Day-fyd?’
Although the flagrant copulation greatly perturbed James, because many of the men had to stay ashore to work, and because this was the Makahiki season, when sex was openly celebrated, there was nothing he could do to prevent the associated licentiousness.
For their part, the O-why-heeans keenly observed the strange creatures moving among them and were astonished by their attributes. They marvelled at their loose, wrinkled skin—their clothing; the burning fires in their mouths—their pipes; the way they took the tops of their heads off—their wigs; the way they reached into their skin when they needed something—their pockets; and their horned heads—their tricorns. They carried staffs that could erupt—their muskets; and their ships were floating forests, with clouds attached to the trees. How could they not be supernatural beings?
From the visitors’ point of view, James and his men were greatly impressed with the O-why-heeans’ chiefly cloaks and headwear, the finest such artefacts they had seen in the Pacific. King noted, after some research, ‘Their cloaks are embellished with hundreds of thousands of black feathers—mainly from the Pacific fowl—and bordered along the top with scarlet and yellow feathers. Their helmets, although of varying styles, are woven from the aerial roots of a vine called ie’ie, then covered with a net of twine made from bark, to which coloured feathers are tied.’ And when Webber depicted what he entitled A Man of the Sandwich Islands, with His Helmet, the man’s cloak and headdress made striking additions to the portrait.
The visitors also noted with interest that the O-why-heeans crafted beautiful but lethal weapons: daggers made from hardwood, which they called pahooah, and wooden knives edged with sharks’ teeth. They used these for dismembering their prisoners, King was informed by a young warrior. There were also daggers made from sharks’ teeth whose barbs could be used to tear out the victim’s throat. They crafted clubs, too, from lengths of koa—hardwood—to the end of which were lashed chunks of basalt rock. These could crush a human skull with one blow.
In spite of his ailments, James remained impressed with these islands that he had claimed for England. He was delighted, he wrote in his journal, ‘to enrich our voyage with a discovery which, though the last, seemed in many respects to be the most important that had hitherto been made by Europeans throughout the extent of the Pacific Ocean’. By ‘the last’, he meant that there could surely now be no other large archipelagos remaining undiscovered in the Pacific. The largest ocean on Earth had been traversed completely, by himself and the earlier navigators. And of the great ocean’s numerous island groups, this one, he was certain, was the most significant.
He locked his journal away. He was too busy to maintain it; from now on he would only summarise daily events. The pain and fatigue which were his constant companions left him drained. He knew he must not turn into a semi-invalid like Clerke. He needed to conserve the energy he still had in order to reach and properly probe the Arctic during the coming summer.
He was also concerned about an outbreak of indiscipline on Resolution. In recent days several of the crew had had to be flogged, some for going ashore without permission (12 lashes each) and one for fornicating with local women while knowing he had a venereal disorder (24 lashes).
The time would soon come, James averred to his officers, when they would put to sea again. There was too much temptation here.
But another development complicated the departure plan. King, who had been spending time ashore with Koa collecting more words for his lexicon, approached James on the quarterdeck. He removed his tricorn and fanned his face with it. ‘Koa has placed a kapu on the bay, Captain.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Like the Otaheitians’ tapu. It’s a kind of ban.’ He wiped the sweat from his brow with his hand. ‘From now on, no vessels are to leave the bay for the open sea.’
‘Why?’
‘Koa has received a message. The king of all O-why-hee is coming here.’
James frowned. ‘The king?’
‘The one who came out to the ship when we were standing off Mow-wee. The little old man with the scaly skin and red eyes. Kalani’opu’u.’
‘I remember.’ James looked doubtful. ‘Is he really the king of O-why-hee?’
‘Apparently so. And he’s coming to visit.’