At the time of European contact in 1778, Hawaiian society comprised four levels. People were born into specific social classes; social mobility was not unknown, but it was extremely rare.
The kapu system separated people into four groups: Aliʻi, the ruling class of chiefs and nobles (kings, high chiefs, low chiefs); Kahuna, the priests (who conducted religious ceremonies at the heiau and elsewhere) and master craftsmen; Maka‘āinana, commoners (the largest group) those who lived on the land; and Kauwā (or Kauā), social outcasts, “untouchables”.
“[T]he Paramount Chief (Ali’i Nui) fulfilled the role of father to this people … At the other extreme of the social order were the despised kauwā, who were outcasts …”
“… compelled to live in a barren locality apart from the tribesmen or people “belonging to the land” (ma-ka-‘aina-na), and whose only function and destiny was to serve as human sacrifices to the Ali’i’s war god Ku when a Luakini or war temple was dedicated in anticipation of a season of fighting.” (Handy & Pukui)
“The kauwā class were so greatly dreaded and abhorred that they were not allowed to enter any house but that of their master, because they were spoken of as the aumakua of their master.”
“Men and women who were kauwā were said to be people from the wild woods (nahelehele), from the lowest depths (no lalo liio loa).” (Malo) The word kauwā “was used in historic times to mean servant, but originally it meant outcast.”
“There was a landless class of people who were probably the descendants of aborigines found already settled in the Hawaiian Islands when the migrants from the south came and their chiefs established themselves as overlords.”
“In the district of Ka‘u on the island of Hawaii the Kauwā were confined to a small infertile reservation. This reservation was the dry, rocky west half of the ahupua’a named Ninole, which is near Punalu‘u.”
“For a makaainana or ali‘i to walk on kauwā land was forbidden. Whoever did so became defiled and was put to death. However, a kauwā, with head covered under a scarf of tapa and eyes downcast, might go to the chief in case of need.”
“When in need of a victim for human sacrifice at the war temple a priest would go to the boundary of the kauwā reservation and summon a victim. The man summoned could not refuse.”
“If a kauwā woman gave birth to a child sired by an ali’i the child was strangled; and the same was true of a child born to a chiefess whose father was a kauwā.” (Handy, Handy & Pukui)
Kepelino gives a detailed description of kauwā under the title ‘The Slave Class,’ as follows: “The slaves or kauwā were people set apart from the rest and treated like filthy beasts. They could not associate with other men. They were called ‘corpses,’ that is, foul-smelling things.”
“They were not allowed to marry outside their own class. If they were married and bore children to one not a slave, then all those children would have their necks wrung lest disgrace come to the family and the blot be handed down to their descendants.”
“The slaves were considered an evil here in Hawaii. They increased rapidly, – a thousand or more there were. They continued to give birth from the time of their ancestors until the present time, they could not become extinct.”
“They are not a laboring class; they were not selected to serve the chiefs; but on the tabu days of the heiau [anciently] they were killed as offering to the idols.”
“The slaves occupied themselves with their own work. They had a separate piece of land given them by their masters where they built houses and sought a livelihood for themselves by farming and fishing.”
“This land was tabu. Those not slaves could not till there or use its products. The commoner who trespassed on the land was put to death.”
“The slaves were so tabu that they could not bare their heads but must cover themselves with a wide piece of tapa with great humility and never look up.”
“They were so tabu that they were not permitted to enter the house-lot of other men. If they wished for anything they came outside the enclosure and spoke. But to the place of their Chief who was their master they were at liberty to go.”
“The slaves were very different in old times, a humble people, kind and gentle. They worked for a living much like those who work under contract, but they were despised in Hawaii and are so to this day, they are not regarded as like other people.”
“There were slave lands in every district of the islands, as, for example, Ka-lae-mamo in Kona on Hawaii, Makeanehu in Kohala, and so forth.” (Kepelino)
“When the ancient system of kapu was abandoned in Liholiho’s reign, the humiliation of the kauwā ended, and they merged with the maka‘ainana gradually over the years.” (Handy, Handy & Pukui)
