Missionaries | Page 23 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

January 29, 2018 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Samuel Chenery Damon

In the Colonial Records in the Boston Libraries relating to the founders of Scituate, Massachusetts, and their descendants, the name John Damon was spelled Daman. He came to the colony of Plymouth probably as early as 1628, with his sister Hannah and Uncle William Gilson who was their guardian.

After the ‘Boston Tea Party’ the Colonists enrolled themselves into companies of ‘Minute Men’ to assemble at a moment’s warning, which was to be given by the ringing of bells, firing of guns, etc; Samuel Damon and Simeon Damon, his brother, were under the command of Capt. Joseph Stetson.

Among the men to respond to the ‘Lexington Alarm’ on April 19th, 177 5, enrolled in Captain John Clapp’s Company of Minute men, appear the names of Samuel Damon, Daniel Damon, John Damon (brothers), and Stephen Damon.

“In the year 1793, Samuel Damon with his family consisting of his wife and eleven children, came from Scitnate, Mass. And located a farm on what was known as Parker’s Hill, near Springfield. Here he built a log house in which he reared his family. This farm was known for many years as the Damon farm”. (Damon)

Samuel Chenery Damon, son of Colonel Samuel Damon, was born in Holden, Massachusetts, February 15, 1815. He was graduated from Amherst College in 1836, studied at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1838-39, and was graduated at Andover Theological Seminary in 1841. He was an American missionary.

He was preparing to go to India as a missionary and was studying the Tamil language for that purpose, when an urgent call came for a seaman’s chaplain at the port of Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands. He was ordained September 15, 1841, and he decided to accept the position at Honolulu.

He married Julia Sherman Mills of Natick, Massachusetts on October 6, 1841. Julia’s uncle, Samuel John Mills Jr, was one of five participants in the famous 1806 Williams College ‘Haystack Prayer Meeting’ that led to the beginning of a secret missionary fraternity called the Society of Brethren, the first Protestant foreign missions organization in America.

Mills later led in the formation the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions or ABCFM (the Protestant missionaries who came to Hawaiʻi in 1820.)

In 1842, the Damons moved to Honolulu at the direction of the American Seamen’s Friend Society – Damon served as the chaplain at O‘ahu Bethel Church (Seamen’s Bethel) for 42 years, serving the sailors of vessels who entered the port of Honolulu.

“Beth-el” was designated as a refuge for sojourners. At that time more than 100 whaling vessels with approximately 6,000 sailors aboard entered the port of Honolulu annually.

Materials for the building had been contributed by several ship owners in Norwich and New London, Connecticut. A residence for the chaplain was also built nearby.

The chapel was of average size, measuring 48 feet by 30 feet. The main hall seated 300 persons; the basement had a reading room, a book depository, and a marine museum. Dedicated in 1833, the chapel stood until 1886. (Watson)

Damon preached two sermons on Sunday with an additional service on Wednesday. He ministered to the needs of the visiting sailors, which could include food, clothing, and temporary shelter.

He encouraged sailors to refrain from liquor and carousing while on leave. He also collected the sailors’ mail until a post office was established in 1851. Concerned with educating his seagoing flock, he collected books on spelling and arithmetic.

In 1886 a raging waterfront fire destroyed the Seamen’s Bethel, which was still Bethel Union’s home. The idea surfaced of combining Bethel Union, now without a home, with the well-established Fort Street Church (at what is now the ʻEwa Makai corner of Fort Street and Beretania at the top of the Fort Street Mall.)

In 1887 a formal merger of Bethel Union and Fort Street Church created Central Union Church, with 337 members. They first built a church across from Washington Place (1891,) then built the present Central Union in 1920.)

Perceiving a need for a newspaper, Damon founded ‘The Temperance Advocate and Seamen’s Friend’ (later reduced to ‘The Friend,’) which published local and world news, announcements, messages from the visiting sailors, and articles and sermons written by the chaplain himself. Printed regularly, the newspaper totaled an estimated one-half million copies over the years. (Watson)

The Friend described itself as the “Oldest Newspaper West of the Rockies” in the early 1900s; it was a monthly newspaper for seamen which included news from both American and English newspapers as well as announcements of upcoming events, reprints of sermons, poetry, local news, editorials, ship arrivals and departures and a listing of marriages and deaths.

In the mid-1800s, many professing Christians migrated to Hawaii from South China looking for a better life working on the Sugar Plantations. In February 1869, with the support of Damon, Sabbath Evening meetings for the Chinese were held under the guidance of Samuel Aheong, a Chinese plantation worker.

Aheong returned to China in 1870. Damon made the facilities of the Bethel Church available for Sunday afternoon services and personally taught a small group of Chinese English in a night school in the parish hall. (FirstChinese)

Samuel and his wife Julia visited missions overseas in Egypt and Syria. They also made a trip to the United States to observe the settlements in California. In 1849 revisited Holden during a trip to the centennial celebration in Philadelphia, to which he was a delegate.

Damon passed away in 1885 at the age of seventy and lies buried at O‘ahu Cemetery. Three years after his passing, his brother-in-law Samuel C Gale gave the citizens of Holden the beautiful Damon Memorial that housed both the Gale Free Library and the Holden High School. The library, said Gale in his dedicatory speech, was Damon’s inspiration.

Click the following link of a portrayal of Reverend Samuel Chenery Damon (portrayed by David C Farmer) as a Mission Houses Cemetery Pupu Theatre (recorded on cellphone, sound is weak:)

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The Seamen’s Bethel Chapel-1896

Bethel’s Church, Honolulu, Hawaii, founded in 1833 as Seamen’s Bethel Church

The_Friend_Building-approximate_location_of_Bethel_Chapel-926_Bethel_Street

January 16, 2018 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Missionaries Not Involved In The Overthrow

It is suggested that the overthrow of the Hawai‘i constitution monarchy was neither unexpected nor sudden.

Dissatisfaction with the rule of Kalākaua, and then Lili‘uokalani, initially led to the ‘Bayonet Constitution;’ then, the overthrow. Mounting dissatisfaction with government policies and private acts of officials led to the formation of the Hawaiian League, a group of Honolulu businessmen.

Missionary Period

Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period”,) about 184-men and women in twelve Companies served in Hawaiʻi to carry out the mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in the Hawaiian Islands.

There were no missionaries in the Islands after 1863 (the Missionary Period ended 30-years – a generation – before the overthrow).

At its General Meeting from June 3, 1863 to July 1, 1863, the Sandwich Islands Mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM) met to discuss the future of the Mission. They formed the “Board of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association.” (Missionary Papers, 1867)

“After twenty-one days of debate, the result was reached with perfect unanimity, and the Association agreed to assume the responsibility hitherto sustained by the Board (ABCFM).”

“This measure was consummated by the Board in the autumn following, and those stations no longer look to the American churches for management and control.” (Missionary Papers, 1867)

“The mission, having accomplished, through the blessing of God, the work specially appropriate to it as a mission, has been, as such, disbanded, and merged in the community.” (Rufus Anderson, Foreign Secretary of the ABCFM, 1863)

Rufus Anderson, Foreign Secretary of the ABCFM, wrote to inform Kamehameha IV of the Hawaiian Evangelical actions and dissolution of the mission in his July 6, 1863 letter, noting, in part:

“I may perhaps be permitted, in view of my peculiar relations to a very large body of the best friends and benefactors of this nation, not to leave without my most respectful aloha to both your Majesties.”

“The important steps lately taken in this direction are perhaps sufficiently indicated in the printed Address …. I am happy to inform your Majesty that the plan there indicated has since been adopted, and is now going into effect, — with the best influence, as I cannot doubt, upon the religious welfare of your people.”

“My visit to these Islands has impressed me, not only with the strength, but also with the beneficent and paternal character of your government. In no nation in Christendom is there greater security of person and property, or more of civil and religious liberty.”

“As to the progress of the nation in Christian civilization, I am persuaded, and shall confidently affirm on my return home, that the history of the Christian church and of nations affords nothing equal to it.”

“And now the Hawaiian Christian community is so far formed and matured, that the American Board ceases to act any longer as principal, and becomes an auxiliary, – merely affording grants in aid of the several departments of labor in building up the kingdom of Christ in these Islands, and also in the Islands of Micronesia.”

“Praying God to grant long life and prosperity to your Majesties, I am, with profound respect, Your Majesty’s obedient, humble servant, R. Anderson”

Some suggest there was a ‘Missionary Party’ – suggesting it was made up of missionaries. That is not true; there was no formal ‘Missionary Party’ – in fact, in part, “(native Hawaiians) sarcastically termed Americans ‘the Missionary Party.’” (LaFeber)

“By Missionary party is not meant that the members of it are missionaries, but that they are descendants of the early missionaries who went to the islands … The descendants are not missionaries, but are mostly politicians and business men.” (Honolulu Republican, Sept 19, 1901)

“An attempt has been made to try and call the Anglo-Saxon party, or better the commercial and agricultural party, the Missionary party, and papers abroad have been weak enough to be taken in by the claptrap.” (Hawaiian Gazette, August 23, 1882)

The Committee of Safety was made up of 6-Hawaiian citizens (naturalized or by birth,) 5-Americans, 1-Scotsman and 1-German. (They were all residents of Hawai‘i and registered voters. None were missionaries; only 3 of the 13 had any link to the American Protestant missionaries – one was grandson, 2 were sons of missionaries.)

One more correction to the many misconceptions … on January 17, 1893, the Hawai‘i constitutional monarchy was overthrown, not the Hawaiian race.

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1845 (May) - Feb 1893 The current Hawaiian flag introduced in 1845

January 12, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Not the Foreign Riffraff

“The coming of the missionaries was the real beginning of civilisation in the Islands. Up to 1820 the outside world had given the Hawaiians little beside trinkets, firearms, rum, and more expert methods of deceit.”

“Now it was to give to them their part in the civilisation of Western nations, to teach them that this involved the acceptance of new and higher ideals of conduct, of a religion to replace their outworn superstitions; that it meant a life regulated according to civilised law.”

“The missionaries undoubtedly went to Hawaii fired with the desire to save souls in danger of eternal damnation. They seem very quickly to have realised that wholesale baptism, misunderstood, was less important than a general quickening of spirit, a training in the decencies of life.”

“They never neglected the religious side of their teaching, but they also never neglected the secular side. They learned the Hawaiian language; they reduced it to writing and imported printing presses; they did their best as doctors and taught the elementary rules of health.”

“At first only permitted to land on sufferance, they soon became of prime importance to the chiefs, and were their advisers on almost all questions.”

“It is fair to them to say that if this function seemed an undue extension of their religious duties – and their severest critics never accuse them of anything else …”

“… they were the only foreigners in the Islands who would advise the chiefs impartially, and the only ones, moreover, who would have advised in such fashion as to save the dwindling remnants of the Hawaiian race.”

“They were pioneers seeking results in better men, not in riches for themselves; they were trying to give the people their own standards of decency and honour.”

“This soon resulted in bitter opposition from the foreign riffraff who infested the Islands, and especially from the ships that called more and more frequently.”

“It was the fixed belief of ship captains in those distant days that no laws, whether of God or man, were in force west of Cape Horn.”

“The call at Hawaii for water and provisions was most of all an opportunity for debauchery and unchecked crime. Hawaiian women were often captured and carried off on cruises to the North.”

“When a whaler appeared off the coast many of the native women fled to the mountains as their only sure protection. It is easy to understand, therefore, that when the King promulgated laws against immorality, laws evidently intended to be enforced …”

“… the whaling crews considered themselves cheated out of their rights and turned with rage against the missionaries, whom they correctly held to be responsible. In more than one instance brutal attacks were made on missionaries in isolated stations, who were saved only by the devoted natives.”

“It is sad to think that the commander of a United States frigate was among the most insolent in the demand for the repeal of these laws against vice, and that he permitted his men to attack both the house of a chief and the mission premises in Honolulu for the purpose of frightening the Government into submission.”

“Drink was carrying off the Hawaiians by hundreds, and when, in recognition of the danger, a heavy duty was laid on spirits, it was the commander of a French frigate who gave the King a few hours to decide whether he would abolish the duty or undertake a war with France.”

“These outrages and many others of a similar kind directed against efforts really to uplift the country were seconded by a party in Honolulu, a party, unfortunately, headed by the British consul who was for years allowed to retain his post in spite of repeated protests and requests for his removal on the part of the Hawaiian Government. …”

“(Kawaiaha‘o Church) is the impressive monument of the early missionary labour. It was dedicated in 1842 and was the royal chapel until the coming of the English Mission twenty years later.”

“Built of blocks of coral, it is in shape a rectangle. Over the main entrance is a low, square tower, which used to have an inappropriate wooden spire.”

“White, surrounded with huge algaroba trees, through the filmy leaves of which perpetual sun light plays, it typifies in its Puritanic dignity and rigorous simplicity the lasting work of its founders.”

“Behind it, in a cemetery as unpretentious as they were themselves, most of these founders are buried. Beyond, in the section of the town formerly known as the Mission, what remain of their houses are clustered.”

“One of these, the Cooke homestead, which was the first frame house built in the Islands, is now a missionary museum. The Castle homestead, greatly enlarged from the original, one-story plaster cottage”.

“Whatever one may think of missionary work in general, whatever absurd tales one may hear of the self-seeking of these particular missionaries …”

“… the imagination and the heart must be touched by this plain old church and these pathetic little old houses where, nearly a hundred years ago, a band of devoted men and women, desperately poor, separated by six months from home and friends, gave up their lives to what they believed was God’s work.”

“That their children and their grandchildren chose, most of them, to remain in this land of their birth and to enter secular life; that they have largely guided politics and business, has been a lasting blessing to the Islands.”

“Their presence only has made the people capable of becoming normally and naturally American citizens.” (All here is from Castle, 1913)

Jon Yasuda, who worked on the translation of the Ali‘i Letters Collection noted,

“The missionaries, when they came, they may have been the first group who came with a [united] purpose. They came together as a group and their purpose was to spread the Gospel the teachings of the Bible. …”

“But the missionaries who came, came with a united purpose … and literacy was a big part of that. Literacy was important to them because literacy was what was going to get the Hawaiians to understand the word of the Bible … and the written word became very attractive to the people, and there was a great desire to learn the written word. … Hawai‘i became the most literate nation at one time.”

Puakea Nogelmeier had a similar conclusion. In a remarks at a Hawaiian Mission Houses function he noted, “The missionary effort is more successful in Hawai‘i than probably anywhere in the world, in the impact that it has on the character and the form of a nation. And so, that history is incredible; but history gets so blurry …”

“The missionary success cover decades and decades becomes sort of this huge force where people feel like the missionaries got off the boat barking orders … where they just kind of came in and took over. They got off the boat and said ‘stop dancing,’ ‘put on clothes,’ don’t sleep around.’”

“And it’s so not the case ….”

“The Hawaiians had been playing with the rest of the world for forty-years by the time the missionaries came here. The missionaries are not the first to the buffet and most people had messed up the food already.”

“(T)hey end up staying and the impact is immediate. They are the first outside group that doesn’t want to take advantage of you, one way or the other, get ahold of their goods, their food, or your daughter. … But, they couldn’t get literacy. It was intangible, they wanted to learn to read and write”. (Puakea Nogelmeier)

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Hawaiian Mission Houses

December 29, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

John Fawcett Pogue

Maria Kapule Whitney was born October 19, 1820 to the Pioneer Company missionaries/teachers, Samuel and Mercy Whitney.

She was “the first haole girl to be born in the Hawaiian archipelago,” and named for Kauai Chiefess Kapule, wife of Kauai’s King Kaumualiʻi. Maria went to the mainland at the age of six to be educated. She graduated class of 1840 from Mt. Holyoke College.

John Fawcett Pogue son of William and Ruth Pogue, was born in Wilmington, Delaware on December 29, 1814. He graduated from Marietta College, 1840, and Lane Theological Seminary, 1843.

Ordained as a missionary minister on November 6, 1843, he was part of the 11th Company of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, sailing from Boston Harbor on December 4, 1843, arriving in the Islands on July 15, 1844. Maria Kapule Whitney was also part of the 11th Company and served as an educator.

Pogue, an active, eager young associate, first served at Kōloa, Kauai, until July, 1847, then he went to Kealakekua Bay.

John and Maria married on May 29, 1848. (They eventually had four children, Samuel Whitney 1849-1902; Jane Knox 1851-1932; Emily Elizabeth 1853-1910 and William Fawcett 1856-1952.)

Pogue was later assigned to lead Lahainaluna Seminary; he followed prior principals, Rev Lorrin Andrews, Rev Sheldon Dibble, Rev John S Emerson, Rev William P Alexander and Rev Timothy D Hunt. (Alexander)

The school had been established in 1831 by the American Protestant missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

It was dedicated to three major principles: 1) to train native men to become assistant teachers of the Christian religion; 2) to spread sound knowledge of literature and science to elevate the Hawaiian people from their present ignorance of these subjects; and 3) to qualify Hawaiians to be school teachers to their own people.

The school began with one teacher, the Reverend Lorrin Andrews, who was also its principal and a member of its board of directors. Four other ordained ministers made up the board.

The school followed the pattern of education in Head, Heart and Hand, with instruction in secular subjects, religious and moral training and also to teach technical subjects such as printing and methods of agriculture.

Not long after its opening, the school became a boarding school and began to earn a reputation as Hawaii’s most educational institution. It was called the Mission Seminary and one of its important objectives was to train Hawaiians for the ministry. (Joerger)

The pupils of the seminary were the most promising youth from fourteen to twenty years of age who could be selected from the schools of the islands. Tuition was free; but the pupils were obliged to provide their own food, which they did by cultivating a fine tract of taro land.

To the Hawaiian people this institution was a university, completing their education for school-teaching, for law practice and civil service, and for the ministry. (Alexander) Graduates of Lahainaluna began to fill their places in Hawaiian society.

In time the graduates of this one institution made up the Hawaiian Christian ministers, scholars, politicians, lawyers, government officials, and the like, who were directing much of the course of Hawaiian life in the Kingdom.

In 1849 the mission decided that it could no longer support completely Lahainaluna. In that year, the school came under the control of the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom. But the mission still preserved its influence over the curriculum and the selection of teachers.

Moreover, the school began to concentrate on secular subjects and to decrease its training for the ministry. This change was primarily undertaken because other seminaries then existed for the training of Hawaiians for the ministry.

Instead the curriculum continued to teach both academic subjects such as literature and science and theology and practical subjects such as bookkeeping and in the manual arts such as agriculture.

Reverend Pogue spent ten years as the principal of Lahainaluna, after he had spent many previous years there as a teacher. During his administration the main building was destroyed by fire.

And it is to the credit of the school and its standing in the Islands that while the Government provided the main support in money, the community responded with donations for the rebuilding project. Three new and elegant, convenient buildings were completed while the Reverend Pogue was still principal.

In 1865, a further change in the status of the school occurred when it was placed under the direction of the Board of Education. Lahainaluna then became an ordinary, government school. In 1866 Reverend Pogue ended his years as principal of the school. (Joerger)

Pogue then went to Waiohinu (1866-69) then later served as Secretary to the Hawaii Evangelical Association. Rev John F Pogue died suddenly of Bright’s disease (chronic inflammation of the kidneys), December 4, 1877, at Laramie, Wyoming, while on a trip to the US; in 1882 Maria and her family relocated to California. She died in Santa Clara on April 20, 1900.

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December 26, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The Aliʻi, the Missionaries and Hawaiʻi

On October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries from the northeast US, led by Hiram Bingham, set sail on the Thaddeus for the Hawaiian Islands.

Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period”,) about 180-men and women in twelve Companies served in Hawaiʻi to carry out the mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in the Hawaiian Islands.

Collaboration between native Hawaiians and the American Protestant missionaries resulted in, among other things, the introduction of Christianity, the creation of the Hawaiian written language, widespread literacy, the promulgation of the concept of constitutional government, making Western medicine available and the evolution of a new and distinctive musical tradition (with harmony and choral singing).

By the time the Pioneer Company arrived, Kamehameha I had died and the centuries-old kapu system had been abolished; through the actions of King Kamehameha II (Liholiho,) with encouragement by his father’s wives, Queens Kaʻahumanu and Keōpūolani (Liholiho’s mother,) the Hawaiian people had already dismantled their heiau and had rejected their religious beliefs.

The kapu system was the common structure, the rule of order, and religious and political code. This social and political structure gave leaders absolute rule and authority. In addition to the abolition of the old ways, Kaʻahumanu created the office of Kuhina Nui (similar to premier, prime minister or regent) and would rule as an equal with Liholiho – this started the shift from absolute rule to shared rule.

Introduction of Christianity

Within five years of the initial arrival of the missionaries, a dozen chiefs had sought Christian baptism and church membership, including the king’s regent Kaʻahumanu. The Hawaiian people followed their native leaders, accepting the missionaries as their new priestly class. (Schulz)

Kamakau noted of her baptism, “Kaʻahumanu was the first fruit of the Kawaiahaʻo church … for she was the first to accept the word of God, and she was the one who led her chiefly relations as the first disciples of God’s church.”

Creation of the Hawaiian Written Language

When Captain Cook first made contact with the Hawaiian Islands in 1778, Hawaiian was a spoken language but not a written language. Historical accounts were passed down orally, through oli (chants) and mele (songs.)

After Western contact and attempts to write about Hawaiʻi, early writers tried to spell words based on the sound of the words they heard. People heard words differently, so it was not uncommon for words to be spelled differently, depending on the writer.

In addition to preaching the gospel, one of the first things Bingham and his fellow missionaries did was begin to learn the Hawaiian language and create an alphabet for a written format of the language. The 12-letter we use today was established by the missionaries on July 14, 1826.

Widespread Literacy

The missionaries established schools associated with their missions across the Islands. This marked the beginning of Hawaiʻi’s phenomenal rise to literacy. The chiefs became proponents for education and edicts were enacted by the King and the council of Chiefs to stimulate the people to reading and writing.

By 1831, in just eleven years from the first arrival of the missionaries, Hawaiians had built over 1,100-schoolhouses. This covered every district throughout the eight major islands and serviced an estimated 53,000-students. (Laimana)

The proliferation of schoolhouses was augmented by the missionaries printing of 140,000-copies of the pī¬ʻāpā (elementary Hawaiian spelling book) by 1829 and the staffing of the schools with 1,000-plus Hawaiian teachers. (Laimana)

By 1853, nearly three-fourths of the native Hawaiian population over the age of sixteen years were literate in their own language. The short time span within which native Hawaiians achieved literacy is remarkable in light of the overall low literacy rates of the United States at that time. (Lucas)

Constitutional Government

King Kamehameha III asked missionary William Richards (who had previously been asked to serve as Queen Keōpūolani’s religious teacher) to become an advisor to the King as instructor in law, political economy and the administration of affairs generally.

Richards gave classes to King Kamehameha III and his Chiefs on the Western ideas of rule of law and economics. His decision to assist the King ultimately resulted in his resignation from the mission, when the ABCFM board refused to allow him to be in the mission while assisting the King.

Of his own free will, King Kamehameha III granted the Constitution of 1840, as a benefit to his country and people, that established his Government upon a declared plan. (Rex v. Booth – Hanifin)

That constitution introduced the innovation of representatives chosen by the people (rather than as previously solely selected by the Aliʻi.) This gave the common people a share in the government’s actual political power for the first time.

Western Medicine

Judd, a doctor by training, had originally come to the islands to serve as the missionary physician. While in that role, Judd set up part of the basement in the Mission House as a Western medicine pharmacy and doctor’s office, beginning in 1832.

Judd wrote the first medical book in the Hawaiian language and later formed the first medical school in the Islands. Ten students were accepted when it opened in 1870, all native Hawaiians (the school had a Hawaiians-only admissions policy.)

Later (when Richards was sent on a diplomatic mission to the US and Europe to recognize the rights of a sovereign Hawaiʻi,) King Kamehameha III asked missionary Gerrit P Judd to resign from the mission and serve as his advisor and translator.

Distinctive Musical Tradition

Another lasting legacy left by the missionaries in the Islands related to music. Some songs were translations of Western songs into Hawaiian; some were original verse and melody.

Oli and mele were already a part of the Hawaiian tradition. “As the Hawaiian songs were unwritten, and adapted to chanting rather than metrical music, a line was measured by the breath; their hopuna, answering to our line, was as many words as could be easily cantilated at one breath.” (Bingham)

Missionaries used songs as a part of the celebration, as well as learning process. “At this period, the same style of sermons, prayers, songs, interrogations, and exhortations, which proves effectual in promoting revivals of religion, conversion, or growth in grace among a plain people in the United States, was undoubtedly adapted to be useful at the Sandwich Islands. … some of the people who sat in darkness were beginning to turn their eyes to the light”. (Bingham)

“In view of the fact that the best modern Hawaiian music, now known the world over, owes much to the musical form of these early hymns, one wishes that history had been less restrained. Yet, even in default of any direct, consecutive record, one may piece out quite a little of the story of Hawaiian hymns from references in early letters and accounts of their printing.”

“And when one has the good fortune to touch with one’s own hands many of the early songbooks printed in Hawaiian, the search toward a complete account of them becomes a fascinating pursuit.” (Wilcox; Damon The Friend, March 1935)

“When our Protestant missionaries came to hymnody in Hawaiian – as they very soon did – they reared a natural superstructure upon this rich and rhythmical foundation of the Bible. It was a veritable treasure house.”

“But strangely, too, another very deep-seated source of balance and rhythm and figured speech flowed in the cultural consciousness of the Hawaiian people to whom these new Christian messages were being brought. Instinct in the Hawaiian mode of thought was the impulse and the act of prayer, of supplication, of praise.” (Wilcox; Damon The Friend, March 1935)

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