The "Big Island", Lono, Capt. Cook and Sam Clemens

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The Sacramento Daily Union, September 22, 1866
Kealakekua Bay, July, 1866
THE ROMANTIC GOD LONO
I have been writing a good deal, of late, about the great god Lono and Captain Cook's personation of him. Now, while I am here in Lono's home, upon ground which his terrible feet have trodden in remote ages - unless these natives lie, and they would hardly do that, I suppose - I might as well tell who he was.
The idol the natives worshipped for him was a slender, unornamented staff twelve feet long. Unpoetical history says he was a favorite god on the island of Hawaii - a great king who had been deified for meritorious services - just our own fashion of rewarding heroes, with the difference that we would have made him a Postmaster instead of a god, no doubt. In an angry moment he slew his wife, a goddess named Kaikilani Alii. Remorse of conscience drove him mad, and tradition presents us the singular spectacle of a god traveling "on the shoulder;" for in his gnawing grief he wandered about from place to place boxing ant wrestling with all whom he met. Of course this pastime soon lost its novelty, inasmuch as it must necessarily have been the case that when so powerful a deity sent a frail human opponent "to grass" he never came back any more. Therefore, he instituted games called makahiki, and ordered that they should be held in his honor, and then sailed for foreign lands on a three-cornered raft, stating that he would return some day, and that was the last of Lono. He was never seen any more; his raft got swamped, perhaps. But the people always expected his return, and they were easily led to accept Captain Cook as the restored god.
THE POETIC TRADITION
But there is another tradition which is rather more poetical than this bald historical one. Lono lived in considerable style up here on the hillside. His wife was very beautiful, and he was devoted to her. One day he over heard a stranger proposing an elopement to her, and without waiting to hear her reply he took the stranger's life and then upbraided Kaikilani so harshly that her sensitive nature was wounded to the quick. She went away in tears, and Lono began to repent of his hasty conduct almost before she was out of sight. He sat him down under a cocoanut tree to await her return, intending to receive her with such tokens of affection and contrition as should restore her confidence and drive all sorrow from her heart. But hour after hour winged its tardy flight and yet she did not come. The sun went down and left him desolate. His all-wise instincts may have warned him that the separation was final, but he hoped on, nevertheless, and when the darkness was heavy he built a beacon fire at his door to guide the wanderer home again, if by any chance she had lost her way. But the night waxed and waned and brought another day, but not the goddess. Lono hurried forth and sought her far and wide, but found no trace of her. At night he set his beacon fire again and kept lone watch, but still she came not; and a new day found him a despairing, broken-hearted god. His misery could no longer brook suspense and solitude, and he set out to look for her. He told his sympathizing people he, was going to search through all the island world for the lost light of his household and he would never come back any more till he found her. The natives always implicitly believed that he was still pursuing his patient quest and that he would find his peerless spouse again some day, and come back; and so, for ages they waited and watched in trusting simplicity for his return. They gazed out wistfully over the sea at any strange appearance on its waters, thinking it might be their loved and lost protector. But Lono was to them as the rainbow-tinted future seen in happy visions of youth - for he never came.
Some of the old natives believed Cook was Lono to the day of their death; but many did not, for they could not understand how he could die if he was a god.
THE FIELD OF THE VANQUISHED GODS
Only a mile or so from Kealakekua Bay is a spot of historic interest - the place where the last battle was fought for idolatry. Of course we visited it and came away as wise as most people do who go and gaze upon such mementoes of the past when in an unreflective mood.
While the first missionaries were on their way around the Horn, the idolatrous customs which had obtained in the islands as far back as tradition reached were suddenly broken up. Old Kamehameha I was dead, and his son, Liholiho, the new King, was a free liver, a roystering, dissolute fellow, and hated the restraints of the ancient tabu. His assistant in the Government, Kaahumanu, the Queen dowager, was proud and high-spirited, and hated the tabu because it restricted the privileges of her sex and degraded all women very nearly to the level of brutes. So the case stood. Liholiho had half a'mind to put his foot down Kaahumanu had a whole mind to badger him into doing it, and whisky did the rest. It was probably the first time whisky ever prominently figured as an aid to civilization. Liholiho came up to Kailua as drunk as a piper, and attended a great feast; the determined Queen spurred his drunken courage up to a reckless pitch, and then, while all the multitude stared in blank dismay, he moved deliberately forward and sat down with the women! They saw him eat from the same vessel with them, and were appalled! Terrible moments drifted slowly by, and still the King ate, still he lived, still the lightnings of the insulted gods were withheld! Then conviction came like a revelation - the superstitions of a hundred generations passed from before the people like a cloud, and a shout went up,
"The tabu is broken! the tabu is broken!"
Thus did King Liholiho and his dreadful whisky preach the first sermon and prepare the way for the new gospel that was speeding southward over the waves of the Atlantic.
The tabu broken and destruction failing to follow the awful sacrilege, the people, with that childlike precipitancy which has always characterized them, jumped to the conclusion that their gods were a weak and wretched swindle, just as they formerly jumped to the conclusion that Captain Cook was no god, merely because he groaned, and promptly killed him without stopping to inquire whether a god might not groan as well as a man if it suited his pleasure to do it; and satisfied that the idols were powerless to protect themselves they went to work at once and pulled them down - hacked them to pieces - applied the torch - annihilated them!
The pagan priests were furious. And well they might be; they had held the fattest offices in the land, and now they were beggared; they had been great - they had stood above the chiefs - and now they were vagabonds. They raised a revolt; they scared a number of people into joining their standard, and Kekuokalani, an ambitious offshoot of royalty, was easily persuaded to become their leader.
In the first skirmish the idolaters triumphed over the royal army sent against them, and full of confidence they resolved to march upon Kailua. The King sent an envoy to try and conciliate them, and came very near being an envoy short by the operation; the savages not only refused to listen to him, but wanted to kill him. So the King sent his men forth under Major General Kalaimoku and the two hosts met at Kuamoo. The battle was long and fierce - men and women fighting side by side, as was the custom - and when the day was done the rebels were flying in every direction in hopeless panic, and idolatry and the tabu were dead in the land!
The royalists matched gayly home to Kailua glorifying the new dispensation. "There is no power in the gods," said they; "they are a vanity and a lie. The army with idols was weak; the army without idols was strong and victorious!" The nation was without a religion.
The missionary ship arrived in safety shortly afterward, timed by providential exactness to meet the emergency, and the gospel was planted as in a virgin soil.

Fijian Coup

I just loved running aground within the leads of Suva, Fiji, Harbor! You would think their government, which was commonwealth sponsored by New Zealand, a prisoner of Mother England, a nation of great sailors and discoverer/conquerors of the unknown world in it's day! Notice my blogs real title? Captain Cook Rules!! So Guinevere, a faro cement, ketch, built in Bluff N.Z. 7'6" draft, full keel, steel ballasted, one yard wide runs aground weighing in at "40" tons, something has to move! Or go and it was never Guinevere. We ran aground five times and always got off with no damage to the boat but much damage to whatever was in our way. It wasn't a power trip, it was weight, gravity, inertia and no brakes! That would be a great invention? Brakes on a boat! A drogue is a type of brake as is a sea Anchor, but running aground is always a problem, especially for fiberglass! Wouldn't a sky hook be awesome? Anyway , I wander, Even with updated charts , radio, etc., it is hard to keep up with what the weather has done with channels and fluid rivers washing silt into traffic channels which sometimes need to be dredged. That was this case. Shit, we wanted a beer! We had already come ashore illegally, without clearing customs to buy cigarettes and a case of quarts of Fijian Bitters!! Anyway we got a friendly tug-boat to tow us off the sand bar we were hard on for a qt. of scotch! I said we were out of beer not out of alcohol! I'll tell you a story later of how and why we never ran out of alcohol!! So we are off and now moored at the Yacht club. Suva is a fun place unless you are sleeping at the stadium on the night that the Indians from India decide they HAVE had enough of the Fijians from Fifi who now are a minority in their own country and are over-run by the third generation of born and raised Indians from India. The only reason I speak of the Indians from India is so you don't think of the Indians from America that slew General George Armstrong Custer!! It really was an honorary rank. He was lucky to be a colonel during the civil war. Why do they call it the civil war? I would think it would be called " The Un-civil War "! That's like Civil Disobedience! There is nothing civil about disobedience! Sorry I rant! An American girl and I were sleeping ( yea right ) at the stadium in downtown Suva which happens to be right next to Government House. The riot was quick and efficient and got the job done because the next morning the Indians from India had a controlliung voice in the politics of Figian government. Can you imagine a group of people coming into your country and breeding like rabbits so that by the third generation their vote is the voice to be listened to! Amazing or what? Duh? Habla English?

Sailor of life itself

I have made many mistakes! And yet I have made none! Traveling distances dosen't make one wiser or more filled with a truth or a triumph; and yet! It does! Sailing is one of the greatest teachers of things, places and relationships. I have sailed hard to get to places with uncomplecated people and also sailed easy to get to places with very complex people! So what? Here is the what and the how about it! Paul Hogan, a golfer, said "I can play 18 holes of golf with a person and know him better than a so-called friend and neighbor I have known for many years"! I paraphrased that for the reason that over the course of a " 24 " hour commitment, day after day with your sailing family, you begin to know each other on a level way beyond how you are familiar with your next door neighbor. So here are some thoughts I would love to describe to you. !) People are great- governments suck! 2) Currency like passports are transitory ! They also fluctuate at the whim of whatever or whoever is popular at the moment! ( In Vogue ) 3) When all else fails bring t-shirts and levi's and you can barter! 4) Introduce your captain ( even if you are him ) by the best orator you have aboard! It has to do with tradition and is guranteed to get the results your vessel needs to survive in a world that has nothing to do with N.York or L.A. They really don't care! 5) Always , when clearing customs turn in a big gun! That way they know you have a small gun hidden on your boat to protect your family and they are totally cool with that. It really is about face or the losing of face! I sailed with one skipper who turned in his cat ( a real cat ) and shotgun ( a real shotgun ) and showed me a secret compartment that he kept a " 45" for emergencies. But only to protect his family! Does any of this make sense? It does to me and to other sailor's who have travelled through these cunt-ries! In the Solomoms we paid a"Light Fee" of $ 110.00. For what? We had charts that showed the positions of the 21 lights that the U.S. had built and provisioned to be maintained for perpetuity! We paid the didge but found only one working light! I'm not complaining, I'm only bringing to your attention how exciting it was and is that we here in America profess to have no graft or bribes or corruption and yet we hide it so well! I prefer a country that is what it says it is and does what it says it will do! Don't you? This is a big laugh for me and I will treasure your thoughts if you can relate to what I'm saying! Governments suck, People are wonderful!!!! It is a great Ocean out there, I hope you find the time of your life spending some it on vessels. islands and continents that bring to you the joy that it, so far, has delivered to my porch! Until our next voyage, Aloha Pumehana. Robbin

Proper Course: Tillerman's Top Ten Blogs of 2009

Proper Course: Tillerman's Top Ten Blogs of 2009

ahhh Fanning Island (atoll)

What a strange place! Shaped like the letter C we sailed into the mouth of the C. What I would learn later is that inside a lot of atolls in the Pacific Ocean are lagoons. Shallow, colorful and filled with unique life forms that defy descriptions. The entry ( the gap that makes a c a c ) between tides is in stasis. Great diving until the ebb or flood creats a current kind of like when you flush your toilet in your very own bathroom ( head-nautical)! Try and swim-motor against that! Really. In fact, the four-hundred and fifty people on Fanning Island have pier-end port-0-pottys that drop directly into the inside of the lagoon. So the out going tide is one big toilet flush. I heard you go UUUHHHHHHH! Don't do that. All mordern sailboats now have a "y" valve that is locked when you are slipped! At sea you may pump human waste through hull but not in port. Chum? When you are on a sailboat with 8-10 people aboard it requires a lot of pumping to get all the waste underboard-outboard so you may begin the same process again on the manana! The reason I am spending time with this crap is that Mark and I surfed perfect four foot waves just outside of the entry into Fanning. We had brought our surfboards and happened to catch a great little swell which Judy, Marks young lady, took some pictures of. It reminded me of small Bobo's on Kauai. If you weren't careful your fin would touch bottom and there were a couple of spots where you had to use the face of the wave to go above and around a reef obstickle. Reef sharks were plentiful but it didn't bother one of the guys off of Ginseng, Ben's boat! He body surfed with Mark and I. No kidding, sharks o'plenty! Reminded me of Pakala ( infinities ) on Kauai! Maybe if we're lucky Judy will send me one of the pictures she took that day and I'll post it! I'm sure the poop in the water at Fanning killed Ben. He was a Congressional Medal of Honor holder from Korea. Special to me because my parents were married there and I was conceived in Korea. Had to mention that. Ben got a staff infection. Mark got a similar infection. Ben died in American Samoa. The infection had entered into his bones and they could not quench the fire and it consumed him. His boat "Ginseng", that he had built with his own hands sold ( I heard ) for 25 large! Mark lived. To this day I'm sure Mark survived because Mark had Judy to insist that he apply proper medication and because Mark had surfed and was very aware of how damaging coral infections especially in the conditions I have mentioned above can be! Mark had surfed Mexico and survived Montezoma's Revenge!!! He didn't rebel against medicating a cut that seemed so small having a wisdom and a sense of self-survival that I beleive Ben didn't have or had forgetten! He actually said on Fanning, " It's just a small infection, it will pass!" Shoot, Fanning's only access to the outside world is a barge that brings supplies three times a year from Tarawa! The island's radio isn't as good as Sea Rover's Ham!! Shiza! I liked Ben but could not have sailed with him. Kindest and wisest man you could ever speak with on land but he kept us awake at night belittling in very loud phrases his crew day in and day out. I'll bet you even he was surprised that it was staff infection instead of Davey Jones that got him and of all places, Pago Pago, Samoa.

We missed Christmas

Just by inches on a chart did " Sea Rover" miss Christmas!! How can one miss an Island in broad daylight that you are looking at? The same way that you can find an atoll by it's reflection on the bottom of a cloud formatiom giving you a heading towards an object in the middle of no where that has an elevation of 4' at it's highest point! Anyone who has sailed the "South Seas" knows that a current runs fast above and below the "Equator" fluctuating between four degrees north and south moving about four to six knots parallel to th equatorial line! So we, on Sea Rover, a Cullen Archer, double ended, norweigian keel, faro-cement, slutter; unwilling to start the Yan-mar to over heat our feet on a teak deck that was already drying out from lack of any moisture due to the prevalent weather written about by every sailor who has managed to bypass the conditions required to get from a northern to southern or vise versa, decided to head for Fanning Island!!!! Screw Christmas, Bah, Humbug! So. Mark and Judy and Corrine and Skuppers decided to flow back to Fanning. I'm glad we did. I hadn't realized how many ships had run aground on Christmas! Now, I can see why and how. My next small story will be about Fanning Island. We stayed there awhile and learned much.

Lanai Or " Bust "

A friend or so it seemed for so many years has died. July 6th, 2009. Now that he is gone I will speak about him. Some will say " You should not speak un-well of the dead", but I say now is the time to speak the truth about a friendship that I carried a lot longer than he due to the resentment towards me that laid buried under a guilt-ridden, so-called weakness of the moment; an action he considered un-manly, that festered like a bodily wound unattended until it had absorbed his very self in regards to me! Whereas now, and for years that I had no knowledge of, instead of friend ( out loud ) He thought of me ( secretly ) as his enemy! And yet not I! But the infection from an event which I am about to explain that shaped his thoughts and ideas forming a complete understanding of what went wrong off Lanai that night! We'd been working on a " Block Island " 45' ketch (49' from bowsprit to bumkin )spending all we had in dry dock on Oahu. It was time to see if this boat could sail! The year was 1971, early. I had just sold my resturant ( I had partners ) The Rice Mill, Hanalei, Kauai. Larry, Bob and I decided to sail to Maui. The trouble began when the wind picked up ( with swells ).....Here is where skippers are good but they are capable of making bad decisions! In the course of sailing across the Molokai Channel ( one of the reasons America Cup potential racing challengers practice there ) the potential for diverse wind and swell configerations was beyond us with our limited sailing experiences. Years later Eddie Aikau ( someone Larry and I both knew ) drowned or disappeared off these islands going for help. This was a terrible thing. Larry and I can remember when they established the first life guard station at Waimea Bay, Oahu. Eddie told us ( he was the life guard ) that we could no longer body-surf Waimea shorebreak ) We were pissed!!! We had 5 people aboard when we left " The Ala Wai " Boat Harbour! After that, the swells, thunder and lightning and wind were so horrific that we had to shorten sail! Easy for me to say now that I have sailed half the Earth! How does one shorten sail? But then, to be a novice, a babe and to have the entire known forces of nature, a swirling lighthouse that appeared to be 6' away, hearing the pounding surf on shores that I could see the white mists of battered water rising as vapor and falling again to return to the rocks on shore that had carved into a slow or sometimes rapid oblivion the lives of not only the sailors aboard but the dreams of the builders themselves to die in the open ocean or on a foriegn shore never to know or be known the unrealised dreams of all who chance like the roll of the dice, that from the " greatest unknown ", we all who sailed that day would find ourselves on many a distant shore! I'll never forget and either did Larry! How he looked me square in the eyes and said," Mairum and I are going below. The ship is yours and Bob's. If we arrive at a safe destination I will sign over title as I never want to sail again as long as I live!" So there you have it. Larry went on to sail many boats. He sailed " the New Carthigianian" from Sweden to Lahaina. He got his skippers licencse including a "six pack" running tourists down the Napali Coastline on Kauai!!! I purchased that package! I'll never be able to tell anyone how special Larry Byfield is to me! But he is my friend. No matter what he has said or thought about me. You see people the truth about all things is this. It is that love is a one way thing. Love is given without the thought of receiving. I gave Larry Byfield, my friendship! Whatever came back is a blessing! He was so afraid that I would tell someone that in a crisis situation he had broken down! That would suggest that I never had! Shit!!! I have seen grown men cry when they face their own demise! So Larry died. He is my friend. I wish he would have returned my calls!