--- title: First Foreigners — Hawaiian Historical Legends · full text with trees description: First Foreigners, «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: It is said that the Chinese gave to the clove the name “Thengki”—“the sweet-scented nail.” --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/11/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Hawaiian Historical Legends](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/) / First Foreigners # First Foreigners First Foreigners of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt: the whole text, 111 sentences and 1588 words. The small number after every sentence leads to its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself. It is said that the Chinese gave to the clove the name “Thengki”—“the sweet-scented nail.”[1](1/ "tree and pragmatics") When the clove came to Rome, the haughty lovers of spices exclaimed “clavus”—“a nail.”[2](2/ "tree and pragmatics") The English made a slight change and said “clove.”[3](3/ "tree and pragmatics") Solomon, the wise, and King Hiram, the Phœnician, sent fleets on voyages of long duration.[4](4/ "tree and pragmatics") Their ships returned from these voyages laden with the fragrant products of the spice lands.[5](5/ "tree and pragmatics") Marco Polo rehearsed the abundant aromas of the Orient as well as the gold and jewels and silks.[6](6/ "tree and pragmatics") Columbus, in 1492, went west that he might find more ready access to these eastern riches.[7](7/ "tree and pragmatics") The spice islands lay somewhere in a great ocean toward the sunset from Spain, provided the world was round, as Columbus argued.[8](8/ "tree and pragmatics") Balboa must have wished for a Nicaraguan or Panama Canal when he carried timbers across the isthmus and built a ship on the Pacific coast to explore the new ocean which he had discovered.[9](9/ "tree and pragmatics") In 1513 he launched his little ship, intending to find the oriental riches, if possible.[10](10/ "tree and pragmatics") In October of the year 1527, three Spanish ships were “fitted out” by Cortez.[11](11/ "tree and pragmatics") They set sail from Zacatula, Mexico, for the Molucca Islands.[12](12/ "tree and pragmatics") One only, under the command of Saavedra, reached its destination.[13](13/ "tree and pragmatics") A fierce storm drove the little squadron far north of the ordinary route, and swept two of the ships out of the record of history.[14](14/ "tree and pragmatics") Alexander says: “It seems certain that a foreign vessel which was wrecked about this time on the Kona coast of Hawaii must have been one of Saavedra’s missing ships.”[15](15/ "tree and pragmatics") From this ship a white man and woman escaped.[16](16/ "tree and pragmatics") After reaching the beach they knelt for a long time in prayer.[17](17/ "tree and pragmatics") The Hawaiians, watching them, waited until they rose, and received welcome.[18](18/ "tree and pragmatics") The place was at once named “Kulou”—“kneeling.”[19](19/ "tree and pragmatics") Through all the succeeding years the name kept the story of the wrecked white chiefs before the Hawaiian people.[20](20/ "tree and pragmatics") The Hawaiians received their white visitors as honoured guests, and permitted them to marry into noted chief-families.[21](21/ "tree and pragmatics") In the Hawaiian legends the man and woman are called brother and sister.[22](22/ "tree and pragmatics") The man was named Ku-kana-loa.[23](23/ "tree and pragmatics") Their descendants were well known, one of them being a governor of the island of Kauai.[24](24/ "tree and pragmatics") These white citizens came to the islands in the reign of Ke-alii-o-ka-loa, who was born about A.D.[25](25/ "tree and pragmatics") 1500, and became a king of Hawaii about A.D.[26](26/ "tree and pragmatics") 1525.[27](27/ "tree and pragmatics") There seems to be scarcely a trace of the Spanish language or of the Christian religion as practiced by the Spaniards.[28](28/ "tree and pragmatics") The nearest approach to any permanent influence possibly coming from this shipwrecked man is the statement made to a chief by a native prophet long before the islands were discovered by Captain Cook, that from his predecessors he had learned the prophecy: “A communication would be made to them from Heaven, the place of the real God, entirely different from anything they had known and that the tabu of the country would be subverted.”[29](29/ "tree and pragmatics") The Hawaiian traditions have several references to foreigners coming to the islands.[30](30/ "tree and pragmatics") Pau-makua, of Oahu, was one of the Vikings of the Pacific during the twelfth century.[31](31/ "tree and pragmatics") He is recorded as visiting many foreign lands.[32](32/ "tree and pragmatics") He brought priests to Oahu.[33](33/ "tree and pragmatics") Judge Fornander suggests that quite possibly these were Indians from the American coast.[34](34/ "tree and pragmatics") Professor Alexander, in his “History of Hawaii,” thinks there is scarcely sufficient foundation for the suggestion.[35](35/ "tree and pragmatics") However, Pau-makua and his journeys are accepted as part of Hawaiian history.[36](36/ "tree and pragmatics") In the thirteenth century “the white chief with the iron knife” was wrecked on the coast of the island of Maui, near the village Wailuku.[37](37/ "tree and pragmatics") Three men and two women were saved.[38](38/ "tree and pragmatics") Wakalana, a chief, took his outrigger canoe through the surf and rescued them.[39](39/ "tree and pragmatics") These persons are supposed to have been Japanese.[40](40/ "tree and pragmatics") The captain of the ship carried a long sword which became renowned throughout the islands as “the wonderful iron knife.”[41](41/ "tree and pragmatics") It was a tremendously effective weapon, when matched with wooden daggers and war clubs.[42](42/ "tree and pragmatics") King Kalakaua relates the amplified legend and chant in his “Myths and Legends of Hawaii,” and in imagination pictures some of the battles fought and trades made for the possession of the iron knife.[43](43/ "tree and pragmatics") The Hawaiians came from all parts to see these remarkable strangers.[44](44/ "tree and pragmatics") They were astonished to see the women eat the same kinds of food, and from the same dishes as the men.[45](45/ "tree and pragmatics") “Nothing was tabu to the strangers.”[46](46/ "tree and pragmatics") This was entirely new to Hawaiian ideas.[47](47/ "tree and pragmatics") Another legend mentions a foreign ship, called Ulupano, and the captain was remembered as Malolano.[48](48/ "tree and pragmatics") It is supposed that the ship soon sailed away.[49](49/ "tree and pragmatics") Other hints are found of ships having been seen out on the ocean by fishing parties who had gone far from land.[50](50/ "tree and pragmatics") These ships were called moku \[islands\], the name used to the present day.[51](51/ "tree and pragmatics") There are undoubted proofs of the discovery of the Hawaiian Islands in 1555 by the Spaniard, Juan Gaetano.[52](52/ "tree and pragmatics") This is the first known record of the islands among the civilised nations.[53](53/ "tree and pragmatics") There are evident references to this group in the legends of the Polynesians in other Pacific islands.[54](54/ "tree and pragmatics") Gaetano passed through the northern part of the Pacific and discovered large islands which he marked upon a chart as “Los Majos.”[55](55/ "tree and pragmatics") The great mountains upon these islands did not rise in sharp peaks, but spread out like a high tableland in the clouds, hence he also called the islands “Isles de Mesa,” the Mesa Islands or the Table Lands.[56](56/ "tree and pragmatics") One of the islands was named “The Unfortunate.”[57](57/ "tree and pragmatics") Three other smaller islands were called “The Monks.”[58](58/ "tree and pragmatics") Le Perouse, the celebrated Frenchman who visited Hawaii in A.D.[59](59/ "tree and pragmatics") 1796, says that Gaetano saw these islands “with their naked savages, cocoanuts and other fruits, but no gold or silver.”[60](60/ "tree and pragmatics") There was nothing attractive, and the wealth-loving Spaniard marked the islands on his chart and never visited them again.[61](61/ "tree and pragmatics") So the record lay for many years.[62](62/ "tree and pragmatics") This record, kept in Spain’s archives, is now accepted as marking the real discovery of the Hawaiian Islands.[63](63/ "tree and pragmatics") Meanwhile, the Hawaiians were as completely ignorant of the rest of the world as if no civilised eyes had ever seen their mountains.[64](64/ "tree and pragmatics") They offered each other as human sacrifices; they fought for supremacy.[65](65/ "tree and pragmatics") They died at the will of their chiefs.[66](66/ "tree and pragmatics") They lived almost as lustfully as the brutes.[67](67/ "tree and pragmatics") They had nothing that could be called a home, with an affectionate household gathered inside its walls.[68](68/ "tree and pragmatics") They ate, and slept, and died.[69](69/ "tree and pragmatics") They entered with zeal into the national sports as well as into the national quarrels.[70](70/ "tree and pragmatics") They chanted their genealogies and personal prowess.[71](71/ "tree and pragmatics") The art of sailing long distances by the aid of the stars had fallen into disuse.[72](72/ "tree and pragmatics") The age of the Western Vikings had passed by.[73](73/ "tree and pragmatics") For three or four hundred years no voyagers had found their way to foreign lands.[74](74/ "tree and pragmatics") Then some time in the early part of the eighteenth century a king of Oahu involuntarily made a journey which was celebrated as a part of his genealogical chant.[75](75/ "tree and pragmatics") The entire “mele,” or song, stretches out to about six hundred lines.[76](76/ "tree and pragmatics") It is an interesting poem filled with graphic references to people and places, to winds and seas, and to birds and fishes.[77](77/ "tree and pragmatics") In this chant the king of Oahu relates his strange experience on the ocean.[78](78/ "tree and pragmatics") Fornander quotes the poem in his “Polynesian Race”:[79](79/ "tree and pragmatics") CHANT OF KU-ALII (KU—THE CHIEF)[80](80/ "tree and pragmatics") “O Kahiki, land of the far reaching ocean.[81](81/ "tree and pragmatics") Within is the land—outside is the sun, Indistinct are the sun and the land when approaching.[82](82/ "tree and pragmatics") Perhaps you have seen it.[83](83/ "tree and pragmatics") I have seen it.[84](84/ "tree and pragmatics") I have surely seen Kahiki.[85](85/ "tree and pragmatics") “A land with a strange language is Kahiki.[86](86/ "tree and pragmatics") The men of Kahiki have ascended The backbone of heaven (mountains) Up there they trample down, They look down on those below.[87](87/ "tree and pragmatics") Men of our race are not in Kahiki.[88](88/ "tree and pragmatics") One kind of men is in Kahiki—the white man.[89](89/ "tree and pragmatics") He is like a god.[90](90/ "tree and pragmatics") I am like a man, A man, indeed.[91](91/ "tree and pragmatics") “Wandering about, the only Hawaiian there.[92](92/ "tree and pragmatics") Days and nights passing by.[93](93/ "tree and pragmatics") By morsels was the food.[94](94/ "tree and pragmatics") Picking the food like a bird.[95](95/ "tree and pragmatics") Listen, O bird of Victory\![96](96/ "tree and pragmatics") Hush, with whom was the victory?[97](97/ "tree and pragmatics") With Ku, indeed.”[98](98/ "tree and pragmatics") The chant states that the king was “wandering about,” probably driven by the winds far south from the islands.[99](99/ "tree and pragmatics") He and his oarsmen were almost starving.[100](100/ "tree and pragmatics") The food became “morsels,” or only enough for a bird to “pick up.”[101](101/ "tree and pragmatics") But Ku—the chief—won the victory over the ocean.[102](102/ "tree and pragmatics") He went to the “foreign land.”[103](103/ "tree and pragmatics") He found the white man’s home, where the “land was ‘within,’” i.e., lying to the east, with the sun “outside,” i.e., westward over the waters, most of the day.[104](104/ "tree and pragmatics") Perhaps the misty mountains concealed the sun until the forenoon was far spent.[105](105/ "tree and pragmatics") He saw “the land of the far-reaching ocean,” and returned in safety to Oahu.[106](106/ "tree and pragmatics") “With Ku—the chief—indeed was the victory.”[107](107/ "tree and pragmatics") Judge Fornander says: “It is probable that some Spanish galleons picked up Ku and his companions, carried them to Acapulco, Mexico, and brought them back on the return voyage.”[108](108/ "tree and pragmatics") In 1743, Lord Anson, of the British ship Centurion, captured a Spanish ship near the Philippine Islands, and found a chart locating a group of islands in the North Pacific—the same group that Gaetano discovered in 1555.[109](109/ "tree and pragmatics") This chart, and the story of Lord Anson’s voyage, were almost certainly known by Captain Cook, who made three voyages through the Pacific.[110](110/ "tree and pragmatics") XI[111](111/ "tree and pragmatics") - ← previous: [Laa From Tahiti](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/10/) - next →: [Captain Cook](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/12/) - ↑ back to [Hawaiian Historical Legends](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/)