... I have
nowhere seen such tenderness lavished upon infants as
upon the pet dogs that the women carry about with
them."
HAWAIIAN MORALS
Hawaiians did not treat women as brutally as Fijians do; yet how far
they were from respecting, not to speak of adoring, them, is obvious
from the contemptuous and selfish taboos which forbade women, on
penalty of death, to eat any of the best and commonest articles of
food, such as bananas, cocoanuts, pork, turtle; or refused them
permission to eat with their lords and masters, or to share in divine
worship, because their touch would pollute the offerings to the gods.
The grossness of the Hawaiian erotic taste is indicated by "Haeole's"
reference (123) to "the immense corpulency of some of the old Hawaiian
queens, a feature which, in those days, was deemed the _ne plus ultra_
of female beauty." Incest was permitted to the chiefs, and the people
vied with their rulers in the grossest sensuality.
"Nearly every night, with the gathering darkness,
crowds would retire to some favorite spot, where, amid
every species of sensual indulgence, they would revel
until the morning twilight" (412).
"In Hawaii, whether the woman was married or single,
she would have been thought very churlish and boorish
if she refused any favor asked by a male friend of the
family,"
says E.
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