by W. D. Westervelt · 1915
Fantasy · Classics
Hawaiian myths and legends of gods, ghosts and spirits, collected and translated from Hawaiian sources by W. D. Westervelt.
Content note: Collected and retold in the early 1900s by a European-American writer, so the framing and some terms are of his time. Some tales include violence and death.
THE GHOST OF WAHAULA TEMPLE
Hawaiian temples were never works of art. Broken lava was always near the site upon which a temple was to be built. Rough unhewn stones were easily piled into massive walls and laid in terraces for altar and floors. Water-worn pebbles were carried from the nearest beach and strewn over the uneven floor, making a comparatively smooth place over which the naked feet of the temple dwellers passed without the injuries which would otherwise frequently come from the sharp-edged lava. Rude grass huts built on terraces were the abodes of the priests and of the high chiefs who sometimes visited the places of sacrifice. Elevated, flat-topped piles of stones were usually built at one end of the temple for the chief idols and the sacrifices placed before them. Simplicity of detail marked every step of temple erection.
No hewn pillars or arched gateways of even the most primitive designs can be found in any of the temples whether of recent date or belonging to remote antiquity. There was no attempt at ornamentation even in the images of the great gods which they worshipped. Crude, uncouth, and hideous were the images before which they offered sacrifice and prayer.
In themselves the heiaus, or temples, of the Hawaiian Islands have but little attraction.
