Unfamiliar Fishes by Vowell Sarah

Author:Vowell, Sarah [Vowell, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Riverhead
Published: 2011-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

WHEN KAMEHAMEHA’S HEIR, Liholiho, decided to make his ill-fated state visit to Great Britain in 1823, he sailed on an English whaleship captained by Valentine Starbuck, a member of a venerable Nantucket whaling family (whose name Melville would appropriate for the Pequod’s first mate in Moby-Dick). In 1825, Liholiho and his wife, struck dead by measles, returned home to Hawaii in ornate coffins on HMS Blonde, a British Royal Navy frigate under the command of the seventh Lord Byron, cousin of the sixth Lord Byron, the late poet. Along with the royals’ remains, the ship brought tidings from King George IV denying British control of Hawaiian internal affairs but promising the islands friendship and protection.

Robert Dampier, an artist aboard the Blonde, described the Honolulu funeral procession for the royal couple. The coffins were rowed ashore from the frigate in small boats. Cannons were fired and a Hawaiian honor guard bearing muskets lined the road to the mission church. “They were all clothed in English dresses of various date, size, and manufacture,” wrote Dampier, “and many lacking in that essential part of a soldier’s accoutrements, a pair of Trousers.”

The procession “was headed by nine Sandwichers accoutered in their beautiful war cloaks” bearing standards, followed by the band from the Blonde playing a death march; the American missionaries; the ship’s chaplain and surgeon; forty noble pallbearers lugging the coffins; the young King Kauikeaouli; his little sister, Princess Nahi‘ena‘ena (on the arm of Lord Byron); Kaahumanu (on the arm of the British first lieutenant); more chiefs; and the naval officers, “clad in their dress uniforms.” Dampier opined that “As they all tramped thus solemnly along, the whole group formed a striking and interesting Spectacle.” Indeed, a pageant of Polynesian royalty, a brass band, pantsless guards, and Lord Byron’s cousin seems like a fanciful tableau from some arcane folk ballad Joan Baez might have recorded in 1962.

The published account, Voyage of H.M.S. Blonde to the Sandwich Islands, written by Lord Byron and his shipmates, remarks that “We could not help reflecting on the strange combination of circumstances here before us: every thing native-born and ancient in the Isles was passing away.”

At a somber gathering at Prime Minister Kalanimoku’s house, described in Voyage of the H.M.S. Blonde, King Kauikeaouli and Princess Nahi‘ena‘ena observed the proceedings from a sofa. The boy was between ten and twelve years old and his sister a couple of years younger. They were “in European suits of mourning, and seated on a beautiful feather garment, which some of the affectionate natives had woven [for the princess].”

Hawaiian feather-work like the twenty-foot-long sarong the princess was sitting on was—and is—revered for its magnificence. The feather capes and cloaks made for the chiefs, composed of elegant geometric designs in yellow, black, and red, are masterpieces of design and handicraft.

“The feathers of birds were the most valued possessions of the ancient Hawaiians,” wrote David Malo. The ruling class employed bird catchers to trap birds like the mamo and the o‘o to pluck their feathers. These

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