Michener, James Read online

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  "MASSIVE, MAGNIFICENT-AN ASTONISHING ACHIEVEMENT!"

  CLEVELAND PRESS

  Only James A. Michener could have written this vast, historically important, enormously entertaining novel. This is Hawaii, in all its beauty, splendour and exotic mystery. These are the men and women who loved it, from the first Polynesians to the Japanese who fought in the Nisei battalions in World War II.

  In HAWAII, you'll meet characters you'll never forget�Amelia Whipple, the missionary; the sea captain who founded a dynasty of sugar barons; the Chinese concubine who became a great banker; the gigolo beach boy who might have been king, and hundreds�literally hundreds�more!

  "Prom Michener's devotion to the islands, he has written a monumental chronicle of Hawaii, an extraordinary and fascinating novel I"

  SATURDAY REVIEW

  More Rave Reviews! f

  "Mammoth epic of the islands, vast panorama, wonderful!"

  BALTIMORE SUN

  "James A. Michener's most ambitious novel, immense!"

  WASHINGTON STAR

  "A book with everything, great and fascinating!"

  NEW YORK POST

  "James Michener's powerful new novel will be read and re-read. It deserves every honor, a major literary prize . . . fascinating saga."

  NORFOLK VIRGINIAN-PILOT

  "Sprawling, stunningly ambitious evocation of a land, a people and a modern state . . . Michener's finest

  novel, his greatest achievement."

  TRENTON TIMES

  "Marvelously gripping . . . weaves a spell of enchantment."

  BUFFALO COURIER EXPRESS

  "Big book of grand adventure! Drama, comedy, brilliantly etched people and the jewel land that shaped their destinies."

  NEW YORK MIRROR

  "The book of the year . . . tremendous, enchanting . . . virile realism."

  LOS ANGELES HERALD & EXPRESS

  "Full of Michener's intoxication

  with the Pacific�murder, human sacrifice,

  leprosy and war. A memorable novel,

  a superb biography of a people."

  HOUSTON CHRONICLE

  "A powerful novel, mature, brutally realistic and often evil."

  CHRISTIAN HERALD

  ALSO BY JAMES A. MICHENER

  TALES OP THE SOUTH PACIFIC 5| THE FIRES OF SPRING � RETURN TO PARADISE 51 THE VOICE OF ASIA 5| THE BRIDGE AT ANDAU 5| RASCALS IN PARADISE 51 THE BRIDGES AT TOKO-RI 5| SAYONARA 1 CARAVANS

  5| Published by Bantam Books

  BY JAMES A. MICHENER

  !Tf �

  5

  *e� vo�*

  This low-priced Bantam Book

  has been completely reset in a type face

  designed lor easy reading, and was printed

  from new plates. It contains the complete

  text of the original hard-cover edition.

  NOT ONE WORD HAS BEEN OMITTED.

  HAWAII

  A Bantam Book / published by arrangement with Random House, Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Random House edition published November 1959 2nd printing . . . November 1959 5th printing ...... March 1960

  3rd printing . . . December 1959 6th printing ........ April 1960

  4th printing ..... January 1960 7th printing ......... July 1960

  Book of the Month Club edition published December 1959 2nd printing . . . December 1959 5th printing ........ April 1960

  3rd printing . . . December 1959 6th printing ........ June 1960

  4th printing .... February 1960 7th printing . . . September 1960

  8th printing. . . . .September 1960

  Appeared under the title THE BIRTH OF HAWAII in LIFE Magazine

  October 1959

  Sara Bara section appeared under the title FARM OP BITTERNESS in

  Readers Digest condensed Book Club edition, Autumn 1959

  Missionary section appeared under the title WEST WIND TO

  HAWAII in Readers Digest condensed Book Club edition,

  Winter 1960

  Bantam edition published January 1961 2nd printing .... January 1961 9th printing ........ July 1962

  3rd printing .. .. January 1961 10th printing . . September 1962

  4th printing .. .... April 1961 llth printing . . November 1962

  5th printing . . September 1961 12th printing ........ May 1963

  6th printing .... October 1961 13th printing ..... August 1963

  7th printing . . . February 1962 14th printing . . November 1963 8th printing ....... April 1962 15th printing ........ July 1964

  16th printing..... February 1965

  17th printing

  To

  All the peoples who came to Hawaii

  � Copyright, 1959, by James A. Mlchener. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American

  Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by mimeograph or any other means,

  without permission in writing. For information address:

  Random House, Inc., 457 Madison Avenue, New York 22, N. Y.

  Published simultaneously In the United States and Canada.

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, Inc., a subsidiary of Grosset & Dunlap, Inc. Its trade-mark, consisting of the words "Bantam Books" and the portrayal of a bantam, is registered in the United States Patent Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, Inc., 271 Madison Avenue, New York 16, New York.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  r

  This is a novel. It is true to the spirit and history of Hawaii, but the characters, the families, the institutions and most of the events are imaginary�except that the English school-teacher Uliassutai Karakoram Blake is founded upon a historical person who accomplished much in Hawaii.

  Contents

  From the Boundless Deep, 1

  II

  From the Sun-Swept Lagoon, /5

  III

  From the Farm of Bitterness, 114

  IV

  From the Starving Village, 358

  V

  From the Inland Sea, 581.

  VI

  The Golden Men, 778 Genealogical Charti, goy

  From the Boundless Deep

  MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS of years ago, when the continents were already formed and the principal features of the earth had been decided, there existed, then as now, one aspect of the world that dwarfed all others. Jt was a mighty ocean, resting uneasily to the east of the largest continent, a restless ever-changing, gigantic body of water that would later be described as pacific.

  Over its brooding surface immense winds swept back and forth, whipping the waters into towering waves that crashed down upon the world's seacoasts, tearing away rocks and eroding the land. In its dark bosom, strange life was beginning to form, minute at first, then gradually of a structure now lost even to memory. Upon its farthest reaches birds with enormous wings came to rest, and then flew on.

  Agitated by a moon stronger then than now, immense tides ripped across this tremendous ocean, keeping it in a state of torment. Since no great amounts of sand had yet been built, the waters where they reached shore were universally dark, black as night and fearful.

  Scores of millions of years before man had risen from the shores of the ocean to perceive its grandeur and to venture forth upon its turbulent waves, this eternal sea existed, larger than any other of the earth's features, vaster than the sister oceans combined, wild, terrifying in its immensity and imperative in its universal role.

  1

  2.HAWAII

  How utterly vast it was/ How its surges modified the very balance of the earth/ How completely fonely it was, hidden in the darlcness of night or burning in the dazzling power of a younger su
n than ours.

  At recurring intervals the ocean grew cold. Ice piled up along its extremities, and so pulled vast amounts of water from the sea, so that the wandering shoreline of the continents sometimes jutted miles farther out than before. Then, for a hundred thousand years, the ceaseless ocean would tear at the exposed shelf of the continents, grinding rocks into sand and incubating new life.

  Later, the fantastic accumulations of ice would melt, setting cold waters free to join the heaving ocean, and the coasts of the continents would lie submerged. Now the restless energy of the sea deposited upon the ocean bed layers of silt and skeletons and salt. For a million years the ocean would build soil, and then the ice would return; the waters would draw away; and the land would lie exposed. Winds from the north and south would howl across the empty seas and lash stupendous waves upon the shattering shore. Thus the ocean continued its alternate building and tearing down.

  Master of life, guardian of the shorelines, regulator of temperatures and heaving sculptor of mountains, the great ocean existed.

  Millions upon millions of years before man had risen upon earth, the central areas of this tremendous ocean were empty, and where famous islands now exist nothing rose above the rolling waves. Of course, crude forms of fife sometimes moved through the deep, but for the most part the central ocean was marked only by enormous waves that arose at the command of moon and wind. Dark, dark, they swept the surface of the empty sea, falling only upon themselves terrible and puissant and lonely.

  Then one day, at the bottom of the deep ocean, along a line running two thousand miles from northwest to southeast, a rupture appeared in the basalt rock that formed the ocean's bed. Some great fracture of the earth's basic structure had occurred, and from it began to ooze a white-hot, liquid rock. As it escaped from its internal prison, it came into contact with the ocean's wet and heavy body. Instantly, the rock exploded, sending aloft through the 19,000 feet of ocean that pressed clown upon it columns of released steam.

  Upward, upward, for nearly four miles they climbed, those agitated bubbles of air, until at last upon the surface of the sea they broke loose and formed a cloud. In that instant, the ocean signaled that a new island was building. In time it might grow to become an infinitesimal speck of land that would mark the great central void. No human beings then existed to celebrate the event. Perhaps some weird and vanished flying thing spied the escaping steam and swooped down to inspect it; more likely the roots of this future island were born in darkness and great waves and brooding nothingness.

  For nearly forty million years, an extent of time so vast that it is meaningless, only the ocean knew that an island was building in its bosom, for no land had yet appeared above the surface of the sea. For

  FROM THE BOUNDLESS DEEP5

  nearly forty million years, from that extensive rupture in the ocean floor, small amounts of liquid rock seeped out, each forcing its way up through what had escaped before, each contributing some small portion to the accumulation that was building on the floor of the sea. Sometimes a thousand years, or ten thousand, would silently pass before any new eruption of material would take place. At other times gigantic pressures would accumulate beneath the rupture and with unimaginable violence rush through the existing apertures, throwing clouds of steam miles above the surface of the ocean. Waves would be generated which would circle the globe and crash upon themselves as they collided twelve thousand miles away. Such an explosion, indescribable in its fury, might in the end raise the height of the subocean island a foot.

  But for the most part, the slow constant seepage of molten rock was not violently dramatic. Layer upon layer of the earth's vital core would creep out, hiss horribly at the cold sea water, and then slide down the sides of the little mountains that were forming. Building was most sure when the liquid rock did not explode into minute ashy fragments, but cascaded viscously down the sides of the mountains, for this bound together what had gone before, and established a base for what was to come.

  How long ago this building took place, how infinitely long agol For nearly forty million years the first island struggled in the bosom of the sea, endeavoring to be born as observable land. For nearly forty million submerged years its subterranean volcano hissed and coughed and belched and spewed forth rock, but it remained nevertheless hidden beneath the dark waters of the restless sea, to whom it was an insignificant irritation, a small climbing pretentious thing of no consequence.

  And then one day, at the northwest end of the subocean rupture, an eruption of liquid rock occurred that was different from any others that had preceded. It threw forth the same kind of rock, with the same violence, and through the same vents in the earth's core. But this time what was thrown forth reached the surface of the sea. There was a tremendous explosion as the liquid rock struck water and air together. Clouds of steam rose miles into the air. Ash fell hissing upon the heaving waves. Detonations shattered the air for a moment and then echoed away in the immensity of the empty wastes.

  But rock had at last been deposited above the surface of the sea. An island�visible were there but eyes to see, tangible were there fingers to feel�had risen from the deep.

  The human mind, looking back upon this event�particularly if the owner of the mind has once stepped upon that island�is likely to accord it more significance than it merits. Land was finally born, yes. The forty million years of effort were finally crowned by the emergence of a pile of rocks no larger than a man's body, that is true. But the event was actually of no lasting significance, for in the long history of the ocean many such piles had momentarily broken the surface and then subsided, forbidden and forgotten. The only thing

  significant about the initial appearance of this first island afong the slanting crack was the fact that it held on and grew. Stubbornly, inch by painful inch, it grew. In fact, it was the uncertainty and agony of its growth that were significant.

  The chance emergence of the island was nothing. Remember this. Its emergence was nothing. But its persistence and patient accumulation of stature were everything. Only by relentless effort did it establish its right to exist. For the first ten thousand years after its tentative emergence, the little pile of rock in the dead, vast center of the sea fluctuated between life and death like a thing struck by evil. Sometimes molten lava would rise through the internal channels and erupt from a vent only a few inches above the waves. Tons upon tons of material would gush forth and hiss madly as it fell back into the ocean. Some, fortunately, would cling to the newborn island, building it sturdily many feet into the air, and in that time it might seem as if the island were indeed secure.

  Then from the south, where storms breed in the senseless deep, a mighty wave would form and rush across the world. Its coming would be visible from afar, and in gigantic, tumbling, whistling, screaming power it would fall upon the little accumulation of rocks and pass madly on.

  For the next ten thousand years there would be no visible island, yet under the waves, always ready to spring back to life, there would rest this huge mountain tip, rising 19,000 feet from the floor of the ocean, and when a new series of volcanic thrusts tore through the vents, the mountain would patiently build itself aloft for another try. Exploding, hissing, and spewing forth ash, the great mountain would writhe in convulsions. It would pierce the waves. Its island would be born again.

  This was the restless surge of the universe, the violence of birth, the cold tearing away of death; and yet how promising was this interplay of forces as an island struggled to be born, vanishing in agony, then soaring aloft in triumph. You men who will come later to inhabit these islands, remember the agony of arrival, the rising and the fall, the nothingness of the sea when storms throw down the rock, the triumph of the mountain when new rocks are lifted aloft.

  For a million years the island hung in this precarious balance, a child of violence; but finally, after incredibly patient accumulation, it was established. Now each new lava flow had a solid base upon which to build, and inch by inch the deb
ris agglutinated until the island could be seen by birds from long distances. It was indeed land, habitable had there been existing men, with shelters for boats, had there been boats, and with rocks that could have been used for building homes and temples. It was now, in the real sense of the word, an island, taking its rightful place in the center of the great ocean.

  But before life could prosper on this island, soil was needed, and as yet none existed. When molten lava burst upon the air it generally exploded into ash, but sometimes it ran as a viscous fluid down the sides of mountains, constructing extensive sheets of flat rock. In either

  FROM THE BOUNDLESS DEEP

  5

  case, the action of wind and rain and cooling nights began to pulverize the newly born lava, decomposing it into soil When enough had accumulated, the is/and was ready.

  The first living forms to arrive were inconspicuous, indeed almost invisible, lichens and low types of moss. They were borne by the sea and by winds that howled back and forth across the oceans. With a tenacity equal to that of the island itself these fragments of life established themselves, and as they grew they broke down more rocks and built more soil.

  At this time there existed, on the distant continents visited by the ocean, a well-established plant and animal society composed of trees and lumbering animals and insects. Some of these forms were already well adapted for life on the new island, but were prevented from taking residence by two thousand miles of open ocean.

  Consequently, there began an appalling struggle. Life, long before man's emergence, stood poised on distant shores, pressing to make new exploratory journeys like those that had already populated the existing earth with plants and animals. But against these urgent forms stood more than two thousand miles of turbulent ocean, storm-ridden, salty, and implacable.

  The first sentient animals to reach the island were of course fish, for they permeated the ocean, coming and going as they wished. But they could not be said to be a part of the island. The first non-oceanic animal to visit was a bird. It came, probably, from the north on an exploratory mission in search of food. It landed on the still-warm rocks, found nothing edible, and flew on, perhaps to perish in the southern seas.

  A thousand years passed, and no other birds arrived. One day a coconut was swept ashore by a violent storm. It had been kept afloat on the bosom of the sea by its buoyant husk, traveling more than three thousand miles from the southwest, a marvel of persistence. But when it landed, it found no soil along the shore and only salt water, so it perished, but its husk and shell helped form soil for those that would come later.