Identifier: sandwichislandno01bate (find matches)
Title: Sandwich island notes
Year: 1854 (1850s)
Authors: Bates, George Washington
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, Harper
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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an victims once immolated on thesealtars, but found none ; for they had returned to their primi-tive dust, or been carried away by curious visitors. But myfancy conjured up the deeds of some of the high-priests of pa-ganism. It seemed as though I could see one of these de-ceived and deceiving torturers before me, with his demoniacalvisage, his arm bared, his uplifted Jiand grasping the instru-ment of death, and the human victim lying on the bloody al-tar. I seemed to behold the vast audience awaiting, with adeath-like silence, the fatal blow, and to hear the agonizinggroans of the expiring victim. ,And when I remembered thatonce these very tragedies were enacted, and on these ruinedaltars too, my heart sickened, and I sprung out of the inclo-sure. To a traveler visiting the Hawaiian group at this day, itseems almost impossible that such scenes could have been en-acted at any period in the past. Such relations appear to re-tain the character more of the old shadowy myths of the peo- Si
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PIIIIP REFLECTIONS ON PAGANISM. 97 pie, than positive realities that existed from time immemorialuntil the fall of idolatry in 1819. But those relations arefacts. There are a few persons now living who once wit-nessed many of those hellish orgies, and whose own familyfriends were victims. The hierarchy of the group, like everyhierarchy that now exists, was exceedingly oppressive. It isimpossible to conceive how any nation of men could have beenbrought under a rule so crushing and absolute. But of alldespotisms, none are so absolute or unjust as those which de-prive men of the free and legitimate exercise of their own con-sciences. Such was the condition of the common people onthose islands, between thirty and forty years ago. It was des-potism systematized and extended to every man, woman, andchild, that did not belong to the priests and king. The peoplehad to build the temples ; go to the mountains, and cut downand carve wood into idols; and, of their poverty, bring theofferings, of

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