Our Little Hawaiian CousinWade, Mary Hazelton Blanchard
General
Our Little Hawaiian Cousin
Wade, Mary Hazelton Blanchard
Children -- Hawaii --Juvenile literature; Hawaii -- Social life and customs -- Juvenile literature
Auwae loves her Sunday school; she delights in the music of the organ
and the songs she learns there. Every three months there is a grand
celebration in the church. It is called "Quarterly Review." All the
children in the country for miles around come flocking into Auwae's
village. It is such a pretty sight, as the boys and girls come marching
over the hillsides! The girls are dressed in white, and everybody wears
a wreath and festoons of bright flowers. Sometimes they sing as they
march along.
By ten o'clock in the morning the church is closely packed and the music
begins. There is song after song, after which the children are called
one by one to the platform to speak pieces and recite Bible verses. The
ones who have learned most receive the prizes. Auwae won a prize at the
last quarterly review. It is a picture of the infant Jesus giving water
to his cousin John from a shell. No doubt you have seen a copy of it.
Auwae thinks it is a lovely picture. It is the only one of any kind in
her house.
The quarterly review lasts the whole day. The children do not get
tired, however. They have a picnic dinner under the trees behind the
church; then they are ready for more songs, and speak more pieces, until
the round red sun in the west says:
[Illustration: "AUWAE AND UPA DARED TO PEEP INSIDE"]
"Come, my little ones, hurry homeward quickly. Many of you have miles of
walking before you, and I cannot show you the way much longer."
Then Auwae bids her friends good-bye. She will not again see some of
them till three months more have passed.
Aloha! Aloha! echoes back from the hill-tops, and our little girl turns
again to her own lovely nest under the palm-trees. How different
everything is now from the old days of Auwae's people! Her grandmother
has told her about the hideous idols they used to worship.
There is an old heathen temple but a few miles from her home, and
once, just once, Auwae and Upa dared to peep inside; then they ran away
with all their might, for fear that somehow those long rows of ugly
figures might become alive and follow them.
Think of it! less than a hundred years ago not only animals, but human
beings, little children even, were sacrificed to hideous wooden and
stone idols.
The people were in constant terror of the god of the shark, the goddess
of the volcano, and other fearful beings who were ever ready, as they
thought, to bring destruction upon them. Besides these, there were great
giants and monsters whose anger must be satisfied by offerings of
animals and men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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