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35  WAI-MEA  Our father and mother left their native country and all their friends, they willingly went away from a great many comforts and privileges they have never enjoyed since and probably never will just on purpose that they might do good to the ignorant heathen among whom you live. Now they are examples for us! Luther Gulick, 1842 When the Gulicks moved to Wai-mea, Kaua‘i, they encountered thousands of Hawaiians in the area (whose population was 3,883 in 1833). They also found the village to be “a hot, dry, red, dusty, and desolate place,” because it was shut off by the mountains of Kaua‘i from moisture-bearing trade winds. Without those winds, Wai-mea struck the Gulicks’ son Orramel as “the driest place I have been.” Yet it did have some fresh water, most of which came from the Wai-mea River. Graced with broad banks that Orramel described as “very beautiful and fertile,” the Wai-mea River attracted European explorers such as Captain James Cook, who made his first Hawaiian landing at Wai-mea in 1778. At that point, the village was the most important settlement on Kaua‘i, and it was still the island’s most important settlement when the Gulicks arrived there in 1828. Two years earlier, mosquitoes had been brought to Hawai‘i, but they had yet to infest Wai-mea, which Peter viewed as “a pleasant (heathen ) village,” even though it had no stores. The lack of stores meant that Peter had to import a great many necessities for his family. But he noted that the village was full of hogs, horses, cows, goats, chickens, and turkeys. These enabled the Gulicks to live reasonably well, and Peter observed in his journal that the village “affords many facilities for obtaining a comfortable subsistence, & for doing good among the heathen.” Like their brethren in Honolulu, the “heathen” inhabitants of Wai-mea welcomed Peter, whose impression of the islanders was mixed. He described them as “the most ignorant, yet the most docile people that I ever saw,” and 36 Chapter Two Orramel later agreed that “the docility and tractability of the native Hawaiians were among their striking characteristics.” Orramel went on to speculate that the ease whereby Hawaiians obtained food accounted for their laid-back behavior, and he wrote that in olden times the islanders had no trouble supplementing their diet of fish and taro with the produce of wildgrowing flora. This flora was trampled down when white people began raising cattle in Hawai‘i, but in the days before cattle the Hawaiians did not lack food. Nor did they lack generosity, which as Orramel recalled was plentiful on the islands in his youth: “Hawaii was a land of well-fed, stalwart men and women, for size and agility unequalled by any race on island or continent. While improvident, the native Hawaiian was the most generous and hospitable of human beings. The stranger passing by was always hailed and bidden to come in and partake of what the house afforded, which meant a good feed of fish and poi.” Peter also made note of the Hawaiians’ hospitality, although he was chiefly impressed by their willingness to “acknowledge the word of God.” As evidence of the Hawaiians’ movement toward Christianity, he pointed to the state of religiosity in Wai-mea, which had a church with twelve hundred congregants in 1828. Also in the village were strict laws that Peter described as conducive to temperance and Sabbath-keeping: “The people are required to sanctify the Lord’s day. They generally believe the Sabbath to be a divine institution, and consequently, that it ought to be sacredly observed. The natives are prohibited from all commerce in ardent spirits, and from using it, except as a medicine. This regulation has been in force for a considerable time, and I believe is seldom violated.” Wai-mea’s state of sobriety delighted Peter, who knew that it had come about largely through the efforts of his senior associate Samuel Whitney, whom one missionary described as a man “of rather large stature, of pleasant manners, very companionable, and generous almost to a fault.” Whitney was popular with important Wai-means, such as Ha‘a-kulou, who had been queen of Kaua‘i before Kamehameha I conquered the island in 1810. After her dethronement , Ha‘a-kulou was persuaded by Whitney to become a Christian, and she took the name of Deborah Kapule. She also helped to...

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