HYPOCRITICAL REMEMBRANCE.
The celebrating and remembering of the birthday of someone is not a bad thing, or something to criticize. And this applies when the person whose birthday that is being remembered has died, it is a good thing, should that person have done a famous deed or left an important legacy for her trustees to carry out, like the Alii, Pauahi-a-Paki.
We are not opposing the remembrance of her trustees and the heads of the Kamehameha Schools, like what was done this past Thursday, on the birthday of this Alii of this land, who showed her true aloha for her lahui by leaving her great estate for the good and welfare of the new generations of her own people, so that the their thoughts and actions are bettered. We do however oppose and criticize the attempt to deify, and it is almost to the point where the missionaries and teachers of those places of learning are making her, the deceased Alii, into a god [akua? ahua?] to be worshiped. In the presentations on that day mentioned, the girls performed before a huge audience of all sorts of people who attended, where they all knelt before an image of the Alii, and thereafter placed lei and flowers upon that picture. This is not a good lesson for the children.
Pauahi has died, she has gone, she is no more in body, but she still lives through her glorious deeds, perhaps the greatest amongst the Hawaiian Chiefs who left on the “Dark Path of Kane”. It is for her trustees and her representatives that were empowered in her will, which the Supreme Court will fill should there be a vacancy amongst those people, they are they ones carrying out these remembrances without her knowledge of what is being done, and that is why we call it—a hypocritical remembrance.
For here is the Queen, still living, and she is not honored by those missionaries for her good works that are exemplary for the benefit of her people, before and since her ascending the throne. She took up the Liliuokalani Educational Society, with its two divisions, and greatly assisted its funds from her own earnings and property. There were many girls who received an education because of this society, and the girls’ school of Kawaiahao, that grounds of learning of the missionaries, saw benefits, and this cannot be denied in the least.
She is sill living and has followed through on her good works which were established under her very own leadership, not by other like with the late Pauahi. And yet these haughty missionaries of her days don’t at all remember her great deeds which show her true aloha for her lahui while she is alive and not after her death. Aye, she is still living, and we see the fruits of her good labors, and perhaps she mistakenly put her faith in her weak fellow lahui for whom she felt much aloha, and she fell from her position on high; and now she sees clearly those who are steadfastly loyal to her and those who are traitorous, abusive, and speak badly about her.
The missionaries themselves are the true witnesses to her good deeds. They have no words for Pauahi, hers were seen before. They go to her [Liliuokalani] and ask for money from her, and they are not given just a trifle, but they are given great amounts. And yet, those people do not think a bit of her, or thank her, not at all; they instead abuse and fling and besmear her with filth, in return for the good that was done, and given to, and received by them. This is a time to tell tales, to rouse, ask for rudely, to beg, to abuse, to curse, to insult, and that list goes on and on, just filled with indolence.
[How sad that even today, her namesake, Queen Lydia Liliuokalani Elementary School has been shut down. Today there was a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone of the school on the grounds of Liliuokalani Elementary School! Let us remember her always along with her great love for her people!]
(Makaainana, 12/23/1895, pp. 4 & 5.)
Ka Makaainana, Buke IV----Ano Hou., Helu 26, Aoao 4 & 5. Dekemaba 23, 1895.
