. Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History. Natural history; Ethnology. 20 B RICH AM ON HAWAIIAN FEATHER WORK, the Prime Minister, and on the other Naihe, the national orator, both also in malos of scarlet silk and helmets of feathers, and each bearing a kahili or feathered staff of state near thirty feet in height. The upper parts of these kahilis were of scarlet feathers so ingeniously and beautifully arranged on artificial branches attached to the vStaff as to form cylinders fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter, and twelve or fourteen feet lo
. Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History. Natural history; Ethnology. 20 B RICH AM ON HAWAIIAN FEATHER WORK, the Prime Minister, and on the other Naihe, the national orator, both also in malos of scarlet silk and helmets of feathers, and each bearing a kahili or feathered staff of state near thirty feet in height. The upper parts of these kahilis were of scarlet feathers so ingeniously and beautifully arranged on artificial branches attached to the vStaff as to form cylinders fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter, and twelve or fourteen feet long; the lower parts or handles were covered with alternate rings of tortoise shell and ivory of the neatest workmanship and highest polish. "Imperfect as the image may be which my description will convey to your mind of this pageant of royal device and exhibition, I think you will not altogether condemn the epithet I use when I say it was splaidid. So far as the feather mantles, helmets, coronets and kahilis had an effect I am not fearful of extravagance in the use of the epithet. I doubt whether there is a nation in Christendom which at the time letters and Christianity were introduced, could have presented a. FIG. 14. PORTION OK THE FUNERAL PROCESSION OF KAMEHAMEHA III. court dress and insignia of rank so magnificent as these : and they were found here, in all their rich- ness, wheTi the Islands were discovered by Cook. There is something approaching the sublime in the lofty noddings of the kahilis of state as they tower far above the heads of the group whose distindlion they proclaim : something conveying to the mind impressions of greater majesty than the gleamings of the most splendid banners I ever saw ; '^ Not in the least does the excellent missionary exaggerate in his enlogy on the grand kahilis. Those of us who, in these latter days of the degeneration of all good native works and customs, have seen the kahilis wave above royalty, however faded,—
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