FUNERAL RITES ; DOCTRINES OF A FUTURE STATE 7 7

lid containing holy water, and pronounced the form pre-scribed for purification, (beginning Leleuli, etc.), theaudience uttering the regular responses, and closing withthe shout “ Noa honua ! ” after which he sprinkled themwith the holy water, and they were clean.

Doctrine of a Future State. —The conceptions whichthe ancient Hawaiians had of the future state were vagueand inconsistent.

Lolupe was the name of a deity invoked in funeralceremonies, who conducted the spirits of the chiefs to theirfinal abode after death, and assisted them in the journey.According to some traditions and dirges, Ka-onohi-o-ka-la(the eye-ball of the sun) conducted the souls of heroesto a heaven in or beyond the clouds. According to others,they went to Kane, to the aina huna o Kane or hiddenland of Kane, which seems to have been a sort of FataMorgana or fairy island in the West. It was said thatmariners sometimes saw in the distance a beautifulisland abounding in cocoanut trees, but it was all unsub-stantial and ghostly, and receded before them like themirage of the desert; but the great majority of thedead, after a delay of a few days, went to a subterraneanHades.*

Leaping-places. —There were several precipices fromthe verge of which the unhappy ghosts were supposed toleap into the lower world.f

* .During the first few days after death ghosts generally haunted the placeof sepulture, and endeavored to strangle their enemies, hut kept growing weakerand weaker day by day.

They were distinguished by the peculiar squeaking or whistling sound, mv£i,which they produced, like the ghosts which did “squeak and gibber in the Homanstreets.” In rare cases a departing soul would be met by a friendly aumakua orunihipili , who compelled it to go home and re-enter the body. This was theirway of accounting for cases of catalepsy or trance.

+ According to Mr. Dibble, one of these was at the northern point of Hawaii ,