An excerpt from CHAPTER I. GENERAL REMARKS ON HAWAIIAN HISTORY. 1. The traditions about the Hawaiian Islands handed down from remote antiquity are not entirely definite; there is much obscurity as to the facts, and the traditions themselves are not clear. Some of the matters reported are clear and intelligible, but the larger part are vague. 2. The reason for this obscurity and vagueness is that the ancients were not possessed of the art of letters, and thus were unable to record the events they witnessed, the traditions ...
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An excerpt from CHAPTER I. GENERAL REMARKS ON HAWAIIAN HISTORY. 1. The traditions about the Hawaiian Islands handed down from remote antiquity are not entirely definite; there is much obscurity as to the facts, and the traditions themselves are not clear. Some of the matters reported are clear and intelligible, but the larger part are vague. 2. The reason for this obscurity and vagueness is that the ancients were not possessed of the art of letters, and thus were unable to record the events they witnessed, the traditions handed down to them from their forefathers and the names of the lands in which their ancestors were born. They do, however, mention by name the lands in which they sojourned, but not the towns and the rivers. Because of the lack of a record of these matters it is impossible at the present time to make them out clearly. 3. The ancients left no records of the lands of their birth, of what people drove them out, who were their guides and leaders, of the canoes that transported them, what lands they visited in their wanderings, and what gods they worshipped. Certain oral traditions do, however, give us the names of the idols of our ancestors. 4. Memory was the only means possessed by our ancestors of preserving historical knowledge; it served them in place of books and chronicles. 5. No doubt this fact explains the vagueness and uncertainty of the more ancient traditions, of which some are handed down correctly, but the great mass incorrectly. It is likely there is greater accuracy and less error in the traditions of a later date. 6. Faults of memory in part explain the contradictions that appear in the ancient traditions, for we know by experience that "the heart is the most deceitful of all things." 7. When traditions are carried in the memory it leads to contradictory versions. One set think the way they heard the story is the true version; another set think theirs is the truth; a third set very likely purposely falsify. Thus it comes to pass that the traditions are split up and made worthless....
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