It
was the last heathen temple built on Hawaii. On entering the huge
pile, which stood gaunt and desolate in the thin red air, the story
of the old bloody heathenism of the islands flashed upon my memory.
The entrance is by a narrow passage between two high walls, and it
was by this that the sacrificing priests dragged the human victims
into the presence of Tairi, a hideous wooden idol, crowned with a
helmet, and covered with red feathers, the favourite war-god of
Kamehameha the Great, by whom this temple was built, before he
proceeded to the conquest of Oahu.
The shape is an irregular parallelogram, 224 feet long, and 100
wide. At each end, and on the mauka side, the walls, which are very
solid and compact, though built of lava stones without mortar, are
twenty feet high, and twelve feet wide at the bottom, but narrow
gradually towards the top, where they are finished with a course of
smooth stones six feet broad. On the sea side, the wall, which has
been partly thrown down, was not more than six or seven feet high,
and there were paved platforms for the accommodation of the alii, or
chiefs, and the people in their orders. The upper terrace is
spacious, and paved with flat smooth stones which were brought from
a considerable distance, the greater part of the population of the
island having been employed on the building.
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