Leprosy Ravages Hawaiians
When you read this, Damien of Kalaupapa will have already been anointed a saint by the Catholic Church.
In one, short paragraph, Isabella Bird – probably the first travel writer to Hawai’i, circa 1873 – talks about that leprosy colony. But, she doesn’t visit there. Instead, from Lahaina, Maui, she writes of the 400 patients [probably over a thousand, instead] already banished there “to endless isolation.” Plus, the 300 to be “weeded out and sent thither.” She continues that this incurable, Chinese Disease [Ma’i Pake in Hawaiian] spread quickly because the natives “…smoked each other’s pipes and wear each other’s clothes”; and in general, they disregard all precautions. [Here, she’s surely talking of the Hawaiians’ selfless habit of daily sitting and sleeping with their sick; also, massaging and cleaning them. Isolating any sick was the farthest thing from any Hawaiians mind and heart] Then, Bird writes that instead of reporting the “forlorn malady” as ordered, to government officials, “…they [the natives] are concealing them under mats and in caves and woods.” Pg. 166. (For more great stories of her visit, read, SIX MONTHS IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS, by Isabella L. Bird)
Bird doesn’t mention Damien. Couldn’t, because her 1873 island visit was the same year the Belgian sails to Moloka‘i. It’s ironic to think how meaningless and tiny Damien’s hop ashore at Kalaupapa seemed. Then, realize that it was his very first step towards sainthood.
Well known Hawaiian artist, Herb Kawainui Kane, captures that day. You need to see Herb’s painting, which depicts Damien as a vigorous, unblemished, young man being greeted by the ravaged folks at dockside. Damien, who had “…been building churches on Hawai’i island, courageous and resolute, but appalled at what he saw at the moment he landed. (See: HerbKaneStudio.com)
Tags: Hawaiian Stories
