Читать книгу Incredible Hawaii - Terence Barrow - Страница 16

8 Dogs that did not bark

LONG AGO THE DOG AND THE PIG WERE BROUGHT FROM tropical Polynesia as food, and the rat came as an undesirable stowaway. The only land mammal at that time in Hawaii was a native bat, too small to eat. It is said the Hawaiian dog did not bark. Named 'ilio, it lived on a diet of fish, coconut, scraps and poi-hence the name “poi dog” now given to any dog of doubtful ancestry. This old dog is pictured in rock art as a long, low-slung animal with a back curling tail. When the haole or foreign dog was introduced, the Hawaiian dog became extinct as a separate species because of inbreeding and changed food habits.

The Hawaiian dog probably made whining or singing sounds like the “barkless” dogs of New Guinea to be seen in the Honolulu Zoo. At tabu times their snouts were tied to silence them. They were food, rarely companions, while their flesh was preferred to pork. The Reverend William Ellis in Hawaii in the 1820’s saw 200 dogs baked for a single feast. Skin, hair, bone and teeth had other uses. Bone made excellent fishhooks and teeth were used in dancers’ anklets. Even the kahuna could be paid in dogs for black magic, medicine or canoe building.

Spirit dogs are known in Hawaii. It is said they haunt Nu’uanu Valley; their figures are cut in the rocks near the Royal Mausoleum.