ves that were used in a number of ways, including in religious ceremonies. The people also brought the shrubs mamake and wauke, a mulberry and a fig plant with pliant bark that made excellent tapa cloth. The passengers on these early voyages included priests and expert professionals of every art and skill, and this was a theocratic society that needed these leaders. The people of both Hawaii and Tahiti and environs have a rich mnemonic literature of chants that has been handed down from one generation to the next and that convey much of the history of the people. The long voyages back and forth between Tahiti and Hawaii continued until the 1500s, and the reason they ceased at that time is not known. From 1500 to 1778, the people of Hawaii lived in isolation. However, there had been occasional accidental visitors, castaways with white skin whose appearance was striking enough that a word came into being, haole, as part of the Hawaiian vocabulary to refer to these strangers (Tabrah, 1980, 12-13).
Though the islanders were all one people and had
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