This operation _( mahele)_ consisted in slitting the prepuce by means of a bamboo.

The mahele has fallen into disuse, but is still practiced in some places, unbeknown to the missionaries, upon children eight or ten years old.

A sort of priest (kahuna) performs the operation.[12] The Hawaiian women are always delivered without pain, except in very exceptional cases.

The first time they had occasion to witness, in the persons of the missionaries' wives, the painful childbirths of the white race, they could not restrain their bursts of laughter, supposing it to be mere custom, and not pain, that could thus draw cries from the wives of the Haole (foreigners).
The ancient Hawaiians cared for their dead.

They wrapped them in kapa with fragrant herbs, such as the flowers of the sugar-cane, which had the property of embalming them.