In some respects there existed a latitude of deportment between the chiefs and their serfs, which gave rise to a certain degree of social equality. This freedom of manner is common to that state of society in which the actual gulf between the different classes is irrevocably fixed. It grows out of protection on the one hand and dependence on the other. On Hawaii there existed a partial community of property; for although all that the serf possessed belonged to his lord, yet he had the use and improvement of the property in his charge, and besides certain direct interests in it, was protected by what might be termed their “common law.” The chief was both executive and judiciary, as obtains in all rude society. Self-interest became a powerful incentive to humanity, because cruelty or injustice towards his tenantry was a direct injury to his own property, and a provocation to desert his lands. There was also the family bond, derived from direct intermingling of blood, the perpetuity of estates and the familiarity of personal intercourse between the chiefs and their dependents, fortified by a condition of society that knew no contrasts to this state. The lack of other commerce than barter and a partial feudal system, which required the people not only to furnish their own arms, but upon all occasions to follow their lords to the field, helped to develop this social union of extremes.
All lands were in reality held in fief of the supreme chief. His will was in the main the code of law, and indeed the religious creed; that is, the ultimate appeal in all questions was vested in him. But public opinion, based upon old habits and certain intuitive convictions of right and justice common to all mankind, held even him in check; so that while rarely attempting any forcible violation of what was understood to be the universal custom, he had it in his power indirectly to modify the laws and belief of his people. While to some extent the spirit of the clan existed, giving rise to devotion and attachments similar to those recorded of the Highlanders of Scotland, there prevailed more extensively the servile feeling common to Oriental despotism. Numerous retainers of every grade and rank surrounded each chief, forming courts with as varied and as positive an etiquette as those of Europe or Asia. The most trivial necessity was dignified into an office. Thus there were “pipe lighters,” masters of the pipe as they might be called, masters of the spittoon, of the plumes or “kahilis,” and so on, while there was no lack of idle clients, the “bosom friends” of the chief, his boon companions, buffoons, pimps and every other parasitical condition in which the individual merges his own identity into the caprices or policy of his ruler, or by deceit, flattery, or superior address, seeks to advance his own selfishness at the general expense.