Joel Hulu Mahoe - Chief Turns Into A Pastor

Chief Turns Into A Pastor

Mahoe converted at an early age to Christianity and was given the name Joel by Rev. David Belden Lyman of the Hilo mission. He was a devout follower of his new faith. Unlike his brother who took up politics, he became a missionary. He was called a patient and dedicated minister. He, along with Kanoa, started out as one of Hiram Bingham II's Hawaiian assistants. He worked as the delegate of the Hawaiian Board to the Gilbert Islands. On November 10, 1857, they landed on Abaiang (then spelled Apaiang, part of the country of Kiribati) in the Gilbert group with their wives.

In March 1869, Mahoe, who had been left in charge of Abaiang by Bingham, was shot and severely wounded by one of a rebels.

The rebellion seems to have arisen, in part at least, from an attempt of the king (of whose Christian character the missionaries had good hope) to enforce a code of laws against murder, theft, adultery and other crimes. The mission houses were destroyed and the cocoanut trees around them cut down. Yet the mission seems to have gained a hold on the islands of Tarawa, Butaritari, Makin, Tapiteuea, and the adverse occurrences at Apaiang may yet turn out for the furtherance of the Gospel.

This wound disabled him and brought him back to Hawaii before returning and finishing his work in the Gilbert Islands until blindness and old age forced him to retire.

After many years in the South Pacific, he returned home again. There his nephew had become the King. He was known to have assisted the Gilbertese immigrants to Kauai. Mahoe tried his best to preserve the souls and bodies of the unhappy Gilbertese. He was stationed at Kilauea, although he tried to assist all the Gilbertese on other islands since he was able to speak their language and was familiar with their customs. In his report to the Hawaiian Evangelical Association for 1880, he estimated 391 South Pacific Islanders on Kauai, with 113 at Kilauea. During the year, consumption, pneumonia, and dysentery had killed 34, and Mahoe worried about the damage being done by liquor, opium, and gambling, as well as the inroads made by the Mormons.

Reverend Mahoe, for twelve years a missionary to the Gilbert Islands, and, subsequently, for more than twenty years a Hawaiian pastor, died at his post in Koloa, Kauai, January 23, 1891. He was buried in the Koloa Hawaiian Church at Koloa, Kauai.