Once, when Pele was living in the pit of Kilauea, she roused up from her couch on the rough hearth-plate and said to her sisters, “Let us make an excursion to the ocean and enjoy ourselves, open the opihi shells and sea-urchins, hunt for small squid and gather sea-moss.”

To this all joyfully assented, saying, “Yes, let us go.”

The sisters formed quite a procession as they tramped the narrow downhill path until they came to the hill Pu’u-Pahoehoe—a place in the lower lands of Puna. Pele herself did not visibly accompany them on this journey; that was not according to her custom: she had other ways and means of travel than to plod along a dusty road. When, however, the party arrived at the rendezvous, there, sure enough, they found Pele awaiting them, ready for the business in hand.

In the midst of their pleasurings Pele caught sight of Hopoe and Haena as they were indulging in an al fresco dance and having a good time by the Puna sea. She was greatly pleased and, turning to her sisters, said, “Come, haven’t you also got some dance that you can show off in return for this entertainment by Hopoe and her companion?”

They all hung their heads and said, “We have no hula.”

Hiiaka, the youngest, had stayed behind to gather lehua flowers, and when she came along laden with wreaths, Pele said to her, jestingly, “I’ve just been proposing to your sisters here to dance a hula in response to that of Hopoe and her fellow, but they decline, saying they have not the art. I suppose it’s of no use to ask you, you are so small; but, perhaps, you’ve got a bit of a song.”

“Yes, I have a song,” Hiiaka answered, to the surprise of all.

“Let us have it, then; go on!” said Pele.

Then the little girl, having first decorated all of her sisters with the wreaths, beginning with Pele, sang as follows:

[2]

TRANSLATION

Pele was delighted. “Is that all you have?” she asked.

“I have something more,” said the girl.

“Let us hear it then.”

Hiiaka put even more spirit into the song as she complied:

TRANSLATION

At the conclusion of this innocent performance—the earliest mention of the hula that has reached us—Hiiaka went to stay with her friend Hopoe, a person whose charm of character had fascinated the imagination of the susceptible girl and who had already become her dearest intimate, her inspiring mentor in those sister arts, song, poesy and the dance.

Pele herself remained with her sister Hiiaka-i-ka-pua-enaena (Hiiaka-of-the-fire-bloom), and presently she lay down to sleep [3]in a cave on a smooth plate of pahoehoe. Before she slept she gave her sister this command: “Listen to me. I am lying down to sleep; when the others return from fishing, eat of the fish, but don’t dare to wake me. Let me sleep on until I wake of myself. If one of you wakes me it will be the death of you all. If you must needs wake me, however, call my little sister and let her be the one to rouse me; or, if not her, let it be my brother Ke-o-wahi-maka-o-ka-ua—one of these two.”

When Ke-o-wahi-maka-o-ka-ua, who was so closely related to Pele that she called him brother, had received this command and had seen her lapse into profound sleep he went and reported the matter to Hiiaka, retailing all that Pele had said. “Strange that this havoc-producer should sleep in this way, and no bed-fellow!” said Hiiaka to herself. “Here are all the other Hiiakas, all of equal rank and merit! Perhaps it was because my dancing pleased her that she wishes me to be the one to rouse her.”

The cavern in the hill Pahoehoe in which Pele lay and slept, wrapped in her robe (kapa-ahu), remains to this day.

In her sleep Pele heard the far-off beating of hula drums, and her spirit-body pursued the sound. At first it seemed to come from some point far out to sea; but as she followed, it shifted, moving to the north, till it seemed to be off the beach of Waiakea, in Hilo; thence it moved till it was opposite Lau-pahoehoe. Still evading her pursuit, the sound retreated till it came from the boisterous ocean that beats against the shaggy cliffs of Hamakua. Still going north, it seemed presently to have reached the mid channel of Ale-nui-haha that tosses between Hawaii and Maui.

“If you are from my far-off home-land Kahiki, I will follow you thither, but I will come up with you,” said Pele.

To her detective ear, as she flitted across the heaving waters of Ale-nui-haha, the pulsing of the drums now located itself at the famous hill Kauwiki, in Hana; but, on reaching that place, the music had passed on to the west and sounded from the cliffs of Ka-haku-loa.

The fugitive music led her next across another channel, until in her flight she had traversed the length of Moloka’i and had come to the western point of that island, Lae-o-ka-laau. Thence she flew to cape Maka-pu’u, on Oahu, and so on, until, after crossing that island, she reached cape Kaena, whose finger-point reaches out towards Kaua’i. In that desolate spot dwelt an aged creature of myth, Pohaku-o-Kaua’i by name, the personal representative of that rock whose body-form the hero Mawi [4]had jerked from its ocean bed ages before, in his futile attempt to draw together the two islands Kaua’i and Oahu and unite them into one mass.

Pele, arguing from her exasperation, said, “It must be my old grandfather Pohaku-o-Kaua’i who is playing this trick with the music. If it’s he that’s leading me this chase, I’ll kill him.”

The old fellow saw her approach and, hailing her from a distance, greeted her most heartily. Her answer was in a surly mood: “Come here! I’m going to kill you to-day. So it’s you that’s been fooling me with deceitful music, leading me a wearisome chase.”

“Not I, I’ve not done this. There they are, out to sea; you can hear for yourself.” And, sure enough, on listening, one could hear the throbbing of the music in the offing.

Pele acknowledged her mistake and continued her pursuit, with the parting assurance to the old soul that if he had been the guilty one, it would have been his last day of life.

The real authors of this illusive musical performance were two little creatures named Kani-ka-wí and Kani-ka-wá, the former a sprite that was embodied in the nose-flute, the latter in the hokeo, a kind of whistle, both of them used as accompaniments to the hula. Their sly purpose was to lure Pele to a place where the hula was being performed.

Pele now plunged into the water—from this point at least she swam—and, guided by the call of the music, directed her course to the little village of Haena that perched like a gull on the cape of the same name, at the northernmost point of the island of Kaua’i. It was but a few steps to the hall of the hula—the halau—where throbbed the hula drums and where was a concourse of people gathered from the whole island. [5]

As Pele drew near to the rustic hall where the hula was in full blast, the people in the outskirts of the assembly turned to look in wonder and admiration at the beauty and charm of the stranger who had appeared so unexpectedly and whose person exhaled such a fragrance, as if she had been clad with sweet-scented garlands of maile, lehua and hala. One and all declared her to be the most beautiful woman they had ever looked upon. Where was she from? Surely not from Kaua’i. Such loveliness could not have remained hidden in any nook or corner of the island, they declared.

Instinctively the wondering multitude parted and offered a lane for her to pass through and enter the halau, thus granting to Pele a full view of the musicians and performers of the hula, and, sitting in their midst, Lohiau,—as yet seemingly unconscious of her presence,—on his either hand a fellow drummer; while, flanking these to right and left, sat players with a joint of bamboo in either hand (the kaekeeke). But drummer and kaekeeke-player, musicians and actors—aye, the whole audience—became petrified and silent at the sight of Pele, as she advanced step by step, her eyes fixed on Lohiau.

Then, with intensified look, as if summoning to her aid the godlike gifts that were hers as the mistress of Kilauea, she reached out her hand and, in a clear tone, with a mastery that held the listeners spell-bound, she chanted:

TRANSLATION

The silence became oppressive. In the stillness that followed the song expectant eyes were focused upon Prince Lohiau, awaiting his reply to the address of the stranger who stood in their midst. No one knew who she was; no one imagined her to be Pele. That she was a person of distinction and rank was evident enough, one whom it was the duty and rare privilege of their chief to receive and entertain.

Presently there was wrinkling of foreheads, an exchange of glances, prompting winks and nods, inclinations of the head, a turning of the eyes—though not a word was spoken—; for his friends thought thus to rouse Lohiau from his daze and to prompt him to the dutiful rites of hospitality and gallantry. Paoa, his intimate friend, sitting at Lohiau’s right hand, with a drum between his knees, even ventured to nudge him in the side.

The silence was broken by Pele:

TRANSLATION

Lohiau, once roused from his ecstacy, rose to the occasion and with the utmost gallantry and politeness invited Pele to sit with him and partake of the hospitalities of the halau.

When Pele had seated herself on the mat-piled dais, Lohiau, following the etiquette of the country, asked whence she came.

“I am of Kaua’i,” she answered.

“There is no woman of Kaua’i your equal in beauty,” said Lohiau. “I am the chief and I know, for I visit every part of the whole island.”

“You have doubtless traveled about the whole island,” answered Pele; “yet there remain places you are not acquainted with; and that is where I come from.”

“No, no! you are not of Kaua’i. Where are you from?”

Because of his importunity, Pele answered him, “I am from Puna, from the land of the sunrise; from Ha’eha’e, the eastern gate of the sun.”

Lohiau bade that they spread the tables for a feast, and he invited Pele to sit with him and partake of the food. But Pele refused food, saying, “I have eaten.”

“How can that be?” said he, “seeing you have but now come from a long journey? You had better sit down and eat.”

Pele sat with him, but she persistently declined all his offers of food, “I am not hungry.”

Lohiau sat at the feast, but he could not eat; his mind was disturbed; his eyes were upon the woman at his side. When they rose from the table he led her, not unwilling, to his house, and he lay down upon a couch by her side. But she would favor him only with kisses. In his growing passion for her he forgot his need of food, his fondness for the hula, the obligations that rested upon him as a host: all these were driven from his head.

All that night and the following day, and another night, and for three days and three nights, he lay at her side, struggling with her, striving to overcome her resistance. But she would grant him only kisses. [8]

And, on the third night, as it came towards morning, Pele said to Lohiau, “I am about to return to my place, to Puna, the land of the sunrise. You shall stay here. I will prepare a habitation for us, and, when all is ready I will send and fetch you to myself. If it is a man who comes, you must not go with him; but, if a woman, you are to go with the woman. Then, for five days and five nights you and I will take our fill of pleasure. After that you will be free to go with another woman.”

In his madness, Lohiau put forth his best efforts to overcome Pele’s resistance, but she would not permit him. “When we meet on Hawaii you shall enjoy me to your fill,” said she. He struggled with her, but she foiled him and bit him in the hand to the quick; and he grasped the wound with the other hand to staunch the pain. And he, in turn, in the fierceness of his passion, planted his teeth in her body.

At this, Pele fluttered forth from the house, plunged into the ocean and—was gone.

When Lohiau came to himself, as from a dream, he looked for the woman who had lain at his side, but her place was vacant and cold. He went out into the open air, but she was nowhere to be found, and he turned back into the empty house.

Lohiau’s stay with Pele in the sleeping house had prolonged itself beyond all reason and his friends became concerned about him; and as night after night and day after day passed and they neither saw nor heard anything of him, their concern grew into alarm. Yet no one dared enter the house. Lohiau’s sister, however, made it her business to investigate. Opening the door of the house, she entered, and, lo, there hung the body of her brother, suspended from a rafter, his malo about his neck. Life had been gone for many hours and the body was cold. Her screams brought to her aid a group of Lohiau’s friends who at once lifted their voices in unison with hers, bewailing their chief’s death and denouncing the woman who had been with him as the guilty cause. [9]

Paoa was the most outspoken in his imprecations. Stripping off his malo, he stood forth in the garb of nature and declared he would not resume his loin cloth until he had sought out the woman and humiliated her by the grossest of insults. “I will not gird my loins with a malo until I have kindled a fire in Pele’s face, pounded her face as one pounds a taro, consumed her very eyes.” This was the savage oath with which Paoa pledged his determination to avenge the death of his friend, his chief, Lohiau. With universal wailing, amid the waving of kahilis, with tender care and the observance of all due rites, his people anointed the dear body of their chief with perfumed oil, wrapped it in scented robes of choicest tapa, and laid it to rest in the sepulcher.

The favorite dog of Lohiau, who was greatly attached to his master, took his station at the grave and would not be persuaded to leave. Poha-kau, a cousin of Pele,—himself a kupua and possessed of superhuman powers,—having journeyed from Hawaii to Haena, found the faithful creature keeping his lonely vigil at the grave and he brought the dog with him to Pele.

“Your man is dead; Lohiau is dead,” said he. “But this animal—do you recognize him?—I found watching by the grave in Haena.”

“Yes, that is the dog I saw with Lohiau,” answered Pele; and she hid the dog away in her secret place.

While the scene we have described was being enacted on Kaua’i, the spirit of Pele, returning from its long flight, hovered over the sleeping body at Lau-pahoehoe. Above it waved the kahilis, about it were gathered the sisters and other relatives, quietly sobbing. Though it was many days since Pele had lain down to sleep, and though they feared the consequences if she continued thus, they dared not disturb her. When that was proposed, the sister in charge objected. “If it must be done, we shall have to send for Hiiaka the beloved.”

Some of them suggested that Pele must be dead, she had remained so long without motion. But Hiiaka-of-the-lightning-flash scouted the idea: “How can that be? The body shows no signs of decay.” [10]

The girl Hiiaka saw the messenger that had been despatched to fetch her, while as yet she was in the dim distance,—it was her nurse, Paú-o-pala’e,—and there came to her a premonition of what it all meant, a vision, a picture, of the trouble that was to come; yet, overmastering her, was a feeling of affection and loyalty for her elder sister. Standing outside the house, that she might better watch the approach of Paú-o-pala’e and be on hand to greet her, she voiced her vision in song:

TRANSLATION

As the messenger, in the vibrating sunlight, thridded her way among the tree clumps and lava-knobs, which now concealed her and now brought her into full view, Hiiaka, with gaze intent to gain such snap-shots of her as these obstructions did not forbid, continued her song:

[11]

TRANSLATION

Her hostess, Hopoe, would not take the song or the farewell of Hiiaka seriously. “You are simply joking,” she said, “letting your gloomy imagination run away with you. Who in the world is driving you away, as if you had worn out your welcome?”

The messenger, Paú-o-pala’e, when she had saluted Hiiaka, said, “I come from your sisters. They want to see you.”

Arrived at Lau-pahoehoe,1 Hiiaka found her sisters in great consternation, fearing for the life of Pele if she were allowed to continue her long sleep. Her spirit, it is true, had come back to her body; but it was merely hovering about and had not entered and taken possession, so that there were no signs of animation or life. It seemed to be waiting for the voice of Hiiaka, the belovéd, to summon it back and to make it resume consciousness.

Hiiaka demanded to know the cause of the wailing.

“We are lamenting our sister, the head of the family. You can see for yourself; she is dead.”

After carefully examining the body of Pele, Hiiaka stoutly declared, “She is not dead. That is evident from the absence of corruption.” Then, sitting close to Pele’s feet, she sang:

[12]

TRANSLATION

Pele slept on and gave no sign of waking. Hiiaka then chanted this serenade:

TRANSLATION

The effect was magical: Pele’s bosom heaved; breath entered her lungs; a fresh color came to her face, and spread to the tips of her ears. She sighed, stretched herself and sat up: she was herself again.

That same day Pele and the other sisters returned to Kilauea, while Hiiaka went back to resume her visit with Hopoe, each party reaching its destination at about the same time. Early the next morning Pele called to her sister Hiiaka-i-ka-ale-i (Hiiaka-of-the-choppy-sea) and said, “I want you to go on an errand for me.” [13]

“No doubt I shall agree to go when you have told me what it is,” was the answer of the young woman.

“You are to journey to Kaua’i and escort hither our lover—yours and mine. While on the way you are not to lie with him; you are not to touch noses with him; you are not to fondle him or snuggle close to him. If you do any such thing I will kill both of you. After your return, for five days and five nights, I will have him to myself, and after that he shall be your lover.”

On hearing this, the young woman hung her head and wept.

Pele then made the same proposal to each of the other sisters in turn. Not one of them would consent to undertake the mission. They knew full well the perils of the undertaking: the way was beset with swarms of demons and dragons, with beings possessed with powers of enchantment; and Pele did not offer to endow them with the power that would safeguard them on their journey.

Pele, finding herself foiled on this tack, as a diversion, said, “Let us refresh ourselves and have some luau.” The sisters immediately set to work, and, when they had made up the bundles of delicate taro leaves and were about to lay them upon the fire, Pele called to Paú-o-pala’e and bade her go straightway to Haena and fetch Hiiaka, “And you are to be back here by the time the luau is cooked.”

Now the girl, whose full name was Hiiaka-i-ka-poli-o-Pele, was the youngest of the sisters, and, by reason of her loveliness and accommodating disposition, she was Pele’s favorite. She was, moreover, gifted with a quick intuition and a clairvoyant perception of distant happenings and coming events. At the time of the conversation between Pele and the seven sisters, Hiiaka was sporting in the ocean with her surf-board in the company of Hopoe. While thus engaged, the whole matter of the proposed journey to Haena came to her as in a vision. In the midst of her surfing she turned to Hopoe and said, “I perceive that I am about to undertake a long journey; and during my absence you will remain here in Puna waiting my return.”

“No! What puts such a notion into your head?” said Hopoe.

“Yes, I must go,” insisted Hiiaka. Then they mounted a roller, and, as their boards touched the beach, there stood the messenger of Pele; and this was the message: “Gird on your paú and come with me to Kilauea. Your sister commands it.”

As the two jogged on their uphill way, an impulse seized Hiiaka, and she gave voice to a premonition, a shadow of coming [14]trouble, as it were, and, standing in the road at Mokau-lele, she sang:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka—true poet that she was, and alive to every colorable aspect of nature—as she trudged on her way, came upon a sight that touched her imagination; two birds were sipping together in loving content of the water that had collected in the crotch of a tree, in which also was growing an awa plant.—Such nature-planted awa was famed as being the most toxic of any produced in Puna.—Her poetic mind found in the incident something that was in harmony with her own mood, and she wove it into a song:

TRANSLATION

[15]

Hiiaka arrived at the Pit in good time to partake with the others of the frugal feast ordered by Pele. At its conclusion, Pele turned to the girl Hiiaka and put the question in her blunt way, “Will you be my messenger to fetch our lover—yours and mine—from Kaua’i? Your sisters here”—she glanced severely about the group—“have refused to go. Will you do this for me?”

The little maid, true to her sense of loyalty to the woman who was her older sister, the head of the family, and her alii, to the surprise and dismay of her other sisters, answered, “Yes, I will go and bring the man.”

It was a shock to their sense of fitness that one so young should be sent on an errand of such danger and magnitude; but more, it was a reproof that slapped them in the face to have this little chit accept without hesitation a commission which they had shrunk from through lack of courage. But they dared not say a word; they could but scowl and roll the eye and shrug the shoulder.

“When you have brought our lover here,” continued Pele, “for five nights and five days he shall be mine; after that, the tabu shall be off and he shall be yours. But, while on the way, you must not kiss him, nor fondle him, nor touch him. If you do it will be the death of you both.”

In spite of the gestured remonstrances of the group, Hiiaka, in utter self-forgetfulness and diplomatic inexperience, agreed to Pele’s proposition, and she framed her assent in a form of speech that had in it the flavor of a sacrament:

[16]

TRANSLATION

(I am impelled by my admiration for this beautiful song to give another version of it:)

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka would sleep on it. Her start was to be in the morning. The next day, while Hiiaka was climbing the long ascent up the crater-pali, her sisters, anxious and appreciating the danger of the undertaking, were quietly weeping outside the cave; but they dared not utter a word that might come to the ears of Pele. They began, however, to beckon and signal to Hiiaka to return. She saw them and turned back, uttering the following plaint:

TRANSLATION

The opposition of the sisters was based largely on Hiiaka’s youth and inexperience. The girl did not understand nor give them credit for this generous regard for herself; she saw only their disobedience and disloyalty to Pele’s command.

Pele, impatient at her vacillation, broke out on her savagely: “Here you are again! Be off on your journey! You shall find no food here, no meat, no raiment, no roof, no sisterly greeting, nothing, until you return with the man. It would have been useless to dispatch these homely women on this errand; it seems equally useless to send a beautiful girl like you.”

To this outburst Hiiaka retorted:

TRANSLATION

[18]

“I am not grumbling or finding fault with you (loiloi): it was simply because you turned back that I spoke to you. Do you call that reproaching you?”

Hiiaka, though a novice in diplomacy, as shown by her instant and unconditional acceptance of Pele’s proposition, having once got her second breath, now exacted of Pele a condition that proved her to be, under the discipline of experience, an apt pupil in the delicate art of diplomacy. “I am going to bring our lover, while you remain at home. If during my absence you go forth on one of your raids, you are welcome to ravage and consume the lands that are common to us both; but, see to it that you do not consume my forests of lehua. And, again, if the fit does come upon you and you must ravage and destroy, look to it that you harm not my friend Hopoe.”

Pele readily agreed to Hiiaka’s reasonable demand, thinking thus to hasten her departure. To the inexperienced girl the terms of the agreement seemed now complete and satisfactory, and, in the first blush of her gratification, Hiiaka gave expression to her pleasure:

TRANSLATION

Even now Hiiaka made an ineffectual start. Some voice of human instinct whispered that something was wanting, and she again faced her sister with a request so reasonable that it could not be denied:

TRANSLATION

(The exigencies of the narrative have induced me, in the above song, to couple together two mele which the story-tellers have given us as belonging to two separate incidents in Hiiaka’s fence with Pele.)

“Your request is reasonable,” said Pele; “to travel alone is indeed to converse with one’s shadow. You shall have a companion.”

Pele designated a good-natured waiting woman as her attendant, who had the poetical name of Paú-o-pala’e (or Paú-o-palaá). This faithful creature heartily accepted the trust, that of kahu—a servant with the pseudo responsibility of a guardian—and, having expressed her fealty to her new mistress, she at once took her station. Thus everything seemed arranged for a start on the eventful journey.

The terms and conditions of Hiiaka’s going were not even yet to the satisfaction of her watchful sisters and relatives. One matter of vital importance had been omitted from the outfit: Pele had not bestowed upon Hiiaka the mana, power and authority, [20]to overcome and subdue all the foes that would surely rise up to oppose and defeat her. With wild gestures they signalled to Hiiaka once more to return.

Hiiaka’s answering song, though pointed with blame, gives proof that her own intuitions were not entirely at fault:

TRANSLATION

The communication between Hiiaka and her sisters had, on their part, been carried on mostly by means of gesture and sign-language. But on this return of Hiiaka the whole family of brothers and sisters were so moved at the thought of the danger to Hiiaka that they spoke out at last and frankly advised Hiiaka to go before Pele and demand of her the gift of spiritual power, mana, that she might be able to meet her enemies on [21]equal terms at least, so that she need not feel powerless in their presence. But nothing came of this move at the time, for at this moment out came Pele from her cave, and, seeing Hiiaka standing with the others, she addressed her sharply and said: “What! You still here? Why are you not on the way to fetch our man?”

Face to face with Pele, Hiiaka’s courage oozed away and she promised to make another start in the morning. When on this new start she had come near the top of the ascent, she turned about and sang:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka now made common cause with the group of sisters and relatives who were bent on securing for her justice and fair treatment. Among them, taking council together, sat Ka-moho-alii, Kane-milo-hai, Kapo and Pohakau6. By this action Hiiaka took a new attitude: while not coming out in open defiance to her sister, she virtually declared her determination no longer to be domineered over by Pele.

In the council that took place it was determined that Ka-moho-alii, who stood high in Pele’s regards and whose authority was second only to hers, was the proper one to approach Pele in the matter of conferring upon Hiiaka the necessary mana. When, therefore, Pele put to Hiiaka the question why she had returned, why she was not on her journey, Ka-moho-alii spoke up and said, “It is because of fear she has returned. She sees danger by the way. You have not given her the mana to protect her from the [22]dragons and monsters that infest the road. O Mo’o-lau ke ala, e: The way is beset by dragons four hundred.”

“Ah, that is the trouble?” said Pele. Then she called upon the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, Wind, Rain, Thunder, Lightning—all the heavenly powers—to aid and safeguard Hiiaka and she authorized her to exercise the powers of these heavenly beings. The gods, thereupon, ratified this act of Pele; and at last the way was made clear for Hiiaka’s departure.

The refusal of her sisters to undertake the mission to fetch Lohiau had angered Hiiaka. Her intrepid fealty to Pele, their oldest sister and their alii, laughed to scorn the perils of the journey. She could not and, for a time, would not bring herself to understand their prudential attitude. Pele was their alii, and it was rank disloyalty in them to shirk any danger or to decline any command Pele might think fit to impose. In judging the conduct of her sisters, it did not at first enter the head of Hiiaka that motives of sound worldly prudence justified them in declining for themselves an errand full of danger, or in putting obstacles in the way of her going on the same errand: she saw in it only a failure to rise to the level of her own loyalty.

The situation, then, was heavily charged with estrangement, and when the woman in Hiiaka could not refrain from one more farewell, the color and tone of voice and song had in them the snap of electricity:

[23]

TRANSLATION

At the utterance of this name Pele brightened and called to Hiiaka, “Yes, that is the name of our man. I purposely kept it back until you should have reached the water-shed (kaupaku2 o ka hale o kaua, literally the ridgepole) of our house, intending then to reveal it to you; but you have divined the man’s name. Go on your journey. Nothing shall avail to block your road. Yours is the power of woman; the power of man is nothing to that.”

On reaching the plateau of Wahine-kapu Hiiaka received a spiritual message telling her that Lohiau—the object of her errand—was dead. She at once turned towards Pele and commemorated the fact in song:

TRANSLATION

Pele did not know this name-song of Lohiau until she heard it recited by Hiiaka. This it was that led Hiiaka to come back within easy hearing distance:

TRANSLATION

“How absurd of you,” said Pele; “you were not sent on an expedition to heaven, but to bring a man who is here on earth. If you fly up to heaven, you will pass him by and leave him here below.”

Hiiaka and her faithful companion—Pau-o-pala’e—had gotten well away from the vast pit of Kilauea, with its fringe of steam-cracks and fumaroles that radiate from it like the stays of a spider-web, and they were nearing the borders of Pana-ewa, when Hiiaka’s quick ear caught the sound of a squealing pig. Her ready intuition furnished the right interpretation to this seemingly insignificant occurrence:

TRANSLATION

At this moment a young woman of attractive person appeared on the scene and, prostrating herself to the earth, said, “O, Pele, behold my offering, which I bring to thee in fulfillment of the pledge made by my parents, that I should first seek thee, O Pele, before I come to my marriage bed. Accept this suckling which I offer to thee, O Pele.”

“I am not the one you are seeking: I am not Pele,” said Hiiaka. “Pele is over yonder in the Pit.”

The woman was persistent and begged that Hiiaka would not despise her offering. After undeceiving her, Hiiaka carefully instructed her, lest she make some fatal mistake in her approach to the jealous goddess: “When you come to the Pit you must be careful in your approach to Pele. The least departure from the etiquette she demands would be the cause of your death. Do not imagine that the fine large woman sitting at the door is Pele, nor that any one of the women seated within is she. You must pay no attention to these. Look for the figure of a wrinkled old woman lying bundled up on the hearth: that is Pele: make the offering to no one else but to her.” [26]

“Alas for me,” said Wahine-oma’o. “You will be gone a long way from this place by the time I shall return to seek you. I shall not be able to find you.”

“You will find us here,” replied Hiiaka assuringly.

Hiiaka used her power to bring the woman at once to her destination. Following the instructions given her, Wahine-oma’o was quickly transported into the presence of Pele and, having made her offering in due form, was about to retire, when Pele called her back and said, “Did you not meet some women going from here as you came this way?”

“I met some women,” she answered.

“Make haste and come up with them,” said Pele. “The younger woman is very dear to me. Attach yourself to her as a friend.”

“That I will do,” said Wahine-oma’o. Then, moved by an impulse that came to her (the work, it is said, of Hiiaka), she said to Pele, “I had imagined you to be a beautiful woman, Pele. But, lo, you are old and wrinkled; and your eyes are red and watery.” Thus saying, Wahine-oma’o took her departure and almost immediately found herself again with Hiiaka.

“You have made quick time,” Hiiaka said. “How did you get on?”

“I followed your instructions and presented my offering to the woman who was lying on the hearth. She asked me if I had met you, and when I said yes, she told me to look after you as a friend.”

“Is that all?”

“She also told me to watch you, to observe how you behaved towards the man—whether you kissed him or had any dalliance with him.”

“And did you say anything to Pele?”

“U-m, I bantered her about her looks; told her she was a very ill-favored woman, while the women attending her were very handsome.”

Hiiaka laughed at this naive account.

Night shut down upon them at Kuolo, a place just on the border of Pana-ewa. Paú-o-pala’e proposed that they should seek a resting place for the night with the people of the hamlet. Hiiaka would not hear to it: “Travelers should sleep in the open, in the road; in that way they can rise and resume their journey with no delay.” (O ka po’e hele he pono ia lakou e moe i ke alanui, i ala no a hele no.) [27]

In the morning while it was still dark, they roused and started afresh. Their way led through lehua groves of the most luxuriant growth, the bloom of which crimsons the landscape to this day, exuding a honey that is most attractive to the birds of heaven. The cool still air wafted to their ears the hum of voices which was soon explained when they came upon a bevy of girls who were busily plucking the bright flowers to string into wreaths and garlands, in anticipation of some entertainment. This rural scene made an appeal to the poet in Hiiaka which she could not resist:

TRANSLATION

At sight of Hiiaka’s party, the lively flower-girls made a rush, as if to capture and appropriate their friendly acquaintance for individual possession. The most vivacious and forward of the whole party was Pa-pulehu, their leader, a buxom young woman, of good family, who at once took possession of Hiiaka for herself, crowned and bedecked her with wreaths and garlands, with many expressions of enthusiastic admiration: “This is my friend!—What a beauty!—How the scarlet lehua becomes her!—Just look, girls!—And now you are to come and be my guest.—The feast is set for this very day.—But you are all welcome.”

The unrestrained gush of the young woman’s rattling talk was quite in contrast to the selected words of Hiiaka. [28]

Now Pa-pulehu was of a large and important family, embracing numerous friends and relations, and, having ample means, her hospitalities were unstinted. The report spread quickly, “Pa-pulehu has a distinguished guest come to visit her. There is to be a feast this afternoon. All are invited.”

The tables were spread with a great variety of fish, meats, fruits and vegetables. The parents and guardians of the girl, nevertheless, came to her and inquired, “What is there that this young woman, your friend, would specially like to eat?” Paú-o-pala’e took it upon her to answer, that the one thing that would be most acceptable to Hiiaka would be a dish of luau. Thereupon a large quantity of young and delicate taro leaves were prepared for the table.

When they were gathered at the tables, Hiiaka sitting in the place of honor, Paú-o-pala’e, at her request, bade all the people incline their heads and close their eyes. Then Hiiaka called upon her allies, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, the elements and all the gods to come to the feast and partake; and when the prayer was ended and they opened their eyes—lo, the tables spread for Hiiaka were empty! Hiiaka had not been seen to take into her hands any of the food that was spread before her. It had vanished away as a drop of water evaporates in the heat of the sun.

The feast being concluded, Hiiaka rose, bade good bye to the people and resumed her journey, taking with her Pa-pulehu.

This girl Pa-pulehu was of genuine flesh and blood, with no blend of divine ichor in her veins, such as enriched the blood of Hiiaka; nor had she, like Wahine-oma’o and Paú-o-pala’e, been strengthened and made more resistant to spiritual and physical foes—a privilege granted to those who had enjoyed a close approach to Pele as attendants and worshippers. This weakness in her nature had its influence in determining the fate to which her history now quickly leads.

Their journey still lay through Puna. They were at Kalalau, not far from Haena (at the place where, centuries afterwards, Kamehameha was struck with that well-nigh fatal blow by an outraged fisherman). Some fishermen were hauling in their nets full of fish. The sight was too much for Pa-pulehu. “I hunger for fish,” she exclaimed. “These fish belong to my father. Oh, if I only were at home! how I would eat until I was satisfied!”

Hiiaka thought it best to indulge the appetite of this novice in [29]her service. From a little knoll overlooking the ocean, she descried the canoe of a fisherman named Pahulu floating in the offing, but already well stocked with fish. Hiiaka used her power and drove away the school of fish that would have come to his net. The man himself was so intent on his work that he had no eyes for what was passing on shore; but his assistant exclaimed, “Look at the beautiful woman standing on the shore and watching us!”

“I must keep my eyes on my nets,” the fisherman replied.

Thereupon Hiiaka attracted his attention with a song:

TRANSLATION

This brought the two fishermen ashore who thereupon willingly parted with some of their fish to Hiiaka, coupling the gift, however, with a proposition insulting to the honor of the two women. The fishermen, imagining they had the two women under their power, were soon after seen lying in the open embracing two figures of stone which they, in their insane infatuation, fancied were the two women, thus exposing themselves to the jeers and derision of their fellows.

Pa-pulehu cooked and ate the fish, but her manner of eating was lacking in due punctilio, in that she did not dispose properly of the unconsumed parts—the tails, fins, bones and scales—of the fish. She should have burned or buried them; instead she left them lying about in a slovenly way. This neglect was highly offensive to Pele and caused her to withdraw from Pa-pulehu the protection she otherwise would have given her. [30]

Two routes offered themselves for Hiiaka’s choice, a makai road, circuitous but safe, the one ordinarily pursued by travelers; the other direct but bristling with danger, because it traversed the territory of the redoubtable witch-mo’o, Pana-ewa. Hiiaka had deigned to appeal to the girl Pa-pulehu, she being a kamaaina1, as if for information. When Hiiaka announced her determination to take the short road, the one of danger that struck through the heart of Pana-ewa, Pa-pulehu drew back in dismay and expostulated: “That is not a fit road for us, or for any but a band of warriors. If we go that way we shall be killed.” She broke forth with lamentations, bewailing her coming fate and the desolation that was about to visit her family.

As they advanced Wahine-oma’o descried a gray scare-crow object motionless in the road ahead of them. She thought it to be the blasted stump of a kukui tree. Hiiaka recognized its true character, the witch-form taken as a disguise by a mo’o. It was a scout sent out by Pana-ewa; in real character a hag, but slimed with a gray excrement to give it closer resemblance to a mouldering tree-stump. The deceiving art of magic did not avail against Hiiaka. She rushed forward to give the death stroke to the foul thing, which at once groveled in the dirt in its true form.

Night overtook them in a dense forest. While the others lay and slept, Hiiaka reconnoitered the situation. The repose of the wilderness was unbroken save for the restless flitting of a solitary bird that peered at Hiiaka obtrusively. It was a spy in the employ of Pana-ewa and its actions roused the lively suspicions of Hiiaka, eliciting from her an appropriate incantation:

[31]

TRANSLATION

It was a subtle temptation that suggested the awa cup as a relief for her troubles. Hiiaka had need that all her faculties should give her their best service. For her to have slept at this time would have been fatal. Her song well expressed it:

TRANSLATION

[32]

Pana-ewa entrusted the work of reconnaissance and scouting for information to two of his creatures named Ke-anini and Ihi-kalo, while he lay down and slept. Having done their work, the two scouts waked the drowsy monster in the middle of the night with the information that four human beings, women, had entered his domain and were coming towards him. “Where are they?” he asked.

“Out in this direction (pointing), and they are moving this way.”

“Well, this day of fasting has gone by. What a pity, however, that the poi in my calabash has turned sour, but the taro is sweet. Eye-balls! what juicy, delicious morsels! The day of privation turns out to be a day of feasting.” Thus muttered the cannibal monster, gloating like Polyphemus in his cave at the prospect of a feast.

Hiiaka kept her own courage at the fine point of seeming indifference, she also inspired her companions with the same feeling by the calm confidence displayed in her singing:

By Pana-ewa.—

TRANSLATION

(By Pana-ewa).

(The last two lines are said to be the utterance of Pana-ewa who feigned to regard the fires as those of his own people, who, in anticipation of an easy victory, had made ready their ovens to receive the bodies of Hiiaka and her party.)

Hiiaka bravely answered Pana-ewa:

TRANSLATION

“The voice was threatening only because my servants reported that some people were trespassing. That set my tongue agoing about poi - - - and - taro. - - - After all it’s a question of strength. Your valor it is that must win for you a passage through this land of mine.”

This was Pana-ewa’s ultimatum. [34]

Hiiaka accepted the defiance of Pana-ewa by chanting a solemn kahoahoa, which was at once a confident prediction of victory and an appeal to the gods:

TRANSLATION

The battle that ensued when Pana-ewa sent to the attack his nondescript pack of mo’o, dragonlike anthropoids, the spawn of witchcraft, inflamed with the spite of demons, was hideous and uncanny. Tooth and claw ran amuck. Flesh was torn, limbs rent apart, blood ran like water. If it had been only a battle with enemies in the open Hiiaka would have made short work of the job. Her foes lay ambushed in every wood and brake and assumed every imaginable disguise. A withered bush, a bunch of grass, a moss-grown stone, any, the most innocent object in nature, might prove to be an assailant ready to spit venom or tear with hook and talon. Hiiaka had need of every grain of wit and every spark of courage in her nature. Nothing could withstand her onset and the billows of attack against her person were broken as by a solid rock. Some described her as wielding a flaming battle-ax and hurling missiles of burning sulphur. They might well be deceived. The quickness of her every motion was a counterfeit of the riving blade or blazing fire-ball. Some assert that, in her frenzy, she tore with her teeth and even devoured the reeking flesh until her stomach rose in rebellion. Such a notion seems incompatible with the violence of her disgust for the reptilian blood that besmeared her from sole to crown.

Paú-o-pala’e, using her magical paú as a besom of destruction, was transformed into a veritable Bellona; and Wahine-oma’o displayed the courage of an amazon. These both escaped serious injury. The unhappy fate of Pa-pulehu realized that girl’s premonition. She fell into the hands of the enemy and, as if to fulfill the prediction of Pele, became “food for the gods of Pana-ewa.”

As Hiiaka glanced heavenward, she saw the zenith filled with cloud-forms—Kane, Kanaloa, Ka-moho-alii, Poha-kau and [36]others, encouraging her with their looks. The sight, while it cheered, wrung from her a fervent prayer:

TRANSLATION

“Our sister is in trouble,” said Ka-moho-alii, “let us go to her assistance!” Such was the call of Ka-moho-alii when he saw his little friend and quondam protegé Hiiaka in trouble, and theirs were the god-forms that sailed through the sky to reinforce her.

The bird-spies sent out by Pana-ewa brought back contradictory reports. The first pair reported that Hiiaka was being worsted. Soon after another pair, garbling the facts, said “Our people are lying down, but they are still alert and keep their eyes open. As for Hiiaka, she has fallen into a deep sleep.”

The situation was far from satisfactory and Pana-ewa despatched another pair of birds to reconnoitre and report. It was not yet morning and the night was dark; and they accordingly took the form of kukui1 trees, thinking thus to illuminate the scene of operations. The intelligence they brought was confounding: “Our people,” they said, “are all dead, save those who have the form of kukui trees. Hiiaka lies quietly sleeping in the road.”

This account, though strictly in accord with the facts, was so disconcerting to Pana-ewa that he burst forth in a rage, “Slaves, liars! you’re deceiving me. I’ll wring your necks!” and he reached out to execute his threat. The birds eluded him and found safety in flight. [37]

Pana-ewa now saw that it was necessary to take the field in person at the head of his regular forces, composed of the Namú and Nawá. The disguise he chose for himself was that of an ohia-lehua tree. No sooner had he taken that form than he found himself unable to move hand or foot. A parasitic network of i-e-i-e embraced his body and a multitude of aërial roots anchored him to the spot. It was the craft of the sleeping girl that had done this. He had to content himself with the unwarlike guise of the kukui tree.

While Hiiaka slept, her faithful servitor Paú-o-pala’e kept open eye and detective ear to what was going on in the star-lit forest about them. At the first glimmering of dawn her keen sense felt rather than heard a murmurous rustle that broke the stillness and a movement, as if the forest itself were advancing and closing in upon them. This oncoming of the enemy was in such contrast to the onset of the yelping pack on the previous day as to be most impressive. The sound that touched her keen sense was not the joyous twitter and stir of nature preparing to greet a new day; it was rather the distant mutter of the storm, soon to be heard as the growl of the tempest, or the roar and snarl of an enraged menagerie of wild beasts.

The woman felt her responsibility and, with the double intent of summoning to their aid the friendly gods and of waking Hiiaka, she lifted a solemn prayer:

TRANSLATION

The sisters, uncles, aunts and other kindred of Hiiaka heard this prayer of Paú-o-pala’e distinctly enough, and so did Pele; and when they saw that she appeared indifferent and made no move, they muttered among themselves. Then Ku-ili-kaua, a man of war and a leader in battle, spoke up and, addressing Ka-moho-alii, said “Why is it that she does not send warriors to the assistance of her sister? The girl has fought most bravely all day and is worn out; and there she lies fast asleep.”

Ka-moho-alii thereupon bade Kilioe-i-ka-pua and Olu-wale-i-malo, two handsome lads who were very dear to Pele (mau keiki punahele a Pele)—her sons in fact—to go in to Pele and ask her sanction to their going to the aid of Hiiaka.

When these two boys came into Pele’s presence they found [42]her poking the fire with a stick (hoelo kapuahi). With a fine show of confidence, they at once went and seated themselves in Pele’s lap, one on her right thigh and one on her left. Pele’s looks softened as she contemplated them, tears gathered in her eyes and she said, “What is the thought in the heart? Speak.” (Heaha ka hua i ka umauma? Ha’i’na.)

“Your commands.” (O ka leo,38 literally, the voice.)

At this Pele stood up and, leaving her own home-hearth, went over and took her station in the fire-pit of Hale-ma’u-ma’u. Then, pointing to the east, she said:

It was such a voice of utterance as this (leo) that the two boys who went in before Pele desired. These two messenger-boys, by the way, are, in another account, spoken of as birds.

The purpose of Kane in sending out this leo seems to have been to rouse into activity the earth-strata, na papa honua. [43]

TRANSLATION

At this the gods of war sprang into array, as if unleashed by the words of Pele. At their head marched Ku-lili-ai-kaua, a veteran who had followed Pele in her voyage from Kahiki. With him, went Ke-ka-ko’i, a guide (hookele) well acquainted with the forest trails. In the van strode three weird figures (Ka-maiau, Ka-hinihini and Mápu) bearing conchs, to which they ever and anon applied their lips and sent forth resounding blasts. But even more thrilling and inspiring than the horns of Triton was the voice of these gods of war as they chanted their war-song:

Mele Ka’i Kaua

TRANSLATION

Thus chanting their battle-mele (mele ka’i kaua), these gods of an old-time mythology marched, or flew, with resolute purpose to their task of rescuing Hiiaka and her little band and of ridding the land, at one and the same stroke, of their old entrenched foe, Pana-ewa. Heaven and earth stirred at their onset. The visible signs of their array were manifest in columns of seething fire-shot clouds that hovered like vultures over the advancing army. Arrived at striking distance, they let loose their lightning-bolts and sounded their thunder-gongs. Earth [45]and heaven at once became turmoiled in one confused whirl of warring elements.

The warriors of Pana-ewa, who—in imitation of their chief—had for the most part taken the guise of trees and other natural objects, found themselves from the first fettered and embarrassed by a tangle of parasitic vines, so that their thrusts against Hiiaka were of little avail. Now comes the onset of the Pele gods in the tempest-forms of hurricane, lightning, hail, and watery cloud-bursts that opened heaven’s flood-gates. Against these elemental forces the dryad-forms of Pana-ewa’s host could not stand for a moment. Their tree-shapes were riven and torn limb from limb, engulfed in a swirling tide that swept them down to the ocean and far out to sea.

Two staunch fighters remained, Kiha, who had chosen to retain the honest dragon-form; and Pua’a-loa, a creature, like Kama-pua’a, in the demi-shape of a boar, whom Pana-ewa, at the scent of disaster, had thrust into the confinement of a secret cave. This manner of retreat saved the twain from the immediate disaster by flood but not from the vengeance of Pele’s army. Detected in their lairs, they were slain and their petrified bodies are pointed out to this day in verification of this story.

The fate of Pana-ewa himself was most tragical. He no sooner had taken the form of a kukui tree than he found himself overlaid and entangled with meshes of parasitic growth; he could neither fight nor fly. The spot on which he stood sank and became a swamp, a lake, a sink; the foundations on which its bottom rested were broken up and fell away. Pana-ewa, swallowed up in the gulf, was swept out to sea and perished in the waves. Kane-lu-honua had broken up the underlying strata and made of the place a bottomless sink.

(A reef is pointed out in the ocean opposite Papa’i which is the remains of the body of the mo’o Pana-ewa.)

The part taken by Hiiaka in this last act of her deliverance was hardly more than that of a spectator. She had but to look on and witness the accomplishment of her own salvation. Having been roused from the refreshment of sleep by the long-drawn recitative of Paú-o-pala’e’s prayer-mele (see pp. 37–40), she did her best to cheer her two companions with assurances of coming deliverance and, gathering her little brood about her, after the [46]manner of a mother-hen, figuratively, bade them cling to her, nestle under her wings, lest they should be swept away in the flood of waters that soon began to surge about them—a flood which carried far out to sea the debris of battle—as already described.

The victory for Hiiaka was complete. Hawaii for once, and for all time, was rid of that pestilential, man-eating, mo’o band headed by Pana-ewa who, from the time of Pele’s coming, had remained entrenched in the beautiful forest-land that still bears the name—Pana-ewa.

At one stroke, the benign action of the heavenly powers had freed a fair land from a pestilential mo’o band, disinfected it of the last shred and fragment of their carcases and ushered in a reign of peace in the wooded parks and tangled forests of Pana-ewa. Hiiaka could afford to celebrate her victory by recuperating her powers in well-earned repose. While she thus lay in profound sleep on the purified battle-field, her two companions busied themselves in preparing such simple refreshment as the wilderness afforded. The piece de resistance of this dinner of herbs was luau, the favorite food of the Pele family.

When the women had finished the task of collecting, sorting, making into bundles and cooking the delicate leaves of kalo, Hiiaka still slept. Paú-o-pala’e thereupon took her station at the feet of her mistress and chanted the dinner-call in the form of a gentle serenade:

[47]

TRANSLATION

“The luau must be burnt to a crisp,” Hiiaka said as she sat up.

As Hiiaka and her companions again wended their way through the forest, it was evident that its innocent creatures had unjustly suffered in company with their guilty invaders and time had not yet sufficed for the exercise of that miracle of tropic repair which quickly heals and covers the damage done by a tempest. Broken limbs, fallen trees and twisted vines still blocked the narrow trails, while here and there an uprooted forest giant, in unseemly fashion, obtruded a Medusa-head of tawny roots in place of its comely coronal of leaves.

In their journey they came at length to a place, Maka’u-kiu, where the road seemingly ended abruptly in a precipice with the ocean dashing wildly at its base. The alternative open to their choice was, to seek out some round-about inland way, or to take the shorter route and swim the ocean-made gap. The two women, Wahine-oma’o taking the lead, proposed, as a diversion, to swim the ocean and thus avoid a long and wearisome detour. Hiiaka strenuously vetoed the proposition; but the two women, not yet trained to subordinate their will and judgment to the decision of the leader, persisted. Hiiaka, thereupon, took a stem of the ti plant and, peeling off its rusty bark, left it white and easily visible. “I will throw this stick into the water,” said she, “and if it disappears we will not make of this an au-hula-ana;1 but if it remains in sight, then we will swim across this wild piece of water.”

It seemed to Hiiaka that her companions displayed a masculine stubbornness and unreasonableness, a criticism which she uttered in her chanting way: [48]

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka then threw the peeled stick into the ocean and in a moment it was snatched out of sight. “There! If we were to swim we would be seized and eaten by Maka’u-kiu.”

“When you tossed the stick into the ocean, the sea-moss covered and concealed it, and you thought it was the work of a shark,” was the reply of Wahine-oma’o. Again they made ready to plunge into the sea. Hiiaka threw another stick and that too was instantly swallowed; whereupon she chanted again:

TRANSLATION

[49]

The women were not yet convinced and still persisted, a stubbornness that drew from Hiiaka another remonstrance:

TRANSLATION

At these words the huge form of the shark rose to the surface, and the women, convinced at last, leaped out of the water and abandoned their purpose. Hiiaka now gave battle to the shark and that was the end of one more power of evil.

The location of the adventure with the shark-god Maka’u-kiu1 was at the mouth of Wai-pi’o valley, a region where Hawaii’s storm-coast forms an impassable rampart, save as it is cut by this and its twin valley, Wai-manu. These valleys take head in a wild forest region, the home of mist, rain and swamp. Adjoining this and part of the same watershed is the region known as Mahiki-waena, a land which the convenience of traffic required should be open to travel. It was the haunt of a ferocious horde of mo’o called mahiki2 from their power to leap and spring like grass-hoppers.

When Hiiaka proposed to pass through this region in the [50]ordinary course of travel, the head of the Mahiki insolently denied her the right of way, suggesting as an alternative the boisterous sea-route around the northern shoulder of Hawaii. Hiiaka’s blood was up. The victory over the hosts of Pana-ewa and the more recent destruction of Maka’u-kiu had fired her courage. She resolved once for all to make an end of this arrogant nuisance and to rid the island of the whole pestilential brood of imps and mo’o. Standing on a height that overlooked Wai-pi’o, she chanted a mele which is at once descriptive of the scene before her and at the same time expressive of her determination:

Mele Uhau

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka’s march to encounter the Mahiki was interrupted for a short time by an incident that only served to clinch her resolution. An agonizing cry of distress assailed her ear. It came from a dismantled heap of human flesh, the remains of two men who had been most brutally handled—by these same Mahiki, perhaps—their leg and arm-bones plucked out and they left [51]to welter in their misery. It was seemingly the cruel infliction of the Mahiki. The cry of the two wretches could not be disregarded:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka, with a skill that did credit to her surgery, splinted the maimed limbs, inserting stems from her favorite ti plant to take the place of the long bones that had been removed. She left them seated in comfort at the roadside at Pololú.

The Mahiki, on seeing Hiiaka advance into their territory, threw up the dirt and dust in their front, to express their contempt for such an insignificant body of trespassers. Hiiaka, paying no attention to their insolence, pressed on. Her purpose was to strike directly at Mo’o-lau, the leader of the horde, to whom she addressed this incantation:

TRANSLATION

At dark Hiiaka camped in the road and during the night a female ku-pua named Lau-mihi, whom the Mahiki chief had sent as a spy to watch Hiiaka, was seen standing on a high place to one side of them. Hiiaka at once flew at her and put an end to her.

Now began a fierce battle between Hiiaka and the Mahiki dragon and his forces. They fought till both sides were exhausted and then, as if by mutual consent, stopped to rest.

Hiiaka perceived that the battle was to be even more fiercely contested than that at Pana-ewa. She bade Paú-o-pala’e to take good care that no ill came to Wahine-oma’o. Looking up into the heavens, Hiiaka saw her relatives and friends Poha-kau, Ka-moho-alii, Kane-milo-hai, and a large concourse of other gods, including Kane, Kanaloa, Ku and Lono, watching her, evidently greatly interested in her performances. They assured her of their protection. At this Hiiaka was much encouraged and gave utterance to her feelings in this kanaenae:

TRANSLATION

At this the great dragon Mo’o-lau bestirred himself. His attack was direct, but he divided his host into two columns so as to envelope Hiiaka and attack her on each flank. Hiiaka saw them approaching through the jungle and chanted the following rallying song:

Mele Ho’-uluulu

TRANSLATION

Pele, perceiving that the crisis of the conflict had now come, called upon all the male and female relatives of Hiiaka (hoaiku) to go to her assistance; “Go and help your sister Hiiaka. There she is fighting desperately with Mo’o-lau—fighting and resting, fighting and resting, well nigh exhausted. Go and help her; all of you go. It’s a fight against Mo’o-lau.”

When the battalion of gods moved against the mo’o, it was a rout and a slaughter. Then the cry arose: “No fight has been made against the Mahiki dragon; he yet survives.” Thereupon [54]they turned their attack against that old dragon and his guards. Hiiaka then celebrated the double victory in this paean:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka’s chief weapon of attack seems to have been her magical paú. With this as a besom she beat them down as a husbandman might beat down a swarm of locusts. The Mahiki and the Mo’o-lau had ceased to exist as organized bodies. But from the rout and slaughter of the armies many individuals had escaped with their lives, and these had hid themselves away in caves and secret places, some of them even, presuming apparently upon their power of disguise, had taken refuge in the remote scattered habitations of the people. Such an inference seems to be justified by the language of the mele now to be given:

Note.—The gods that came to the assistance of Hiiaka such times as circumstances pinched her and whose spiritual power at all times reënforced her feeble humanity were limited in their dominion to certain vaguely defined provinces and departments. Thus, if there was any sea-fighting to be done, it fell to the shark-god, the Admiral Ka-moho-alii, to take charge of it. On the other hand, the conduct of a battle on terra firma would be under the generalship of Kane-milo-hai; while to Kana-loa belonged the marshalling of the celestial hosts, the moon and the stars. But the orb of day, the Sun, belonged to Lono. Hence, if the fighting was during the hours of daylight, Lono would logically assume the command. The rule of the great god Ku was also exercised principally by day. It was he who arranged the calendar and settled the order of the seasons, the days and the nights. The subdivisions and departmental complications under these general divisions were numerous. [55]

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka, having thus far, as it would seem, journeyed along the western coast of Hawaii, now loops back in her course and travels in the direction of Hilo by the way of Hamakua, for the seeming purpose of completing her work of extermination. Like a wise general, she would leave no enemies in her rear.

When they came into the neighborhood of Wahine-oma’o’s home, that girl spoke up and said, “I think we had better take another road. If we keep to this one, which passes by my door, my parents, who will be watching for me, will see me and will want me to remain with them.” This she said by reason of her great desire to continue in Hiiaka’s company. True enough, when they caught sight of her old home, there sat her mother Puna-hoa and her father Kai-pala-oa. [56]

“There they sit,” said the girl. “If they recognize me they will want to keep me.”

Hiiaka bade Wahine-oma’o fall in behind her, hunch her shoulders, bend forward her head and walk with short infirm steps in imitation of an old woman. Hiiaka, on coming close to the old people, using the language of song, asked directions as to the road:

TRANSLATION

“The road is plain enough; you are taking the right way.… We are looking at that young woman of your party—she has such a strong resemblance to our missing daughter, save her way of shuffling and holding her head.”

On reaching the outskirts of the village of Hilo, Hiiaka found a rickety foot-bridge, consisting of a single narrow and wobbly plank, liable to turn at every step and precipitate the passenger into the tumbling waters below—and this was the only passage across the rocky chasm of the Wai-luku1 river. This precarious crossing was the work of two sorcerers, degenerate nondescripts, who had the audacity to levy toll for the use of their bridge, in default of which the traveler suddenly found himself precipitated into the raging water. By virtue of their necromantic powers, they had the presumption to claim spiritual kinship with Hiiaka, a bond the woman could not absolutely repudiate.

“Here comes our mo’o-puna,”2 called out Pili-a-mo’o to his companion.

“Well, what of it? She will have to pay her fare the same as anyone else,” replied Noho-a-mo’o. “Only on that condition shall she cross by our bridge.”

On Hiiaka’s attempting to cross without paying toll, the two [57]sorcerers would, following their own practice, have disarranged the treacherous plank and precipitated her and her party into the raging stream.

“Well said,” Noho-a-mo’o replied; “provided she will consent to it.”

Hiiaka now called to them in the language of song:

TRANSLATION

To this unusual demand they replied, “Indeed, do you imagine we will do any such thing as that? It is not for us to give to you; you must give us the fare before you cross on our bridge. We don’t give away things for nothing.”

Hiiaka replied by repeating her request in nearly the same words:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka repeated her demands in varying form with no other effect than to make the toll-keepers more stubborn in their ridiculous demands. Not even when Hiiaka, as if to cap the climax of their absurdity, ended her demand with this ironical request:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka now openly denounced the two sorcerers as being simply mo’o in disguise, entirely wanting in those generous feelings that belong to godhood. “These creatures are simply mo’o. If I attack them, they will run for their lives.”

The people, failing to recognize Hiiaka as their deliverer, spiritless from long habituation to the fraudulent dominion of these imposters, fearful also of their vengeance, stoutly opposed Hiiaka, affirming that Pili-a-mo’o and Noho-a-mo’o were gods in reality, having great power and capable of doing many wonderful things. They declared their readiness to back their opinion with their property, yes, with their lives. They were at length persuaded, however, to accept as decisive the test proposed by Hiiaka, namely, that, if they fled when attacked, they should cease to be regarded as gods and should be dealt with as imposters. [59]

True to Hiiaka’s prediction, the mo’o, in abject fear, turned and fled for their lives at her first threatening move and she now called upon the people to pursue and destroy them:

TRANSLATION

The meaning of the figure in the first two verses, though obscure, seems to be that Hilo, so rich in natural beauty, is by that very fact robbed of the energy to defend herself and cast off the incubus that oppresses her.

As the creatures fled from Hiiaka’s pursuit, their human disguise fell from them and their real character as mo’o was evident.

“We’ve committed a great blunder,” said Pili-a-mo’o to his mate. “It looks as if she meant to kill us. Let us apologize for our mistake and conciliate her with fair words.”

Noho-a-mo’o agreed to this and, turning to Hiiaka, made this wheedling speech:

[60]

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka spared not, but pursued them to their cavernous rock-heaps in which they thought to hide themselves, and, having seized them, rent them asunder jaw from jaw. Thus did Hiiaka add one more to the score of her victories in the extermination of the mo’o.

It was at this point of the journey that Hiiaka lost the attendance of her sympathetic companion and faithful servant, Paú-o-pala’e. She was persuaded to unite her fortunes with those of a man from Kohala named Pa-ki’i; and we must leave unanswered the question, how she finally settled with Pele this apparent desertion of the trust with which she had been charged, that of acting as aide, kahu, to Hiiaka. Wahine-oma’o now remains as the sole companion of Hiiaka in her future adventures.

On resuming the journey they came before long to the broad stream of Honoli’i, which was swimming deep and, in the lack of other means of crossing, they bundled their clothes, held them above their heads with one hand and easily made the opposite shore by swimming with the aid of the other hand.

At the sight of this performance, the ghost-god, Hina-hina-ku-i-ka-pali and her companion, in a spirit of pure fault-finding and Mother-Grundyism, exclaimed: [61]

TRANSLATION

“For shame!” said Hiiaka. “These ghost-gods have been spying on our nakedness, and now they make sport of us.”

A great fear came upon the ghosts, that the dread goddess would seize them and pinch out their atomy spark of existence. In their terror, they flew home and, perched on the shoulders of their mother, besought her to interpose in their behalf and appease Hiiaka by a suitable offering of luau.

“There burns a fire,” said Wahine-oma’o, as they drew near the house.

“The fire of the ovens built by the ghosts,” Hiiaka answered. “They have saved themselves from death.”

By the time they reached the house the luau was done to a turn and the tables were spread. Wahine-oma’o made an oblation to the gods and then ate of the viands. Hiiaka did not partake of the food.

Hiiaka now spent several days at Hono-kane, in Kohala, anxiously awaiting the departure of some canoe, by which she might pass over to the island of Maui. While thus absorbed, in a sentimental mood, looking one day across the ocean at the misty outline of the distant land, she saw a man of remarkable appearance strike out from one headland of the bay to swim to the opposite point. Her admiration for his physical beauty and his daring performance drew from her a song:

TRANSLATION

Hono-kane heard, of course, the words that were uttered in his praise and, being a man of chivalrous instincts as well as of honor, he invited Hiiaka and Wahine-oma’o to enjoy the hospitalities of his home.

As they sat at a feast spread in her honor, Hiiaka, as was her wont, bowed her head in prayer with closed eyes, and the others did likewise and when they opened their eyes and looked, the portion that had been set before Hiiaka was gone, spirited away.

In the evening it was announced that a canoe was to sail in the early morning on a voyage to Maui, whereupon Hiiaka secured the promise of a passage for herself and Wahine-oma’o. [63]

Hiiaka’s voyage across the Ale-nui-haha channel, considered merely as a sea adventure, was a tame experience. There was no storm, no boistrous weather, sea as calm as a mill-pond, nothing to fillip the imagination with a sense of excitement or danger; yet it was far from being an agreeable experience to the young woman who was now having her first hand-to-hand tussle with the world.

They had spent the night at the house of one Pi’i-ke-a-nui. In the early morning their host and a younger man—apparently his son—named Pi’i-ke-a-iki, made ready their canoe to sail for Maui. Hiiaka, assuming that passage would be granted both of them, in accordance with a promise made the previous day, stood ready against the hour of departure. At the last moment, the younger man, having assisted Wahine-oma’o to her seat in the bow next to himself, called to his elder, “Pi’i-ke-a-nui, why don’t you show your passenger to her seat, the one next you?”

“I won’t do it,” Pi’i-ke-a-nui answered groutily. “I find that the canoe will be overloaded if we take passengers aboard and all our landlord’s freight will get wet.”

The real reason for this volte-face on the part of the old sailor was that he had made an unseemly proposition to Hiiaka the night before and she had repelled him.

Wahine-oma’o, thereupon, left her seat and the canoe started without them. It was not more than fairly underway, however, when a violent sea struck the craft and swamped it, and all the loose freight was floating about in the ocean.

“There, you see! We’d ’ave had better luck with the women aboard.” Such was the exclamation of Pi’i-ke-a-iki.

It did not take long to convince the old man Pi’i-ke-a-nui, who was captain of the canoe, that he had invited this disaster on himself, the agent of which, as he rightly suspected, was none other than the distinguished-looking young woman who now stood on the beach watching him in his predicament with unperturbed countenance.

The two men floated their canoe, collected their baggage and came ashore. When they had got the stuff dry and stowed in the waist of the craft, they escorted the women aboard, seating Wahine-oma’o, as directed by the captain, in the bow near Pi’i-ke-a-iki [64]and Hiiaka in the after part, within arm’s length of Pi’i-ke-a-nui, and they put to sea.

The canoe was a small affair, unprovided with that central platform, the pola, that might serve as the cabin or quarter deck, on which the passengers could stretch themselves for comfort. In her weariness, Hiiaka, with her head toward the bow, reclined her body against the top rail of the canoe, thus eking out the insufficiency of the narrow thwart that was her seat; and she fell asleep, or rather, entered that border-land of Nod, in which the central watchman has not yet given over control of the muscular system and the ear still maintains its aerial reconnoissance.

The wind, meanwhile, as it caromed aft from the triangular sail of mat, coquetted with her tropical apparel and made paú and kihei shake like summer leaves.

The steersman, in whom that precious factor, a chivalrous regard for woman, was even of less value than is common to the savage breast, in the pursuit of a fixed purpose, began to direct amorous glances at the prostrate form before him and to the neglect of his own proper duties. Presently he left his steering and stole up to Hiiaka with privy paw outstretched. Hiiaka roused from her half-dreamy state on the instant, and the man sprang back and resumed his paddle.

Hiiaka, with the utmost coolness, expressed in song her remonstrance and sarcastic rebuke for this exhibition of inhospitable rudeness:

TRANSLATION

[65]

The young man added his protest: “Yes, his whole conduct is, indeed, shameful, scandalous. He hasn’t the decency to wait till he gets ashore.”

In the midst of this unpleasantness it was a comfort to hear the strong cheerful voice of her former companion Paú-o-pala’e calling to her across the stretch of waters. It will be remembered that their roads had parted company sometime before Hiiaka had left the big island. The separation had made no change, however, in their mutual affection:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka replied to her kahu’s mele in these words:

TRANSLATION

Perhaps it was that Hiiaka failed to manifest in her carriage and department the dignity and tabu that hedges in an alii or an akua; perhaps the rough hearted Pi’i-ke-a-nui, sailor-fashion, deemed himself outside the realm of honor which rules on land. [66]However that might be, as Hiiaka lay decently covered against the cold wind that drew down the flank of Hale-a-ka-la, this rude fellow, regardless of every punctilio, stole up to Hiiaka and repeated his former attempt. Hiiaka caught his hand in mid air and administered this rebuke:

TRANSLATION

The canoe grated on the shingly beach. The two young women, rejoiced to be free at last from the enforced proximity of ship-board, sprang ashore and with speedy steps put a distance between themselves and the canoe-house. “That’s right,” called out the steersman. “Make haste to find a bath. We’ll join you in a short time.” [67]

The canoe-men, having used their utmost expedition in landing the freight and hauling up the canoe and getting it under cover, hastened to meet the two women at the rendezvous they had suggested. But they were nowhere to be found. They had disappeared as completely as though the earth had swallowed them up. When Pi’i-ke-a-nui asked the people of the village as to the whereabouts of the two young women who had just now landed as passengers from the canoe, they one and all denied having set eyes upon them.

Hiiaka had planned a visit with her sister Kapo; but, on reaching Wailuku, the house was empty; Kapo and her husband Pua-nui had but just started to make a ceremonious call on Ole-pau, a famous chief of the district. The receding figure of Kapo was already hazy in the distance, so that it seemed more than doubtful if the words of Hiiaka’s message reached the ears for which they were intended:

TRANSLATION

Here is another version of this mele by Hiiaka (furnished by Pelei-oholani). As the version previously given is confessedly imperfect, in part conjectural, there having been several hiatuses in the text, I think it well to give an authorized version, though very different:

TRANSLATION

As Hiiaka passed along the cliff that overlooks the wave-swept beach at Hono-lua, a pitiful sight met her eye, the figure of a woman crippled from birth—without hands. Yet, in spite of her maimed condition, the brave spirit busied herself gathering shell-fish; and when a tumbling wave rolled across the beach she made herself a partner in its sport and gleefully retreated, skipping and dancing to the words of a song: [69]

TRANSLATION

Search for the hidden meaning of this oli has brought out a marvellous diversity of opinion. The chief difficulty lies in the interpretation of the second verse: Ka i’a kahiko pu no me ka wahine, and centers in the expression kahiko pu. One able critic finds in it an allusion to the coöperation of women with the men in the work of fishing. Kahiko is a word of dignity meaning finely apparelled. The addition of the preposition pu amplifies it and gives it almost the meaning of wrapped together. It seems probable also that the word i’a, literally fish, is to be taken in an esoteric sense as a euphemism for man. Putting this interpretation upon it, the meaning of the expression kahiko pu becomes clear as being wrapped together, as in the sexual embrace.

Wahine-oma’o was greatly fascinated by the pathos and romance of the situation and declared she would like to have her for an aikane, an intimate friend.

Hiiaka replied, “Maimed folk seem to be very numerous in these parts.”

The maimed girl kept up her fishing, her light-hearted dancing and singing:

[70]

TRANSLATION

As the wild thing ran from the dash of an incoming wave, by some chance the gourd that held her fish slipped from her and the retreating water carried it beyond her reach, a loss that she lightly touched in her song:

TRANSLATION

There was a shark lurking in the ocean and when Mana-mana-ia-kalu-ea saw it she uttered a little song:

[71]

TRANSLATION

Wahine-oma’o could not repress her admiration for the girl and her desire to have her as an aikane (an intimate friend); and she was full of regret that their presence on the cliff had driven away the fish and interfered with the girl’s occupation.

“The figure you see dancing down there is not a human body; it is only a spirit,” said Hiiaka.

“What!”

“Yes, only a spirit, and I’ll prove it in this way,” she plucked a hala drupe from a wreath about her neck;—“I’ll throw this down to her; and if she flies away, it will prove she is a spirit; but, if she does not disappear, it will prove her to be a human body.”

Hiiaka threw the hala, and the moment the poor soul saw it fall in front of her she vanished out of sight. But in a short time she reappeared and, seizing the hala with her fingerless hand-stumps, she pressed it to her nose with an extravagant display of fondness and, looking up to Hiiaka, she chanted:

TRANSLATION

The loss of her fish still weighed upon the mind of Mana-mana-ia-kaluea. [72]Sitting down on a convenient rock, she mourned aloud:

TRANSLATION

Mana-mana-ia-kalu-ea, sitting on the rock, wrapped in her own little garment of trouble, seemed for the moment quite oblivious to the presence of Hiiaka, who was intently watching her. Suddenly she looked up and, with brightening eye, exclaimed, “I know where you are from:”

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka had conceived a strong prejudice against the girl almost from the first, but now she softened and, turning to Wahine-oma’o, said, “If you really want this girl for an aikane, I think it can be managed. The only trouble will be to hold her after she is caught.”

Hiiaka, using her magical power, caught the spirit of Mana-mana-ia-kalu-ea and, in the lack of a more suitable receptacle, they wrapped it carefully in the free end of Wahine-oma’o’s loin-cloth and went on their way, traveling towards Wailuku. [73]

As they drew near Wailuku, they crossed a sandy plain dotted with tumuli. At once the captive spirit of Mana-mana-ia-kalu-ea became restless, as if eager to be free. “We are nearing the place where rests its body,” explained Hiiaka. Wahine-oma’o by soft words and gentle touch did her best to soothe the perturbed thing.

It might almost be said that the captive spirit of Mana-mana-ia-kalu-ea was the guide (acting like the magnetic needle to point the way) to the home where the as-yet uncorrupted body of the girl still lay, mourned over by her parents.

It was with much prayer and the use of persuasive force that Hiiaka compelled the seemingly reluctant spirit to reenter its bodily tenement and to take up its abode there. As it passed from its point of entrance at the toe up into the chest its progress was marked by a kindling warmth that gave the assurance that the spirit was resuming its empiry over the whole body.

The first request made by the girl, on regaining full consciousness, was that her parents would prepare a feast as a thank-offering to Hiiaka, her physician, her deliverer. The special articles on which she was most insistent were luau and baked aoaoa.1

When it came to the final dressing of the luau for the table, namely the stripping off of the outer leafy covering from the scalding hot mass within—an operation which the girl insisted on doing with her own newly restored hands—Hiiaka watched her critically; for the proper etiquette of the function was most punctilious. But Hiiaka could find no fault with her technique: there was no slip, no solecism, no blowing on her fingers to relieve the scalding heat, as she stripped off the wrappings of the bundles.

When the feast was set and all were gathered about the tables, at Hiiaka’s command all bowed their heads with closed eyes and she offered up her prayer to the gods of heaven. At the conclusion of her prayer, when they looked, lo, the portion of the feast set apart for the gods had vanished without leaving a trace [74]behind. On this occasion Hiiaka was seen to eat of the food that was provided for her.2

The line of travel now chosen by Hiiaka was that along the northern or Koolau side of the island of Maui and led them at first through a barren stretch of country called a kaha, the food-supply of which came from a distance. It was here that Wahine-oma’o began to complain bitterly of hunger and exhaustion from the lack of food, and she besought Hiiaka to intercede with the people of a neighboring fishing village to give them something to eat.

“How is this, that you are a-hungered so soon after the feast of which you have partaken? This is a kaha,” said Hiiaka, “and you must know that food does not grow in this place. They have only fish from the sea. Nevertheless, I will venture the request.” This she did in the language of song:

TRANSLATION

Some of the people derided them, saying, “Mahaoi!”—what impudence! Others, with kindness in their tones, explained, “This is a barren place; and all of our food comes from a great distance.” The churlish ones, however, kept up their taunts: “You won’t get any food in this place. Go up there;” and they pointed in the direction of Iao valley, where was the residence of King Ole-pau.

During the whole of the day, while tramping through this [75]region, Hiiaka had observed from time to time a ghostly object flitting across the plain within hearing distance and in a direction parallel to their course. Though this spirit was not visible to ordinary mortal eye, Hiiaka recognized it as the second soul of Ole-pau, the very chief to whom the people of the fishing village had bid her make her appeal for food. Hiiaka, putting two and two together, very naturally came to the conclusion that this vagrant kino wailua was, in the last resort, responsible for this denial of hospitality to herself and her companion. Acting on this conclusion, Hiiaka made a captive of the vagrant soul and determined to hold it as a hostage for the satisfaction of her reasonable demands.

On coming within speaking distance of the house where lived the woman Wai-hinano, who ostentatiously played the part of kahu and chief adviser to Ole-pau, Hiiaka made known her wish, concluding her appeal with ominous threats against the life of the king, in case her demands were not met:

TRANSLATION

To this the sorceress, Waihinano, answered pertly:

[77]

TRANSLATION

To this Hiiaka retorted:

TRANSLATION

[78]

The woman Wai-hinano replied to Hiiaka with great spirit and temper:

TRANSLATION

The situation was peculiar: while Ka-ula-hea (in the narrative sometimes called Ole-pau) lay asleep, his second soul, kino wailua, deserting its post of duty as life-guard over the bodily tenement, had stolen away in pursuit of its own pleasures. It was this very kino wailua that Hiiaka had seen flanking her own route, as it flitted through the fields, and which she had caught and now held fast in her hand like a fluttering moth, a hostage answerable for his misbehaviour and disregard of the rites of hospitality. Its possession gave Hiiaka complete power over the life of the king. It was no empty vaunt when Hiiaka again declared in song:

TRANSLATION

While Wai-hinano was listening to these awful words of [79]Hiiaka she was dumbfounded by the tidings that Ka-ula-hea had waked from seemingly peaceful sleep in great perturbation, and that he had been seized with the most alarming and distressful symptoms. In her distraction and rage she still maintained a defiant attitude:

TRANSLATION

[80]

After each incantation that Hiiaka had uttered against Ka-ula-hea that king’s disorder had flared up in more alarming proportions, and he cried out in agony and despair. But it was equally true that just as often as Wai-hinano had uttered her assurances that his trouble was but a trivial indisposition and that the male and female deities—above named—stood on his side and would not let him die, his courage had revived, he had felt a wave of healing influence pass through him and relief had come.

In explanation of this see-saw of hope and despair, sickness and relief, let it be stated that the two goddesses Ha-pu’u and Ka-lei-hau-ola and the two male deities Ke-olo-ewa and Kama-ua, to whom Wai-hinano had appealed by name as staunch friends of Ka-ula-hea, were, in fact, allies, or, more properly speaking, partizans of Pele and, therefore, subject to the call of Hiiaka. The kahuna Kaua-kahi-ma-hiku-lani who had charge of the case of Ka-ula-hea derived his power as a kahuna from these very same gods; but he well knew that if there was a conflict of interests the commands of Hiiaka would have to be carried out. As for the gods and goddesses above named, they, of course, knew their own position and that, as between Ka-ula-hea and Hiiaka, their service must be rendered to the latter. Willing enough they were, however, in return for the offerings laid on their altars, to feed the hopes of the sick man by temporary relief of his sharpest agonies.

As if this tangle of motives were not enough, the affair was yet further complicated by the appearance of Kapo—sister, or aunt of Hiiaka—on the scene, who came not only as an interested spectator but as a friend of king Ka-ula-hea. Her power to intervene was, of course, handicapped by the same limitations that touched the other gods and goddesses. She had the good sense to retire from the scene before things came to a critical pass.

Meanwhile messengers are flying about, seeking or bringing assurance of relief and restoration to health to the king. Hiiaka saw that the time had come for decisive action. She went close up to the great stone Paha-lele that still lies in the road near Wai-he’e and, before smiting against the rock the soul she held captive in her hand, she uttered the following kau:

She pauses for a moment, then continues:

TRANSLATION

With this she dashed the captive soul against the rock, and that was the end of Ka-ula-hea.

There was something in the manner of Hiiaka as she called the name of the kahuna Kau-akahi that chilled the courage of the group of sorcery gods. They saw that their game was played out, and they sneaked away and hid themselves. [82]

“Let us make haste to leave this place,” said Hiiaka. This was because she foresaw that she would be importuned to use her power to restore the dead king to life.

When these akuas, these spirits of necromancy, became convinced that they had been worsted in the fight and that the king was dead beyond all hope of recovery from them, they instructed the kahuna Kaua-kahi-ma-hiku-lani to desist from his useless incantations and to dispatch all his people in search of Hiiaka as the only one capable of reviving the king’s life.

While toiling up the ascent of the hill Pulehu, the two women saw in the distance a great multitude of people pursuing them. Wahine-oma’o, in alarm, exclaimed, “What in the world shall we do!” At once Hiiaka by the power of enchantment changed Wahine-oma’o into the shape of a little girl leading a dog, while she herself assumed the form of a bent old woman hobbling along with the aid of a stick; and as the multitude drew near they sat down by the wayside as if to rest.

The people in pursuit had seen and recognized Hiiaka and felt sure of soon overtaking her. But, on coming to the place, they found only a decrepit woman and a child leading a dog. They were taken aback and asked, “Where are the two young women who were traveling this way? Have you not seen them?”

“We have seen nothing of them,” was the answer.

When the people reported to the kahuna that they had found only an old woman and a girl with a dog in tow, he saw through the trick at once and exclaimed, “Those are the very persons I want. Go and bring them.”

The messengers of the kahuna next came up with Hiiaka and her companion at a place called Ka-lau-la’ola’o. There they found two girls of tender age busily employed in gathering lehua flowers and stringing them into wreaths; and, as before, they denied all sight and knowledge of the persons inquired for. The kahuna recognized that his people had again been victimized [83]and, upbraiding them for their lack of detective insight, ordered them to renew the pursuit.

Once more, at Kapua, in Ka-ana-pali, did Hiiaka find it necessary to resort to the arts of magic in order to escape from her pursuers. When the scouts of the kahuna arrived at the place they found a household of busy women—a wrinkled matronly figure was braiding a mat, while her companion, just returned from the ocean, was laying a fire to broil a fish for the evening meal. Not until they had gone some distance from the place did it occur to their sharpening wits that the house had looked spick-and-span new, and that they had seen no man about the place. Yes—they had been fooled again by the wonderful art of the girl Hiiaka.

Hiiaka was rejoiced to find a canoe on the point of sailing to Moloka’i and the sailors gladly consented to give her a passage. The people of Kapua were greatly taken with the beauty and charm of Hiiaka and proposed, in all seriousness, that she should remain and become one of them. When they found that she was insistent to continue her journey at once, they one and all warned her not to attempt the windward side of Moloka’i, declaring its coast to be precipitous and impassable, besides being infested by a band of man-killing mo’o.

Hiiaka had no sooner set foot on Molokai’s beach than her ears were assailed with complaints against those lawless beings, the mo’o. Two women, pallid and wasted with starvation, sat in the open field moaning and bewailing their estate. At sight of Hiiaka, as if recognizing their knight errant, they broke out into loud lamentations. The mo’o had robbed them of their husbands, and with them had gone their means of support and their very desire for food. Hiiaka, as if recognizing their claim upon her knight-errantry, with heartfelt sympathy for their miserable condition, opened her mouth in song:

TRANSLATION

At this the women spoke up and said: “Our bodies are wasted only from our passionate love for our husbands. When they were taken from us we refused food.”

Hiiaka was indignant at such folly and left them to their fate. Their way still continued for some distance through a barren region and Hiiaka again alluded in song to the barrenness of the land and the misery of the women who suffered their bodies to waste away:

TRANSLATION

The good people of Halawa valley, where Hiiaka found herself well received, made earnest protest against the madness of her determination to make her way along the precipitous coast wall that formed Moloka’i’s windward rampart. The route, they said, was impassable. Its overhanging cliffs, where nested the tropic-bird and the ua’u, dropped the plummet straight into the boiling ocean. Equally to be dreaded was a nest of demonlike creatures, mo’o, that infested the region and had their headquarters at Kiki-pua, which gave name to the chief mo’o. Kiki-pua, being of the female sex, generally chose the form of a woman as a disguise to her character which combined the fierceness and blood-thirstiness of the serpent with the shifty resources of witchcraft, thus enabling her to assume a great variety of physical [85]shapes, as suited her purpose. This last fact, had it stood by itself, would have decided Hiiaka’s choice; for her journey, considered as a pilgrimage, had as an important side-purpose the extermination root-and-branch, of the whole cursed tribe of mo’o from one end of the land to the other.

(This Kiki-pua band of mo’o had included Haka-a’ano, the husband of Kiki-pua, also Papala-ua and her husband Oloku’i.1 Kiki-pua had stolen away and taken to herself Oloku’i, the husband of Papala-ua, thus creating a bitter feud which broke up the solidarity of the band.)

The way chosen by Hiiaka led along the precipitous face of the mountain by a trail that offered at the best only a precarious foothold or clutch for the hand. At one place a clean break opened sheer and straight into the boiling sea. As they contemplated this impasse, a plank, narrow and tenuous, seemed to bridge the abyss. Wahine-oma’o, rejoicing at the way thus offered, promptly essayed to set foot upon it, thinking thus to make the passage. Hiiaka held her back, and on the instant the bridgelike structure vanished. It was the tongue of the mo’o thrust out in imitation of a plank, a device to lure Hiiaka and her companion to their destruction.

Hiiaka, not to be outdone as a wonder-worker, spanned the abyss by stretching across it her own magical pa-ú, and over this, as on a bridge, she and Wahine-oma’o passed in security.

The mo’o, Kiki-pua, took flight and hid among the cavernous rocks. But that did not avail for safety. Hiiaka gave chase and, having caught her, put an end to the life of the miserable creature. Thus did Hiiaka take another step towards ridding the land of the mo’o. [86]

Hiiaka’s adventurous tour of Moloka’i ended at Kauna-ka-kai, from which place she found no difficulty in obtaining the offer of transportation to Oahu. The real embarrassment lay in the super-gallantry of the two sailors who manned the canoe. When the two men looked upon Hiiaka and Wahine-oma’o, they were so taken with admiration for their beauty and attractiveness, that they sneaked out of a previous engagement to take their own wives along with them, trumping up some shuffling excuse about the canoe being overladen.

Arriving at the desolate landing near the wild promontory of Maka-pu’u, it was only by a piece of well-timed duplicity that Hiiaka and her companion managed to shake off the sailors and relieve themselves from their excessive attentions.

While in mid channel, in sight of Ulu-ma-wao, a promontory whose name was the same as a near relative of the Pele family, Hiiaka poured out this reminiscence in song:

[87]

TRANSLATION

It was a question with Hiiaka whether to follow the Koolau or the Kona side of the island. The consideration that turned the scale in favor of the Koolau route was that thus she would have sight of a large number of aunts and uncles, members of the Pele family, whose ghosts still clung to the dead volcanic cones and headlands which stood as relics of their bygone activities, and where they eked out a miserable existence. The region was thickly strewn with these skeleton forms. Hiiaka first addressed herself to Maka-pu’u:

TRANSLATION

To this Maka-pu’u answered: “We love the place, the watch-tower, from which we can see the canoes, with their jibing triangular sails, sailing back and forth between here and Moloka’i.” To this she added a little chanty:

[88]

TRANSLATION

To Malei Hiiaka addressed the following condolence:

TRANSLATION

Note.—Malei was, I am told, a female kupua who assumed various bodily forms. Offerings were necessary, not for her physical but for her spiritual sustenance. The burnt offering was not merely pleasing for its sweet smelling savour, it was an aliment necessary to the creature’s continued existence. For the same or a parallel reason, songs of praise and adulation (kanaenae) were equally acceptable and equally efficacious. Cut off the flowers of speech as well as the offerings of its worshippers, and a kupua would soon dwindle into nothingness. [89]

“You are quite right,” answered Malei: “the only food to be had in this desolate spot is the herbage that grows hereabouts; and for clothing we have to put up with such clouts as are tossed us by travelers. When the wind blows one has but to open his mouth to get his belly full. That has been our plight since your sister left us two old people here. Cultivate this plain, you say; plant it with sweet potatoes; see the leaves cover the hills; then make an oven and so relieve your hunger. Impossible.”

As they traveled on Maka-pu’u and its neighbor hills passed out of sight. Arriving at Ka-ala-pueo, they caught view of the desolate hill Pohaku-loa, faint, famished, forlorn. The sight of it drew from Hiiaka this chanting utterance:

TRANSLATION

“It is indeed a barren land. Fish is the only food it produces. Our vegetables come from Wai-manalo. When the people of that district bring down bundles of food we barter for it our fish. When we have guests, however, we try to set vegetable food before them.”

To speak again of the kupua Malei, a few years ago, as I am told, a Hawaiian woman on entering a certain cave in the region of Wai-manalo, found herself confronted with a stone figure, from which glowed like burning coals a group of eight flaming eyes, being set in deep sockets in the stone. This rare object was soon recognized as the bodily dwelling of the kupua Malei. This little monolith at a later time came into the possession of Mr. John Cummins of Wai-manalo. [90]

Hiiaka found many things to try her patience and ruffle her temper in Pali-Koolau: Squalls, heavy with rain-drops picked up by the wind in its passage across the broad Pacific, slatted against her and mired the path; but worse than any freak of the weather were her encounters with that outlaw thing, the mo’o; not the bold robber creature of Hawaii which took to the wilds, as if in recognition of its own outlawry, but that meaner skulk, whose degenerate spirit had parted with its last atom of virtuous courage and clung to human society only as a vampire, unwilling to forego its parasitic hold on humanity. It was in the mood and spirit begotten of such experiences that she sang:

TRANSLATION

As they approached Kua-loa, the huge mo’o-dragon, Moko-li’i, reared himself up and, pluming and vaunting himself, sought to terrify them and prevent their passage. Hiiaka did not flinch in her attack. When she had killed the monster, she set up his flukes as a landmark which now forms the rock known to this day as Moko-li’i. The body of the dragon she disposed in such a way that it helped form the road-bed of the traveled highway. After this achievement she vented her feelings in an exultant song:

TRANSLATION

Coming to where the deep and narrow gorge of Ka-liu-wa’a valley opens out, Hiiaka discerned the nature-carved lineaments of her ancestor Kauhi ke-i-maka-o-ka-lani, as he was epitheted, a rocky form set in the pali, but veiled to ordinary sight by a fringe of ti and kukui. Its eye-sockets, moist with the dripping dew of heaven, gleamed upon her with a wondrous longing, which she answered in song: [92]

[93]

TRANSLATION

This kupua, Kauhi, termed the watch-tower of heaven, having come from Kahiki in the train of Pele’s followers, and having been stationed in this cliff, had got no further in his travels than Oahu. He bemoaned his fate as that of a malihini god, a stranger to the rest of the group. On being roused by this prayer-song of Hiiaka, as he gazed upon the beautiful goddess, a divine ambition stirred within him—to journey with her, enjoy her society, and make acquaintance with the land to which he was still a stranger. With this purpose in mind, at the conclusion of her address, he chanted this response:

TRANSLATION

At the conclusion of this kanaenae Kauhi said to Hiiaka, “If you are the woman that consumes the forests of Puna, when you travel I will go with you.” (“Ina ooe ka wahine ai laau o Puna, ooe hele, oau hele.”)

Hiiaka did not wish to offend the aggrieved deity; at the same time she could not consent to his proposition. In this dilemma she did her best to soothe his feelings and reconcile him to his lot:

TRANSLATION

Kauhi was indignant at this evasive dismissal of his entreaty. The thought that Hiiaka should countenance his perpetual imprisonment in the bleak cliff filled him with rage. With a mighty effort he lifted himself and tore away the covering of tree-roots, earth and rocks that embraced him until he came to a crouching position. That was the limit of his power: he could do no more. A stony form in the mountain wall of Kahana, resembling the shape of a man on all-fours, remains to vouch for the truth of this legend.

HALEMAUMAU—THE LAKE OF FIRE

[97]

Hiiaka constantly showed a lively interest in the important features of the landscape, often addressing them as if they had been sentient beings. At Kai-papa’u, looking out upon cape Lani-loa, she greeted it as if it had been an old friend of the family:

TRANSLATION

They passed through the lands of Laie, Malae-kahana and Keana and at Kahipa they saw the crouching figures of Punahe’e-lapa and Pahi-pahi-alua, who stole away into the shelter of the pandanus groves without deigning to give them any salutation. At this show of disrespect, Hiiaka called out:

[98]

TRANSLATION

They crossed the Waimea stream on the sand-bar, which in ordinary weather dams its mouth and, climbing the rocky bluff Kehu-o-hapu’u, had a fine view of the ocean surges tossing up their white spray as they ceaselessly beat against the near-by elevated reef-fringe that parapets this coast, as well as of the Ka-ala mountains, blue in the distance.

(This bluff of Kehu-o-hapu’u until within a few years was the site of a little heiau, the resort of fishermen; and in it stood a rude stone figure of the fish-god Ku-ula. From the non-mention of this interesting object, we have to argue either that the discovery and worship of this idol was of later date than the times of Hiiaka or that she ignored it.)

Hiiaka, casting her eye about for objects of interest, was attracted by the odd appearance of the lily-like water-plant uki, the detached floating clumps of which looked as if they had been fire-smitten:

TRANSLATION

From the same vantage-ground—that of Kehu-o-hapu’u—Hiiaka not only saw the dash of the ocean against the buttresses of the near-by coast, her ears also were filled with a murmurous ocean-roar that gave to the air a tremor like that of a deep organ-tone:

TRANSLATION

The landscape still held her, and she continued:

TRANSLATION

“Let us move on,” said Hiiaka to her companion, “there’s a pang next my heart. Had I meat in my hand, we’d trudge to a water-spring and so be refreshed until we came to the house of a friend. Let us move.”

From the plain near Lau-hulu Hiiaka took a fresh view of Mount Ka-ala and, in a tone of bantering apology, said, “Forget me not, O Ka-ala. Perhaps you complain that I have not chanted your praises:” [100]

TRANSLATION

The story of Cape Ka-ena, that finger-like thrusts itself out into the ocean from the western extremity of Oahu, touches Hawaiian mythology at many points: Its mountain eminence was a leina uhane, jumping-off place, where the spirits of the deceased took their flying leap into ghost-land. Here it was that the demigod Mawi had his pou sto when he made the supreme effort of his life to align and unite the scattered group of islands; and here can still be seen Pohaku o Kauai, the one fragment of terra firma his hook could wrench from its base. Here, too, it was that Pele stood when she chaffed the old demi-god for having lured her on, as she supposed, with drum and fife to the pursuit of Lohiau; and now her sister Hiiaka stands in the same place. The subject was well worthy Hiiaka’s muse:

TRANSLATION

The rocks and huge bowlders that dotted the barren waste of Ka-ena seemed to the travelers to glow and vibrate as if they were about to melt under the heat of the sun, a phenomenon that stirred the imagination of Hiiaka to song:

TRANSLATION

[105]

Hiiaka had large acquaintance with the natural features of every landscape, and if those features were of volcanic origin she might claim them as kindred through her own relationship with Pele. It was hers to find friendship, if not sermons, in stones. This Pohaku-o-Kaua’i, to whom Hiiaka now addressed herself, though in outward form an unshapen bowlder, as we see it today,—the very one that Mawi drew from its ocean-bed with his magic hook Mana-ia-ka-lani—was in truth a sentient being, alive to all the honor-claims of kinship. To him, in her need, Hiiaka addressed herself:

TRANSLATION

“I have no canoe,” said Pohaku-o-Kaua’i. “The one I had was wrecked in a storm while on a fishing trip. One huge wave came aboard and split her from end to end. We had to swim for it. But surely, such a beautiful woman as you will have no trouble in finding a canoe. There must be no lack of canoes making the trip to Kaua’i.”

“In the lack of a canoe, let us have a plank, such as I see you are there using for a shelf.” [106]

“If that will serve you, you are welcome,” said the old man.

“We shall also need an outrigger-float for our craft,” Hiiaka remarked.

“An ama (outrigger-float) is a thing I lack,” he answered.

“You must have some block of wili-wili—such as that one, for instance, which you use to hold your fishhooks,” Hiiaka urged.

The old man was able to meet their demands. The two women then set their wits to work and finally succeeded in lashing the parts together in such fashion as to make something that would serve as a canoe.

Hiiaka, as the one in command, sat astern and Wahine-oma’o in the bow. As they sailed away Hiiaka saluted Cape Ka-ena in these words:

TRANSLATION

When well out in the channel of Kaieie the sight of the famous Hill of Haupu, that now appeared to lift its head like a water-fowl stemming the tide, was an inspiration to song. Mingled with the pleasure, however, was the chagrin and indignation that came from knowing that at that very moment her own lehua preserves in Kona were suffering ravage from fire by the act of Pele: [107]

TRANSLATION

“What a notion!” Wahine-oma’o exclaimed. “Who in the world is meddling with your lehuas?”

While they were sailing along the precipitous coast of Ka-lalau, set in the windward wall of the island, Hiiaka saw standing at the mouth of a cave high up on the precipice, the spirit form of one who was no other than Lohiau, and again she was moved to song:

TRANSLATION

The ghost-form of Lohiau still continued to show itself as they sailed; and when it signalled a recognition of Hiiaka by beckoning to her, she could but answer it:

TRANSLATION

On arriving at Haena, Hiiaka did not go at once to Lohiau’s place but to the house of Malae-ha’a-koa, a man of chiefish rank, and one who had the reputation of being a seer. He was lame and unable to walk. For this reason his wife, Wailua-nui-a-hoano, had carried him down to the seashore and, leaving him there to his fishing, had gone home to her work of tapa-making. She was busily wielding the tapa club in the hale kuku kapa while Hiiaka stood outside the enclosure and sang:

TRANSLATION

[110]

The woman Wai-lua-nui-a-hoano received in silence this sharp reproof of her haughty and inhospitable conduct, couched, though it was, in the veiled language of symbol. Her eyes left the work in hand and followed Hiiaka and Wahine-oma’o as they turned and faced the path that climbed the pali wall.

Malae-ha’a-koa, lame, guileless, innocent of all transgression, meanwhile, sat and fished. He had cast afresh his triple-hooked line, blown from his mouth into the water the comminuted fragments of the shrimps whose bodies baited his hooks and, as he waited for a bite he chanted a song (to the god of good luck) that reached Hiiaka’s ear:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka’s answer to this was a song:

TRANSLATION

As if obedient to the charm of Hiiaka’s incantation, the breeze sank to a whisper and the ruffled surface of the ocean took on a calm that brought fish to the fisherman’s hooks.

Malae-ha’a-koa looked up from his work and, though he did not recognize Hiiaka, he had an intuitive sense that it was her power that had quieted the elements and, with a shrewd insight, he divined that she was of the Pele family. “It is you then that has made this day one of calm;” and he continued his address in song:

TRANSLATION

Malae-ha’a-koa felt a genial thrill pervading his system; new vigor came to him; he found himself able to stand on his feet and walk. Some new and wonderful power had come into his life. In the first flush of his ecstacy, he gathered up his fishing tackle, thrust the hooks and lines into his basket and walked triumphantly home on his own feet. Without a word to his wife, he began to tear down a portion of the fence that enclosed the house-lot.

“What are you about?” exclaimed his wife; “tearing down our fence!… But what has happened to you? Here you are for the first time in many years able to walk on your feet!”

The man made no immediate reply, but kept on with his work. When she repeated her questionings and expressions of wonder, [112]he quietly asked, “Have you not seen two women about the place?”

“There were two women who came this way,” she answered thoughtfully.

“Would you think it! They were divine beings,” he exclaimed in a tone of conviction. “We must spread for them a feast. You had better prepare some luau.”

Malae-ha’a-koa himself, alii as he was, with his own hands set about dressing and preparing a dog for the oven. This was his own token of service. At his command his people brought the material for an abundant feast.

Hiiaka saw from a distance the smoke of Malae-ha’a-koa’s imu and recognized the bustle preparatory to a feast, she exclaimed to her companion, “The lame man has saved the day.”

When the repast was nearing its end and the people had well eaten, Malae-ha’a-koa and his wife stood forth and led in the performance of a sacred dance, accompanying their rhythmic motions with a long mele that recited the deeds, the events, the mysteries that had marked Pele’s reign since the establishment of her dominion in Hawaii:

[114]

Hiiaka was so greatly impressed with this mele that she commanded Wahine-oma’o to restrain herself and observe the dignity of the occasion by eating more quietly. The young woman, thereupon, moderated her gusto and concluded her repast with less smacking of the lips; and the singers proceeded:

[115]

[117]

Pelei-oho-lani informs me that the following verses are found in another version of this mele immediately following verse ¹⁸³:

TRANSLATION

[122]

TRANSLATION

[125]

[131]

With a nice feeling of etiquette, Hiiaka’s hosts allowed the day of her arrival to pass with no inquiry as to the purpose of her visit. But on the morning of the morrow Malae-ha’a-koa asked the question that put himself in sympathetic touch with his guests.

“I have come to escort Lohiau as a lover to the bed of Pele,” said Hiiaka.

“Lohiau has been dead many days,” they both exclaimed. “He took his own life out of a passionate infatuation for one of the Hono-pú1 women.”

“Let that be as it may,” Hiiaka answered; “I will go and see for myself.”

Now Kahua-nui, the sister of Lohiau, had laid his body to rest in a sepulcher close to her own residence; but on examination the place was found to be empty. It was evident that the body had been spirited away. Hiiaka, turning her gaze to the mountain, discerned a ghostly form standing at the mouth of a cave. It was the ghost of Lohiau. In an effort to soothe and attract him, Hiiaka, with arms extended and face uplifted, in passionate utterance gave vent to her emotions:

TRANSLATION

[132]

Again she scanned the lineaments of the shadowy form if she might find there the picture her mind had imaged. At second view, the ghostly unreality of the tenuous image so greatly shocked her imagination by its contrast to her ideal of a true flesh-and-blood lover, that she amended her first utterance:

TRANSLATION

A creepy thrill came over Hiiaka as she saw the bloodless lips open and heard these answering words from the mouth of the weird object that stood on the pali wall:

TRANSLATION

With the desire to soothe the bewildered soul Hiiaka again spoke: [133]

TRANSLATION

A moment’s pause and she resumed:

TRANSLATION

Kahua-nui was greatly moved when she heard the words of Hiiaka and said, with emotion, “It is evident you loved my brother, that handsome fellow—dead! If only the woman had been like you! What a pity that he should have wasted himself on such a good-for-nothing!”

“Tell me, pray, where did you lay your brother’s body?” asked Hiiaka.

“Yonder,” said she, pointing to a grass house. “Lima-loa, who hails from Kauna-lewa, in Mana, bound on the thatch. That job completed, he went away with all the men of the place to bewail him. We two women alone remain to keep watch over him. There he lies and we stand guard over his sepulcher.”

Then Hiiaka, girding herself with her divine attributes as a goddess of Kilauea—the power which, on occasion, availed to flood the plains of Puna with sounding plates of pahoehoe, or to heap up the rugged aä at Maukele—reached into the sepulcher in search of Lohiau’s body. But it was not there. It had been stolen away by the two mo’o-witches (Kilioe and Ka-lana-mai-nu’u) and lodged in a cave high up in the inaccessible mountain side.

The emotions of Hiiaka at this turn of events found expression in song:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka, at the mention of Lima-loa and the part he had taken in constructing the house that served as a sepulcher for Lohiau, jumped to the conclusion that he had been the body-snatcher of Lohiau. Kahuanui strongly dissented from this view. “There can be no doubt,” said she, “that my brother’s body lies in that sepulcher at this very moment. That is the reason for my keeping guard over the place. But why stand we here? Let us go to my home.”

As Hiiaka went with her she again had sight of the ghost-form of Lohiau standing in the door of the cavern, and she addressed to him this mele:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka paused for a moment and then continued in a reflective mood:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka now perceived two female figures squatted at the entrance of the cavern, which they had carefully blocked and were guarding. These were the creatures that had stolen away the body of Lohiau. She at once raised her voice and addressed them with this threatening language:

TRANSLATION

The magic of these words worked their death-purpose. The way to the sepulchral cave was now unobstructed. As they came, however, to the base of the cliff, they found that the ladder had been removed—the mischievous work of the witches. [137]Wahine-oma’o was aghast. “There is no ladder for us to climb up by,” said the woman.

“Turn your face to the cliff,” was Hiiaka’s answer.

The girl did so and used her best efforts to climb the mountain wall. The day was far spent and darkness would soon come on. Thereupon Hiiaka invoked the Sun, bidding it stand still at the mouth of the river Hea:

TRANSLATION

[138]

Before proceeding to her task Hiiaka instructed Malae ha’a-koa to call in the guards stationed at Lohiau’s sepulcher and to keep the hula going for the next ten days as an attraction to draw off the people from playing the spy on her performances.

Hiiaka and her companion conquered the impossible and scaled the mountain wall as if their feet had the clinging property of the fly. Lohiau’s ghost would have escaped, but with birdlike quickness she caught it. At her command Wahine-oma’o gathered certain aromatic and fragrant herbs of the wilderness, and having made a fire, they bruised and warmed the samples and spread them upon a sheet of leaves.

While Wahine-oma’o kept fast hold of the feet, Hiiaka forced the soul-particle to pass in through one of the eye-sockets. It went as far as the cavity of the chest, then turned back and strove to escape. Hiiaka guarded the ways of exit and with skillful manipulations compelled it to go on. Reaching the loins, it balked again; but Hiiaka’s art conquered its resistance and the human particle extended its journey to the feet. There was a twitching of these parts; the hands began to move, the eye-lids to quiver; breath once more entered the body. They lifted and laid it on the blanket of aromatics and restoratives, swathing it from head to foot.

Hiiaka set a calabash of water before her and, addressing Wahine-oma’o, said, “Listen to my prayer. If it is correct and faultless, our man will live; but if it is wrong or imperfect, he will die.”

“He will not survive,” replied Wahine-oma’o gloomily.

TRANSLATION

“How was my prayer?” asked Hiiaka, turning to Wahine-oma’o.

“It was a good prayer,” she replied. “Its only fault was that it sped on too quickly and came to an end too soon.”

“In its haste to obtain recovery, no doubt,” said Hiiaka.

“Perhaps so,” the woman replied.

“Listen now to this prayer,” Hiiaka said. “If it is a good prayer our man will recover:”

TRANSLATION

“How is my prayer?” said Hiiaka, turning to her companion. The answer was the same as before.

Hiiaka devotes herself to gentle ministrations of healing; but without intermitting the chanting of prayer-songs, the burden of whose petition is that the Spirit of Health shall prevail in Lohiau and restore him completely. After again sprinkling the body with water from the calabash, she breaks forth:

TRANSLATION

As in archery the character of the arrow, the skill of the archer, and the caprice of the air-currents that blow athwart the course of the arrow’s flight may severally or collectively make or mar success, so likewise with the kahuna and his praying, success or failure were spelled by the quality of his prayer-shaft, by the manner of his utterance of it, and lastly, by the physical and moral state of the atmosphere as to the existence or absence of noise and disturbance.

It was not, then, through a mere silly curiosity or pride of utterance that Hiiaka appealed to her attendant to learn what she thought of her prayer. Nor was it a vain and meaningless compliment when the latter declared the prayer to be good, the conditions favorable. At the same time she could not repress the criticism that from her emotional stand-point of view, the prayer seemed short.

Again Hiiaka sprinkled the body with water from the calabash while she uttered this prayer-song:

TRANSLATION

The work of completely restoring Lohiau by the necromancies of the kahuna, like a process of nature, required the ripening hand of time. The utterance of prayer must be unremitting. [144]

While Hiiaka in her ministrations did not omit anything that might aid and expedite Lohiau’s physical recovery, her chief reliance was in the spiritual aid of the gods; for which purpose prayer followed prayer like the pictures in a moving show:

He Mele Kunikuni no Lohiau

THE CLIFFS OF KALALAU

TRANSLATION

Prayer followed on the heels of prayer: [146]

This mele-pule, though closely resembling, in many parts identical with, that on page 144 seems worth reproducing here.

TRANSLATION

“How is it with you, O Lohiau?” inquired Hiiaka.

“Continue to kneel at the shrine. Prostrate yourself at the lake of our mistress,” answered Lohiau. [148]

Thereupon, Hiiaka, greatly encouraged, resumed her praying and chanted in a clear tone:

TRANSLATION

To the grist of prayers which Hiiaka, with chanting tone, had already brought to the prayer-mill of the gods, she now added, or—following the figure employed by the Hawaiian narrator—laid on the altar of the gods33 (uhau) the following; her mental attitude being that of one who was angling—again to borrow the Hawaiian figure—literally, fishing (paeaea)34 for a favor, a benefit:

[150]

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka chanted also another prayer:

TRANSLATION

[151]

Prayer quickly followed prayer, like the moving pictures in a shifting scene:

TRANSLATION

The conclusion of this prayer saw Lohiau quite restored to consciousness, but in a state of utter bewilderment as to his surroundings. He found himself most unaccountably in a small rocky chamber with two women who were utter strangers in attendance on him. Before him, as he looked out, hung the apron of a mountain precipice, while in the distance and far below tossed the ocean, a familiar sight that called him back to earth at once, stirring pleasant fancies in his mind and waking in him a yearning for the sea. [152]

Hiiaka’s work of healing was now accomplished. She had seen the cold and withered form gain fullness, warmth and color; been cheered by the oö-a-moa, the crowing sigh that came with the inrush of air to the lungs—and now he stood before her in physical perfection.

The question—asked by Wahine-oma’o—how they were to climb down from their inaccessible position was answered by the sudden appearance of three rainbows that arched themselves conveniently at their feet, and on these, as on ladders, they climbed from the dizzy height to the sleeping village below. Under the priestly guidance of Hiiaka, they all now resorted to the ocean and with the aid of its waters performed the rite of cleansing from the ceremonial defilement that came from the touch of a corpse. With this cleansing each one of them seemed to have a new birth of physical perfection. As they came up out of the water their bodies seemed actually to glow with a fresh and radiant beauty.

The touch of salt water woke in Lohiau a longing he could not resist. He took his surf-board and, with face to the incoming rollers, made for the open sea. The place was one where he had often sported before, prescriptive custom having in fact set it apart for the exclusive use of the chiefs.

The “fish”—as the Hawaiians called the Milky way—was already declining in the west and beginning to pale at the approach of a new day, and Lohiau still rode the waves.

That same night Kahua-nui, Lohiau’s sister, woke from her sleep with a start. She went out of doors and, lifting her eyes to the mountain wall, saw a light gleaming in the cave where lay her brother’s body. She rubbed her eyes to remove the cobwebs of sleep—yes, there it was, a quivering light, set like an eye in the socket of the mountain wall, and figures moving about. She rushed back into the house where slept her husband and stirred him with her foot.

“What are you about!” demanded the man. “Do you want to kill me?” [153]

“Get up; there’s a fire burning in the cave, up the mountain. Come!”

“What crazy fit possesses you,” muttered the man as he went out. “To knock my wind out with such a kick!—and there’s no fire up there, merely a star sinking in the west. That’s all there was to it. Go to bed!”

The woman was silenced but not convinced. Her sleep continued to be broken. She fancied that she heard a human voice calling to her; yet, on listening, she could distinguish only the moaning of the surf. In her restlessness she wandered forth again and stood in the cool vault of night. The endless monotone of the ocean filled her ears, but it told her nothing new. She sought her bed again and turned her face to the mat in a resolute effort to sleep. She dozed, but the subtle goddess evaded her. Thoughts of her brother floated through her mind, and the booming of the surf now seemed to assume a more intimate tone and by some witchery of the imagination led her out under the winking stars, closer to old Ocean’s moan, and made her think: how Lohiau did delight in the surf; what pleasure he took in riding the billows! Thus she murmured to herself. At that moment her straining vision detected an object moving with the waves. “Some man surfing in our tabu waters—yet how can that be? Have not all the men of the village gone over to Niihau? Paoa urged them to go.” She moved along the beach. By this time it was dawn.

“There comes a woman,” said Wahine-oma’o.

“His sister, Kahua-nui,” Hiiaka remarked quietly.

Wahine-oma’o called to her by name and went forward to meet her.

“Ah, it is you two women,” Kahua-nui exclaimed.

“Where’s your husband?” Wahine-oma’o asked.

“Asleep in the house.”

“Go and call him; tell him to take his canoe and go over to Niihau and bring Paoa,” said Wahine-oma’o. “Lohiau is alive and well. Look, there he comes on the surf-board.”

In a tumult of joy the woman ran to the house and shouted the tidings to her husband. Nakoa-ola, girding his malo about him as he came out of the door, made all speed for the halau; shoved the canoe down the slope of the beach; looked to the lashings of the outrigger; saw that the paddles, bailer and what not were in place; stepped the mast; arranged the sail and the [154]sheet; then, with a final push, he leaped in astern and set his course for Niihau.

The story of Lohiau’s miraculous return to life spread like wild fire until the whole population of the little island of Niihau was buzzing with the wonder. Paoa, in his haste and excitement, neglected the ordinary civilities and failed to invite his visitor to “come in and eat.” They took canoe on the instant and were the first to arrive at Haena.

At sight of Lohiau, whom they found quiet and thoughtful, surrounded by a houseful of people, in conversation with his sister and two women who were strangers, they set up a wailing cry of joy that was chorused by the whole company.

The great raft of attendants, men and women, round-eyed with wonder, reached Haena in successive arrivals later in the day. First came those who eagerly credited the report of Lohiau’s resurrection; scattering along after them, strangers and those who were in any degree skeptical of this great mystery. Each hour saw a bunch of new arrivals, not from Niihau alone but from all parts of Kauai.

When Kahua-nui and her husband had first wept over Lohiau, embracing and kissing him, uttering their welcome in joyous cries of wailing, they turned to the two women, the strangers, for Lohiau bade them extend their welcome to “these two women who have brought me to life again.”

“Where are they from?” Kahua-nui asked.

“I know not; I only know they have given me life.”

“It was worth while for my brother to have died to secure two such beautiful women as you,” said Kahua-nui as she faced Hiiaka.

“The other one is more beautiful than we are,” Hiiaka answered.

“Where is she?”

“Toward the Sunrise,” Hiiaka answered.

“What is the name of the country?” queried Kahua-nui.

“Hawaii.”

“Who is the woman?” persisted Kahua-nui.

“Her name is Pele.”

“I know her.” Kahua-nui spoke with lower tone.

“She it was who sent us to fetch Lohiau. We found him dead. I worked according to my ability—you see, our man is alive again.” [155]

Under the direction of Kahua-nui—the woman to whom belonged the executive mind—proclamation was made throughout the land, in the name of Lohiau, commanding all the people to collect the necessary food and material in preparation for a great feast, that they might celebrate properly Lohiau’s return to life.

It was to be an occasion of unparalleled interest and importance: a chief, famed for his manly beauty and popular talents, rescued from the grave; the magician who had accomplished this marvel, a woman of surpassing beauty; an old-time feast, with its lavish profusion; the hula, with its lyric and epic thrills: a combination of attractions that appealed to every taste, whether of sage, epicure, frivolous dilettante or dull-witted peasant, it was sure to be the event of a lifetime. All were invited and all came.

The halau in which the people assembled was a temple of Flora, or rather of her Polynesian sister Láka. At the request of Hiiaka, whose every wish was law, one half of the hall was screened off by a rustic partition as a special feasting hall for the gods. “My relatives,” said Hiiaka, “are numerous.”

In this part of the halau were laid the sacrificial viands for the supply of an immense host. Having commanded silence, Hiaaka, after the manner of prayer, invited the attendance of the gods. A hush fell upon the assembly; the air was stirred by the fanning of many wings. No speech, no human voice, only the gentle clash of wooden dishes, the rustle of leaves, the gurgle of deep potations and the subdued sounds of gustation came from the place into which no human foot or eye dared intrude. At the conclusion of the affair, when Hiiaka, in priestly fashion, had pronounced the absolving word noa and the stewards were again at liberty to enter the precinct where the immortals had just now celebrated their symposium, it seemed, at first glance, as if nothing had been touched. The leafy bundles of fish and fowl and meat remained unopened, but they proved to be empty; the coconuts, unbroken, were yet devoid of meat; the bananas were found to be but hollow skins. The substance, the essence, had been filched away by some inscrutable power. This was the ai inoino—consumption to the last morsel—practiced by the gods. [156]

It was a solemn affair, after all, this parting feast, at which, in spite of the babel of voices, weighty affairs had to be settled. Malae-ha’a-koa published the fact that the beautiful woman who sat in their mist was Hiiaka, the sister of Pele; that her art had captured the unhappy flitting ghost of Lohiau, restored it to its renovated and matchless form and that, in fulfillment of her errand, she was about to lead him away with her to be the bed-mate of the goddess who ruled the volcano.

Paoa—he whose tempestuous nature had not long ago sworn vengeance against the author of Lohiau’s taking-off—now spoke up and declared his purpose to go with his master on this his new and strange adventure. Lohiau restrained him.

“I go with these two women. If I die—so be it—’twere a glorious end,—with these two who rescued me from the grave and brought me back to the delights of your society. If I live and make my abode on Hawaii, it will be for you to come and share the blessings of my new home.” Then, addressing himself specially to Paoa, “You will remain here, as my deputy, ruling over the land. If my adventure fares well, I will come and fetch you—if … ill, your coming would not advantage.… You shall stay here.”

The mountains were still in shadow, but the star of morning was on high and rosy fingers in the east heralded the approach of day, taming the flare of the torches and making them almost a superfluity as the canoe—with Hiiaka occupying the pola, Lohiau in the stern holding the steersman’s paddle and Wahine-oma’o ensconced in the bow—curvetted to the waves and shot out into the blue sea. One paddle-stroke and the craft had cleared the land, another and it had traversed the heaving channel of Ië-ië-waena, another and it was beached on the sands of Mokuleia. At this point Hiiaka parted from her two companions, directing them to call for her with the canoe at a designated place.

Hiiaka’s first care was to pay her respects to the aged one, her ancestor, Pohaku-o-Kaua’i; after that to her ancestral divinity [157]Kaena, a name in modern times bestowed on the western cape of Oahu. She turned this point and passed into the sweltering lea where the sun poured its merciless heat and, as she climbed the slope of the Waianae mountain, looking back on the route just accomplished, according to her custom, she uttered her comments in song:

TRANSLATION

According to another account,—less mythical—Hiiaka, on [159]her departure from Haena, packed off Wahine-oma’o and Lohiau in the canoe, while she herself started on afoot. Before proceeding on her way she turned herself about and, as was her wont, made a farewell address to the precipitous cliffs of Ka-lalau and to the deity therein enshrined:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka now left behind her the wild and precipitous region of Kalalau and, passing through Miloli’i, came into Mana, a region famous for its heat, its sand-hills, and its tantalizing mirage. Mana was also the haunt of a swarm of little beings, elfs, brownies and what not, to whom Hiiaka courteously offered her salutations:

TRANSLATION

[160]

According to this version of the narrative, which is the preferable one, Hiiaka now took passage in the canoe and from Maná the reunited party sailed away for Oahu. By this happy reunion the otherwise dissevered narrative is brought into harmony and conflicting versions no longer pull away from each other like two ill-trained steers.

The voyage was not without enlivening incident. When the canoe had reached a point where the surges began to roll in the direction of Oahu Hiiaka saw two monster sharks disporting themselves in the waves whom she recognized as relatives on the side of her paternal grand-father, their names being Kua and Kahole-a-Kane. This was her second encounter with these sea-monsters; the first was on her recent voyage to Kauai, an encounter which had threatened serious results, if not disaster, to Hiiaka’s expedition. As the story goes, when Kua and Kahole had become aware that Hiiaka’s going was for the purpose of bringing Lohiau to the bed of Pele, they were moved to great disapproval of her enterprise: “A mere man,” said they. “The idea of mating him with Pele is atrocious: and he is a dead man at that.”

After taking counsel with the sea-goddess Moana-nui-ka-lehua, who had her boudoir in the deep waters of Iëië-waena, with her aid they raised a commotion in the sea and Hiiaka barely escaped being swamped by a mighty water-spout. For her part Hiiaka was quite ready to overlook this rough play of her old kinsfolk and to do the agreeable with them and she accordingly addressed them kindly: “How lucky for me is this meeting again with you out here in the ocean! It will enable me to relieve my hardships by a smack of real comfort.”

The two sea-monsters felt unable to respond to Hiiaka’s advances in a like spirit with her’s. Their consciences pleaded guilty. “Look here,” said Kua to his fellow, “this is our grandchild.”

“Yes,” his companion replied, “and she will put us to death. We’d better hide ourselves, you in your patch of surf, I in mine.”

“That sort of a ruse won’t avail us in the least,” objected Kua.

“What then? Where shall we flee for safety?”

“To the mountains back of Waianae, to be sure,” asserted Kua.

THE DESCENT FROM THE CLIFFS

This suggestion meeting with the approval of his companion, they hastened to land and, having divested themselves of their shark-bodies and resumed human form, they made for the mountains and hid themselves in the palaá fern. Hiiaka was greatly disappointed that these two old people should have so utterly misconceived [161]her attitude of mind toward them as to rob her of their interesting company. She expressed her observations in song:

TRANSLATION

Neither Kua nor Kahole-a-Kane were relieved of their guilty fears by Hiiaka’s soft words. They continued their flight along the same path which was soon afterwards followed by Hiiaka in her climb to Poha-kea. The only penalty inflicted by Hiiaka, when at last she came up with them and found them penitent, cowering in the brush, was their retirement from the ocean: not a light stroke, however, being almost the equivalent of taking away a mariner’s commission, thus separating him from his chosen element, his native air.

To return now to Hiiaka, who, after a hot climb, is standing on the summit of Poha-kea; she is gazing with rapt and clear vision far away in the direction of her own home-land, her moku lehua, in Puna. Her eyes, under the inspiration of the moment, disregard the ocean foreground, on whose gently heaving bosom might be seen the canoe that holds Lohiau and Wahine-oma’o snailing along to its appointed rendezvous. Her mind is busy interpreting the unusual signs written in the heavens: a swelling mountainous mass of flame-shot clouds, boiling up from some hidden source. It spells ruin and desolation—her own forest-parks blasted and fire-smitten; but, saddest and most heart-rending of all is the thought that her own Hopoe, the beautiful, the accomplished, the generous, the darling of her heart—Hopoe [163]has been swallowed up in the rack. Hopoe, whose accepted emblem and favorite poetical metamorphosis was a tall lehua tree in full blossom, is now a scarred rock teetotumed back and forth by the tides and waves of the ocean. This thought, however much she would put it aside, remained to fester in her heart.

(We omit at this point a considerable number of mele which are ascribed to Hiiaka and declared to have been sung by her while occupying this mountain perch at Poha-kea. Application to them of the rule that requires conformity to a reasonable standard of relevancy to the main purpose of the narrative results in their exclusion.)

The song next given—by some dubbed a pule, because of its serious purpose, no doubt—seems to be entitled to admission to the narrative:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka now pays attention to the doings of the people on the canoe in the offing. It is necessary to explain that, on landing [164]at Mokuleia, she had ordered her two companions to continue their voyage and meet her on the other side of Cape Kaena whose pointed beak lay close at hand. Lohiau, nothing loath—a pretty woman was company enough for him—turned the prow of the canoe seaward and resumed his paddle. After passing the cape, the ocean calmed, making the work of steering much less arduous. Now it was that Lohiau, feeling the warm blood of young manhood swell the cockles of his heart and finding opportunity at hand, made ardent love to his attractive voyage-companion. He pressed nose and lip against her’s and used every argument to bring her to accept his point of view.

Wahine-oma’o had a mind of her own and though not at all averse to love and its doings and though very much drawn to this lover in particular, she decidedly objected to compromising her relations with Hiiaka, but above all, with the dread mistress of the Volcano, with whom she must ere long make reckoning. Like Pele, Wahine-oma’o permitted the kisses of Lohiau for a time, but, knowing that passion grows by what it feeds on, she presently cut short his rations and told him to behave himself, enforcing her denial with the unanswerable argument that she was well persuaded that they would be seen by Hiiaka. It was even so. It was worse. Hiiaka did not content herself with throwing temptation before Lohiau, as one might place raw meat before a hungry dog; by some witchery of psychologic power she stirred him up to do and dare, yet at the same time she impelled Wahine-oma’o to accept, but only a certain degree, for she carefully set bounds to their conduct. And this, be it understood, is but the opening act of a campaign in which Hiiaka resolves to avenge herself on Pele.

When at length Hiiaka centered her attention on the actions of the people in the canoe, it needed but a glance to tell her that the contagium planted in the soil of Lohiau’s mind had worked to a charm. Her own description—though in figures that seem high-wrought and foreign to our imaginations—had better tell the tale:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka’s voice had the precious quality of carrying her words and making them audible to a great distance, when she so willed. Her song, therefore, did not, on this occasion, waste itself in the wilderness of space. The caution it imposed had its effect. Lohiau and Wahine-oma’o calmed their passionate contentions and proceeded discreetly on their way. Having passed Kalae-loa,10 their canoe swung into that inverted arc of Oahu’s coastline, in the middle of which glisten, like two parted rows of white teeth, the coral bluffs that were the only guard at the mouth of Pearl Lochs.

Before descending from her vantage ground on Pohakea, Hiiaka indulged her fancy in a song that was of a different strain. Looking towards Hilo, she describes the rivers, swollen by heavy rains, rushing impetuously along in bounding torrents, [166]while men and women leap into the wild current and are lifted on its billows as by the ocean waves:

TRANSLATION

After a moment’s pause she resumed, though in quite a different strain:

TRANSLATION

As the canoe drew near to the appointed rendezvous at Pu’u-loa, Hiiaka lifted her voice in a chanting song addressed to Lohiau and Wahine-oma’o:

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka again in command, the tiger in Lohiau’s nature slunk away into its kennel, allowing his energies to spend themselves in useful work. Under his vigorous paddle the little craft once more moved like a thing of life and long before night found itself off the harbor of Kou, the name then applied to what we now call Honolulu.

At the entrance to this land-locked harbor of Kou a pretty sight met their eyes: a moving picture of men and women in the various attitudes of lying, kneeling or standing on boards, riding the waves that chased each other toward the sandy beach. The scene made such an appeal to Hiiaka’s imagination that she opened her heart in song:

TRANSLATION

[169]

When, after this battery of compliment, they came close up to the princess Pele-ula—who, as will be seen, was a power in the land—having exchanged still further compliments, Hiiaka invited her to come aboard. Pele-ula, very naturally, declined this kind offer, but with a fine show of hospitality in her turn begged that they would honor her by being her guests during their stay in the place, assuring them of hospitable entertainment and such pleasures as her court could offer. Under her piloting, accordingly, they made their way by paddle across the beautiful land-locked harbor of Kou and, entering the Nu’uanu stream—in those days much broader, sweeter and deeper than now—turned into its eastern branch and erelong found themselves at the landing from which a path led up to Pele-ula’s residence. Imagine the fairy scene, if you will;—a canoe-load of smiling nereids piloted by a mermaid princess swimming on ahead, with a merry convoy of mermaiden and mermen following in the wake.

A word in regard to this little land, now lying close to the heart of Honolulu itself, which still bears the same name as its old-time mistress, Pele-ula. To the kamaaina the sturdy samang tree, whose vigorous bole parts the traffic of Vineyard Street just before its junction with the highway of Nu’uanu has long been a familiar object. This fine tree has a history of its own and can claim the respectable age of not less than forty years. The land about it has borne the classic name of Pele-ula for a period of centuries that hark back to the antiquity of Hawaiian tradition. The sightseer of to-day who views the region from the macadamized roadway, some ten feet above the level of the surrounding land, must not judge of its former attractiveness and fitness as a place of residence by its present insalubrity—now shut in by embankments, overhung by dank and shadowy trees, its once-pure stream either diverted for economic purposes or cluttered and defiled with the debris of civilization. A study of the region, on the inner—mauka—border of which lies Pele-ula, will easily convince the observer that within a short geologic period the wash of silt and mud from higher levels has filled in and converted what must have been at one time a clear salt-water basin into the swampy flats that not long ago met the eye. Now, of course, this whole alluvial basin has been still further filled in and artificially overlaid with a more-or-less solid crust of earth and rock to meet the demands of Honolulu’s ever expanding growth.

To return to our narrative: to this hamlet of Pele-ula, such as [170]it was in the days of Arcadian sweetness—if not of light—Hiiaka and her select company now enter as the honored guests of a woman distinguished alike for her beauty, her spiritual subtility and insight—she was a makaula—and for her devotion to pleasure. One of her chief diversions, naturally enough, was the hula, especially that form of the dance which was used in connection with that risqué entertainment, the kilu.1

By evening, when the travelers had washed away the encrusting salt, warmed and dried their apparel at an outdoor fire, filled nature’s vacuum at the generous table of their hostess, while they were sitting in the short gloaming of the tropics, enjoying the delicious content that waits on rest after toil, Pele-ula interrupted the silence:

“The people will have assembled in the hall by this time. Shall we move in that direction?” Her glance was first at Hiiaka as the leader of the party; her gaze rested on Lohiau.

“Let the resident guests be the first. When they are settled in their places it will be time enough for us to come in,” was the reply of Hiiaka.

“As you please,” nodded Pele-ula.

Wahine-oma’o rose to her feet as Pele-ula was departing. At this move Hiiaka said, “When you reach the hall go and take a seat by your man friend.” She meant Lohiau. Thereupon she gave vent to this enigmatical utterance:

TRANSLATION

She turns to Lohiau and says, “You had better be going to the hall. When you go in take a seat by your friend.” This advice is puzzling: the friend must have been Wahine-oma’o and it was customary for men and women to sit apart. Then she resumed her song:

TRANSLATION

[172]

As she sauntered on her way to the dance-hall she concluded her song:

TRANSLATION

The inner meaning and intent of this highly wrought figurative and allegorical language, which Hiiaka, according to her custom, utters at detached intervals in the form of song, does not lie on the surface, and is furthermore obscured by an untranslatable punning use of the word Puna.

To explain the motive of this song, Hiiaka perceives that Pele-ula and Lohiau, who had once upon a time been lovers, are mutually drawn to each other by a rekindling of the old flame. In the case of Pele-ula the motive of ambition to match her own spiritual power as a makaula—seer—with that of the young woman who comes to her as the plenipotential ambassador of Pele is even stronger than the physical passion. In the kilu now to be performed she sees her opportunity.

She will use it for all it is worth, not only that she may taste once more the delights offered by this coxcomb, but that she may pluck from the hand of this audacious creature of Pele’s endowment a wreath for her own wearing.

As to Lohiau, that plastic thing, his character, is as clay in [173]the hands of the potter, under Pele-ula’s manipulation. He is all for pleasure. Honor, constancy, ordinary prudence, are not in his purview. Hiiaka’s immediate presence suffices to restrain and guide him; in her absence, his passion, a rudderless bark, is the sport of every wind that blows.

Hiiaka, on arriving at the halau, sat by herself. Lohiau, as she observed, was sitting with Wahine-oma’o and Waikiki. Pele-ula, who was sitting alone on her side of the hall, now showed her hand by sending one of her men, named A’ala, to invite Lohiau to come over and sit with her. At this Hiiaka spoke up: “I will sit by you.”

“So be it, then,” answered Pele-ula. At the same time she muttered to herself, “But she wasn’t invited.”

A’ala, who caught the aside of his mistress, also put in, “It’s Lohiau whom she invites.”

At this Hiiaka bravely laid down the rule, which was the accepted one, that the men and the women should sit on opposite sides of the halau; averring that any other disposition would be sure to breed trouble. Pele-ula could not but agree to this and accordingly, Wahine-oma’o and Waikiki, leaving their seats by Lohiau, came over and sat with Hiiaka and Pele-ula.

When the presiding officer of the game—the la anoano15—had called the assembly to order with the well known cry “pu-heo-heo” and it came to the placing of the pahu kilu—short pyramidal blocks of wood—before each one of the players, who sat in two rows facing each other and separated by a considerable interval, Hiiaka objected to the way in which they were placed. A sharp discussion then arose between Pele-ula and Hiiaka, but the younger woman carried the day and won her point.

Lohiau had a great and well-deserved reputation as a skilful champion in the game of kilu. When, therefore, it came his turn to hurl the kilu16 and send it spinning across the mat with an aim that would make it strike the pahu, which was its target, everybody looked for great things and it was openly predicted that he would win every point.

Lohiau preluded his play with a song: [174]

TRANSLATION

The “child in the heart that has grown to be a man” is Lohiau’s old love for Pele-ula, which now wakes up into new life at the sight of his old flame. The old love has, however, in a sense become a burden. It stands in the way of the new-born affection that has sprung up in his heart for Hiiaka.

It was after the chanting of this mele that Lohiau threw his kilu. But, to the consternation of the audience and his own bewilderment, his play was a miss. His aim had been true, his hand steady, the whirling kilu had gone straight on its way as if sure of the mark, then, to the utter amazement of all experts, like the needle of the compass influenced by some hidden magnet, it had swerved and gone wild.

Hiiaka, from the other side of the hall, now took her turn at the kilu, with a prelude of song: [175]

TRANSLATION

In this song Hiiaka exposes the unworthy plot that was simmering in Lohiau’s mind, whom she typifies by a gust of wind blowing from the west, the general direction of Kauai.

At the first throw the kilu hit the wooden block and then, as if not content with its accomplishment, after caroming off, returned like a bee to its blossom, and this action it repeated until it had scored not one but three points. There was the thrill of triumph in Hiiaka’s tone as she sang again:

TRANSLATION

With another prelude of song, Lohiau offered himself for another trial, kilu in hand:

[176]

TRANSLATION

This attempt was a failure like those that had gone before. Lohiau, thereupon, sought relief for his artistic disappointment in song:

TRANSLATION

The game has by this time resolved itself into a contest of wits as well as of skill, and the two chief antagonists are—strange to relate—Lohiau, the man who was called back from the grave and the woman to whom he owes his life, Hiiaka.

As a prelude to her next play Hiiaka gave this song:

TRANSLATION

THE GOD AT WORK IN THE HILLS.

FROM THE PAINTING BY A. W. EMERSON

Hiiaka’s play this time as before was a marvellous show of [177]skill. The kilu seemed possessed with an instinct of attraction for the block that stood as her target. Like a bee that has found a rich honey-flower it returned again and yet again, as if to drain the last particle of sweetness.

Before venturing on his last play, Lohiau discarded the kilu he had been using and chose another, thinking thus to change his luck. He also changed the style of his song, adopting the more sensuous form called ami honua,24 or ku’u pau:

In the first line of this little song, Lohiau, skilfully playing on the name Pele-ula, which he turns into Ka-ula, under the figure of the ocean tossing about that little island, banters the woman for her display of passion. In the second line, using a similar word-play, by which he turns his own name into Niihau, he contrasts the calm of the latter island with the agitation of the former.

TRANSLATION

Pele-ula, in her surprise at the untimeliness of Lohiau’s performance, as well as in her deep concern at his continued failure, expostulated with him: “You have but one more play; why then do you anticipate by indulging in the ami? Perhaps if you were to address your song to my father, Ka-manu-wai, who is a skilled performer—who knows but what you might hit the target for once?”

“Is it likely,” Lohiau replied, “is it likely that I shall hit this [178]time, having missed so many shots before?” Thereupon the man completed his song:

TRANSLATION

The kilu spins on its way—it must hit—no, fate is too strong for it and turns it from the mark. Lohiau’s song is an admission of painful discomfiture:

TRANSLATION

That Lohiau of all men standing on Hawaiian soil should fail utterly in a game of kilu was incredible—the man whose art availed to hit a grass-top teetering in the breeze, to crush the [179]nimble ant speeding on his way, to swat the buzzing fly flitting through the air! The audience was dumbfounded. In the failure to find excuse sufficient for the occasion, it took refuge in silence.

It only remains for Hiiaka to pluck the fruit which her skill has put within reach of her hand. Her complete victory has become a foregone conclusion. Of that there can be no question. It is, however, a question of great interest to the spectator how she will use her victory, in what terms she will celebrate her triumph over the woman and the recreant man who have combined their wits against hers. The answer to this question is to be found in the song with which she preludes her last play:

TRANSLATION

This ironical thrust is pointed at Pele-ula, who is to see her fond hopes of a renewed liaison with her old paramour blasted by this plucking of the fruit under her very eyes.

And yet again, when Hiiaka has made the final shot that fulfills the promise of victory to her, still relentlessly wielding the sharp blade of irony, she gives it an extra twist in the wound that must have made Pele-ula wince:

TRANSLATION

[180]

This two-edged blade cuts both lovers at one stroke—the youth in its ironical allusion to tears, the woman in the sly suggestion of motherhood, she being in fact old enough to hold that relation to the young man.

The forfeit paid by Lohiau after his defeat was a dance, which he did with inimitable grace and aplomb to the accompaniment of a spirited song, his costume being the customary paü of the hula:

TRANSLATION

Warming to his work, Lohiau continued:

TRANSLATION

Still protesting his love for Hiiaka and deploring his separation from her, Lohiau continues:

TRANSLATION

Lohiau, warming to his work, strutted and capered about like a capercailzie cock before his mistresses, lashing his passion—after the manner of a flagellant—with words of wild hyperbole; but ever approaching nearer and nearer to where sat the two women about whom revolved his thoughts. As to which one of them it was that he singled out as the center of his orbit for the time, that is to be deduced from a study of his song:

[182]

TRANSLATION

The audience, moved by Lohiau’s ardor, went into riotous applause. Hiiaka could not but admire the pathetic artistry of Lohiau, yet she remained the mistress of her emotions. Pele-ula, in contrast, became visibly more excited at Lohiau’s close approach. Turning to the younger woman, she said, “do you respond to this man’s appeals?”

“What is it you mean?” quietly asked Hiiaka.

“Can it be that you are not stirred by his protestations? Put your hand on my bosom,” said Pele-ula, “and feel the throbbing of my heart.”

Hiiaka convinced herself of the truth of the assertion and, in turn, said, “Do you also lay your hand here and judge of my temper.”

“You are as cool as a ti leaf,” exclaimed Pele-ula, “while I am as hot as a bundle of luau.”

This interchange of attentions between the two women did not escape Lohiau. It inflamed him to another passage of song:

[183]

TRANSLATION

From his very nature Lohiau was not qualified to reckon with the supernatural side of Hiiaka. His appeals had been on the plain of human passion—such appeals as would have subdued and won the heart of an ordinary woman. Still acting under these limitations, Lohiau aimed and shot the arrow that emptied his quiver of song:

TRANSLATION

Lohiau had broken with Pele-ula; his last hope and appeal was [184]to Hiiaka. He stood before her waiting her fateful decision. Will she consent to turn the canoe-prow and fly back to Kaua’i with him? He had won the woman’s heart in her, but not the deity that controlled her nature. The chain that bound her to the Woman of the Pit was too strong to be broken by any mere human appeal. Lohiau had failed in his play with the kilu; he now saw that he had also failed in his attempt to play with this human heart. The game was up; he sat down.

When Lohiau had retired in defeat, it became the turn of Wahine-oma’o to entertain the company—Wahine-oma’o, faithful, rustic soul, that she was, whose only acquaintance with this fine art was what she had picked up from seeing the performances of her mistress and master. Her wits did not desert her and were equal to the occasion: best of all, she had the wit to recognize her own limitations. Instead of pitching her song to some far-fetched hyperbole, she travestied the whole performance in a wholesome bit of nonsense that drifts down to us across the centuries as a most delicious take-off:

TRANSLATION

If Wahine-oma’o had, of set purpose, planned an ironical take off of the hula kilu, or rather of Lohiau’s manner of acting, she could hardly have bettered her performance. Her dancing was a grotesque ambling and mincing from one side of the theater to the other. The unaffected good humor of the girl robbed the arrow of her wit of all venom while detracting not one whit from its effectiveness.

Towards morning the audience made clamorous demands that Hiiaka, the woman whom their suffrage had declared to be the most beautiful that had ever stood before them, should present herself before them once again. Hiiaka willingly responded to this encore: [185]

TRANSLATION

Hiiaka, having—by her marvellous skill—extricated her charge from the toils of the enchantress, turned a deaf ear to Pele-ula’s urgent persuasions to abide yet longer and taste more deeply the sweets of her hospitality. Her determination arrived at, she wasted no time in leave-taking but made all haste to put a safe distance between the poor moth and the flame that was the focus of his enchantment. Their route lay eastward across [186]the dusty, wind-swept, plain of Kula-o-kahu’a—destined in the coming years to be the field of many a daring feat of arms;—then through the wild region of Ka-imu-ki, thickset with bowlders—a region at one time chosen by the dwarf Menehune as a sort of stronghold where they could safely plant their famous ti ovens and be unmolested by the nocturnal depredations of the swinish Kama-pua’a. Hiiaka saw nothing or took no notice of these little rock-dwellers. Her gaze was fixed upon the ocean beyond, whose waves and tides they must stem before they reached and passed Moloka’i and Maui, shadowy forms that loomed in the horizon between her and her goal.

Hiiaka, standing on the flank of Leahi and exercising a power of vision more wonderful than that granted by the telescope, had sight of a wild commotion on her beloved Hawaii. In the cloud-films that embroidered the horizon she saw fresh proof of her sister’s unmindfulness of the most solemn pledges. It was not her fashion to smother her emotions with silence:

TRANSLATION

At Kuliouou, which they reached after passing through Wai-alae, Wai-lupe and Niu, they came upon some women who were [187]catching small fish and crabs in the pools and shallow water along the shore and, to satisfy their hunger or, perhaps, to test their disposition, Hiiaka begged the women to grant her a portion of their catch to satisfy their need. The answer was a surly refusal, coupled with the remark that Hiiaka would better do her own fishing. As the sister and representative of the proud god Pele, Hiiaka could not permit the insult to go unpunished. Her reply was the utterance of this fateful incantation:

TRANSLATION

The magic words operated quickly. As Hiiaka turned to depart, the unfortunate fishing women fainted and died.

After this outburst of retribution, Hiiaka turned aside to address in words of consolation and compliment two forlorn mythical creatures whom she recognized as kindred. They were creations of Pele, Ihihi-lau-akea, manifest to us to-day as a lifeless cinder-cone, and Nono-ula, as a clear spring of water welling out of the mountain. It was a nice point in Hiiaka’s character that she was always ready, with punctilious etiquette, to show courtesy to whom courtesy was due.

Fortunately for Hiiaka, her lofty perch afforded a wide-embracing view that included the shadowy forms of Maui and the lesser islands that nested with it. Not the smallest pirogue could steal away from the strip of rocky beach at her feet without her observation. At this moment she caught sight of two sailor-men in the act of launching a trim canoe into the troubled waters [188]of the Hanauma cove, and she made haste, accordingly, to come to them, on the chance of securing a passage, if so be that they were voyaging in the desired direction. Their destination proving to be Moloka’i, Hiiaka begged the men to receive herself and party as passengers. Nothing loath, they gave their consent.

“But,” said one of them, “your party by itself is quite large enough to fill the canoe.”

His companion, with better show of cheer in his speech, spoke up and said, “It’s but common luck to be swamped in this rough channel. To avoid it needs only skill. Even if the craft swamps, these people need not drown; we can swim for it, and we shall all fare alike. We’ll take you with us. Come aboard.” Aboard they went.

The voyage to Moloka’i proved uneventful. They landed at Iloli, a barren place that offered no provision to stay their hunger. When Hiiaka, therefore, learned that these same canoe-men were bound for the neighboring island of Maui, she wisely concluded to continue the voyage with them.

On landing in Kohala, Hiiaka took the road that led up through the thickly wooded wilderness of Mahiki, the region that had been the scene, now some months gone, of the most strenuous chapter in her warfare to rid Hawaii of the mo’o—that pestilent brood of winged and crawling monsters great and small that once infested her wilds and that have continued almost to the present day to infest the imagination of the Hawaiian people. On coming to the eminence called Pu’u O’ioina,—a name signifying a resting place—being now in the heart of the damp forest of Moe-awa, they found the trail so deep with mire that the two women drew up their paü and tucked them about their waists. At sight of this action, Lohiau indulged himself in some frivolous jesting remarks which called out a sharp rebuke from Hiiaka.

As they cleared the deep woods, there burst upon them a view of the Hamakua coast-wall here and there dotted with clumps of puhala and fern, at intervals hung with the white ribbons of waterfalls hastening to join the great ocean. As Hiiaka gazed upon the scene, she uttered her thoughts in song:

(In literature, as in other matters, the missing sheep always makes a strong appeal to the imagination. Urged by this motive, I have searched high and low for this mele, the utterance of Hiiaka under unique conditions; but all my efforts have been unavailing.)

When they had passed through the lands of Kukia-lau-ania [189]and Maka-hana-loa and were overlooking the town of Hilo, Hiiaka was better able to judge of the havoc which the fires of Pele had wrought in her Puna domains. The land was desolated, but, worst of all, the life of her dearest friend Hopoe had been sacrificed on the altar of jealousy. In her indignation, Hiiaka swore vengeance on her sister Pele. “I have scrupulously observed the compact solemnly entered into between us, and this is the way she repays me for all my labor! Our agreement is off: I am free to treat him—as my lover, if I so please. But it shall not be here and now. I will wait till the right occasion offers, till her own eyes shall witness her discomfiture.”

After this outburst, her thoughts fashioned themselves in song: