Hawaiian Folk Tales

Then Kana stretched forth his hands, scratching among the forests, and soon had a canoe in one hand; a little more and another canoe appeared in the other hand. The twin canoes were named Kaumueli. He lifted them down to the shore, provided them with paddles, and then appointed fourteen rowers. Kana embarked with his magic rod called Waka-i-lani. Thus they set forth to wage war upon Kapeepeekauila. They went on until the canoes grounded on a hard ledge.

Niheu called out, “Behold, thou sleepest, O Kana, while we all perish.”

Kana replied, “What is there to destroy us? Are not these the reefs of Haupu? Away with the ledges, the rock points, and the yawning chasms! Smite with Waka-i-lani, thy rod.”

Niheu smote, the rocks crumbled to pieces, and the canoes were freed. They pursued their course again until Niheu, being on the watch, cried out, “Why sleepest thou, O Kana? Here we perish, again. Thy like for sleeping I never saw!”

“Wherefore perish?” said Kana.

“Behold,” replied Niheu, “the fearful wall of water. If we attempt to pass it, it will topple over and destroy us all.”

Then said Kana: “Behold, behind us the reefs of Haupu. That is the destruction passed. As for the destruction before us, smite with thy rod.”

Niheu smote, the wall of water divided, and the canoes passed safely through. Then they went on their course again, as before. After a time, Niheu again called out, “Alas, again we perish. Here comes a great monster. If he falls upon us, we are all dead men.”

And Kana said, “Look sharp, now, and when the pointed snout crosses our bow, smite with thy rod.”

And he did so, and behold, this great thing was a monster fish, and when brought on board it became food for them all. So wonderfully great was this fish that its weight brought the rim of the canoes down to the water’s edge.

They continued on their way, and next saw the open mouth of the sharp-toothed shark—another of the outer defences of Haupu—awaiting them.

“Smite with thy rod,” ordered Kana.

Niheu smote, and the shark died.

Next they came upon the great turtle, another defence of Haupu. Again the sleepy Kana is aroused by the cry of the watchful Niheu, and the turtle is slain by the stroke of the magic rod. All this was during the night. At last, just as the edge of the morning lifted itself from the deep, their mast became entangled in the branches of the trees. Niheu flung upward a stone. It struck. The branches came rattling down, and the mast was free. On they went till the canoes gently stood still. On this, Niheu cried out, “Here you are, asleep again, O Kana, and the canoes are aground!”

Kana felt beneath; there was no ground. He felt above; the mast was entangled in weeds. He pulled, and the weeds and earth came down together. The smell of the fresh-torn weeds was wafted up to Hale-huki, the house where Kapeepeekauila lived. His people, on the top of Haupu, looked down on the canoes floating at the foot. “Wondrous is the size of the canoes!” they cried. “Ah! it is a load of opihis (shell-fish) from Hawaii for Hina,” for that was a favorite dish with her.

Meantime, Kana despatched Niheu after his mother. “Go in friendly fashion,” said the former.

Niheu leaped ashore, but slipped and fell on the smooth rocks. Back he went to the canoes.

“What sort of a coming back is this?” demanded Kana.

“I slipped and fell, and just escaped with my life,” answered Niheu.

“Back with you!” thundered Kana.

Again the luckless Niheu sprang ashore, but the long-eyed sand-crabs (ohiki-makaloa) made the sand fly with their scratching till his eyes were filled. Back to the canoes again he went. “Got it all in my eyes!” said he, and he washed them out with sea-water.

“You fool!” shouted Kana; “what were you looking down for? The sand-crabs are not birds. If you had been looking up, as you ought, you would not have got the sand in your eyes. Go again!”

This time he succeeded, and climbed to the top of Haupu. Arriving at the house, Hale-huki, where Hina dwelt, he entered at once. Being asked “Why enterest thou this forbidden door?” he replied:

“Because I saw thee entering by this door. Hadst thou entered some other way, I should not have come in at the door.” And behold, Kapeepeekauila and Hina sat before him. Then Niheu seized the hand of Hina and said, “Let us two go.” And she arose and went.

When they had gone about half-way to the brink of the precipice, Kapeepeekauila exclaimed, “What is this? Is the woman gone?”

Mo-i, the sister of Kana, answered and said, “If you wish the woman, now is the time; you and I fight.”

Great was the love of Kapeepeekauila for Hina, and he said, “No war dare touch Haupu; behold, it is a hill, growing even to the heavens.” And he sent the kolea (plover) squad to desecrate the sacred locks of Niheu; for the locks of Niheu were kapu, and if they should be touched, he would relinquish Hina for very shame. So the kolea company sailed along in the air till they brushed against the sacred locks of Niheu, and for very shame he let go his mother and struck at the koleas with his rod and hit their tail feathers and knocked them all out, so that they remain tailless to this day. And he returned to the edge of the shore, while the koleas bore off Hina in triumph.

When Niheu reached the shore, he beat his forehead with stones till the blood flowed; a trick which Kana perceived from on board the canoes. And when Niheu went on board he said, “See! we fought and I got my head hurt.”

But Kana replied, “There was no fight; you did it yourself, out of shame at your defeat.”

And Niheu replied, “What, then, shall we fight?”

“Yes,” said Kana, and he stood up.

Now, one of his legs was named Keauea and the other Kaipanea, and as he stood upon the canoes, he began to lengthen himself upward until the dwellers on top of Haupu exclaimed in terror, “We are all dead men! Behold, here is a great giant towering above us.”

And Kapeepeekauila, seeing this, hastened to prune the branches of the kamani tree (Calophyllum inophyllum), so that the bluff should grow upward. And the bluff rose, and Kana grew. Thus they strove, the bluff rising higher and Kana growing taller, until he became as the stalk of a banana leaf, and gradually spun himself out till he was no thicker than a strand of a spider’s web, and at last he yielded the victory to Kapeepeekauila.

Niheu, seeing the defeat of Kana, called out, “Lay yourself along to Kona, on Hawaii, to your grandmother, Uli.”

And he laid himself along with his body in Kona, while his feet rested on Molokai. His grandmother in Kona fed him until he became plump and fat again. Meanwhile, poor Niheu, watching at his feet on Molokai, saw their sides fill out with flesh while he was almost starved with hunger. “So, then,” quoth he, “you are eating and growing fat while I die with hunger.” And he cut off one of Kana’s feet for revenge.

The sensation crept along up to his body, which lay in Kona, and Kana said to his grandmother, Uli, “I seem to feel a numbness creeping over me.”

And she answered, and said, “Thy younger brother is hungry with watching, and seeing thy feet grow plump, he has cut off one of them; therefore this numbness.”

Kana, having at last grown strong and fat, prepared to wage war again upon Kapeepeekauila. Food was collected in abundance from Waipio, and when it was prepared, they embarked again in their canoes and came back to Haupu, on Molokai. But his grandmother, Uli, had previously instructed him to first destroy all the branches of the kamani tree of Haupu. Then he showed himself, and began again to stretch upward and tower above the bluff. Kapeepeekauila hastened again to trim the branches of the kamani, that the bluff might grow as before; but behold, they were all gone! It was the end; Kapeepeekauila was at last vanquished. The victorious Kana recovered his sister, Mo-i, restored to poor Hakalanileo his wife, Hina, and then, tearing down the bluff of Haupu, kicked off large portions of it into the sea, where they stand to this day, and are called “The Rocks of Kana.”

IX

Kalelealuaka

Dr. N. B. Emerson

Part I

Kaopele was born in Waipio, Hawaii. When born he did not breathe, and his parents were greatly troubled; but they washed his body clean, and having arrayed it in good clothes, they watched anxiously over the body for several days, and then, concluding it to be dead, placed it in a small cave in the face of the cliff. There the body remained from the summer month of Ikiki (July or August) to the winter month of Ikua (December or January), a period of six months.

At this time they were startled by a violent storm of thunder and lightning, and the rumbling of an earthquake. At the same time appeared the marvellous phenomenon of eight rainbows arching over the mouth of the cave. Above the din of the storm the parents heard the voice of the awakened child calling to them:

“Let your love rest upon me,O my parents, who have thrust me forth,Who have left me in the cavernous cliff,Who have heartlessly placed me in theCliff frequented by the tropic bird!O Waiaalaia, my mother!O Waimanu, my father!Come and take me!”

The yearning love of the mother earnestly besought the father to go in quest of the infant; but he protested that search was useless, as the child was long since dead. But, unable longer to endure a woman’s teasing, which is the same in all ages, he finally set forth in high dudgeon, vowing that in case of failure he would punish her on his return.

On reaching the place where the babe had been deposited, its body was not to be found. But lifting up his eyes and looking about, he espied the child perched on a tree, braiding a wreath from the scarlet flowers of the lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha). “I have come to take you home with me,” said the father. But the infant made no answer. The mother received the child to her arms with demonstrations of the liveliest affection. At her suggestion they named the boy Kaopele, from the name of their goddess, Pele.

Six months after this, on the first day (Hilo) of the new moon, in the month of Ikiki, they returned home from working in the fields and found the child lying without breath, apparently dead. After venting their grief for their darling in loud lamentations, they erected a frame to receive its dead body.

Time healed the wounds of their affection, and after the lapse of six moons they had ceased to mourn, when suddenly they were affrighted by a storm of thunder and lightning, with a quaking of the earth, in the midst of which they distinguished the cry of their child, “Oh, come; come and take me!”

They, overjoyed at this second restoration of their child to them, and deeming it to be a miracle worked by their goddess, made up their minds that if it again fell into a trance they would not be anxious, since their goddess would awake their child and bring it to life again.

But afterward the child informed them of their mistake, saying: “This marvel that you see in me is a trance; when I pass into my deep sleep my spirit at once floats away in the upper air with the goddess, Poliahu. We are a numerous band of spirits, but I excel them in the distance of my flights. In one day I can compass this island of Hawaii, as well as Maui, Oahu, and Kauai, and return again. In my flights I have seen that Kauai is the richest of all the islands, for it is well supplied with food and fish, and it is abundantly watered. I intend to remain with you until I am grown; then I shall journey to Kauai and there spend the rest of my life.” Thus Kaopele lived with his parents until he was grown, but his habit of trance still clung to him.

Then one day he filled them with grief by saying: “I am going, aloha.”

They sealed their love for each other with tears and kisses, and he slept and was gone. He alighted at Kula, on Maui. There he engaged in cultivating food. When his crops were nearly ripe and ready to be eaten he again fell into his customary deep sleep, and when he awoke he found that the people of the land had eaten up all his crops.

Then he flew away to a place called Kapapakolea, in Moanalua, on Oahu, where he set out a new plantation. Here the same fortune befell him, and his time for sleep came upon him before his crops were fit for eating. When he awoke, his plantation had gone to waste.

Again he moves on, and this time settles in Lihue, Oahu, where for the third time he sets out a plantation of food, but is prevented from eating it by another interval of sleep. Awakening, he finds his crops overripe and wasted by neglect and decay.

His restless ambition now carries him to Lahuimalo, still on the island of Oahu, where his industry plants another crop of food. Six months pass, and he is about to eat of the fruits of his labor, when one day, on plunging into the river to bathe, he falls into his customary trance, and his lifeless body is floated by the stream out into the ocean and finally cast up by the waters on the sands of Maeaea, a place in Waialua, Oahu.

At the same time there arrived a man from Kauai in search of a human body to offer as a sacrifice at the temple of Kahikihaunaka at Wailua, on Kauai, and having seen the corpse of Kaopele on the beach, he asks and obtains permission of the feudal lord (Konohiki) of Waialua to take it. Thus it happens that Kaopele is taken by canoe to the island of Kauai and placed, along with the corpse of another man, on the altar of the temple at Wailua.

There he lay until the bones of his fellow corpse had begun to fall apart. When six moons had been accomplished, at midnight there came a burst of thunder and an earthquake. Kaopele came to life, descended from the altar, and directed his steps toward a light which he saw shining through some chinks in a neighboring house. He was received by the occupants of the house with that instant and hearty hospitality which marks the Hawaiian race, and bidden to enter (“mai, komo mai”).

Food was set before him, with which he refreshed himself. The old man who seemed to be the head of the household was so much pleased and impressed with the bearing and appearance of our hero that he forthwith sought to secure him to be the husband of his granddaughter, a beautiful girl named Makalani. Without further ado, he persuaded him to be a suitor for the hand of the girl, and while it was yet night, started off to obtain the girl’s consent and to bring her back with him.

The young woman was awakened from her slumbers in the night to hear the proposition of her grandfather, who painted to her in glowing colors the manly attractions of her suitor. The suit found favor in the eyes of the girl’s parents and she herself was nothing loath; but with commendable maidenly propriety she insisted that her suitor should be brought and presented to her, and that she should not first seek him.

The sun had hardly begun to lift the dew from the grass when our young hero, accompanied by the two matchmakers, was brought into the presence of his future wife. They found favor in each other’s eyes, and an ardent attachment sprang up on the instant. Matters sped apace. A separate house was assigned as the residence of the young couple, and their married life began felicitously.

But the instincts of a farmer were even stronger in the breast of Kaopele than the bonds of matrimony. In the middle of the night he arose, and, leaving the sleeping form of his bride, passed out into the darkness. He went mauka until he came upon an extensive upland plain, where he set to work clearing and making ready for planting. This done, he collected from various quarters shoots and roots of potato (kalo), banana (waoke), awa, and other plants, and before day the whole plain was a plantation. After his departure his wife awoke with a start and found her husband was gone. She went into the next house, where her parents were sleeping, and, waking them, made known her loss; but they knew nothing of his whereabouts. Much perplexed, they were still debating the cause of his departure, when he suddenly returned, and to his wife’s questioning, answered that he had been at work.

She gently reproved him for interrupting their bridal night with agriculture, and told him there would be time enough for that when they had lived together a while and had completed their honeymoon. “And besides,” said she, “if you wish to turn your hand to agriculture, here is the plat of ground at hand in which my father works, and you need not go up to that plain where only wild hogs roam.”

To this he replied: “My hand constrains me to plant; I crave work; does idleness bring in anything? There is profit only when a man turns the palm of his hand to the soil: that brings in food for family and friends. If one were indeed the son of a king he could sleep until the sun was high in the heavens, and then rise and find the bundles of cooked food ready for him. But for a plain man, the only thing to do is to cultivate the soil and plant, and when he returns from his work let him light his oven, and when the food is cooked let the husband and the wife crouch about the hearth and eat together.”

Again, very early on the following morning, while his wife slept, Kaopele rose, and going to the house of a neighbor, borrowed a fishhook with its tackle. Then, supplying himself with bait, he went a-fishing in the ocean and took an enormous quantity of fish. On his way home he stopped at the house where he had borrowed the tackle and returned it, giving the man also half of the fish. Arrived at home, he threw the load of fish onto the ground with a thud which waked his wife and parents.

“So you have been a-fishing,” said his wife. “Thinking you had again gone to work in the field, I went up there, but you were not there. But what an immense plantation you have set out! Why, the whole plain is covered.”

His father-in-law said, “A fine lot of fish, my boy.”

Thus went life with them until the crops were ripe, when one day Kaopele said to his wife, who was now evidently with child, “If the child to be born is a boy, name it Kalelealuaka; but if it be a girl, name it as you will, from your side of the family.”

From his manner she felt uneasy and suspicious of him, and said, “Alas! do you intend to desert me?”

Then Kaopele explained to his wife that he was not really going to leave her, as men are wont to forsake their wives, but he foresaw that that was soon to happen which was habitual to him, and he felt that on the night of the morrow a deep sleep would fall upon him (puni ka hiamoe), which would last for six months. Therefore, she was not to fear.

“Do not cast me out nor bury me in the ground,” said he. Then he explained to her how he happened to be taken from Oahu to Kauai and how he came to be her husband, and he commanded her to listen attentively to him and to obey him implicitly. Then they pledged their love to each other, talking and not sleeping all that night.

On the following day all the friends and neighbors assembled, and as they sat about, remarks were made among them in an undertone, like this, “So this is the man who was placed on the altar of the heiau at Wailua.” And as evening fell he bade them all aloha, and said that he should be separated from them for six months, but that his body would remain with them if they obeyed his commands. And, having kissed his wife, he fell into the dreamful, sacred sleep of Niolo-kapu.

On the sixth day the father-in-law said: “Let us bury your husband, lest he stink. I thought it was to be only a natural sleep, but it is ordinary death. Look, his body is rigid, his flesh is cold, and he does not breathe; these are the signs of death.”

But Makalani protested, “I will not let him be buried; let him lie here, and I will watch over him as he commanded; you also heard his words.” But in spite of the wife’s earnest protests, the hard-hearted father-in-law gathered strong vines of the koali (convolvulus), tied them about Kaopele’s feet, and attaching to them heavy stones, caused his body to be conveyed in a canoe and sunk in the dark waters of the ocean midway between Kauai and Oahu.

Makalani lived in sorrow for her husband until the birth of her child, and as it was a boy, she called his name Kalelealuaka.

Part II

When the child was about two months old the sky became overcast and there came up a mighty storm, with lightning and an earthquake. Kaopele awoke in his dark, watery couch, unbound the cords that held his feet, and by three powerful strokes raised himself to the surface of the water. He looked toward Kauai and Oahu, but love for his wife and child prevailed and drew him to Kauai.

In the darkness of night he stood by his wife’s bed and, feeling for her, touched her forehead with his clammy hand. She awoke with a start, and on his making himself known she screamed with fright, “Ghost of Kaopele!” and ran to her parents. Not until a candle was lighted would she believe it to be her husband. The step-parents, in fear and shame at their heartless conduct, fled away, and never returned. From this time forth Kaopele was never again visited by a trance; his virtue had gone out from him to the boy Kalelealuaka.

When Kalelealuaka was ten years old Kaopele began to train the lad in athletic sports and to teach him all the arts of war and combat practised throughout the islands, until he had attained great proficiency in them. He also taught him the arts of running and jumping, so that he could jump either up or down a high pali, or run, like a waterfowl on the surface of the water. After this, one day Kalelealuaka went over to Wailua, where he witnessed the games of the chiefs. The youth spoke contemptuously of their performances as mere child’s play; and when his remark was reported to the King he challenged the young man to meet him in a boxing encounter. When Kalelealuaka came into the presence of the King his royal adversary asked him what wager he brought. As the youth had nothing with him, he seriously proposed that each one should wager his own body against that of the other one. The proposal was readily accepted. The herald sounded the signal of attack, and both contestants rushed at each other. Kalelealuaka warily avoided the attack by the King, and hastened to deliver a blow which left his opponent at his mercy; and thereupon, using his privilege, he robbed the King of his life, and to the astonishment of all, carried away the body to lay as a sacrifice on the altar of the temple, hitherto unconsecrated by human sacrifice, which he and his father Kaopele had recently built in honor of their deity.

After a time there reached the ear of Kalelealuaka a report of the great strength of a certain chief who lived in Hanalei. Accordingly, without saying anything about his intention, he went over to the valley of Hanalei. He found the men engaged in the game of throwing heavy spears at the trunk of a cocoanut-tree. As on the previous occasion, he invited a challenge by belittling their exploits, and when challenged by the chief, fearlessly proposed, as a wager, the life of one against the other. This was accepted, and the chief had the first trial. His spear hit the stem of the huge tree and made its lofty crest nod in response to the blow. It was now the turn of Kalelealuaka to hurl the spear. In anticipation of the failure of the youth and his own success, the chief took the precaution to station his guards about Kalelealuaka, to be ready to seize him on the instant. In a tone of command our hero bade the guards fall back, and brandishing his spear, stroked and polished it with his hands from end to end; then he poised and hurled it, and to the astonishment of all, lo! the tree was shivered to pieces. On this the people raised a shout of admiration at the prowess of the youth, and declared he must be the same hero who had slain the chief at Wailua. In this way Kalelealuaka obtained a second royal sacrifice with which to grace the altar of his temple.

One clear, calm evening, as Kalelealuaka looked out to sea, he descried the island of Oahu, which is often clearly visible from Kauai, and asked his father what land that was that stood out against them. Kaopele told the youth it was Oahu; that the cape that swam out into the ocean like a waterfowl was Kaena; that the retreating contour of the coast beyond was Waianae. Thus he described the land to his son. The result was that the adventurous spirit of Kalelealuaka was fired to explore this new island for himself, and he expressed this wish to his father. Everything that Kalelealuaka said or did was good in the eye of his father, Kaopele. Accordingly, he immediately set to work and soon had a canoe completely fitted out, in which Kalelealuaka might start on his travels. Kalelealuaka took with him, as travelling companion, a mere lad named Kaluhe, and embarked in his canoe. With two strokes of the paddle his prow grated on the sands of Waianae.