I.
With the reign of Hua, an ancient king of Hana, or eastern Maui, is connected a legendary recital of one of the most terrible visitations of the wrath of the gods anywhere brought down by Hawaiian tradition. It is more than probable that the extent of the calamities following Hua’s defiant and barbarous treatment of his high-priest and prophet was greatly colored and exaggerated in turn by the pious historians who received and passed the moooelo down the centuries; but the details of the story have been preserved with harrowing conciseness, and for more than six hundred years were recited as a solemn warning against wanton trespass upon the prerogatives of the priesthood or disregard of the power and sanctity of the gods.
In some of the genealogies Hua is represented as having been the great-grandfather of Paumakua, of Maui. This record, if accepted, would remove him altogether from the Hawaiian group, since Paumakua himself was undoubtedly an immigrant from Tahiti or some other of the southern islands. As he was contemporaneous with the distinguished priest and prophet Naula, who is said to have accompanied Laa-mai-kahiki from Raiatea, he must have appeared two or three generations later than Paumakua, and probably belonged to a collateral branch of the great Hua family from which Paumakua drew his strain.
It may therefore be assumed that as early as A.D. 1170 Hua was the alii-nui, or virtual sovereign, of eastern Maui. He is referred to as the king of Maui, but it is hardly probable that his sway extended over the western division of the island, as it was not until the reign of Piilani, nearly three centuries later, that the people of Maui became finally united under one government. Previous to that time, except at intervals of temporary conquest or occupation, eastern and western Maui were ruled by distinct and frequently hostile lines of kings. Hence the sovereignty of Hua could scarcely have reached beyond the districts of Koolau, Hana, Kipahulu and Kaupo, while the remainder of the island must have recognized the authority either of Palena, the grandson of Paumakua, or of Hanalaa, the distinguished son and successor of Palena, since the later mois of Maui traced their genealogies uninterruptedly through this branch of the Paumakua family.
But, from whatever source Hua may have derived his rank and authority, he was a reckless, independent and warlike chief. Having access to the largest and finest timber in the group, his war-canoes were abundant and formidable, and when not engaged in harassing his neighboring frontiers he was employed in plundering expeditions to the coasts of Hawaii and Molokai. Tradition makes him the aggressor in the earliest remembered war between Maui and Hawaii. Although the name of the war (Kanuioohio) has been preserved, it probably did not reach beyond the limit of a powerful marauding excursion to the coast of Hilo, Hawaii, resulting in the defeat of the chiefs of that district by Hua, but in nothing more than a temporary seizure and occupation of their lands; for at that time Kanipahu was the moi of Hawaii, and would scarcely have permitted a permanent hostile lodgment in Hilo, whose chiefs acknowledged his suzerainty and were therefore entitled to his protection.
The high-priest of Hua was Luahoomoe. He claimed to be an iku-pau—that is, a direct descendant from Kane—and as such was strict in claiming respect for his person and sacred prerogatives. He did not approve of many of Hua’s marauding acts, advising him instead to lead his people in happier and more peaceful pursuits, and not provoke either the retaliation of his enemies or the anger of the gods. This opposition to his aggressive methods exasperated Hua, and a feeling of suspicion and ill-will gradually grew up between him and the priesthood. He began to attribute his occasional failures in arms to deliberately-neglected prayers and sacrifices by Luahoomoe, and on one occasion, after having returned from an unsuccessful expedition to Molokai, he placed his tabu on a spring of water set apart for the use of the heiau, and on another wantonly speared a puaa-hiwa, or black tabued hog, sacred to sacrifice. When expostulated with for thus inviting the wrath of the gods, he threatened the high-priest with similar treatment.
Hua resided principally at Hana, where he constructed one of the largest royal mansions in the group, and all the leisure spared from his warlike pastimes was given to revelry. He had a hundred hula dancers, exclusive of musicians and drummers, and his monthly feasts were prolonged into days and nights of debauchery and unbridled license. Drunk with awa, an intoxicating drink made from a plant of that name, he kept the whole of Hana in an uproar during his frequent seasons of pleasure, and the attractive wives and daughters of his subjects were not unfrequently seized and given to his favorite companions.
The annual festival of Lono was approaching—an event marking the winter solstice, and which was always celebrated impressively on every island of the group. It was an occasion not only for manifesting respect for the nearest and most popular deity of the godhead, but for celebrating, as well, the ending of the old year and the beginning of the new. The ancient Hawaiians divided the year into twelve months of thirty days each. Each month and day of the month was named. They had two modes of measuring time—the lunar and sidereal. The lunar month began on the first day that the new moon appeared in the west, and regulated their monthly feasts and tabu days. Their sidereal month of thirty days marked one of the twelve divisions of the year; but as their two seasons of the year—the Hooilo (rainy) and Kau (dry)—were measured by the Pleiades, and their twelve months of thirty days each did not complete the sidereal year, they intercalated five days at the end of the year measured by months, in order to square that method of reckoning with the movements of the stars. This annual intercalation was made about the 20th of their month of Welehu (December), at the expiration of which the first day of the first month (Makalii) of the new year commenced. This was their Makahiki, or new-year day. The five intercalated days were a season of tabu, and dedicated to a grand yearly festival to Lono.
In preparation for this festival Hua had called for unusually large contributions from the people, and, in anticipation of another hostile expedition to Hawaii, had ordered quotas of warriors, canoes and provisions from his subject chiefs, to be reported at Hana immediately after the beginning of the new year. These exactions caused very general dissatisfaction, and the priesthood assisted in promoting rather than allaying the popular discontent. All this was reported to Hua, and he resolved to liberate himself at once and for the future from what he conceived to be an officious and unwarranted intermeddling of the priesthood with the affairs of state, by deposing or taking the life of Luahoomoe. In this desperate resolution he was sustained by Luuana, a priest who had charge of the heiau or chapel of the royal mansion, and who expected to succeed Luahoomoe as high-priest.
Hua sought in every way for a pretext for deposing or slaying Luahoomoe; but the priest was old in years, exemplary in his conduct, and moved among the people without reproach. Finally, at the instigation of Luuana, who assumed that the advice was a divine inspiration, Hua created a bungling and absurd pretence for an assault upon Luahoomoe. The dishonesty of the scheme was exposed, but it resulted, nevertheless, in the death of the unoffending priest.
As tradition tells the story, Hua found occasion in a public manner to order some uwau, or uau, to be brought to him from the mountains. The uau is a water bird, and seldom found in the uplands. As neither its flesh for eating nor its feathers for decorating could have reasonably been required, the object of despatching snarers in quest of it must have been a subject of comment; but kings then, as later, did not always deign to give reasons for their acts, and preparations were at once made by the household servants and retainers of the king to proceed upon the hunt.
“Be careful that the birds come from the mountains,” said Hua, addressing the trusted hoalii in charge of the hunting party—“only from the mountains,” he repeated; “I will have none from the sea.”
“But can they be found in the mountains?” ventured the hoalii, looking inquiringly toward Luahoomoe, who was standing near and watching a flight of birds which seemed to be strangely confused and ominous of evil.
“Do you inquire of me?” said the priest, after a pause, and finding that the king did not answer.
“I inquire of any one who thinks he knows,” returned the hoalii.
“Then the birds you seek will not be found in the mountains at this season of the year,” returned the priest, “and you must set your snares by the sea-shore.”
“Is it so that you would attempt to countermand my orders?” exclaimed Hua, in apparent anger. “I order my servants to go to the mountains for the uau, and you tell them to set their snares by the sea-shore!”
“I humbly ask the king to remember that I have given no orders,” calmly replied the priest.
“But you have dared to interfere with mine!” retorted the king. “Now listen. My men shall go to the mountains in search of the birds I require. If they find them there I will have you slain as a false prophet and misleader of the people!”
With this savage threat the king walked away with his hoalii, while the priest stood in silence with his face bowed to the earth. He knew the import of Hua’s words. They meant death to him and the destruction of his family. The bloody purpose of the king had been told to him at the sacrificial altar, had been seen by him in the clouds, had been whispered to him from the anu of the sanctuary.
“Since the gods so will it, I must submit to the sacrifice,” was the pious resolution of the priest; “but woe to the hand that strikes, to the eyes that witness the blow, to the land that drinks the blood of the son of Laamakua!”
Luahoomoe had two sons, Kaakakai and Kaanahua. Both were connected with the priesthood, and Kaakakai had been instructed in all the mysteries of the order in anticipation of his succession, on the death of his father, to the position of high-priest. They were young men of intelligence, and their lives had been blameless. Knowing that they would not be spared, Luahoomoe advised them to leave Hana at once and secrete themselves in the mountains, and suggested Hanaula, an elevated spur of the mighty crater of Haleakala, as the place where they would be most likely to escape observation.
But a few weeks before Kaakakai had become the husband of the beautiful Oluolu, the daughter of a distinguished chief who had lost his life in Hua’s first expedition against Hilo. Twice had she sought the heiau for protection against the emissaries of Hua, who had been ordered to seize and bring her to the royal mansion, and in both instances Luahoomoe had given her the shelter of the sacred enclosure. It was there that Kaakakai first met her, and, charmed no less by her beauty than her abhorrence of the lascivious intents of the king, he soon persuaded her to become his wife. But, even as his wife, Kaakakai did not deem her secure from the evil designs of the king, and had found an asylum for her in the humble home of a distant relative in a secluded valley four or five miles back of Hana, where he frequently visited her and cheered her with assurances of his love.
As the danger was imminent, Luahoomoe urged his sons to leave Hana without delay, promising Kaakakai that he would visit Oluolu the next day, and apprise her of her husband’s flight and the place to which he had fled for concealment. But the old priest did not live to fulfil his promise, and Oluolu was left in ignorance of the fate of her husband.
Early next morning the bird-hunters returned, bringing with them a large number of birds, including the uau and ulili, all of which, they averred, had been caught in the mountains, when in reality they had been snared on the sea-shore.
Hua summoned the high-priest, and, pointing to the birds, said: “All these birds were snared in the mountains. You are therefore condemned to die as a false prophet who has been abandoned by his gods, and a deceiver of the people, who are entitled to the protection of their king.”
Taking one of the birds in his hand, the priest calmly replied: “These birds did not come from the mountains; they are rank with the odor of the sea.”
But the hoalii of the king steadfastly maintained that the birds had been snared in the mountains, and Hua declared the assurance of the hunters to be sufficient to outweigh the flimsy testimony of the priest.
Luahoomoe saw that he was doomed, and that the hunters had been schooled to sustain the lying assertion of the hoalii; yet he resolved to disconcert them all and make good his position, no matter what might be the result. He therefore asked permission to open a few of the birds, and the king sullenly granted it.
“Select them yourself,” said the priest to the hoalii, and the latter took from the heap and handed to him three birds. The priest opened them, and the crops of all were found to be filled with small fish and bits of sea-weed.
“Behold my witness!” exclaimed the priest, pointing to the eviscerated birds, and turning toward the hoalii with a look of triumph.
Confounded and enraged at the development, Hua seized a javelin, and without a word savagely drove it into the breast of Luahoomoe, killing him on the spot. A shudder ran through the witnesses as the venerable victim fell to the earth, for violence to a high-priest was a crime almost beyond comprehension; but the king coolly handed the bloody weapon to an attendant, and, with a remorseless glance at the dying priest, leisurely walked away.
Sending for Luuana, he immediately elevated him to the dignity of high-priest, and ordered the body of Luahoomoe to be laid upon the altar of the heiau. The house of the dead priest was then burned, in accordance with ancient custom, and the king’s executioners were despatched with attendants in search of the sons of Luahoomoe.
Proud of his newly-acquired honors, Luuana made preparations for extensive sacrifices, and then proceeded to the heiau with the body of Luahoomoe. As he approached the gate of the outer enclosure, the tall pea, or wooden cross indicative of the sanctity of the place, fell to the ground, and on reaching the inner court the earth began to quake, groans issued from the carved images of the gods, and the altar sank into the earth, leaving an opening from which issued fire and smoke. The attendants dropped the body of the priest and fled from the heiau in dismay, followed by the no less frightened Luuana.
The priests of the temple, who knew nothing of the death of Luahoomoe until they beheld his body about to be offered in sacrifice, stood for a moment awe-stricken at what was transpiring around them. They had been taught that the heiau was the only place of safety for them in a time of danger, and after the flight of Luuana and his attendants they tenderly conveyed the body of the high-priest to a hut within the enclosure to prepare it for burial.
Luuana repaired in haste to the halealii to report to the king what had occurred at the heiau. But his story excited but little surprise in Hua, for events quite as overwhelming were occurring all around them. The earth was affected with a slight but continuous tremor; a hot and almost suffocating wind had set in from the southward; strange murmurs were heard in the air; the skies were crimson, and drops of blood fell from the clouds; and finally reports came from all parts of Hana that the streams, wells and springs were no longer yielding water, and a general flight of the people to the mountains had commenced.
Such chiefs as could be found were hastily called together in council. Hua was completely subdued, and admitted that he had angered the gods by killing Luahoomoe. But what was to be done? Perhaps the sons of the martyred priest might be appealed to. But where were they? No one knew. It was suggested that a hundred human sacrifices be offered, but Luuana declined to appear again at the heiau, and resigned his office of high-priest. Another was appointed, and the sacrifices were ceremoniously offered. The mu had no difficulty in obtaining victims, for the people were desperate and offered themselves by scores. But the drought continued, and the general suffering increased from day to day. All other signs of the displeasure of the gods had passed away.
Other sacrifices were offered in great profusion, and an imu-loa was constructed, where human bodies were baked and in that form presented to the gods. But the springs and streams, remained dry, and the clouds dropped no rain.
The gods were redecorated, and the erection of a new heiau was commenced, but the people remaining in the district were too few and too weak to complete it; and a strict tabu was declared for a season of ten days, but the people were too desperate to observe it, and no attempt was made to punish those who disregarded it. Many drowned themselves, insane from thirst, and such as could procure the poisonous mixture died from the effects of koheoheo administered by their own hands.
The drought extended to the mountains, and the people fled beyond; but wherever they went the streams became dry and the rains ceased. The pestilence became known in western Maui, and the famishing refugees were driven back in attempting to enter that district.
After vainly attempting to stay the dreadful scourge, and seeing his kingdom nearly depopulated, Hua secretly embarked with a few of his attendants for Hawaii. He landed in the district of Kona; but the drought followed him. Wherever he went the fresh waters sank into the earth and the clouds yielded no rain. And so he journeyed on from place to place, carrying famine and misery with him, until in the course of his wanderings, occupying more than three years, he rendered almost one-half of the island of Hawaii a desolation. Finally he died, as the gods had decreed, of thirst and starvation—one legend says in a temple of Kohala—and his bones were left to dry in the sun; and the saying of “rattling are the bones of Hua in the sun,” or “dry are the bones of Hua in the sun,” has come down to the present as a significant reference to the fate of one high in power who defied the gods and persecuted the priesthood.
But rainless skies and drought did not mark alone the footsteps of Hua and his attendants. Wherever the despairing people of the district went the same affliction followed. Some of them sailed to Hawaii, others to Molokai and Oahu, and a few to Kauai; but nowhere could they find relief. Everywhere the drought kept pace with them, and famine and suffering were the result throughout the entire group. The diviners had discovered the cause of the scourge, but neither prayers nor sacrifices could avert or ameliorate it. And so it continued for nearly three and a half years.