14. LONOIKAMAKAHIKE
Lonoikamakahike was king of Hawaii after Keawenuiaumi, his father, 64 generations from Wakea. According to the story, he is born and brought up at Napoopo, Hawaii, by the priests Loli and Hauna. He learns spear throwing from Kanaloakuaana; at the test he dodges 3 times 40 spears at one time. He discards sports, but becomes expert in the use of the spear and the sling, in wrestling, and in the art of riddling disputation, the hoopapa. He also promotes the worship of the gods. While yet a boy he marries his cousin Kaikilani, a woman of high rank who has been Kanaloakuaana's wife, and gives her rule over the island until he comes of age. Then they rule together, and so wisely that everything prospers.
Kaikilani has a lover, Heakekoa, who follows them as they set out on a tour of the islands. While detained on Molokai by the weather, Lonoikamakahike and his wife are playing checkers when the lover sings a chant from the cliff above Kalaupapa. Lonoikamakahike suspects treachery and strikes his wife to the ground with the board. Fearful of the revenge of her friends he travels on to Kailua on Oahu to Kekuhihewa's court, which he visits incognito. Reproached because he has no name song, he secures from a visiting chiefess of Kauai the chant called "The Mirage of Mana." In the series of bets which follow, Lonoikamakahike wins from Kakuhihewa all Oahu and is about to win his daughter for a wife when Kaikilani arrives, and a reconciliation follows. The betting continues, concluded by a riddling match, in all of which Lonoikamakahike is successful.
But his wife brings word that the chiefs of Hawaii, enraged by his insult to her person, have rebelled against him, only the district of Kau remaining faithful. In a series of battles at Puuanahulu, called Kaheawai; at Kaunooa; at Puupea; at Puukohola, called Kawaluna because imdertaken at night and achieved by the strategy of lighting torches to make the appearance of numbers; at Kahua, called Kaiopae; at Halelua, called Kaiopihi from a warrior slain in the battle; finally at Puumaneo, his success is complete, and Hawaii becomes his.
Lonoikamakahike sails to Maui with his younger brother and chief counsellor, Pupuakea, to visit King Kamalalawalu, whose younger brother is Makakuikalani: In the contest of wit, Lonoikamakahike is successful. The king of Maui wishes to make war on Hawaii and sends his son to spy out the land, who gains false intelligence. At the same time Lonoikamakahike sends to the king two chiefs who pretend disaffection and egg him on to ruin. In spite of Lanikaula's prophecy of disaster, Kamalalawalu sails to Hawaii with a fleet that reaches from Hamoa, Hana, to Puakea, Kohala; he and his brother are killed at Puuoaoaka, and their bodies offered in sacrifice.[1]
Lonoikamakahike, desiring to view "the trunkless tree Kahihikolo," puts his kingdom in charge of his wife and sails for Kauai. Such are the hardships of the journey that his followers desert him, only one stranger, Kapaihiahilani, accompanying him and serving him in his wanderings. This man therefore on his return is made chief counsellor and favorite. But he becomes the queen's lover, and after an absence on Kauai, finds himself disgraced at court. Standing without the king's door, he chants a song recalling their wanderings together; the king relents, the informers are put to death, and he remains the first man in the kingdom until his death. Nor are there any further wars on Hawaii until the days of Keoua.
[Footnote 1: One of the most popular heroes of the Puna, Kau, and Kona coast of Hawaii to-day is the kupua or "magician," Kalaekini. His power, mana, works through a rod of kauila wood, and his object seems to be to change the established order of things, some say for good, others for the worse. The stories tell of his efforts to overturn the rock called Pohaku o Lekia (rock of Lekia), of the bubbling spring of Punaluu, whose flow he stops, and the blowhole called Kapuhiokalaekini, which he chokes with cross-sticks of kauila wood. The double character of this magician, whom one native paints as a benevolent god, another, not 10 miles distant, as a boaster and mischief-maker, is an instructive example of the effect of local coloring upon the interpretation of folklore. Daggett describes this hero. He seems to be identical with the Kalaehina of Fornander.]