3. HAWAII STORIES

KAULANAPOKII

Kaumalumalu and Lanihau of Holualoa, Kona, Hawaii, have five sons and five daughters. The boys are Mumu, Wawa, Ahewahewa, Lulukaina and Kalino; their sisters are Mailelaulii, Mailekaluhea, Mailepakaha, Mailehaiwale, and Kaulanapokii, who is endowed with gifts of magic. The girls go sight-seeing along the coast of Kohala, and Mailelaulii weds the king of Kohala, Hikapoloa. He gets them to send for the supernatural pearl fishhook with which their brothers catch aku fish, but the hook sent proves a sham, and the angry chief determines to induce the brothers thither on a visit and then kill them in revenge. When the five arrive with a boatload of aku, the sisters are shut up in the woman's house composing a name song for the first-born. Each brother in turn comes up to the king's house and thrusts his head in at the door, only to have it chopped off and the body burnt in a special kind of wood fire, opiko, aaka, mamane, pua and alani. The youngest sister, however, is aware of the event, and the sisters determine to slay Hikapoloa. When he comes in to see his child, Kaulanapokii sings an incantation to the rains and seas, the ie and maile vines, to block the house. Thus the chief is killed. Then Kaulanapokii sings an incantation to the various fires burning her brothers' flesh, to tell her where their bones are concealed. With the bones she brings her brothers to life, and they all return to Kona, abandoning "the proud land of Kohala and its favorite wind, the Aeloa."