CHAPTER XXVIII
Very early in the morning came Laukieleula; when she saw someone sleeping there, she could not go away because she was unclean and that house was the only one open to her. "Who are you, lawless one, mischief-maker, who have entered my taboo house, the place prohibited to any other?" So spoke the mistress of the house.
Said the stranger, "I am Kahalaomapuana, the last fruit of your womb."
Said the mother, "Alas! my ruler, return to your father. I can not see you, for my days of uncleanness have come; when they are ended, we will visit together a little, then go."
So Kahalaomapuana went back to Moanalihaikawaokele; the father asked,
"How was it?"
The daughter said, "She told me to return to you until her days of uncleanness were ended, then she would come to see me."
Three days the two stayed there; close to the time when Laukieleula's uncleanness would end, Moanalihaikawaokele said to his daughter, "Come! for your mother's days are almost ended; to-morrow, early in the morning before daylight, go and sit by the water hole where she washes herself; do not show yourself, and when she jumps into the pool and dives under the water, then run and bring hither her skirt and her polluted clothes; when she has bathed and returns for the clothes, they will be gone; then she will think that I have taken them; when she comes to the house, then you can get what you wish.
"If you two weep and cease weeping and she asks you if I have taken her clothes, then tell her you have them, and she will be ashamed and shrink from you because she has defiled you; then she will have nothing great enough to recompense you for your defilement, only one thing will be great enough, to get you the high one; then when she asks you what you desire, tell her; then you shall see your brother; we shall both see him, for I see him only once a year; he peeps out and disappears."
At the time the father had said, the daughter arose very early in the morning before daylight, and went as her father had directed.
When she arrived, she hid close to the water hole; not long after, the mother came, took off her polluted clothes and sprang into the water.
Then the girl took the things as directed and returned to her father.
She had not been there long; the mother came in a rage; Moanalihaikawaokele absented himself and only the daughter remained in the house.
"O Moanalihaikawaokele, give me back my polluted clothes, let me take them to wash in the water." No answer; three times she called, not once an answer; she peeped into the house where Kahalaomapuana lay sleeping, her head covered with a clean piece of tapa.
She called, "O Moanalihaikawaokele, give me back my polluted skirt; let me take it to wash in the water."
Then Kahalaomapuana started up as if she had been asleep and said to her mother, "My mother and ruler, he has gone; only I am in the house; that polluted skirt of yours, here it is."
"Alas! my ruler. I shrink with fear of evil for you, because you have guarded my skirt that was polluted; what recompense is there for the evil I fear for you, my ruler?"
She embraced the girl and wailed out the words in the line above.
When she had ceased wailing, the mother asked, "On what journey do you come hither to us?"
"I come to get my older brother for a husband for our friend, the princess of the great broad land of Hawaii, Laieikawai, our protector when we were lovelessly deserted by our older brother; therefore we are ashamed; we have no way to repay the princess for her protection; and for this reason permit me and my princely brother to go down below and bring Laieikawai up here." These were Kahalaomapuana's words to her mother.
The mother said, "I grant it in recompense for your guarding my polluted garment.
"If anyone else had come to get him, I would not have consented; since you come in person, I will not keep him back.
"Indeed, your brother has said that you are the one he loves best and thinks the most of; so let us go up and see your brother.
"Now you wait here; let me call the bird guardian of you two, who will bear us to the taboo house at the borders of Tahiti."
Then the mother called:
O Halulu at the edge of the light,
The bird who covers the sun,
The heat returns to Kealohilani.
The bird who stops up the rain,
The stream-heads are dry of Nuumealani.
The bird who holds back the clouds above,
The painted clouds move across the ocean,
The islands are flooded,
Kahakaekaea trembles,
The heavens flood not the earth.
O the lawless ones, the mischief makers!
O Mokukelekahiki!
O Kaeloikamalama!
The lawless ones who close the taboo house at the borders of Tahiti,
Here is one from the heavens, a child of yours,
Come and receive her, take her above to Awakea, the noonday.
Then that bird[71] drooped its wings down and its body remained aloft, then Laukieleula and Kahalaomapuana rested upon the bird's wings and it flew and came to Awakea, the Noonday, the one who opens the door of the sun where Kaonohiokala lived.
At the time they arrived, the entrance to the chief's house was blocked by thunderclouds.
Then Laukieleula ordered Noonday, "Open the way to the chief's place!"
Then Noonday put forth her heat and the clouds melted before her; lo! the chief appeared sleeping right in the eye of the sun in the fire of its intensest heat, so he was named after this custom The Eye of the Sun.
Then Laukieleula seized hold of one of the sun's rays and held it. Then the chief awoke.
When Kohalaomapuana looked upon her brother his eyes were like lightning and his skin all over his body was like the heat, of the furnace where iron is melted.
Laukieleula cried out, "O my heavenly one, here is your sister,
Kahalaomapuana, the one you love best, here she is come to seek you."
When Kaonohiokala heard he awoke from sleep and signed with his eyes to
Laukieleula to call the guards of the shade. She called:
O big bright moon,
O moving cloud of Kaialea,
Guards of the shadows, present yourselves before the chief.
Then the guards of the shade came and stood before the chief. Lo! the heat of the sun left the chief.
When the shadows came over the place where the chief lay, then he called his sister, and went to her, and wept over her, for his heart fainted with love for his youngest sister, and long had been the days of their separation.
When their wailing was ended he asked, "Whose child are you?"
Said the sister, "Mokukelekahiki's, Kaeloikamalama's,
Moanalihaikawaokele's through Laukieleula."
Again the brother asked, "What is your journey for?"
Then she told him the same thing she had told the mother.
When the chief heard these things, he turned to their mother and asked, "Laukieleula, do you consent to my going to get the one whom she speaks of for my wife?"
"I have already given you, as she requested me; if anyone else had brought her to get you, if she had not come to us two, she might have stayed below; grant your little sister's request, for you first opened the pathway, she closed it; no one came before, none after her." Thus the mother.
After this answer Kaonohiokala asked further about her sisters and her brother.
Then said Kahalaomapuana, "My brother has not done right; he has opposed our living with this woman whom I am come to get you for. When he first went to woo this woman he came back again after us; we went with him and came to the woman's house, the princess of whom I speak. That night we went to the uplands; in the midst of the forest there she dwelt with her grandmother. We stood outside and looked at the workmanship of Laieikawai's house, inwrought with the yellow feathers of the oo bird.
"Mailehaiwale went to woo her, gained nothing, the woman refused; Mailekaluhea went, gained nothing at all; Mailelaulii went, gained nothing at all; Mailepakaha went, gained nothing at all; she refused them all; I remained, I never went to woo her; he went away in a rage leaving us in the jungle.
"When he left us, we followed; our brother's rage waxed as if we had denied his wish.
"Then it was we returned to where he left us, and the princess protected us, until I left to come hither; that is how we live."
When Kaonohiokala heard this story, he was angry. Then he said to Kahalaomapuana, "Return to your sisters and to your friend, the princess; my wife she shall be; wait, and when the rain falls and floods the land, I am still here.
"When the ocean billows swell and the surf throws white sand on the shore, I am still here; when the wind whips the air and for ten days lies calm, when thunder peals without rain, then I am at Kahakaekaea.
"When the dry thunder peals again, then ceases, I have left the taboo house at the borders of Tahiti. I am at Kealohilani, my divine body is laid aside, only the nature of a taboo chief remains, and I am become a human being like you.
"After this, hearken, and when the thunder rolls, the rain pours down, the ocean swells, the land is flooded, the lightning flashes, a mist overhangs, a rainbow arches, a colored cloud rises on the ocean, for one month bad weather closes down,[75] when the storm clears, there I am behind the mountain in the shadow of the dawn.
"Wait here and at daybreak, when I leave the summit of the mountain, then you shall see me sitting within the sun in the center of its ring of light, encircled by the rainbow of a chief.
"Still we shall not yet meet; our meeting shall be in the dusk of evening, when the moon rises on the night of full moon; then I will meet my wife.
"After our marriage, then I will bring destruction over the earth upon those who have done you wrong.
"Therefore, take a sign for Laieikawai, a rainbow; thus shall I know my wife."
These words ended, she returned by the same way that she had climbed up, and within one month found Kihanuilulumoku and told all briefly, "We are all right; we have prospered."
She entered into Kihanuilulumoku and swam over the ocean; as many days as they were in going, so many were they in returning.
They came to Olaa. Laieikawai and her companions were gone; the lizard smelled all about Hawaii; nothing. They went to Maui; the lizard smelled about; not a trace.
He sniffed about Kahoolawe, Lanai, Molokai. Just the same. They came to Kauai; the lizard sniffed about the coast, found nothing; sniffed inland; there they were, living at Honopuwaiakua, and Kihanuilulumoku threw forth Kahalaomapuana.
The princess and her sisters saw her and rejoiced, but a stranger to the seer was this younger sister, and he was terrified at sight of the lizard; but because he was a prophet, he stilled his fear.
Eleven months, ten days, and four days over it was since Kahalaomapuana left Laieikawai and her companions until their return from The-shining-heavens.