ILLUSTRATIONS
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I
MAUI THE POLYNESIAN
Among the really ancient ancestors of the Hawaiian chiefs, Maui is one of the most interesting. His name is found in different places in the high chief genealogy. He belonged to the mist land of time. He was one of the Polynesian demi-gods. He was possessed of supernatural power and made use of all manner of enchantments. In New Zealand antiquity he was said to have aided other gods in the creation of man.
Nevertheless he was very human. He lived in thatched houses, had wives and children, and was scolded by the women for not properly supporting his family. Yet he continually worked for the good of men. His mischievous pranks would make him another Mercury living in any age before the beginning of the Christian era.
When Maui was born his mother, not caring for him, cut off a lock of her hair, tied it around him and cast him into the sea. In this way the name came to him, Maui-Tiki-Tiki, “Maui formed in the topknot.”
The waters bore him safely. Jellyfish enwrapped him and mothered him. The god of the [[14]]seas protected him. He was carried to the god’s house and hung up in the roof that he might feel the warm air of the fire and be cherished into life.
When he was old enough he came to his relations while they were at home, dancing and making merry. Little Maui crept in and sat down behind his brothers. His mother called the children and found a strange child, who soon proved that he was her son. Some of the brothers were jealous, but the eldest addressed the others as follows:
“Never mind; let him be our dear brother. In the days of peace remember the proverb, ‘When you are on friendly terms, settle your disputes in a friendly way; when you are at war, you must redress your injuries by violence.’ It is better for us, brothers, to be kind to other people. These are the ways by which men gain influence—by labouring for abundance of food to feed others, by collecting property to give to others, and by similar means by which you promote the good of others.”
Thus, according to the New Zealand story related by Sir George Grey, Maui was received in his home.
Maui’s home in Hawaii was for a long time enveloped in darkness. According to some legends the skies pressed so closely and so heavily upon the earth that when the plants began to grow all the leaves were necessarily flat. According to other legends the plants had to push up the clouds a little, and thus the leaves flattened out into larger [[15]]surface, so that they could better drive the skies back. Thus the leaves became flat and have so remained through all the days of mankind. The plants lifted the sky inch by inch until men were able to crawl about between the heavens and the earth, thus passing from place to place and visiting one another. After a long time Maui came to a woman and said: “Give me a drink from your gourd calabash and I will push the heavens higher.” The woman handed the gourd to him. When he had taken a deep draught he braced himself against the clouds and lifted them to the height of the trees. Again he hoisted the sky and carried it to the tops of the mountains; then, with great exertion, he thrust it up to the place it now occupies. Nevertheless, dark clouds many times hang low along the great mountains and descend in heavy rains, but they dare not stay, lest Maui, the strong, come and hurl them so far away that they cannot come back again.
The Manahiki Islanders say that Maui desired to separate the sky from the earth. His father, Ru, was the supporter of the heavens. Maui persuaded him to assist in lifting the burden. They crowded it and bent it upward. They were able to stand with the sky resting on their shoulders. They heaved against the bending mass and it receded rapidly. They quickly put the palms of their hands under it, then the tips of their fingers, and it retreated farther and farther. At last, drawing [[16]]themselves out to gigantic proportions, they pushed the entire heavens up to the very lofty position which they have ever since occupied.
On the island Hawaii, in a cave under a waterfall, dwelt Hina-of-the-fire, the mother of Maui.
From this home Maui crossed to the island Maui, climbed a great mountain, threw ropes made from fibres of plants around the sun’s legs, pulled off many and then compelled the swift traveller of the heavens to go slowly on its way that men might have longer and better days.
Maui’s home, at the best, was only a sorry affair. Gods and demi-gods lived in caves and small grass houses. The thatch rapidly rotted and required continual renewal. In a very short time the heavy rains beat through the decaying roof. The home was without windows or doors, save as low openings in the ends or sides allowed entrance to those willing to crawl through. Here Maui lived on edible roots and fruits and raw fish, knowing little about cooked food, for the art of fire-making was not yet known.
By and by Maui learned to make fire by rubbing sticks together.
A family of mud hens, worshipped by some of the Hawaiians in later years, understood the art of fire-making.
From the sea Maui and his brothers saw fire burning on a mountain side but it was always put entirely out when they hastened to the spot. [[17]]
Maui proposed to his brothers that they go fishing, leaving him to watch the birds. But the Alae counted the fishermen and refused to build a fire for the hidden one who was watching them. They said among themselves, “There are three in the boat and we know not where the other one is, we will make no fire to-day.”
So the experiment failed again and again. If one or two remained or if all waited on the land there would be no fire—but the dawn which saw the four brothers in the boat, saw also the fire on the land.
Finally Maui rolled some kapa cloth together and stuck it up in one end of the canoe so that it would look like a man. He then concealed himself near the haunt of the mud-hens, while his brothers went out fishing. The birds counted the figures in the boat and then started to build a heap of wood for the fire.
Maui was impatient—and just as an old bird began to select sticks with which to make the flames he leaped swiftly out and caught her and held her prisoner. He forgot for a moment that he wanted the secret of fire-making. In his anger against the wise bird his first impulse was to taunt her and then kill her for hiding the secret of fire.
But the bird cried out: “If you are the death of me—my secret will perish also—and you cannot have fire.” [[18]]
Maui then promised to spare her life if she would tell him what to do.
Then came a contest of wits. The bird told the demi-god to rub the stalks of water plants together. He guarded the bird and tried the plants. Then she told him to rub reeds together—but they bent and broke and he could make no fire. He twisted her neck until she was half dead—then she cried out: “I have hidden the fire in a green stick.”
Maui worked hard but not a spark of fire appeared. Again he caught his prisoner by the head and wrung her neck, and she named a kind of dry wood. Maui rubbed the sticks together but they only became warm. The twisting process was resumed—and repeated until the mud-hen was almost dead—and Maui had tried tree after tree. At last Maui found fire. Then as the flames rose he said: “There is one more thing to rub.” He took a fire stick and rubbed the top of the head of his prisoner until the feathers fell off and the raw flesh appeared. Thus the Hawaiian mud-hen and her descendants have ever since had bald heads, and the Hawaiians have had the secret of fire-making.
Maui was a great discoverer of islands. Among other groups he “fished up from the ocean” New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands with a magic hook. One by one he pulled them to himself out of the deep waters. He discovered them.
Thus Maui raised the sky, lassoed the sun, found fire and made the earth habitable for man. [[19]]
II
MAUI SEEKING IMMORTALITY
The story of Maui seeking immortality for the human race is one of the finest myths in the world. For pure imagination and pathos it is difficult to find any tale from Grecian or Latin literature to compare with it. In Greek and Roman fables gods suffered for other gods, and yet none were surrounded with such absolutely mythical experiences as those through which the demi-god Maui of the Pacific ocean passed when he entered the gates of death with the hope of winning immortality for mankind. The really remarkable group of legends which cluster around Maui is well concluded by the story of his unselfish and heroic battle with death.
The different islands of the Pacific have their hades, or abode of the dead. Sometimes the tunnels left by currents of melted lava running toward the west are the passages into the home of departed spirits. In Samoa there are two circular holes among the rocks at the west end of the island Savaii. These are the entrances to the underworld for chiefs and people. The spirits of those [[20]]who die on the other islands leap into the sea and swim around the land from island to island until they reach Savaii. Then they plunge down into their heaven or their hades.
There is no escape from death. The natives of New Zealand say: “Man may have descendants but the daughters of the night strangle his offspring”; and again: “Men make heroes, but death carries them away.”
Maui once said to the goddess of the moon: “Let death be short. As the moon dies and returns with new strength, so let men die and revive again.”
But she replied: “Let death be very long, that man may sigh and sorrow. When man dies let him go into darkness, become like earth, that those he leaves behind may weep and wail and mourn.”
“Maui did not wish men to die but to live forever. Death appeared degrading and an insult to the dignity of man. Man ought to die like the moon which dips in the life-giving waters of Kane and is renewed again, or like the sun, which daily sinks into the pit of night and with renewed strength rises in the morning.”
The Hawaiian legends say that Maui was slain in a conflict with some of the gods. The New Zealand legends give a more detailed account of his death.
Maui sought the home of Hine-nui-te-po—the guardian of life. He heard her order her attendants, the brightest flashes of lightning, to watch for [[21]]any one approaching and capture all who came walking upright as a man. He crept past the attendants on hands and feet, found the place of life, stole some of the food of the goddess and returned home. He showed the food to his brothers and friends and persuaded them to go with him into the darkness of the night of death. On the way he changed them into the form of birds. In the evening they came to the house of the goddess on an island long before fished up from the seas.
Maui warned the birds to refrain from making any noise while he made the supreme effort of his life. He was about to enter upon his struggle for immortality. He said to the birds: “If I go into the stomach of this woman do not laugh until I have gone through her, and come out again at her mouth; then you can laugh at me.”
His friends said: “You will be killed.” Maui replied: “If you laugh at me when I have only entered her stomach I shall be killed, but if I have passed through her and come out of her mouth I shall escape and Hine-nui-te-po will die.”
His friends called out to him: “Go then. The decision is with you.”
Hine was sleeping soundly. The sunlight had almost passed away and the house lay in quiet gloom. Maui came near to the sleeping goddess. Her large fishlike mouth was open wide. He put off his clothing and prepared to pass through the ordeal of going to the hidden source of life, tear it [[22]]out of the body of its guardian and carry it back with him to mankind. He stood in all the glory of savage manhood. His body was splendidly marked by the tattoo-bones, and now well oiled shone and sparkled in the last rays of the setting sun.
He leaped through the mouth of the enchanted one and entered her stomach, weapon in hand, to take out her heart, the vital principle which he knew had its home somewhere within her being. He found immortality on the other side of death. He turned to come back again into life when suddenly a little bird laughed in a clear, shrill tone and Great Hine, through whose mouth Maui was passing, awoke. Her sharp, obsidian teeth closed with a snap upon Maui, cutting his body in the centre. Thus Maui entered the gates of death, but was unable to return, and death has ever since been victor over rebellious men. The natives have the saying:
“If Maui had not died he could have restored to life all who had gone before him, and thus succeeded in destroying death.”
Maui’s brothers took the dismembered body and buried it in a cave called Te-ana-i-hana. “The cave dug out,” possibly a prepared burial place.
Maui’s wife made war upon the gods, and killed as many as she could to avenge her husband’s death. One of the old native poets of New Zealand in chanting the story to Mr. White said: “But though Maui was killed his offspring survived. Some of these are at Hawa-i-ki (Hawaii) and [[23]]some at Ao-tea-roa (New Zealand) but the greater part of them remained at Hawaiki. This history was handed down by the generations of our ancestors of ancient times, and we continue to rehearse it to our children, with our incantations and genealogies, and all other matters relating to our race.”
“But death is nothing new
Death is, and has been ever since old Maui died
Then Pata-tai laughed loud
And woke the goblin-god
Who severed him in two, and shut him in,
So dusk of eve came on.”
—Maori Death Chant. [[24]]
III
THE WATER OF LIFE[1]
“The Self-reliant Dragon” is frequently mentioned in the oldest Hawaiian legends. This dragon was probably a very old crocodile worshipped as the ancestor goddess of the Hawaiian chief families.
She dwelt in one of the mysterious islands mentioned in the Hawaiian chants as Kua-i-Helani, “the Far-away Helani,” lying in the ancient far western home of the Polynesians.
Iku was the chief. He had several sons. The youngest was Aukele-nui-a-Iku, Aukele the Great Son of Iku.
Aukele was a favorite of the Self-reliant Dragon. She gave him a large bamboo stick. Inside she placed an image of the god Lono, and also a magic leaf which could provide plenty of food for any one who touched the leaf to his lips. She put in a part of her own skin.
She said, “This skin is a cloak for you. If you lift it up against any enemies, they will fall to pieces as dust and ashes.” [[25]]
They put all these treasures in the bamboo stick. Then the dragon taught the boy all kinds of magic power.
The brothers, who were great warriors, determined to sail away, find a new land and conquer it by fighting. Aukele persuaded them to take him. Then he sent one to get the stick he had brought from the dragon pit which was near the sea.
After a long time on the sea all their food was gone and they were starving and lying in the bottom of the boat. Aukele fed them from the leaf which he touched to their lips.
Some days passed and Aukele said, “To-morrow we will come to a land where a woman is the ruler. Let me tell why we journey.”
They said, “Did you build this boat, and have you its chant?”
He said: “We must not call this a boat for war, but of discovery, to find new land.”
The chiefess of that land looked out and saw a boat in the ocean, and sent some birds to see what the boat was doing and learn whether it was a war canoe, or a travelling boat. The birds went out, and Aukele wanted his brothers to say it was a travelling boat. The birds asked and the brothers said: “This is a war canoe.” The birds went away. Aukele took up the bamboo stick and threw it in the sea, and leaped in after it. The brothers threw the cloak of Aukele on the beach. The [[26]]chiefess found the cloak and shook it toward the boat, then threw it away. The brothers broke into small dust and were destroyed. The boat and the brothers sank to the bottom of the sea.
Aukele swam to the beach, pulled up his stick, found his cloak and lay down under a tree and slept. A watchdog came out, and smelled the man, and barked.
The chiefess called two women, and told them to see who it was, and if they found any one, kill him. They came down and the god of Aukele awakened him, and told him the names of the women.
The women came and he greeted them. They were ashamed because he had found their names, and one said to the other, “What can we give him for naming us?” The other said, “We will let him be the husband of our ruler.” So they came and sat down by him, and they talked lovingly together and he won their hearts.
The women told him that they had been sent to kill him, but that they would say they did not find him; then other messengers would be sent. They went home and told the chiefess: “We went to the precipice; there was no one there. Then to the forest and the sea. There was no one there. Perhaps the dog made a mistake.”
The chiefess turned the dog out again; at once there was more barking. She told her bird brothers to go and look over the land. Lono saw them [[27]]and said; “Here is another death day for us. I will tell you who these birds are. When they come you say their names quickly and welcome them.” So he did. They wondered how he knew their names. This knowledge gave him power over them and they could not harm him. The birds also thought they would have to offer their ruler as a wife to this wonderful stranger. They went back to their sister and told her they had found a husband for her. This pleased her. She sent them after Aukele. He told them he would go by and by.
Lono said to Aukele, “Death has partly passed, but more trouble lies before us. When you go up do not sit down or enter the house. Stand at the door. First these two women will come. If they say ‘Aloha’ it is all right. The dog will come and will try to kill you. When he has passed by, the brothers will come. The food they make and put in old calabashes, do not eat. See if the calabash has anything growing in its cracks. You will find new calabashes scattered over the ground. Food and fish and water are inside. Eat from these.”
He made ready to go, and went up to the house, and stood by the door. The two women said “Aloha” and called to him to come in, but he would not enter. The dog ran out, opened her mouth and tried to bite Aukele through the magic cloak. The dog became ashes. The chiefess saw the dog was [[28]]dead and was very sorry because he was the watchman for her land.
The brothers came to him with food which they had put in moss-covered calabashes. He never touched it. It was the death food. He went to a place where green calabash vines were growing, took a calabash, shook it, broke it, opened it and found good food inside.
Then they lived as man and wife. The chiefess had been a cannibal but at this time stopped eating men. Soon a son was born.
After a time the bird brothers taught Aukele how to leap into the air and fly as a bird.
The chiefess told her brothers to go away into the heavens and find her father, Ku-waha-ilo, a cannibal god. He was also the father of Pele, the goddess of volcanic fire. They must tell him that she had given all her treasures to her husband—stars, lands, and seas. She told them to take her husband to see the father.
They flew away, Aukele flying faster than the others. The father saw him and thought his daughter was dead. He said, “She is the watchman for my land, and no man could come here if she were alive,” and he was angry.
Lono told Aukele to put on his magic cloak that now covered him from head to foot. Then he understood there must be a battle. The cannibal father made fire, called Kuku-ena (the lightning); then Ikuwa, a stone crashing like thunder. [[29]]The lightning and the crashing stone were struck by the cloak and rattled into ashes, cracking and breaking, reverberating, sounding like a drum.
The bird brothers saw the fire and heard the thunder. They were far behind Aukele. They saw the lightning and the thunder defeated. After the battle, they all came before their father and told him that the daughter was well and this was her husband.
After this flight to a cannibal land and this victory over the cannibal god, Aukele returned to his wife.
After a time the ghosts of his brothers appeared to him and reminded him of their grave in the sea.
Aukele was very sorry and ate nothing for days. His wife, with great sympathy, told him if he had strength enough to find the living water of Kane he could still restore his brothers. He was encouraged and ate. He asked what path he should take to find the land of the water of life. She made a straight line toward the East, the sunrise, and told him to fly straight, not swerving to either side.
He took his bamboo stick with all his aid inside and put it under his arm, put on his magic cloak, and said “Aloha.” A long time passed.
He thought he was flying in a straight line, but one arm became tired because the stick was under it. He changed the stick, and this moved his direction. His god saw this and told him he was [[30]]leaving the straight line and was flying to some other place. There was fire far below. All the people had fled except one. The god said, “Let us go straight till we come to that one; then you catch him and hold him fast. We shall have life.” This was the moon, who was an ancestress of his wife. The moon had been cooking food. She arose to take up her food and get ready to go. But Aukele caught her, held her and ate her food. She thus became thin—a new moon—and the traveller gained strength to return to his home.
Aukele thought he would try again, according to his wife’s line. She made a line from the door of the house toward the sunrise, and warned him. He flew straight a long time until he found a strange land with a deep pit lined with trees and wonderful plants. At the bottom was the spring of the water of life. He leaped down upon the back of a watchman on the edge of the pit, who had been put there by the guardian to kill any one coming after the water. He tried to shake Aukele off, saying: “Who are you? What do you mean, O proud man? My grandchild, the brother of Pele, never got on my back. Who are you?” He gave his name and ancestors, and told the watchman he had come for the water of life for his brothers. The watchman said: “Go straight out from where I stand. Do not turn to the side or you will strike bamboo which will make a great noise, and my grandchild, Pele’s brother, will hear [[31]]and will cover the water tight, and you cannot get it.”
So Aukele flew and leaped straight on the second watchman, who told him not to go to the left or he would strike the lama trees (very hard wood, used for building houses for the gods). These trees would make a great noise and the guardian would cover the water tight and he could not get it.
He flew to another watchman, who told him to go straight to the bottom of the pit. “There a blind woman will be sitting. Look at the place where she is cooking bananas. She will take them one by one. You eat all her bananas. Then she will become angry and throw ashes. If she throws on the right side, you must fly to the left. Watch if she strikes with a stick, then run quickly, sit in her lap, and tell her who you are.”
When he had done all these things and all attempts to kill him had failed, Aukele made the old blind woman lie down under a cocoanut tree. He got two young cocoanuts and told her to turn her eyes toward the sky. He dropped the cocoanuts in her eyes. She wept sorely because of the pain. He told her to rub the water out of her eyes and not cry. She did so, and said: “I can see you.” He came down from the tree and she told him what he must do to get the water of life: “Go and break the stem of a water plant, and near it a bush with white flowers. Bring them to me.” This he did and laid the plants before her. She squeezed the [[32]]water from the plants into a cup, took charcoal and other things and mixed them together until black; then she painted Aukele’s hands very black, like the hands of the brother of Pele. His hands were black, and those watching the water of life would look at the hands reaching for water and make no mistake. They would tightly cover up the water if a white hand came down. “Wait until the guardian god is asleep and the servants are preparing drink for him when he should awake. Then go to the door and one will give you some water. The first will be dirty water; throw it away. Put your hand down again. They will give you another calabash of water. This will be the living water of Kane; take it.”
He went down and put his hand in for the water. The watchman handed out a calabash of dirty water. He threw it away and again thrust his black hand down the pit.
The watchman gave him a calabash of the pure water of life.
He flew rapidly along the path to the outside world. In his haste he struck the leaves of the groves of trees and the noise was that of strong winds thrashing the branches and leaves back and forth, up and down. The sound swept through the land of the water of life like rolling thunder.
The brother of Pele and his servants awoke and followed, but he fled through the heavens to the place where the ghosts of his brothers lay in the [[33]]sunken ship by the home of the goddess of the sea.
They all went down to the sea. The chiefess told her husband to pour the water of life in his hand. She put her fingers in the water and sprinkled drops over the sea.
Out in the ocean under the moving surface was a boat, its mast coming up through the waves. In a little while they saw men standing in the boat. These were the brothers of Aukele. After the welcome, he gave them lands and homes.
In that strange far-off land of the ancestors—the mysterious “Floating Island”—the “Hidden Island of Kane,” it is said they still live under the rule of their younger brother.
Aukele thought he would like to see his parents once more, so he went to the far-away Helani—but the land was desolate. The parents were gone, the people had disappeared, the houses had all decayed, and the land was covered with a forest.
Only a dragon was left—one of the family of the “Self-reliant Dragon.” He discovered her body fast in the coral reef near the shore. He thought she was dead, but he stood up and stamped with full strength and broke the coral so that the dragon was free. He saw the body moving, but the dragon was very weak and near death.
He was sorry for her, remembering that it was by the aid of dragon powers he had gone into the heavens and from the deep pit of the skies secured the water of life. Therefore he provided food [[34]]and gave new life to the dragon. He asked about his parents and their gods, and the desolation of the land.
The dragon told him how the entire household of gods, dragons and men had found a new home, in the Islands of Oahu and Hawaii. She told how “the child adopted or brought up by the gods,” and the Maiden of the Golden Clouds, had been taken by the Self-reliant Dragon to Oahu, and how all the rest had gone, leaving her as a guard in the old land of his birth and childhood.
Aukele went back to the legendary land, the “Hidden Island of Kane,” and there lived among the ghost gods who welcome the dead as they escape from wandering over the islands and fly by the path of the sunset back to the home of the most distant ancestors—the mysterious lands in the skies of the western seas.
Here he and his brothers are high chiefs of the au-makuas, the ghost gods of Hawaii, who wait to welcome and give peace to the spirits of the dead. [[35]]
[1] This is one of the most ancient legends in Hawaiian annals. [↑]
IV
A VIKING OF THE PACIFIC
History is frequently legendary. That historian is incompetent who deliberately ignores tradition and fable. A nation founded in the sunlight of civilisation cannot have a legendary past, but it must depend many times upon the cloudy memory of individuals. Legends are the indistinct memories of nations, and are of real value when there is any opportunity for comparison. Early Norse history was told in song legends. The sagas of the Vikings are rivalled in some measure by the meles of the Hawaiians. The Hawaiians have both the chant—the mele, and the tradition—the olelo. From these come Hawaiian ancient history. The Vikings, “sea kings,” as they are often named, the “wickel-ings,” as Froude calls them, the men who sailed out from the “vicks,” the fjords of the Scandinavian coast, were brave mariners. They swept the European coast; they infested Mediterranean waters; they found the North Atlantic islands. They made themselves at home in Sneeland (Snowland), now Iceland and Greenland. They named the countries newly discovered [[36]]after their own fancies, as Flatland, Woodland, and Vinland, for Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Massachusetts, respectively.
The Polynesian folklore abounds in stories of remarkable men, bold expeditions, stirring adventures and voyages to far-off lands. The Vikings of the Pacific gave to their foreign lands the names by which these lands were then known, and by which they are known to-day.
In the long Hawaiian chant of Kumu Honua, “the first created,” there is a part devoted to Hawaii-loa, the first sea-king of the Polynesians. He is reported as making long journeys and discovering the Hawaiian Islands. Besides this chant there are many legends and references which make him an important ancestor among Hawaiians, an ancestor of islands rather than of families. He lived in the “land of the handsome or golden god, Kane.” To the north lay the land Ulu-nui or “the Great Ulu,” possibly Ur of Chaldea. His home was near the “green precipiced paradise” of Hawaiian legend, the place where the water of life gave forth healing even for the dead.
Hawaii-loa was a noted fisherman. He launched out into deep waters. He fished for new worlds and found them. From the Great Ulu to Java, from Java to Jilolo, and from Jilolo far out into the eastern Pacific, Hawaii-loa sailed. His relative, Ti-i, also launched out into the deep seas. Ti-i went almost directly east from the old home, [[37]]and found the Society Islands. These he made his home, according to the Society Island legends, becoming the creator of the islands.
Hawaii-loa sailed to the northeast, following “Iao,” Jupiter, as the morning star. Iao was a favorite guiding star among the Hawaiians. Five of the planets were known by the sea-rovers. The planets were called “Na Hoku hele”—“the going stars.” Mars was known as “Hoku ula,” “the red star.” “Na hoku paa” were “the fastened stars, immovable in the heavens.” The name “Iao” is given to one of the mountains of the Island of Maui.
Hawaii-loa found the fire islands—the islands somewhat like the old Java home, luxuriant and volcanic. He named the large island Hawa-i-i—“the little or the burning Java.”
The large island was full of delight to the bold navigator, and he determined to bring his family to this new land for their permanent home. He took them from “the land where his forefathers dwelt before him.” He sailed through the “dotted sea,” the sea with many islands lying near his old ancestral home, “the rainy Zaba”—the modern Zaba or Saba of the Arabian seacoast—from which his own name, “Hawa,” is easily derived. On his journey back and forth he passed through a sea which delighted his heart as a fisherman—“a sea where the fishes run.” He must have found excellent deep-sea fishing. He crossed the “many-coloured [[38]]ocean” and the “sky-blue sea.” He revelled in the beauty of the sun rising and setting in glorious colours on the restless waves. On he sailed with his family until he came to Hawaii—“the burning Java,” the land of volcanoes and earthquakes and of luxuriant valleys and fertile seacoasts.
Fornander suggests that Hawaii is derived from Java and Java from the Arabian Saba.
Evidently a Polynesian chief of high rank gathered a number of adherents or members of his tribe, and sailed eastward over the Pacific, about the beginning of the Christian era. His descendants, or at least such portion of his family as did not follow him on his voyage, seem to have moved from Java to the Molucca Islands and settled in Jilolo.
It is said that after he brought his family to Hawaii, new islands sprang out of the sea, well wooded and well watered. These he divided among his children.
When the later sea-rovers came to Hawaii, possibly in the fifth or sixth century, they found the islands already inhabited by people of their own race, and yet apparently without a chief—probably a servant class. If we sift the legends and then assume that in the course of three or four hundred years the family of the chief, Hawaii-loa, became extinct in Hawaii, leaving only the servants on the islands, we have at least a probable explanation [[39]]of the coming of the so-called little people, or fairies, from the Southern Pacific to Hawaii.
The South Pacific islanders called their servants, or laborers, the Manahune people.
The fairies were known in the Hawaiian legends as the Menehunes. Sometimes they were credited with powers like the gnomes of old England. They were supposed to work only at night. A very ancient stone water-wall along the side of one of the swift-flowing Hawaiian rivers has no tradition or history save that the Menehune people built it in one night. Another very ancient stone wall around a large fish pond is referred to the Menehunes, who did not finish their work in one night, therefore the wall has always been incomplete. So also some of the most ancient temples were referred to the mysterious midnight labors of this people.
One of the legends states that a priest desired to carry the Menehune people across the long stretch of ocean between the foreign lands and the Island of Oahu, therefore “he stretched out his hands to the farthest bounds of Tahiti and over him the Menehunes—the servants—crossed to Oahu.”
It was this same sorcerer-priest who saw the sun die and the earth become dark. He leaped across to the foreign land, caught the sun before it was buried, brought it back to Hawaii and placed it in the heavens, where it has been ever since. These are simply graphic descriptions of an eclipse, and [[40]]also of a chief who carried his common people—his servants—with him across the waters. The presence of this servant class in the very ancient times is unquestioned.
Chiefs coming later found this servant class which readily accepted new rulers.
Hawaii-loa—“the Great Hawaii”—may well be considered both a founder of the Polynesian race and the first settler of the Hawaiian Islands. Brave lover of the sea and founder of nations, Hawaii-loa deserves first place among the Vikings of the Pacific. [[41]]
V
LEGENDARY HOME OF THE POLYNESIANS
The Hawaiians, like the native residents of many other groups of islands in the Pacific Ocean, have not taken kindly to the European names tacked upon their doorposts by the sailors who discovered them. This is very fortunate for those who desire to gather together the facts out of which to weave a connected history of Polynesia.
It is also fortunate that the language spoken in the groups so widely diffused over the Pacific Ocean, has the same common structure, with only such differences as may be resolved into dialects.
The Tahitian, Samoan, New Zealander, and Hawaiian, though thousands of miles apart, are members of one family, and require but a short period to acquire the faculty of a free exchange of ideas.
Students find a slight difficulty in the different spellings which different voyagers have given to the native words according to the way in which they heard the sounds—for instance, “Hawaii” was “Owyhee” in the days of Captain Cook. [[42]]
This difficulty was not overcome when the Polynesian dialects were reduced to writing by the many missionaries to the different parts of the Pacific Ocean. It was impossible to adopt a uniform method. In some places “h” was used, in others “f” and “l” or “r” or “k,” as in the Hawaiian word “aloha”—which in other island groups was “alofa” and “aloofa,” “aroha,” “kaoha,” “akaaroa,” all meaning “friendship.”
In attempting to trace the place of origin of the Hawaiians and other Polynesians it is absolutely necessary to take into account this phonetic difficulty.
Fornander gives the following list of island groups with the various methods of using the word Hawaii:
- Hawaii—Hawa-i-i.
- Tahiti—Hawa-i-i.
- Samoa—Sawa-i-i or Sava-i-i.
- New Zealand—Hawa-iki.
- Marquesas—Hawa-iki.
- Raro Tonga—Awa-iki.
- Tonga—Haba-i.
Hawaii in some form of the word is the most universally used name among all the Polynesians as the place for their ancestral home.
The name of the Hawaiian Islands is taken from this mythological name. So also is the Savaii of the Samoan Islands. So also the small island [[43]]Hawaiki in Lake Rotorua of New Zealand, where the New Zealand legends say the ancestors of the Maoris placed the relics which they brought with them from their ancestral Hawaiki when they settled in New Zealand. In far eastern Tahiti is a place on Raiatea, the island now known as Opoa. Its ancient and sacred name was Hawaii.
Some writers have thought that Samoa might be the center of dispersion to the other Pacific islands, but the Samoan dialect is very corrupt, its legends are fragmentary, and its history of sea rovers seems to lack a sufficient similarity of names with the migrators from the original home to allow this supposition to have very great weight.
It is also interesting to note that the Hawaiian Islands do not have a good foundation for any claim to be the original centre of dispersion, although many of the most ancient legends of Hawaii and of New Zealand are the same. There is abundance of proof of a common origin, but not sufficient to found any claim for Hawaiian parentage.
Ellis, writing in 1830 concerning the Tahitians and inhabitants of neighbouring islands, says:
“A tradition stated that the first inhabitants of these islands originally came from a country in the direction of the setting sun, to which several names were given. Pigs and dogs were brought from the West.”
In the Hawaiian Islands the point from which [[44]]the ancient voyages sailed away to visit the other groups of islands of the Pacific was off the western coast of the island of Maui and was called Ke-ala-i-kahiki, The Path to Tahiti. They might ultimately sail eastward to Tahiti or to the Marquesas Islands, but they started toward the home of their ancestors, westward. They called their vikings—Ka-poe-holo-kahiki, The People Sailing to Tahiti. Tahiti at last meant any distant or foreign group of islands, although individual names of islands are used in the chants—such as Bolabola and Upolu.
The Hawaiian said that, ke alo, the face or front of an island, was toward the west. The back, ke kua, was toward the east. This, as Fornander says, was “because the ancestors of the islanders came from the west originally.”
The students of Polynesian legends are practically united in ascribing the Hawaii of mythology to some place west of all the islands.
Early writers on the origin of the Polynesians took it for granted that these ancestors were Malays. Certain words and names among both Malays and Polynesians were similar, but later study has convinced the vast majority of students that this theory is not true. It is now believed that the Polynesians came to the island groups from the neighbourhood of the straits of Sunda, where they had their home for a long time. The fierce Malay tribes descended upon them and scattered them in all directions over the seas. A trace of [[45]]the remnants of this dispersion is found even among the mixed elements of the people of Japan. Another trace is found in Madagascar, while the great body of the storm-tossed people took possession of the middle and southeastern islands of the Pacific.
Hon. Edward Tregear, of New Zealand, writing about the original home of the Polynesians, thinks that their first residence was either India or Central Asia, from whence they passed through India, there making a stay of some time. Then they journeyed to the Malay archipelago, residing there many generations until driven out by the Malays. This is the original Hawa-iki from which Polynesia was first settled, expeditions probably passing out to the far distant island groups. Then lastly came the canoe voyagers—the rovings of the vikings of the Pacific which in New Zealand meant a new peopling of the land of the “long white cloud,” and to the Hawaiians and Tahitians and other islands almost two centuries of adventurous sea roving.
The late Hon. S. Percy Smith, Minister of Native Affairs in New Zealand, traces the Polynesians from Aryan connection in Asia Minor and Western Europe to India, Malayasia and thence to the scattered islands of the Pacific.
Max Müller calls attention to the use of the word Av-iki by both Brahmins and Buddhists as the name of their “hades.”
Hawa-iki was the name of the place from which [[46]]the Polynesians came and about which they talked in their most ancient stories. This other world became mysterious as the ages passed by until at last Hawa-iki meant the place to which the spirits of the dead went, as well as the home from which their ancestors came. A journey to or from any of the Polynesian islands meant passing out of one world into another. The area of vision bounded by the horizon was the world in which the people lived. Passing out of sight over the waters was breaking through the wall dividing one world from another. The idea that Hawa-iki was the home of the ghosts could very easily be derived from the other world beyond the shining wall of the sky into which any one sailing out of sight of land might be forever lost.
The path into this other world—this Hawa-iki of the ancestors—was universally toward the west—the golden path of the setting sun. [[47]]
VI
THE SONS OF KII
Sometime during the fifth or sixth century of the Christian era—according to estimates based on Hawaiian genealogies—two brothers, Ulu and Nanaulu, came to the Hawaiian Islands and established a dynasty of high chiefs. Their father was Kii, a king in the Southern Pacific Islands. Tahiti, the chief island of the Society group, furnishes the only ancient king of that name. We have the additional fact that in Hawaiian legends the place to which Hawaiian Vikings frequently sailed for centuries was usually Kahiki or Tahiti, the old home of the family of ruling chiefs.
It has been suggested that Ulu remained in the southern islands and that Nanaulu alone found his way to Hawaii; but the frequent use of the name Ulu in the genealogies of the chiefs of the two large islands, Hawaii and Maui, would support the position taken in the story that follows—that the brothers, sailing together, found Hawaii.
* * *
Two strong young men, about six feet in stature, were hastening together along a mountain spur [[48]]leading down to the harbour of Papeete. They had met but a short time before, one coming around the base of the turreted crags of an extinct volcano known as “La Diademe”—The Diadem, or crown of Tahiti. The other had left his house in the hills from which the beautiful river of the Vai-ta-piha valley takes its source. They had given each other the universal Polynesian greeting—“Love to you,” with the reply, “Love indeed.”
Soon they came to the seashore where a long boat, the waa of Ulu, had been built. Large crowds of natives were watching the workmen as the stone adzes rang for the last time on the boarded-up sides of the boat.
As the two young chiefs drew near they saw a small company of solemn, dignified men, evidently of high rank, emerge from the door of a large grass house and march slowly to the side of the long boat.
A trumpet shell was sounded. The people fell with their faces toward the ground. Another blast, and there could be seen a number of gigantic slaves coming from the door of a stone temple not far away. Each slave was leading a prisoner. In a few minutes they surrounded the boat. Two prisoners were held at the prow of the boat, two at the stern, four along the boat sides and others in a line extending to the beach.
A priest stepped forth from the little company of leaders. In a strong and yet monotonous tone he [[49]]began a chant of praise of Kii and his sons. He sang of the boat building and the protecting care of the gods.
He chanted the charms which would control the action of the gods of the seas over which the boats might sail. He invoked the gods of the home land to make friendly the gods of any new country to which the sailors might go. He pleaded for the acceptance of the human sacrifice about to be made to the gods.
Executioners with sharp-edged clubs of heavy hardwood then struck down the prisoners as the boat was rushed to the sea.
Human sacrifices at the launchings of the canoes of chiefs were not at all unusual, but the two young chiefs from the mountains had never before known such wholesale slaughter. The importance of the plans of the high chiefs was made evident by this large human sacrifice. The new boat of the king’s son, Ulu, was evidently destined for some very important expedition.
“E Taunoa,” cried a chief to the two latest arrivals, calling one of them by the name of his district. “Make haste or you will be too late to hear the voice of the king.”
“How is it, Taunoa,” said another, “that you, a chief of Nanaulu, should be present at the call of Kii in the interest of Ulu?”
Taunoa replied: “We shall soon see Nanaulu with a cloud of boats. I was sent to announce his [[50]]coming to his father, the king. His heart is with his brother Ulu in the observance of the plans of Kii. I found this young chief of Vai-ta-piha on his way hither, and made him my companion. Take me at once to Kii, the king.”
Okela, the chief who had called to Taunoa, at once preceded the crowd thronging hastily behind, giving Taunoa the post of honour after Okela. As they approached the dignified high chiefs they all prostrated themselves to the ground except Okela and Taunoa.
Taunoa drew from under his cloak a feathery frond of the cocoanut, and raising it above his head, asked for an interview with the king.
The trumpeter with his large pu or conch shell sounded the call of the coming of the king. Trumpet shells responded from the temple and from the king’s residence. A terrific beating of drums followed, the people fell upon their faces; even the high chiefs prostrated themselves. Only the messenger from Nanaulu remained partially upright.
From the king’s house came the royal retinue. King Kii was borne on the shoulders of a stalwart slave, supported by two other slaves, while ranks of trusted chiefs walked by his side. Following the king, riding in the same way upon the shoulders of slaves, was Ulu, the king’s son, surrounded also by his chosen chiefs.
To the king Taunoa at once presented his tuft [[51]]of the cocoanut and was ordered to give his message.
“O King,” he said, “Nanaulu, the high chief, your son, has heard of the boat of Ulu and your purpose of sending Ulu upon a mysterious mission. Nanaulu, the elder brother, was the kahu (caretaker) of Ulu in the days past. He desires to still stand by his brother’s side and care for him in the place of Kii, the royal father. He has searched the forests of the sharp-peaked mountain and has fashioned a boat, the Mano-nui (great shark), and soon expects to come to Papeete with a royal fleet to do honour to the king, his father.”
The king had turned his eyes for a moment toward Ulu and had caught the joy flashing from his eyes when he heard of his brother’s speedy coming, then, looking down upon Taunoa, who had prostrated himself as soon as his message was delivered, simply said:
“Your message gives joy,” and then was borne into the midst of the group of high chiefs.
The king’s herald then made proclamation:
“Where are you, O chiefs? Where are you, O nobles of Tahiti? Where are you, O servant people? For the message is to all, from the highest to the lowest. Listen, O men of Tahiti, to the will of Kii, your king.
“It is his wish that Ulu, his son, should sail toward the west and should find the land of our fathers, He will have many companions, but these [[52]]will be selected from only the most worthy. His prophets and priests, his teachers, have already been chosen. But now choice must be made of chiefs and warriors and common people. Two days will be given you for rest. On the third day the king and his high chiefs will be judges of wrestling contests. On the fourth day will be struggles in the surf; or, if the sea gods are not propitious the chiefs will contest on the hillsides and in the games of physical strength. On the fifth day there will be the exercise with the spears and clubs. The skill and strength of the Tahitians will be manifest during these days.”
Then followed such a scene of unbridled revelry as could occur only in a land given up to physical pleasures and passions. Feasting and the heiva dance and drinking kava occupied the time of the common people.
The chiefs gave themselves up to gambling and rioting until the night was wearied with their excesses and the new day sent the revellers to needed rest wherever any tree or grass house afforded even a little shade.
As the afternoon of the first day began to cast its long shadows, a large fleet of hundreds of canoes filled the entrance to Papeete Bay. They were preceded by a very large war canoe with a prow shaped into a rude resemblance of a shark’s head, with shark’s teeth fastened in the open jaws. The body of the boat was of polished wood, well oiled. The [[53]]multitude of canoes following were painted and stained with as many brilliant dyes as possible. Not a torn or weather-beaten sail hung by the masts. Sails of dyed kapa cloth and woven matting, new and beautifully painted, had been made ready long before, that Nanaulu’s homecoming might have no blot upon its impressive appearance. As the large boat came near the shore the oarsmen leaped into the surf; chosen men from the other canoes joined them. Passing strong cords of cocoanut fibre under the keel, they lifted the boat, with several chiefs resting upon a small deck which partially covered the canoe. Then they bore the great burden up the beach toward the grass house of Kii. Standing by the mast of the canoe was Nanaulu, a chief of splendid physical appearance, about thirty years of age, before whom all the people prostrated themselves as he was carried by.
Midway between the beach and the king’s house a young chief rushed down to meet Nanaulu. As he came near the canoe he leaped over the heads of the bearers, landing on the deck by the side of Nanaulu and catching the mast gracefully, steadied himself for a moment and then, throwing his arms around Nanaulu, began the loud Polynesian wailing, with which in sorrow or in joy alike they were accustomed to greet one another. This was Ulu, the younger brother, not over twenty-five years old, and his warm-hearted greeting of his elder brother, who during his boyhood had been his steadfast [[54]]friend and caretaker, showed the deep love which bound them together. Ulu was of higher chief rank than his elder brother. Sons of Kii, they were nevertheless sons of different queens of unequal rank; therefore Nanaulu owed allegiance to his brother. After the wailing was over the boat was carried to the king’s house, while the two brothers discussed plans. Nanaulu requested that his own retainers might be given an opportunity to contest in the games and athletic exercises of the coming days. To this his brother readily acceded.
Early in the morning of the next day the contests were opened by the chiefs of the various districts of Tahiti, who called their best wrestlers together and chose the champions to contest with other champions from other districts.
After the king had taken his place the ceremonies of the day were introduced by the royal ceremonial dance. Over a hundred chiefs, throwing aside their cloaks and putting on tall helmets making the average stature about eight feet and, taking slender, thin paddles, ranged themselves before the king in lines, and then passed through a series of gymnastic exercises, gracefully moving the paddles in exact harmony, at the same time changing their positions, passing in and out between one another, sometimes forming squares, circles and semi-circles. The music for the rhythmic motion was furnished by rude drums, upon which musicians beat time. The dance ended by two chiefs taking war clubs [[55]]and, while in motion, keeping time with the drums, twirling the clubs and striking rapidly at each other, circling the clubs over each other’s heads and yet avoiding all injury to one another.
One of the chiefs stepped to the centre of the open arena and began to chant:
“I am the wrestler
From the groves of Papeete,
By the sea waters.
Where are you, Opale,
The great man! the strong man!
Living by the rough waves
Of Makavia?
Come and fight with Makima.”
The champion wrestler from Matavia Bay very slowly walked into the arena, trying to appear utterly oblivious of his antagonist. He looked into the sky, glanced along the sand, then shouted:
“Where are you, Makima,
The boastful little man,
The weak in limb and arm?
Where are you, Makima,
Who dares to fight with Opale?”
It was the custom of the Polynesians to throw out a taunt in a half-shouting, defiant tone. Each combatant approached the other, trying to make the audience think that he considered his antagonist so far beneath his notice that he only needed to move his arm and the match would be over. Thus in lordly dignity they ignored each other until, standing side by side, each made a sudden movement [[56]]as if expecting to find the other off his guard. In a moment there was a confused mass of squirming limbs and arms and writhing bodies. A cloud of sand obscured the struggle. For a time there was no motion, and people saw the champions bending around each other with strained muscles, neither having any advantage, but each apparently exerting all his strength to make the other give way in response to brute strength. Each endeavoured to learn the trick by which his antagonist would change the order of battle. The least loosening of muscles on the part of one was interpreted in a moment by the other, and neither one hastened to carry out a move which might place him at the other’s mercy. It was a splendid exhibition of statuesque athletics. Doing his very best to prevent betrayal by any loosened grasp in any direction, Opale suddenly swept one foot with terrific force against his antagonist’s leg, at the same time pulling him to one side; but the half second’s unconscious loosening of the muscles preparatory to Opale’s action gave Makima notice, and even as Opale’s foot struck him, he raised the unbalanced chief and whirled him over his head, at the same time by a whirlwind motion preserving his own equilibrium. Opale lay for a moment unconscious, while Makima received the applause of the multitude.
Then followed match after match, sometimes interspersed with boxing. In the boxing contests [[57]]severe blows were given until one of the boxers was stricken senseless to the earth or an arm was broken. Sometimes both wrestling and boxing contests resulted in the death of a chief. At such times the chief’s retainers quietly carried away the body, while the shouts which greeted the victor filled the air. Such deaths were taken as incidental, and no wailing showed the grief of stricken friends.
In this way the forenoon passed, and at last a few noble chiefs, exquisite in the beauty of perfect muscular manhood, stood before the king, chosen to be the special bodyguard of Ulu in the mysterious journey of the coming days. In the afternoon the followers of Nanaulu were tested and a like bodyguard selected for this young prince.
During that night a heavy wind tossed the sea waves into foam, but as the morning broke the wind died away, leaving ideal surf waves rolling in from the far-off coral reef, through the harbour, up to the beach.
A number of chiefs, taking long boards, thinned and smoothed by stone knives and polished with the rough skin of the shark, swam far out into the ocean. There where the surf waves began to form as the tide rolled landward each chief turned his surf board to follow the tidal pathway. Canoes were stationed at the point from which the older chiefs had decided that the swimmers must start. Groups of ten or fifteen contestants were allowed [[58]]to start together. The rider with the swiftest and most skilfully managed surf board was chosen from each group. Hundreds of natives having any kind of claim to chief’s blood had presented themselves for this contest.
Some of the surf-riders contented themselves by simply lying on the board, endeavouring by skilful use of hand and foot to hasten their passage on the crest of the huge surf waves. This was by no means an easy thing to do. Success consisted in gaining on the surf. Ordinarily many surf waves passed from beneath the surf-riders before they could complete the long distance over the sea. To hang to a wave, cling to its white mane, to have such mastery over it as not to be thrown back to the next wave, was a trial of strength and judgment, and might easily bring the sought-for reward. These, of course, were the first to reach the shore.
Others pushed their boards rapidly through the first waves encountered. Then, balancing the board on the crest of the largest inrolling waves, leaped to their feet, and standing upright guided the board by the swaying of their bodies, adjusting themselves to the changing forces of the surf. Sometimes a very skilful surf-rider would go through the motions of fighting a battle—throwing the javelin, pushing with a spear, striking with a war-club or stabbing with a dagger. This was seldom attempted without an ignominious overthrow of board and rider as the undertow from the [[59]]beach struggled with the incoming surf. Then the acrobat received the jeers of the people as he and his boat rolled under the foam. A successful completion of such a ride marked a high degree of combined courage and training and judgment. During the course of the entire test of the men of both Ulu and Nanaulu only two men perfectly performed this difficult task. These were the two young high chiefs Okela and Taunoa. The highest honours for surf-riding were, however, given by all to Vai-ta-piha, the inferior chief who had come to the contest with Taunoa.
Soon after the group of riders in which he was placed started shoreward a squall broke over them. The surf ceased rolling for a few moments in continuous waves. The boards and their riders were thrown against and over one another. Then a large wave swept the confused and struggling company toward the beach. Vai-ta-piha easily extricated himself, and balanced upon his surf board was about to dash to land, but he saw in front of his board the body of an insensible chief roll from between two boards and begin to sink. In a second he leaped ahead of his board, caught the chief with one hand and with the other secured the surf-board floating by. He drew the chief and himself up until he rested upon the board. Leaping to his feet he held the body in his hands, balancing himself and guiding his frail craft until the wave was about to take its final plunge upon the sand, when [[60]]he dropped off into the water and carried his burden to the massage or lomilomi women, who by skilful kneading of the body soon restored the injured chief to his friends. The unselfish rescue as well as the skill displayed in bringing the body to land, all in a few moments, won the approval of the judges.
The fourth day the chiefs rested and the common people gave an exhibition of their attainments, and a sufficient number of canoe-makers, house-builders, fishermen and other helpers were easily secured. These were to be the oarsmen of the expedition.
The fifth day brought a new order of contestants. Around Papeete Bay are some beautiful hills, with sloping, grassy sides. Here the chiefs gathered with sleds which were from six to twelve feet long. These were made by taking finely polished hardwood for runners, usually about twelve inches apart.
Long sticks were placed lengthwise over these runners and fastened tightly to cross pieces. Frequently a board was tied between the sticks and a piece of matting laid upon it for the benefit of the rider. Holes were bored through these boards with sharp-pointed bones or shells, and they were strongly tied to the runners.
The riders of shorter sleds would grasp the sticks along the edges, using them as handles, raise the sled and run along the brow of the hill, giving the [[61]]sled a hard push down the declivity as they threw themselves flat on the narrow board. Sometimes this resulted in a mortifying overthrow of the rider at the first leap of the sled downward. The rider with the longer sled was content to push his sled rapidly a few feet and then dash down the hillside. The slides or paths for the sleds were so well worn that little ridges formed along the sides, sometimes keeping the sled in the path, and just as often catching a runner and causing an overthrow of the rider.
The slides were frequently well covered with cut grass or leaves. Often the chiefs preferred the carefully kept, grass-covered, smooth hillside where but few marks of sleds appeared.
This was an exciting and sometimes dangerous sport. Fearful velocities were sometimes attained. Sleds swerved against slight unevennesses almost imperceptible until struck by a runner on one side or the other. The sudden shock swept the sled out of its course against the sled or in the pathway of an opponent, and in a moment a confused mass of broken sleds and stunned riders would be dashed down the hillside. Many times a sled thus turned spilt its runner on one side. It was considered evidence of great skill when a rider instantaneously adjusted himself to a broken sled, kept it in its course and finally landed safely in the smooth plain below.
Where the slopes were sufficiently gradual some [[62]]of the chiefs chose the slower ride, but took it in a standing position, when the dangers would be intensified, a broken sled being accompanied by broken limbs or a broken neck.
During the day messengers of the chiefs competed for a place in the expedition. The contest required the men to go around the mountain which formed the larger part of the Island of Tahiti, usually a two days’ journey, with allowance for a few hours’ rest along the way. The first and second runners to win in this race were to go as the messengers of Ulu and Nanaulu.
The contests among the chiefs had resulted in the selection of a much larger number of chiefs than could possibly go with the two young princes. New trials of skill were instituted to sift out the least skilful or the most unlucky.
The first test applied was that of javelin throwing. The high chiefs had prepared for their own sport a long, smooth path, beaten down until it was hard as a rock. Here they were accustomed to throw heavy hardwood darts, which, sliding along the path, would either pass between two marks at a given distance from the thrower or sometimes strike a small stick set upright at the end of a straight line drawn along the centre of the path. This was called the Pakee or the play with the darts or javelins.
By courtesy Paradise of the Pacific
SPEAR THROWING CONTEST
A second test was made along the same beaten track in the game called Ulu-maika. In this contest [[63]]were used circular stones, flat-sided, of different sizes, according to the pleasure of the contestants. The smaller stones were about an inch thick and about six inches in circumference. The larger maika-stones were frequently two inches thick and a foot and a half in circumference. The ordinary stone used by most of the chiefs was an inch thick and about ten inches in circumference. These stones were smoothed and polished to a very high degree.
Those who had stood the test of javelin-throwing were formed in line that each one might, without delay, step to the head of the track and roll his disc, pass on and permit another to take his place.
This trial was, by virtue of a suggestion of Nanaulu, made a triple test. The stone was to be rolled more than the ordinary distance, made to pass between two upright sticks, then between two more posts, and then some distance beyond strike a mark set up in the centre of the track. Those accomplishing the entire feat would not be required to stand further trial in order to secure the coveted membership in the expedition. Those passing the posts should be entitled to another trial. It was not very difficult to roll the stone between the posts, but very few were able to keep the disc in the centre of the track and strike the far-distant mark.
The spear-catching contest was instituted as one of the final struggles. A difficult condition was attached to this spear-catching. Six spears were [[64]]to be hurled at once by six chiefs not over sixty feet distant from the catcher. He was required to catch or stop at least four of these spears, not permitting more than two to pass by him.
Thus the contests ended, and thus by a skilful use of Polynesian games companions were selected for the sons of Kii in their long journey to Hawaii.
The wives of the young princes and some of the chiefs and warriors and boatmen were given places by the side of their husbands.
So from Tahiti, in the long ago, a voyage of many days to many lands, through many strange experiences, was undertaken by brave men and women in a small fleet of the larger kind of Polynesian boats. So the sons of Kii sailed away toward the west to find the home from which their ancestors had come to found the dynasty of Tahitian kings which held rule over Tahiti until the white man controlled the beautiful islands of the Pacific. Instead of the original home of the Polynesians on the coast of Asia, the sons of Kii probably made their way to the new Hawaii and there founded two races of kings. The descendants of Ulu ruled the larger southern islands until overthrown in the eleventh century by Paao on the Island of Hawaii. The descendants of Nanaulu ruled the northern islands until a few years after Captain Cook discovered the Hawaiian group and called it “The Sandwich Islands.” [[65]]
VII
PAAO FROM SAMOA
Ka-meha-meha is the chief name around which Hawaiian history gathers. It is the nimbus of a cloud of stories, legends and chants. Hawaiians never reckoned history by dates, but by genealogies—as did the Hebrews. They measured time not by the years but by the lives of men; not by the days passed, but by the deeds done. These genealogies formed the most essential part of Hawaiian literature. They proved the royal descent of the high chiefs.
When Ka-meha-meha became king of “The Rainbow Islands,” his royal chant took the supreme place. Other genealogies lost their importance except as they blended in that of the great king. He traced his royal blood to Pili, “from a foreign land,” and through Pili back to Wa-kea, a Polynesian chief of perhaps the second century; and thence back through a series of hero-gods to Kumu-Honua, “the first created.” It is a remarkable genealogy and worthy of study.
In November, 1736, he was born in North Kohala, Hawaii. Pili had settled in North Kohala [[66]]about thirty generations preceding. A quarter of a century is accepted as the average life of a generation. Pili, therefore, landed in Hawaii in the early part of the eleventh century.
The story of Pili depends upon another story which must be told first. In fact the Hawaiian traditions tell a great deal more about Paao, the founder of the high-priest family of Hawaii, than about Pili, the ancestor of kings.
Not far from the year 1100 A.D., two priest brothers were living on Upolu, one of the Samoan Islands. Lonopele, the elder, lived in one of the luxurious valleys opening upon the seacoast. Paao, the younger, was a seaman as well as a priest. He lived near the beach, where he kept a small fleet of canoes.
In some way bitter feeling arose between the two households, making them jealous and suspicious of each other. One day Lonopele came to the temple where his brother was making ready to sacrifice a sacred black hog.
“Where are you, O Paao,” he cried, “that you prepare a sacrifice for the favour of the gods, when you do not watch your oldest boy?”
“What is your thought?” asked Paao.
“Some of my choice fruits, brought from Tahiti, are beginning to ripen; and each night Kaino, your son, creeps under the low branches, and gathers whatever is good.”
“It is false!” angrily replied the father. [[67]]
Theft was considered the greatest of crimes among the Polynesians.
“No! It is true. He is coming even now from his feast. If he touches my fruit again he shall die. It is tabu” (sacred).
“E! Kaino!” called the father.
The boy came near, evidently having just been eating.
“Have you taken fruit from Lonopele in the night?”
“No. I have fruit at home, but better are the baked dog and fish. I would not eat his fruit.”
Lonopele became angry, and cried out: “May the god, Kanaloa, curse you and break your body into fragments, for your falsehood.”
“Cut open my stomach, O my uncle, and I shall be proved innocent.”
The ancient days had little of the modern care for children. Fathers and mothers readily gave away their babes, or slew them with their own hands. Paao determined to substitute his son for the sacrifice he was preparing, and thus prove his guilt or innocence. No trace of fruit was found in the body.
Lonopele bowed his head in shame and hastened away. When the flush of indignant anger had passed, Paao grieved over the body which lay decomposing upon the altar. The Hawaiian traditions say that after this act he determined to leave Upolu. He called together a few of his trusted [[68]]friends and told them his purpose. They agreed to prepare their large canoes, and go with him, seeking the “Burning-Java,” or Hawaii, somewhere toward the north.
The sides of the boats were to be built two or three feet higher. This was done by hewing boards with stone axes, and sewing them to each other through holes, drilled by bones, using cords of cocoanut fibre for thread. Thus canoes were prepared capable of carrying thirty to sixty persons.
Dried bananas, pigs, fish, and pounded taro were made ready.
One day Paao saw his brother’s son coming near the boats.
In a fit of anger he rushed upon the boy and slew him.
Lonopele soon discovered the murder, and made war upon Paao.
Paao and his friends launched their canoes as fast as possible, placing in them their families and such provisions as were at hand. His warriors, defeated by Lonopele, hastened to the canoes, and shoved out into the deep waters.
The battle was evidently fierce, for the legends say that some of the prophet friends who could not escape to their canoes, leaped from the precipitous cliffs to “fly” to the boats, and were dashed to pieces on the rocks below. Lonopele probably drove them over the brink of a precipice. One of the priest-friends leaped into the water, calling for Paao to [[69]]return and rescue him. “Not so,” answered Paao, “we have left the shore. It would be an evil omen to turn back. We will wait for you where we are.” The legends say, “The priest flew like a bird to the canoes” and was warmly received by Paao. Lonopele sent a storm to destroy the canoes. Probably he launched his own fleet and made pursuit. Two great fish aided the fugitives. The Aku pushed the boats. The Opelea hindered the storm waves by opposing his great body and breaking their force. Lonopele ordered his magic bird to take up great waves of water and pour them from the sky, overwhelming the fugitives. The canoe-men hurriedly arranged mats covering the boats, and the water was turned into the sea. Thus they escaped.
The days passed. Sometimes showers fell upon the mats arranged like funnels, filling the water calabashes afresh. Sometimes they passed through a school of fish, and caught all they could, drying them for future use. Some died and descended to the “bountiful islands in the world under the waters.” Some of the canoes were abandoned. And they sailed on almost hopelessly, still moving northward.
One day Paao said: “I was watching the stars last night and my thought is that some water-god has put his hands under out boats and moved us away from Hawaii.”
An astrologer said: “I have heard the pilots [[70]]from the burning islands talk about the water-gods and one of them claimed that sometimes a strange god had turned their boats from a straight path.”
The action of the ocean currents was supposed to be the malicious work of some strange deity.
That night Paao could not sleep. He studied the stars. He felt a breeze that seemed to him in some way different from the ordinary sea-breezes.
“Do you feel the new wind from the eastern star?” he said softly to his steersmen.
“Aye!” they replied. “We have to hold the steering paddles more firmly.”
Paao awakened his prophet and whispered: “Does the new wind have a voice for you?”
The prophet sniffed the air, then stepped upon the high prow and breathed again.
“Aye, the wind has the voice of smoke, perhaps the smoke of the burning-mountain.”
“Say nothing about the voice. We will change our course and sail toward the bright star.”
During the day the men said, “this is a new wind and it has the storm voice.”
The next day came, and then the next. Paao and his prophet alternated between hope and fear. The awful suffering of hunger and thirst was among them. If a mistake had been made there was no possible escape from starvation. In the very early morning of the third day, as Paao was restlessly looking eastward, his wife crept to his side. [[71]]
“O my Paao,” she said, “I am about to die. I have just dreamed of the green-walled paradise. I smelled the sweet Maile blossoms and the leaves of our marriage wreath. I saw the spirits of my sons stand by the cocoanut tree. The vision is from the gods, I must surely die.”
“Hush,” said Paao quickly, “I too have heard the voice of the Maile born on the winds but I was awake. You shall not die. Call the astrologer, and then listen to his words.”
The astrologer came quickly.
“Take breath strong and deep and tell me what the winds say.”
“I hear no voice,” was the reply.
Paao handed his friend a calabash with a little precious water, bidding him bathe his parched mouth and nostrils.
“Now what do the winds say?”
“Hawaii! Hawaii!! and the strong voice of the Maile blossoms, and the gentle voice of the sugar-cane. I can hear the bread-fruit call ‘Come and eat.’ The Lau-hala’s voice comes over the sea. Awake, awake, oh canoe-men! The fingers of the morning touch the mountains of Hawaii. The morning is raising its hand to beckon us on. O friends of the canoes, awake! Hear the land voices. Hear the wind that has no salt in it. Awake and hear Hawaii.”
In a moment shouts and songs of gladness were heard from all the canoes. When hope begins to [[72]]grow, it ripens rapidly. New life, new strength, pervaded the weakened wanderers. The steersmen unconsciously changed the course of the boats toward the blue haze of land outlined by the dawn.
Thus the day passed. There was no longer any need to husband food. They ate the last morsels. They drained the water from their calabashes. They cheered each other from boat to boat. They toiled hard in rowing, and as the night dropped its shadows around them, they made preparations for landing in this new home.
Bundles of feather robes were unrolled. Native cloth, brilliantly coloured, was taken from its wrappings. Paao robed himself in a high-priest’s tabu mantle of black feathers, wearing a white helmet ornamented with black plumes. Around the short masts they placed new mats as sails, inscribed with strange and mysterious emblems. All the people put on their most gorgeous and costly apparel.
Thus, as the new morning dawned, they came to Hawaii. Thus they landed as if their journey had known nothing of starvation and death. Thus they met the wondering natives who hastened along the beach to the spot where the boats must land.
Greetings were given. The language of the newcomers was almost identical in meaning and pronunciation with the native tongue. The priests with new gods were received with offerings. Food and clothing in abundance were given. Land in [[73]]Puna, near Hilo, was set apart for their dwelling-place. Paao, aided by the Hawaiians, at once built a temple at Wahaula, which after being twice restored, was destroyed in 1820. From Paao, the high priest’s family, highest in priestly rank of all dwelling in the islands, was perpetuated, until Ka-meha-meha’s high priest, Hewa-hewa, a lineal descendant of Paao, in 1819, aided in destroying the temples of the gods. With his own hands Hewa-hewa set fire to shrines and idols, overthrowing the system of worship and sacred tabu which Paao had established nearly 700 years before. Some years later Hewa-hewa became a devoted adherent to Christianity.
Some time during the fifth or sixth centuries two Polynesian brothers, sons of Kii, came to the Hawaiian group with a number of followers. They belonged to a high chief family and appeared to have assumed authority without opposition. They divided the islands. Ulu took Maui and Hawaii. Nanaulu settled on Oahu, taking possession of Oahu, Kauai and Molokai.
Kapawa was the last high chief of unblemished blood in the Ulu line on Hawaii.
The Nanaulu line maintained its independence through all the centuries, until it was finally absorbed by the Ka-meha-meha family. The Ulu line in Hawaii was replaced by a Samoan family of high chiefs brought into Hawaii by Paao, in connection with the overthrow of Kapawa. [[74]]
The high chiefs of “the good old days of Hawaii” had certain prerogatives which were never questioned. They were his by “divine right.” He visited the inferior chief of any district at pleasure. He was readily supplied with all the available kapa cloth of the district for clothing and sleeping mats for himself and followers. The hunters of the district were required to search the mountain forests for birds of rare plumage, whose feathers the women were required to weave in mantles and helmets. All the food of the district was subject to his command. He levied upon any canoe attracting his fancy. Food and cloth and canoes were the wealth of the islands. The high chief usually left each district impoverished. There was no complaint against Kapawa on this score, although he had used his “divine right” in the most burdensome manner. The idle, the dissolute, the depraved and the reckless among the sub-chiefs of the various islands flocked to Kapawa and became his “eating companions”—those who received from his bounty their food and clothing. The atrocious lives which such men lived in any community can be imagined. But this was not criminal.
When the Hawaiian legends say “The Ulu line of high chiefs became extinct on account of the crimes of Kapawa,” something must be considered besides property, morality or human life. It was not until the sanctity of the temples was attacked that the chiefs decided that even royal blood of [[75]]many generations might become too impure for a ruling chief.
One day the district chief of Hilo came to the temple, asking to see “the priest of the brother tongue, who worshipped the two round white gods.”
When he was brought before Paao he said:
“I speak to you as to a brother. But I must first ask if the priest from afar will make his home by the burning mountain?”
“Aye,” said Paao.
“The priest is wise and knows the genealogies of the chiefs, the sons of the gods. He knows the chant of the royal line of Hawaii.”
Paao bowed his head.
“The priest understands that our high chief, Kapawa, is descended from Ulu. Is the priest aware that Kapawa is cruel and evil, that he tramples the life out of the land and that he violates the temples and drags out of the city of refuge the man who has safely entered therein? Does the priest know that the high chief is already planning to visit him, to examine his stores and secure whatever new ornaments have been brought from Samoa?”
“I fear no king. I am the voice of the gods. I am the friend of ‘Lono, who walks on the sea.’ I fear no man,” replied Paao, quietly.
“True,” said the chief. “Nevertheless the gods aid the man who crosses the channel in a canoe a [[76]]little more than the man who tries to cross by swimming. We must plan together and hew out our canoe. We want you to consult the gods and tell us their will.”
Paao was practical. He knew that by becoming the high priest of the chiefs he would establish his position in Hawaii. He knew the value of advice that comes through mysterious channels.
He went into the temple. After some time he returned and said to the chief:
“The gods answer slowly. They show that you must gather the chiefs upon whom you can depend and have the hard wood prepared for making spears.”
“The bird that speaks” flew to Kapawa with the news that the priest from afar was seeking the wisdom of the gods to use against him, and that the chiefs were organising a rebellion.
Several weeks of weary warfare followed.
Kapawa was driven from refuge to refuge. All the district chiefs finally deserted him, and gave adherence to Paao.
The defeated king fled across the channel between the Islands of Hawaii and Maui.
He sought the Maui branch of the Ulu descendants, a discouraged and ruined king.
The legends say that here he died. His body was placed in the royal burial cave, in Iao Valley, back of the village Wailuku. The native custodians of this cave guard its secrets jealously. Probably [[77]]none of the white residents have seen its mysteries.
Thus the old royal family of Hawaii was overthrown, and the way prepared to introduce “Pili, the king, from a foreign land.”
Paao was afraid that the district chiefs would ask him for a high chief as soon as they should come together. Some of the chiefs had already said, “It may be the will of the gods that the high priest become the high chief also.”
But Paao knew the inherent reverence of the Polynesians for blood-royal. He knew his own power. He felt that his position as high priest was unassailable. He wanted no civil entanglements. He had managed through all the campaign, to surround himself with mysteries, and had gained unbounded influence through arousing superstitious fears as well as through warlike deeds.
The Hawaiian legends tell us Pili, a very high chief of Samoa, was persuaded by messengers from Paao to move to the islands of the north.
Pili journeyed with, what the legend called, a “cloud of boats.” It was an eleventh century migration of a small nation to a distant home.
Thus was Pili set apart as King of Hawaii.
From Hilo, the eleventh century king went to the beautiful Waipio Valley, taking Paao with him. Later he moved to the Kohala district. Here Paao built the Mookini temple, in a place to which he gave the name it still bears—Lae Upolu, the Cape of Upolu. [[78]]
Here, in Kohala, from the eleventh century to 1819, the high priests and the chiefs of Hawaii made their home. The priest and the king stand out from the mists of the past, representing two great forces of Hawaiian government—the religious and the civil. Independent of each other, the rights of each were jealously guarded.
Paao gave Pili no chance for choice. While he granted to the king civil authority, he retained absolutely independent control over the minds of the chiefs and the people in religious matters.
Ka-meha-meha, the most noted person of all Hawaiian history, was a descendant in a straight genealogical line from Pili, and Hewa-hewa, the Christian, was the last high priest of the Paao line.
This is the story of the founding of the Ka-meha-meha family. The legends have been shorn of the fabulous element which naturally gathered around them, in order that the true names and customs of the time might be delineated.
One of the most important results was the establishment of an Aha-alii—council of chiefs—or herald’s college, which demanded the genealogy and proof of high birth, before admission was granted to the privileges of rank. In meeting this demand genealogies became of great importance. The separation between chiefs and common people became a gulf fixed by custom. [[79]]
VIII
MOI-KEHA, THE RESTLESS
Folklore is sometimes the outgrowth of a sympathy with nature, resulting in nature myths and sometimes it is an outgrowth of sympathy with history. The imagination loves a truth in nature or in history and weaves around it a web of thoughts of things which might have been.
The story of Moi-keha, the restless, is an historical myth. There are some unquestioned facts and much which was impossible.
Fornander, the omnium-gatherum of Hawaii, thinks Moi-keha lived in the thirteenth century.
The two boys, Moi-keha and Olopana, were born on the island of Oahu.
Their boyhood was like that of other Hawaiian youths of high chief blood. They studied the spear and surf-board exercises. They gambled with hidden stones. They sported with discus and javelin throwing. They raced down green hillsides with their long coasting sleds. They wrestled and fought with their companions and listened to the tales of the sea rovers of the Pacific. They learned the routes to the southern and southeastern [[80]]islands and heard with fired imaginations the descriptions of Tahiti and Samoa. If the Romans believed that an ocean of thick mist, peopled with all imaginable terrors lay to the north of Europe, we can well accept the fact that strange fascinations and the hope of marvellous adventures in the South Pacific might stir the restless minds of young Hawaiian chiefs.
Moi-keha and Olopana gathered a strong band of brave retainers and, bidding farewell to Oahu, as their ancestors had done before them, sailed toward the South.
For some reason the brothers took with them a young chief of high position, whose ancestor, Pau-makua, had made renowned voyages to far-off lands. The story of Laa, who, in late life, was known as “Laa from Tahiti,” must be reserved for later record. Moi-keha, however, seems to have taken this young man under his own especial protection as his foster son.
The company from Kauai stopped at Waipio Valley, on the island of Hawaii, one of the most beautiful and inaccessible valleys of the whole Hawaiian group.
Here Olopana was set apart as ruler of the district.
The days and nights were filled with fishing and feasting, ruling and revelling. Olopana soon found a beautiful young chiefess, who was in full sympathy with his ambitions, whom he took from [[81]]her home as his life-companion. This woman, Luu-kia, was said to be a descendant of the Nanaulu line of chiefs, originally coming to Hawaii from Tahiti.
Storms, floods and freshets swept Waipio Valley. The people fled from the scene of disasters. The young chiefs found themselves homeless. Again the love of adventure excited them. They prepared provisions for a voyage of many days. They selected the wisest students of the stars. They plotted their proposed route over the ocean. We are not told that they had any one with them who had already been to Tahiti. It is probable, however, that some of the old prophets and astrologers of their fathers were with the young people as their priestly guardians. They never seemed to doubt their ability to find their way. With their selected companions the two brothers sailed for Tahiti.
Olopana and his wife, Luu-kia, occupied one of the large ocean-going canoes and Moi-keha with Laa sailed in another. Some of the legends say that they went away with a fleet of five large canoes.
The Hawaiian story says that the brothers arrived safely in Tahiti, where Olopana soon became chief of a district known in the legends as “The-open-great-red-Moa.” One of the harbours of Raiatea of the Tahitian Islands was known as Ava-Moa, the Moa Harbour, or “The Sacred Harbour.” Fornander justly argues that there is little doubt [[82]]that this was the place selected by Olopana as his permanent home.
Moi-keha appears to have been the priest of the family, for it is said that he built a temple and called it Lanikeha or “the heavenly resting-place.”
After a time Moi-keha found that life with his brother was not so pleasant as might be desired, therefore he again prepared for a new voyage, this time returning to his native land. He left Laa with Olopana.
Two of the companions of Moi-keha on this return voyage became famous in the annals of Hawaii. Kama-hua-lele was known through all the ages by his chant in honour of Moi-Keha.
He superintended the building of the strong canoes. He was a kilokilo, an astrologer who understood the places of the stars in the heavens and the proper course to steer, guided by the sun by day and the stars by night. He was the poet and seer and kahu or guardian of his chief Moi-keha. The expedition was practically subject to his directions.
Laa-mao-mao, who aided Moi-keha as priest of the gods of the winds, later dropped out of the story and moved to the island Molokai, where he was supposed to have made his home near a place known as House of Lono, a well-known hill on that island. Here he took his calabash of winds and became the god of the winds, opening his calabash and letting breezes or storms escape according to [[83]]the wishes of the one seeking his aid. He controlled the direction in which the winds should travel, by lifting the cover on one side of the calabash. Then the imprisoned winds burst forth and sped away in the desired direction.
It is said that when Moi-keha came back to the Hawaiian Islands he visited all along the island coasts until he came to Kauai. Whenever he landed he seems to have given prominence to one after another of the companions of his long voyage. Places were named after some of them and other places given to others for their future residence.
At last they came to Kauai, the most northerly island of the group. They timed their approach so that the shadows of the night were around them. Then as the light of the morning rose over sea and shore, with his canoes flying the royal banners of a high chief, he drew near.
Kama-hua-lele, standing by the mast which bore the royal colours, sang the chant of Moi-keha. The closing part of the chant is thus translated by Fornander:
“O, Moikeha, the chief who is to reside.
My chief will reside on Hawaii.
Life, life, O buoyant life!
Live shall the chief and the priest.
Live shall the seer and the slave,
Dwell on Hawaii and be at rest,
And attain to old age on Kauai.
O Kauai is the island
O Moikeha is the chief.”
[[84]]
This chant had been clearly recited wherever Moi-keha had visited any of the islands, and now fell for the first time on the ears of the curious inhabitants of Kauai. The warm welcome was given to Moi-keha and his companions, which was always extended to high chiefs.
King Kalakaua adds a romantic incident to the coming of Moi-keha to Kauai.
Puna, the king, had a daughter who belonged to the fairy tale period of Europe rather than to the free giving and taking in marriage of the Hawaiians. She had many suitors among the young chiefs, but could not decide upon the one highest in her esteem.
Her father at last had decided that the only way to keep her suitors from always living at his cost was to have a contest. This had been agreed upon before the coming of Moi-keha. When Moi-keha saw Hooipo, the daughter of the king, he determined to have her for his wife and planned to enter into the contest.
The king had sent a human hair necklace and whale tooth ornament to be placed on one of the small islands some distance from Kauai. The first chief to secure the necklace should have the king’s daughter.
The fine large canoes of the various chiefs with their strong crews of oarsmen were drawn up in line. Moi-keha had only a small canoe prepared [[85]]which still lay on the shore under the care of one of his comrades from Tahiti.
At the given signal the canoes sped on this journey, but Moi-keha lingered. The young princess had now decided that Moi-keha was the chief she desired, but she could not urge him to go, and still he lingered.
After a time, when the other boats were almost lost to sight, he launched his little canoe, and with his companion, paddled out into the ocean. Then he raised his mast and fastened to it his mat-sail.
Soon the boat leaped through the waters. No paddle was needed save for steering. Laa-mao-mao was in the canoe with him, holding strong winds in his calabash. He let loose these servants just behind the sail and they pushed the canoe forward with incredible rapidity. Long before the other chiefs came in sight of the island Moi-keha had found the necklace and had sailed away to Hooipo.
In time Moi-keha became the king of Kauai. [[86]]
IX
LAA FROM TAHITI
When history is told by genealogies, rather than by cycles of years, the time-problem is difficult to solve. But in the story of Laa-mai-Kahiki[1] the stories and genealogies of two widely separated groups of Pacific islands produce a certain degree of apparent accuracy. The Society Islands have the story of Raa who became a ruler and established a line of rulers which has continued to the present day. The genealogy of this Raa family coincides very closely in extent with the number of names given in the Hawaiian genealogies from the time of the visit of Laa from Tahiti to his uncle Moi-keha the Restless and his subsequent return to Tahiti. This places the time of Laa in the thirteenth century.
Moi-keha sailed away from the Hawaiian [[87]]Islands with his brother Olopana and his nephew Laa. He returned alone, and won the island Kauai as his kingdom. Olopana and Laa remained in the “wide spreading” valley under the shadow of what the Hawaiians called the mountain Kapa-ahu the Tapa Cloak in far away Tahiti.
The mountains of Tahiti have been built upward from the floors of the ocean until their rugged ravines rise several thousand feet above the surf-washed beach. The centuries have softened the harsh mountain outlines and swept vast masses of debris down into the valleys, until at last tropical luxuriance dominates mountain slope and level plain. Here Laa’s youth was spent, and his manhood gained. Here he proved his superiority over the Tahitian chiefs among whom he had found his permanent home. Laa’s record is that of a Polynesian viking. He was born on the island Oahu. He went to Hawaii with his uncles and spent a part of his boyhood in the royal valley of Waipio. With these same uncles he sailed the many hundred miles to Tahiti.
It has always been the ambition of Hawaiian chiefs to excel in all athletic sports and warlike exercises. This was a course of training well fitted to make Laa high-spirited, courageous and ever ready to take the leadership among his fellow-chiefs in the new land where he made his home.
Years passed by. Moi-keha was held back [[88]]from longed-for sea journeys by the cares of his kingdom and the restful delights of a prosperous home. Children whose names became noted in Hawaiian legends grew to manhood and womanhood around him. Kahai, the sea-rover, a grandson of Moi-keha, is said to have sailed to Upolu in the Samoan Islands and there found a new species of breadfruit which he thought might well be placed by the older Hawaiian breadfruit. This he brought back with him and planted at Pearl Harbor.
By courtesy Paradise of the Pacific
CHIEFS IN FEATHER CLOAKS AND HELMETS
Kila, the third son of Moi-keha, was made a messenger to Tahiti by his father. A great longing had taken possession of Moi-keha to see the foster son whom he had carried away many years before. Kila was said to be very careful and courageous with a strong desire to emulate the deeds of his ancestors. The call to the sea was hereditary and with eagerness he grasped the opportunity. The largest double canoes were selected, their mat sails were made from new and strong hala leaves and they were equipped for the long voyage. Fornander says that some of Kila’s brothers went with him. The old astrologer and sailor, Kama-hua-lele, who had come from Tahiti with Moi-keha, was selected to be the guardian of the young chiefs and pilot of the expedition.
Kila sailed from island to island until at last he left the high mountains of the island Hawaii and [[89]]sailed away to the South. The Kalakaua legends say that Kila bore with him a brilliant royal mantle made from the rare feathers of the mamo, and that Moi-keha had been many months in the manufacture of the mantle, assisted by hundreds of bird hunters and skilled workmen. This was an especial offering to Laa, a reminder of the high esteem in which his foster father still held him, and a proof of the intense desire for him to visit his native land.
The long canoe voyage appears to have been blessed with favouring winds and clear skies. The stars were easily observed and followed until Tahiti was found. It seems to those who now cross the ocean in great ships that such a voyage is almost incredible, but the Hawaiians were vikings and were as intrepid sailors as the Norsemen who were sailing across the Atlantic Ocean about the same time.
At Tahiti they found Laa and his uncle Olopana. Fornander says that one set of legends gives the story of Laa’s speedy return to Hawaii with Kila. Another set of legends rehearses the age of Olopana and his desire for Laa to remain with him until his life should end. All the legends agree in stating that Laa returned to the Hawaiian Islands, that he had with him a large retinue when he visited the home of his childhood and that he brought the drum known through all [[90]]the later years as Ke-eke-eke. It was made by cutting out the pithy heart of a section of a large cocoanut tree, and thinning the shell as far as safety would allow. Then the ends were covered with the skin of a shark. Fornander says that “every independent chief, and every temple where human sacrifices were offered, had their own drum and drummer from Laa-mai-Kahiki’s time to the introduction of Christianity.”
The great event by which Laa was indelibly impressed upon the legends of Hawaii was his triple marriage with three selected chiefesses of the island Oahu.
The highest chiefs among the Hawaiians were glad to ally themselves with Laa-mai-Kahiki. Not only did the romance of far-away lands and mighty deeds attract attention, but his personal appearance and royal bearing seemed to have conquered all who came near. There was the general feeling that this powerful chief, who would soon return to Raiatea, must leave descendants among the Hawaiians.
Offerings were sent to the temples and the priests were consulted. The most sacred tests were made of the most important auguries known by the priesthood. The decision was announced that Laa must have wives given to him from among the young women of highest rank on Oahu, the home of Laa in his boyhood and still the place where the larger portion of his nearest relatives resided. [[91]]
The daughters of the chiefs of the districts Kualoa, Kaalaea and Kaneohe, all on the island Oahu, were selected and married to him in the midst of a great round of feasts and games.
It was always known that Laa would return to Tahiti, and yet many inducements were placed before him to lead him to stay. But he only waited until each of the three chiefesses gave birth to a son, and then sailed away to establish a lasting line of rulers in Tahiti, where, according to Tahitian custom, he was called Raa.
The ancient Hawaiian chants recorded the names of the three sons of Laa thus:
“O Laa from Tahiti, the chief.
O Ahukini, son of Laa.
O Kukona, son of Laa.
O Lauli, son of Laa, the father.
The triple canoe of Laa-mai-Kahiki.
The sacred first-born of Laa,
Who were born on the same one day.”
This gift of three sons—a “triple canoe”—to the Hawaiians is one of the most fully accepted facts of the traditions of long ago. They established families of great prominence and their descendants were proud of this distinction as “children of Laa.”
Apparently there was little intercourse later with the southern groups of the islands of the Pacific Ocean. The vikings passed away and their descendants failed to conquer the dangers of the seas. It may be that a prolonged season of volcanic activity [[92]]discouraged sea roving. It is probable that many sailed away and were never heard of again. History seldom records the long list of failures among men. It has been better to tell of victories. [[93]]
[1] Laa-mai-Kahiki means Laa-from-Kahiki in the Hawaiian language, or Raa-from-Tahiti in the Tahitian dialect. In the Hawaiian stories he was always known as Laa-mai-Kahiki. He was a very high chief from Hawaii absorbed in the royal line of Tahiti. The letter “r” being used for “l” and “t” for “k” explains the slight difference in the names, Laa and Raa-Kahiki and Tahiti. This is simply such a change as is found in dialects everywhere. [↑]
X
FIRST FOREIGNERS
It is said that the Chinese gave to the clove the name “Thengki”—“the sweet-scented nail.” When the clove came to Rome, the haughty lovers of spices exclaimed “clavus”—“a nail.” The English made a slight change and said “clove.” Solomon, the wise, and King Hiram, the Phœnician, sent fleets on voyages of long duration. Their ships returned from these voyages laden with the fragrant products of the spice lands.
Marco Polo rehearsed the abundant aromas of the Orient as well as the gold and jewels and silks. Columbus, in 1492, went west that he might find more ready access to these eastern riches. The spice islands lay somewhere in a great ocean toward the sunset from Spain, provided the world was round, as Columbus argued.
Balboa must have wished for a Nicaraguan or Panama Canal when he carried timbers across the isthmus and built a ship on the Pacific coast to explore the new ocean which he had discovered. In 1513 he launched his little ship, intending to find the oriental riches, if possible. [[94]]
In October of the year 1527, three Spanish ships were “fitted out” by Cortez. They set sail from Zacatula, Mexico, for the Molucca Islands. One only, under the command of Saavedra, reached its destination. A fierce storm drove the little squadron far north of the ordinary route, and swept two of the ships out of the record of history. Alexander says: “It seems certain that a foreign vessel which was wrecked about this time on the Kona coast of Hawaii must have been one of Saavedra’s missing ships.” From this ship a white man and woman escaped. After reaching the beach they knelt for a long time in prayer. The Hawaiians, watching them, waited until they rose, and received welcome. The place was at once named “Kulou”—“kneeling.” Through all the succeeding years the name kept the story of the wrecked white chiefs before the Hawaiian people. The Hawaiians received their white visitors as honoured guests, and permitted them to marry into noted chief-families. In the Hawaiian legends the man and woman are called brother and sister. The man was named Ku-kana-loa. Their descendants were well known, one of them being a governor of the island of Kauai. These white citizens came to the islands in the reign of Ke-alii-o-ka-loa, who was born about A.D. 1500, and became a king of Hawaii about A.D. 1525.
There seems to be scarcely a trace of the Spanish language or of the Christian religion as practiced [[95]]by the Spaniards. The nearest approach to any permanent influence possibly coming from this shipwrecked man is the statement made to a chief by a native prophet long before the islands were discovered by Captain Cook, that from his predecessors he had learned the prophecy: “A communication would be made to them from Heaven, the place of the real God, entirely different from anything they had known and that the tabu of the country would be subverted.”
The Hawaiian traditions have several references to foreigners coming to the islands. Pau-makua, of Oahu, was one of the Vikings of the Pacific during the twelfth century. He is recorded as visiting many foreign lands. He brought priests to Oahu. Judge Fornander suggests that quite possibly these were Indians from the American coast. Professor Alexander, in his “History of Hawaii,” thinks there is scarcely sufficient foundation for the suggestion. However, Pau-makua and his journeys are accepted as part of Hawaiian history.
In the thirteenth century “the white chief with the iron knife” was wrecked on the coast of the island of Maui, near the village Wailuku. Three men and two women were saved. Wakalana, a chief, took his outrigger canoe through the surf and rescued them. These persons are supposed to have been Japanese. The captain of the ship carried a long sword which became renowned throughout the islands as “the [[96]]wonderful iron knife.” It was a tremendously effective weapon, when matched with wooden daggers and war clubs. King Kalakaua relates the amplified legend and chant in his “Myths and Legends of Hawaii,” and in imagination pictures some of the battles fought and trades made for the possession of the iron knife. The Hawaiians came from all parts to see these remarkable strangers. They were astonished to see the women eat the same kinds of food, and from the same dishes as the men. “Nothing was tabu to the strangers.” This was entirely new to Hawaiian ideas. Another legend mentions a foreign ship, called Ulupano, and the captain was remembered as Malolano. It is supposed that the ship soon sailed away. Other hints are found of ships having been seen out on the ocean by fishing parties who had gone far from land. These ships were called moku [islands], the name used to the present day.
There are undoubted proofs of the discovery of the Hawaiian Islands in 1555 by the Spaniard, Juan Gaetano. This is the first known record of the islands among the civilised nations. There are evident references to this group in the legends of the Polynesians in other Pacific islands.
Gaetano passed through the northern part of the Pacific and discovered large islands which he marked upon a chart as “Los Majos.” The great mountains upon these islands did not rise in sharp peaks, but spread out like a high tableland in the [[97]]clouds, hence he also called the islands “Isles de Mesa,” the Mesa Islands or the Table Lands. One of the islands was named “The Unfortunate.” Three other smaller islands were called “The Monks.”
Le Perouse, the celebrated Frenchman who visited Hawaii in A.D. 1796, says that Gaetano saw these islands “with their naked savages, cocoanuts and other fruits, but no gold or silver.” There was nothing attractive, and the wealth-loving Spaniard marked the islands on his chart and never visited them again. So the record lay for many years. This record, kept in Spain’s archives, is now accepted as marking the real discovery of the Hawaiian Islands.
Meanwhile, the Hawaiians were as completely ignorant of the rest of the world as if no civilised eyes had ever seen their mountains. They offered each other as human sacrifices; they fought for supremacy. They died at the will of their chiefs. They lived almost as lustfully as the brutes. They had nothing that could be called a home, with an affectionate household gathered inside its walls. They ate, and slept, and died. They entered with zeal into the national sports as well as into the national quarrels. They chanted their genealogies and personal prowess. The art of sailing long distances by the aid of the stars had fallen into disuse. The age of the Western Vikings had passed by. For three or four hundred years no voyagers [[98]]had found their way to foreign lands. Then some time in the early part of the eighteenth century a king of Oahu involuntarily made a journey which was celebrated as a part of his genealogical chant. The entire “mele,” or song, stretches out to about six hundred lines. It is an interesting poem filled with graphic references to people and places, to winds and seas, and to birds and fishes.
In this chant the king of Oahu relates his strange experience on the ocean. Fornander quotes the poem in his “Polynesian Race”: