The Chicken-Girl of Palama
Strange things are sometimes imagined in the Hawaiian legends of ancient time. The story of Lepe-a-moa is an illustration of the blending of the Hawaiian idea of supernatural things with the deeds of every-day life. It is one of those old legends handed down by native bards through generations, whose first scenes lie on the island of Kauai, but change to Oahu.
HAT AND MAT MAKER
Keahua was one of the royal chiefs of Kauai. Apparently he was the highest chief on the island, but it was in the days when men were few and high chiefs and gods were many. He had spent his boyhood on the rich lands of Wailua, Kauai, and from there had crossed the deep channel to Oahu and had come to the home of the chiefess Kapalama after her beautiful daughter Kauhao, to take her to Kauai as his wife. But soon after his return one of the kupua gods became angry with him. A kupua was a god having a double body, sometimes appearing as a man and sometimes [[205]]as an animal. The animal body always possessed supernatural powers.
This kupua was called Akua-pehu-ale (god-of-the-swollen-billows). He devoured his enemies, and was greatly feared and hated even by his own tribe. He attacked Keahua, destroyed his people and drove him into the forests far up the mountain-sides, where, at a place called Kawaikini (The-many-waters), where fresh spring water abounded, the chief gathered his followers together and built a new home.
One day Kapalama, who was living in her group of houses in the part of Honolulu which now bears her name, said to her husband: “O Honouliuli, our daughter on Kauai will have a child of magic power and of kupua character. Perhaps we should go thither, adopt it, and bring it up; there is life in the bones.”
They crossed the channel, carrying offerings with them to their gods. Concealing their canoes, they went up into the forest. Their daughter’s child was already born, and behold, it was only an egg! The chief had given an order to carry it out into the deep sea and throw it away as an offering to the sea-monsters; but the mother and her soothsayers thought it should be kept and brought to life.
Kapalama, coming at this time, took the egg, wrapped it carefully in soft kapas, bade farewell [[206]]to her daughter, and returned to Oahu. Here she had her husband build a fine thatched house of the best grass he could gather. The kapas put inside for beds and clothing were perfumed by fragrant ginger flowers, hala blossoms, and the delicate bloom of the niu (coconut) while festoons of the sweet-scented maile graced its walls. For a long time that egg lay wrapped in its coverings of soft kapas.
One day Kapalama told her husband to prepare an imu (oven) for their grandchild. He gathered stones, dug a hole, and took his fire-sticks and rubbed until fire came; then he built a fire in the hole and placed the wood and put on the stones, heating them until they were very hot. Taking some fine sweet-potatoes, he wrapped them in leaves and laid the bundles on the stones, covered all with mats, and poured on sufficient water to make steam in which to cook the potatoes.
When all was fully cooked, Kapalama went to the house of the egg and looked in. There she saw a wonderfully beautiful chicken born from that egg. The feathers were of all the colors of all kinds of birds. They named the bird-child Lepe-a-moa. They fed it fragments of the cooked sweet-potato, and it went to sleep, putting its head under its wing.
This bird-child had an ancestress who was a [[207]]bird-woman and who lived up in the air in the highest clouds. Her name was Ke-ao-lewa (The-moving-cloud). She was a sorceress of the sky, but sometimes came to earth in the form of a great bird, or of a woman, to aid her relatives in various ways. When the egg was brought from Kauai, Ke-ao-lewa told her servants to prepare a swimming-pool for the use of the child. After this bird-child had come into her new life and eaten and rested, she went to the edge of the pool, ruffled and picked her feathers and drank of sweet water, then leaped in, swimming and diving and splashing all around the pool. When tired of this play, she got out and flew up in the branches of a tree, shaking off the water and drying herself. After a little while she flew down to her sleeping-house, wrapped herself in some fine, soft kapas, and went to sleep.
Thus day by day she ate and bathed, and, when by herself she changed her bird form into that of a very beautiful girl, her body shone with beauty like the red path of the sunlight on the sea, or the rainbow bending in the sky.
One day after she had made this change she stretched herself out with her face downward and called to her grandparents: “Oh, where are you two? Perhaps you will come inside.”
They heard a weak, muffled voice, and one said: “Where is that voice calling us two? This [[208]]is a strange thing. As a tabu place, no one has been allowed to come here; it is for us and our children alone.” The woman said, “We will listen again; perhaps we can understand this voice.” Soon they heard the child call as before. Kapalama said: “That is a voice from the house of our child. We must go there.”
She ran to the house, lifted the mat door, and looked in. When she saw a beautiful and strong girl lying on the floor she was overcome with surprise, and staggered back and fell to the ground as if dead. Honouliuli ran to her, rubbed her body, poured water on her head and brought her back to life. Then she said: “When I looked in, I saw our grandchild in a beautiful human body wearing a green and yellow feather lei. It was her voice calling us.”
Thus Lepe-a-moa came into her two bodies and received her gift of magic powers. She was exceedingly beautiful as a girl, so beautiful that her glory shone out from her body like radiating fire, filling the house and passing through into the mist around, shining in that mist in resplendent rainbow colors. The radiance was around her wherever she went. [[209]]
One day she said to her grandparents, “I want another kind of food, and am going down to the sea for fish and moss.” In her chicken body she ate the potato food provided, but she desired the food of her friends when in her human form. Joyously she went down to the shore and saw the surf waves of Palama rolling in. She chanted as she saw this white surf: “My love, the first surf. I ride on these white waves.”
As she rested on the crest of a great comber sweeping toward the beach she saw a squid rising up and tossing out its long arms to catch her. She laughed and caught it in her hand, saying, “One squid, the first, for the gods.” This she took to the beach and put in a fish-basket she had left on the sand with her skirt and lei. Again she went out, and saw two squid rising to meet her. This time she sang, “Here are two squid for the grandparents.” Then she saw and caught another floating on the wave with her. This she took, exclaiming, “For me; this squid is mine.”
The grandparents rejoiced when they saw the excellent food provided them. Again and again she went to the sea, catching fish and gathering sweet moss from the reef. Thus the days of her childhood passed. Her grandfather gave his name, Honouliuli, to a land district west of [[210]]Honolulu, while Kapalama gave hers to the place where they lived. The bird-child’s parents still dwelt in their forest home on Kauai, hidden from their enemy Akua-pehu-ale.
Note: In Hawaiian legends and even in history, down to the last ruler of the islands, a divinely given rainbow was supposed to be arched from time to time over those of high-chief birth. A child of divine and human or miraculous power in the family of a high chief would almost invariably have its birth attended by thunder, lightning, storm, and brilliant rainbows. These rainbows would usually follow the child wherever it went, resting over any place where it stopped. Sometimes the glory of the royal blood in a child would be so great that it would shine through the thatch of a house like a blazing fire, flashing out in the darkness like devouring flames, or, if the child was in the sea, the glory shone into the spray like rainbows.
Some legends state that the sorcerers could tell the difference between the colors radiating from members of different royal families. If a kahuna saw a canoe far away with a mass of color above it, he could give the name of the person in it and his lineage. It is even stated that it was possible to discern these rainbows of royalty from island to island and know where [[211]]the person was at that time staying. Lono-o-pua-kau was the god who had charge of these signs of a chief’s presence.
