THE STORY OF UMI; HIS BIRTH AND YOUTH.
Liloa reigned over the island of Hawaii. In the course of one of his journeys through the province of Hamakua, he met a woman of the people named Akahikameainoa, who pleased him, and whose favors he claimed as supreme chief.
Akahikameainoa was then in her menses, so that the malo of the king was soiled with the discharge. Liloa said to the woman: "If you bring into the world a man-child, it shall belong to me; if a girl, it shall be yours. I leave with you as tokens of my sovereign will my niho palaoa (whale's tooth), and my lei. Conceal these things from all eyes; they will one day be a souvenir of our relation, a proof of the paternity of the child who shall be born from our loves."
That would, indeed, be an unexceptionable testimony, for by the law of kapu a wife could not, under pain of death, approach her husband while in her courses. The soiled malo and the time of the child's birth would give certain indications.
Akahikameainoa carefully concealed the royal tokens of her adultery, saying nothing to any one, not even to her husband. The spot where she hid them is known to this day as Huna na niho, the hiding place of the teeth.
Liloa then held his court at Waipio in all the splendor of the time. Besides a considerable troop of servants, he had in attendance priests (kahuna), prophets (kaula), nobles, and his only son, Hakau. The palace was made merry night and day by the licentious motions of the dancers, and by the music of the resounding calabashes.
Nine moons after her meeting with the king, Akahikameainoa gave birth to a man-child, which she called Umi, and brought up under the roof of her husband, who believed himself the father. The child developed rapidly, became strong, and acquired a royal stature. In his social games, in the sports of youth, he always bore away the palm. He was, moreover, a great eater: Hao wale i ka ai a me ka ia.[[13]] In a word, Umi was a perfect Kanaka, and a skillful fighter, who made his comrades suffer for it. At this time he conceived a strong affection for two peasants of the neighborhood, Koi of Kukui-haole and Omakamau, who became his aikane.
One day his supposed father, angry at his conduct, was about to punish him: "Strike him not," exclaimed Akahikameainoa, "he is your lord and chief! Do not imagine that he is the son of us two: he is the child of Liloa, your king." Umi was then about fifteen or sixteen years old.
His mother, after this declaration, startling as a thunder-bolt, went and uncovered the tokens Liloa had left as proof, and placed them before her husband, who was motionless with fear at the thought of the high treason he had been on the point of committing.
In the mean time, Liloa had grown old, and Akahikameainoa, deeming the moment had arrived, invested Umi with the royal malo, the niho palaoa, and the lei, emblems of power, which high chiefs alone had the right to wear. "Go," said she to him then; "go, my son, present yourself at Waipio to King Liloa, your father. Tell him you are his child, and show him, in proof of your words, these tokens which he left with me."