Another story goes that in the form of a maiden the goddess appeared to a young chief at the head of a toboggan slide and asked for a ride on his sled. He refused her, and started down without her. Soon, hearing a roar as of thunder and looking back, he saw a lava torrent chasing him and bearing on its highest wave the maiden, whom he then knew to be the goddess Pele. Down the hill and across the plain his toboggan shot, followed by the flaming river of molten rock. The chief, however, reached the ocean at last and found safety in the waters.
This condensed story of the Shark King is also a typical Hawaiian tale:
The King Shark, while sporting in the water, watched a beautiful maiden diving into a pool, and fell in love with her. As king sharks can evidently take whatever form they please, he turned himself into a handsome man and waited for her on the rocks. Here the maiden came one day to seek shellfish, which she was fond of eating. While she was gathering them a huge wave swept her off her feet, and the handsome shark man saved her life. As a matter of course, she straightway fell in love with him. So it happened that one day they were married; but it was only when her child was born that the shark man confided to her who he really was, and that he must now disappear. As he left, he cautioned her never to give their child any meat, or misfortune would follow.
The child was a fine boy, and was quite like other children except that he bore on his back the mark of the great mouth of the shark. As he grew older he ate with the men instead of the women, as was the custom, and his grandfather, not heeding the warning but wishing to make his grandson strong, so that some day he might become a chief, gave him the forbidden meat. When in company, the boy wore a cape to cover the scar on his back, and he always went swimming alone, but when in the water he remembered his father, and it was then that he would turn into a shark himself. The more meat the boy ate the more he wanted, and in time it was noticed that children began to disappear. They would go in bathing and never return. The people became suspicious, and one day they tore the boy's mantle off him and saw the shark's mouth upon his back. There was great consternation, and at last he was ordered to be burned alive. He had been bound with ropes and was waiting for the end, but while the fire was kindling he called on his father, King Shark, for help, and so it was that he was able to burst the ropes and rush into the water, where he turned into a shark and escaped.
The mother then confessed that she had married the Shark King. The chiefs and the high priests held a council and decided that it would be better to offer sacrifices to appease him rather than to kill the mother. This they did, and for that reason King Shark promised that his son should leave the shores of the island of Hawaii forever. It was true, he did leave this island, but he visited other islands and continued his bad habits, until one day he was really caught just as he was turning from a man into a shark on the beach in shallow water. He was bound and hauled up a canyon, where they built a fire from the bamboo of the sacred grove. But the shark was so large that they had to chop down one tree after another for his funeral pyre, until the sacred grove had almost disappeared. This so angered the god of the forest that he changed the variety of bamboo in this region; it is no longer sharp-edged like other bamboo on the Islands.
CHAPTER III
THE FIVE KAMEHAMEHAS
awaiian myths and traditions are confused and unreliable, and we know little real history of the "Bright Land," the "Land of Rainbows," before the coming of Captain Cook, in 1778. We do know, however, that, in those early days, the different tribes continually carried on a savage warfare among themselves. Not until the latter part of the eighteenth century did there arise a native chieftain powerful enough to subdue all the islands under his sway and bring peace among the warring tribes. This chief was Kamehameha I, or Kamehameha the Great, often called the Napoleon of the Pacific. The authentic history of Hawaii really begins with his reign. His portrait in the Executive Building in Honolulu shows him as a stern warrior.