“I have often thought that,” he assured me soberly. “It may well be so. Last night I dreamed I was a lark bird, a beautiful singing lark of the sky like the larks on the upland pastures of Haleakala. And I flew up, up, toward the sun, singing, singing, as old Kohokumu never sang. I tell you now that I dreamed I was a lark bird singing in the sky. But may not I, the real I, be the lark bird? And may not the telling of it be the dream that I, the lark bird, am dreaming now? Who are you to tell me ay or no? Dare you tell me I am not a lark bird asleep and dreaming that I am old Kohokumu?”
I shrugged my shoulders, and he continued triumphantly:
“And how do you know but what you are old Maui himself asleep and dreaming that you are John Lakana talking with me in a canoe? And may you not awake old Maui yourself, and scratch your sides and say that you had a funny dream in which you dreamed you were a haole?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Besides, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“There is much more in dreams than we know,” he assured me with great solemnity. “Dreams go deep, all the way down, maybe to before the beginning. May not old Maui have only dreamed he pulled Hawaii up from the bottom of the sea? Then would this Hawaii land be a dream, and you, and I, and the squid there, only parts of Maui’s dream? And the lark bird too?”
He sighed and let his head sink on his breast.
“And I worry my old head about the secrets undiscoverable,” he resumed, “until I grow tired and want to forget, and so I drink swipes, and go fishing, and sing old songs, and dream I am a lark bird singing in the sky. I like that best of all, and often I dream it when I have drunk much swipes . . . ”
In great dejection of mood he peered down into the lagoon through the water-glass.
“There will be no more bites for a while,” he announced. “The fish-sharks are prowling around, and we shall have to wait until they are gone. And so that the time shall not be heavy, I will sing you the canoe-hauling song to Lono. You remember:
“Give to me the trunk of the tree, O Lono!
Give me the tree’s main root, O Lono!
Give me the ear of the tree, O Lono!—”