The Legends and Myths of Hawaii: The fables and folk-lore of a strange people

by King of Hawaii David Kalakaua

Nowhere on the island of Hawaii do the palms grow taller than in the valleys of Waipio, and nowhere is the foliage greener, for every month in the year they are refreshed with rains, and almost hourly cooled in the shadows of passing clouds.

And sweet are the waters that sing through the valleys of Waipio. They are fed by the tears of the trade-winds gathered in the shaded gorges of the mountains where they find their source, and are speeded to the ocean by hurrying and impatient cascades through black channels fretted with bowlders and fringed with everlasting green.

Tradition says the waters of Waipio, after their first descent from the hills, at one time crawled quite sluggishly to the sea; but a great fish—larger than the island of Kaula—whose home was in the depths off the coast of Hamakua, required more fresh water than was furnished by the principal stream of the valley, and Kane, who was friendly with the monster, increased the volume of the little river by creating new springs at its sources, and accelerating the flow by raising the bed in places and providing additional riffles and cascades. The great fish no longer frequents that part of the coast of Hamakua, but the cascades and riffles remain, with the broad finger-marks of Kane upon the rocks hurled into the gorge to create them.

Although but thinly populated now, Waipio was for many generations in the past a place of great political and social importance, and the tabus of its great temple were the most sacred in all Hawaii. For two hundred years or more it was the residence of the kings of that island, and was the scene of royal pageants, priestly power and knightly adventure, as well as of many sanguinary battles.

Waipio valley was first occupied as a royal residence by Kahaimoelea, near the middle or close of the thirteenth century, and so continued until after the death of Liloa, about the end of the fifteenth century. For some reason not clearly stated the successor of Liloa removed his court from Waipio to the opposite coast of the island. Although the glory of the old capital departed with its abandonment as the royal residence, the tabus of its great temple of Paakalani continued to command supreme respect until as late as 1791, when the heiau was destroyed, with all its sacred symbols and royal associations, by the confederated forces of Maui and Kauai in their war with Kamehameha I.

Although the story about to be related opens in the reign of Liloa, which closed with his death in about 1485, it is pertinent to refer, as briefly as the strange circumstances of the time will permit, to the father of that sovereign—the great Kiha—concerning whose career many curious traditions survive. The reign of Kiha was long and peaceful. He was endowed not only with marked abilities as a ruler, but with unusual physical strength and skill in the use of arms. In addition to these natural advantages and accomplishments, which gave him the respect and fear of his subjects, it was popularly believed that he possessed supernatural resources, and could call to his aid, in an emergency, weird forces in opposition to which mere human endeavor would be weak and fruitless. Under the circumstances, it is not strange that the chiefs of the neighboring islands deemed it prudent to court his friendship, and that no great wars distracted the kingdom during his reign.

Among the means at the command of Kiha for summoning to his assistance the invisible forces subject to his call, the most potential was a curious war-trumpet, the notes of which, when blown by Kiha, could be heard a distance of ten miles, even from Waipio to Waimea. According to the character of the blast, its voice was either a summons to unseen powers, a rallying-cry to the people, or a dreadful challenge to battle. This trumpet was a large sea-shell. It was a native of foreign waters, and another like it could not be found in the Hawaiian group. It was ornamented with rows of the teeth of distinguished chiefs slain in battle, and could be so blown as to bring forth the dying groans or battle cries of all of them in dreadful diapason.

Many legends are related of the manner in which Kiha became possessed of this marvellous shell, but the most probable explanation is that it was brought from some one of the Samoan or Society Islands three or four centuries before, and had been retained in the reigning family of Hawaii as a charm against certain evils. In the hands of the crafty Kiha, however, it developed new powers and became an object of awe in the royal household. Whatever may have been the beneficent or diabolic virtues of this shell-clarion of Kiha—of the Kiha-pu, as it is called—its existence, at least, was a reality, since it is to-day one of the attractions of the Royal Hawaiian Museum of Honolulu, brought down by the Kamehameha branch of the Kiha line. When vigorously blown it still responds in sonorous voice, suggestive of the roar of breakers around the jutting cliffs of Hamakua; but Lono no longer heeds the mandate of its call, and brown-armed warriors come no more at its bidding. Of the many strange stories still retained of the Kiha-pu, one is here given, nearly in the language in which it has come down in Hawaiian chant and song. a story of the kiha-pu.

For a period of eight years, during the reign of Kiha, the Kiha-pu was missing from the cabinet of royal charms and treasures. A new temple was to be dedicated to Lono, not far from Waipio, and feathers of the mamo, oo and other birds were required to weave into royal mantles and redecorate Kaili and other gods of the king’s household. But one of the Kahu alii, constituting the five classes of guardians of the royal person, was permitted to touch the Kiha-pu, nor did any other know of its depository in the king’s chamber. His name was Hiolo. He was the son of a distinguished chief, and his office was that of ipukuha, or spittoon-bearer—a position of peculiar responsibility, which could be filled only by persons of noble blood and undoubted attachment to their sovereign.

Desirous of hastily assembling and despatching to the neighboring sea-shores and mountains a large party of feather-hunters, the king, reclining in the shade of the palms in front of the royal mansion, commanded Hiolo to bring to him the Kiha-pu, that he might with a single blast summon his subjects throughout the valleys of Waipio. Hiolo proceeded to the chamber of the king, and a few minutes after returned pale and speechless, and threw himself at the feet of Kiha, tearing his hair, lacerating his flesh with his nails, and exhibiting other evidences of extreme agony and desperation.