THE TOMB OF PUUPEHE.

A LEGEND OF THE ISLAND OF LANAI.

Sailing along the lee-shore or southwest coast of Lanai, a huge block of red lava, sixty feet in diameter and eighty or more feet in height, is discerned standing out in the sea, and detached from the mainland some fifty or sixty fathoms. The sides are precipitous, offering no possible means of ascent, and against it the waves dash in fury, and in the niches of its storm-worn angles the birds of ocean build their nests. Observed from the overhanging bluff of the neighboring shore, on the summit of the lonely column is seen a small enclosure formed by a low but well-defined stone wall. This is known as “The tomb of Puupehe”—the last resting-place of one of the most beautiful of the daughters of Maui, whose body was buried there by her distracted husband and lover, Makakehau, a warrior of Lanai. How the summit was reached by the lover with his precious burden is a mystery, but the wall is still there to show that the ascent was made in some manner, and tradition assumes that it was through the agency of supernatural forces.

Puupehe was the daughter of Uaua, a petty chief of Maui, and Makakehau won her, it is related without detail, as the joint prize of love and war. How this could have occurred it is difficult to imagine, since Lanai was always a dependency of Maui in the past, and no direct wars between the two islands are mentioned by tradition. It may therefore be inferred that she was the spoil of some private predatory expedition, and that the efforts of the young warrior to jealously seclude her from the gaze of men were prompted not more by the infatuations of her beauty than the fear that she might be recaptured.

However this may have been, they are described in the Kanikau, or “Lamentation of Puupehe,” as mutually captive to each other in the bonds of love. The maiden was a sweet flower of Hawaiian beauty. Her glossy brown and spotless body “shone like the clear sun rising out of Heleakala.” Her flowing hair, bound by wreaths of pikaki blossoms, streamed forth as she ran “like the surf-crests scudding before the wind,” and the starry eyes of the daughter of Uaua so dazzled the youthful brave that he was called Makakehau, or “Misty Eyes.”

Fearing that the radiant beauty of his captive might cause her to be coveted by some of the chiefs of the land, he said to her: “We love each other well. Let us go to the clear waters of Kalulu. There we will fish together for the kala and bonita, and there will I spear the turtle. I will hide you, O light of my heart! in the cave of Malauea. Or we will dwell together in the great ravine of Palawai, where we will eat the young of the uwau, and bake them in the ti leaf with the sweet pala root. The ohelo berries of the Kuahiwa will refresh us, and we will drink of the cool waters of Maunalei. I will thatch a hut in the thicket of Kaohai, and we will love on till the stars die.”

The meles tell of their loves in the Pulou Ravine, where they caught the bright iwi birds and scarlet apapani. How sweet were their joys in the maia groves of Waiakeakua, where the lovers saw naught so beautiful as themselves! But the misty eyes were soon to be made dimmer by weeping, and dimmer till the drowning brine should shut out their light for ever.

Makakehau left his love one day in the cave of Malauea, while he went to the mountain to fill the huawai with sweet water. This cavern yawns at the base of the cliff overlooking the rock of Puupehe. The sea surges far within, but there is an inner space or chamber which the expert swimmer can reach, and where Puupehe had often found seclusion, and baked the honu, or sea-turtle, for her absent lover.