Manoa is the most beautiful of all the little valleys leaping abruptly from the mountains back of Honolulu and cooling the streets and byways of the city with their sweet waters. And it is also the most verdant. Gentle rains fall there more frequently than in the valleys on either side of it, and almost every day in the year it is canopied with rainbows. Sometimes it is called, and not inappropriately, the Valley of Rainbows.
Why is it that Manoa is thus blessed with rains, thus ornamented with rainbows, thus cradled in everlasting green? Were a reason sought among natural causes, it would doubtless be found in a favoring rent or depression in the summit above the valley, and overlooking the eastern coast of Oahu, where wind and rain are abundant. But tradition furnishes another explanation of the exceptionally kind dealings of the elements with Manoa—not as satisfactory, perhaps, as the one suggested, but very much more poetic.
Far back in the past, as the story relates, the projecting spur of Akaaka, above the head of Manoa Valley, was united in marriage with the neighboring promontory of Nalehuaakaaka. A growth of lehua bushes still crowns the spur in perpetual witness of the union. Of this marriage of mountains twin children were born—a boy named Kahaukani, which signified Manoa wind, and a girl called Kauahuahine, which implied Manoa rain. At their birth they were adopted by a chief and chiefess whose names were Kolowahi and Pohakukala. They were brother and sister, and cousins, also, of Akaaka. The brother took charge of the boy, and the sister assumed the custody and care of the girl. Reared apart from each other, and kept in ignorance of their close relationship, through the management of their foster-parents they were brought together at the proper age and married. The fruit of this union was a daughter, who was given the name of Kahalaopuna, and who became the most beautiful woman of her time. Thus it was that the marriage of the Wind (Kahaukani) and Rain (Kauahuahine) of Manoa brought to the valley as an inheritance the rainbows and showers for which it has since been distinguished.
To continue the story of the ancient bards of Oahu, Kahalaopuna—or Kaha, as the name will hereafter be written—grew to a surpassingly beautiful womanhood. A house was built for her in a grove of sandal-trees at Kahaiamano, where she lived with a few devoted servants. The house was embowered in vines, and two poloulou, or tabu staves, were kept standing beside the entrance, to indicate that they guarded from intrusion a person of high rank. Her eyes were so bright that their glow penetrated the thatch of her hale, and a luminous glimmer played around its openings. When bathing a roseate halo surrounded her, and a similar light is still visible, it is claimed, whenever her spirit revisits Kahaiamano.
In infancy Kaha was betrothed to Kauhi, a young chief of Kailua, whose parents were so sensible of the honor of the proposed union that they always provided her table with poi of their own making and choice fish from the ponds of Kawainui. The acceptance of these favors placed her under obligations to the parents of Kauhi and kept her in continual remembrance of her betrothal. Hence she gave no encouragement to the many chiefs of distinction who sought to obtain glimpses of her beauty and annoyed her with proffers of marriage. The chief to whom she was betrothed was, like herself, of something more than human descent, and she felt herself already bound to him by ties too sacred to be broken.
The fame of her beauty spread far and near, and people came from long distances to catch glimpses of her from lands adjoining, as she walked to and from her bathing-pool or strolled in the shelter of the trees surrounding her house. Among those who many times approached her dwelling but failed to see her were Keawaawakiihelei and Kumauna, two inferior chiefs, whose eyes were disfigured by an unnatural distention of the lower lids. In ungenerous revenge, and envious of those who had fared better, they decked themselves with leis of flowers, and, repairing to the bathing-place at Waikiki, boasted that the garlands had been placed around their necks by the beautiful Kaha, with whom they affected the greatest intimacy.
Among the bathers at that popular resort was Kauhi. Although the day fixed for his marriage with Kaha was near at hand, he had never seen her—this being one of the conditions of the betrothal. The stories of the two miscreants were repeated until Kauhi at length gave them credence, and in a fit of jealous fury he resolved to kill the beautiful enchantress who had thus trifled with his love.
Leaving Waikiki in the morning, he reached Kahaiamano about midday. Breaking from a pandanus-tree a heavy cone of nuts with a short limb attached, he presented himself at the house of Kaha. She had just awoke from a nap, and was about to proceed to her bathing-pond, when she was startled at observing a stranger at her door. He did not speak, but from frequent descriptions she at length recognized him as Kauhi, and with some embarrassment invited him to enter. Declining, and admitting his identity, he requested her to step without, and she unhesitatingly complied. His first intention was to kill her at once; but her supreme loveliness and ready obedience unnerved him for the time, and he proposed that she should first bathe and then accompany him in a ramble through the woods.
To this she assented, and while she was absent Kauhi stood by the door, moodily watching the bright light playing above the pond where she was bathing. He was profoundly impressed with her great beauty, and would have given half the years of his life to clasp her in his arms unsullied. The very thought intensified his jealousy; and when his mind reverted to the disgusting objects upon whom he believed she had bestowed her favors, he resolved to show her no mercy, and impatiently awaited her return.
Finishing her bath and rejoining him at the door, her beauty was so enrapturing that he was afraid to look at her face, lest he might again falter; it was therefore with his back turned to her that he declined to partake of food before they departed, and motioned her to follow him. His actions were so strange that she said to him, half in alarm: