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

by King of Hawaii David Kalakaua

But Kamapuaa did not urge his suit at once. He visited Moho almost every day for half a month or more, and endeavored to render himself agreeable to Pele by sending her baskets of choice wild fruits, fish from the sea which women were allowed to eat, and strings of beautiful and curious shells gathered from the shores and caverns of the coast. He saw her occasionally, and observed that she avoided him; but he attributed her seeming repugnance to him to a coyishness common to her sex, and drew from it no augury unfavorable to his suit.

The companions of Kamapuaa soon discovered the attraction that was keeping him so long in the neighborhood of Keauhou, where food was becoming the reverse of abundant, and urged him to return to Honuapo; but he silenced their clamors with promises of good lands and lives of ease in the valleys back of them, and they hopefully struggled on with their unsatisfactory fare.

Kamapuaa finally made a proposal of marriage to Pele; but she refused to entertain it, and was promptly and heartily sustained by her brothers. But a simple refusal did not satisfy Kamapuaa. He urged that his blood was noble, and that the proposed union was in every way fitting and proper, and would prove mutually beneficial. Enraged at his presumption and persistency, Pele boldly expressed her contempt for him and aversion to his presence. In return Kamapuaa threatened to seize her by force and desolate the colony. Tradition asserts that she thereupon defied his power, and denounced him to his face as “a hog and the son of a hog.”

But, whatever may have been the precise language used on the occasion by Pele, it was sufficiently definite and insulting not only to destroy the last hope of Kamapuaa, but to arouse in his heart the bitterest feelings of revenge, and he retired in wrath to the beach to plan and speedily execute a terrible scheme of retaliation.

Without referring to his final interview with Pele and her brothers, Kamapuaa informed his companions that he was at last ready to move—not to Honuapo, however, but to the cultivated valleys immediately back of them, occupied by a family of foreign interlopers and their adherents, who recognized the authority neither of Kalapana nor the governing chief of Puna, and might therefore be dispossessed without incurring the reproach or hostility of any power competent to punish. The project pleased them, but they doubted their ability to drive from their lands so large a number, the most of whom were doubtless skilled in the use of arms.

But Kamapuaa promised to make the way clear to an easy victory. He said he had carefully noted the number of the settlers, and observed the places where the most of them lodged. His plan was to suddenly fall upon them in the night and massacre all the male adherents of the family. This done, they would be masters of the situation, and able to treat on their own terms with the few who remained. It was proposed to include the governing family in the slaughter, but Kamapuaa opposed the suggestion, declaring that one of the brothers of Pele was a priest of great sanctity, whose death by violence would kindle the wrath of the gods; and his counsel prevailed.

Several days elapsed without any movement being made. Kamapuaa was waiting, not only for a relaxation of the vigilance which his incautious threats may have inspired, but for the dark of the waning moon. Finally the blow was struck. Under the favoring cover of darkness Kamapuaa and his companions left the beach and secreted themselves near the scattered huts of the settlers, and at a signal, some time past midnight, rose and massacred every man within reach of their weapons. But few escaped. The screams of the women, who had been spared, rang through the valleys as they fled toward the mansion of Pele and her brothers for protection, and the band of murderers returned satisfied to the beach.

It was the purpose of Kamapuaa to surround the home of the surviving family the next day, and capture Pele by force, as he had threatened, or otherwise bring her and her haughty relatives to terms. But, after what had occurred, Moho readily understood the plans of the assassins, and early next morning abandoned the family cluster of houses, which could not be successfully defended, and sought refuge in a cavern in the hills, about three miles up the valley, accompanied by the entire family and the few others who had escaped the massacre of the night before. There was water in the cavern, and as the fugitives took with them a considerable quantity of provisions, and the opening to the retreat was small and easily defended, they hoped to be able, even if discovered and besieged, to protect themselves until the arrival of relief or the abandonment of the siege as hopeless by their enemies.

The cavern was of volcanic formation and had never been fully explored. It embraced a number of large connecting chambers, with ragged avenues leading back into and up the hill. The only light came through the front entrance, into which, from the inside, were hastily rolled heavy boulders of lava, found here and there detached, leaving openings through which spears and javelins could be thrust. A tiny rivulet of water trickled in somewhere from the darkness, and, after filling a shallow basin in the floor of one of the chambers, ran out through the opening. As air came in from the back of the cavern, it must have been connected with the surface through some one or more of the dark avenues referred to; but not a glimmer of light, so far as the occupants had been able to penetrate the depths, indicated the possibility of an escape in that direction should the cavern be rendered untenable by assault. The party numbered, in all, seven men and eighteen women and children, and they had taken to their retreat a goodly supply of arms and provisions enough to sustain them for some weeks. Thus prepared they gloomily awaited their fate.

But they had fled to the hills not a moment too soon, for early in the day Kamapuaa and his companions appeared and surrounded the deserted habitations of the family. Discovering that his victims had escaped, Kamapuaa promptly divided his followers into small parties, and despatched them to the hills in search of the fugitives or of traces of their flight. He also joined in the search, but went unattended.