CHAPTER XXIX
HIIAKA’S ADDRESS TO CAPE KAENA
The mountains were still in shadow, but the star of morning was on high and rosy fingers in the east heralded the approach of day, taming the flare of the torches and making them almost a superfluity as the canoe—with Hiiaka occupying the pola, Lohiau in the stern holding the steersman’s paddle and Wahine-oma’o ensconced in the bow—curvetted to the waves and shot out into the blue sea. One paddle-stroke and the craft had cleared the land, another and it had traversed the heaving channel of Ië-ië-waena, another and it was beached on the sands of Mokuleia. At this point Hiiaka parted from her two companions, directing them to call for her with the canoe at a designated place.
Hiiaka’s first care was to pay her respects to the aged one, her ancestor, Pohaku-o-Kaua’i; after that to her ancestral divinity Kaena, a name in modern times bestowed on the western cape of Oahu. She turned this point and passed into the sweltering lea where the sun poured its merciless heat and, as she climbed the slope of the Waianae mountain, looking back on the route just accomplished, according to her custom, she uttered her comments in song:
Kunihi Kaena, holo i ka malie;
Wela i ka La ke alo o ka pali;
Auamo mai i ka La o Kilauea;
Ikiiki i ka La na Ke-awa-ula,
Ola i ka makani Kai-a-ulu Koholá-lele—