[8] Apane, a species of lehua that has red flowers, much fed upon by the birds. (In the original newspaper-text the word was pane, evidently a mistake. There are, regretably, many such mistakes in the original text.) [↑]
[9] Manienie, smooth, meadow-like, a name given in modern times to the Bermuda grass—“fine grass”—said to have been imported by Vancouver, now extensively seen in Hawaiian lawns. [↑]
[10] Ke-ahi-a-Laka, literally, the fire of Laka, the name of a land. [↑]
[11] Ha’eha’e, the eastern Sun-gate, applicable to Puna as the easternmost district of Hawaii and of the whole group. In claiming Puna as hers—i.e., as her home-land—Hiiaka seems to have set up a claim to be the guardian of the Sun’s rising, and therefore, by implication of Pele. [↑]
CHAPTER XXXIII
HIIAKA ALONE WITH LOHIAU
It has come at last, the situation to which the logic of events has for many days pointed the finger of a relentless fate. For the first time Hiiaka finds herself alone with Lohiau. The history of her life during the past two months seems but a prologue to the drama, the opening scene of which is about to be enacted in the dressing room, as we must call it. For Hiiaka, having gathered a lapful of that passion-bloom, the scarlet lehua, and having plaited three wreaths, with a smile on her face, hangs two of the wreaths about the neck of Lohiau, using the third for her own adornment.
They are sitting on the sacred terrace of Ka-hoa-lii, at the very brink of the caldera, in full view of the whole court, including the sisters of Hiiaka who gather with Pele in the Pit. “Draw nearer,” she says to Lohiau, “that I may tie the knot and make the fillet fast about your neck.” And while her fingers work with pliant art, her lips quiver with emotion in song:
O Hiiaka ka wahine,