This pule, which I have heard spoken of as ka pule kanawai—from the use of the word kanawai in the last part of the mele, dates back, it is said, to the time of Paao, the priest and chief who came to Hawaii from Samoa in the remote ages. Paoa’s argument—if he can be said to have had any—seems to be that Pele should cast away, throw into the ocean, the lumber of old laws and tabus and start afresh.
Before leaving the subject—the consideration of the mele—I must mention, apropos of the expression pahu kapu a ka leo, in verse 54, an incident related to me by a Hawaiian friend (J. M. P.). He says that when he was a boy, his mother, when a thunder-storm arose, would often say to him, “keep silence! that’s Kane-hekili.” In Kahuku, island of Oahu, at a place not far from the sugar-mill, is a cave, known as Keana. In former times this cave was the home where lived a mother and her two sons. One day, having occasion to journey to a distance, she left them with this injunction, “If during my absence you hear the sound of thunder, keep still, make no disturbance, don’t utter a word. If you do it will be your death.” During her absence, there sprang up a violent storm of thunder and lightning, and the young lads made an outcry of alarm. Thereupon a thunderbolt struck them dead, turning their bodies into stone. Two pillar-shaped stones standing at the mouth of the cave are to this day pointed out in confirmation of the truth of the legend.
As Paoa concluded his prayer-song the eyes of the whole company were turned upon him, and on the lips of them all was the question, “Was she then your God?”
“She is my God,” he answered, “and my ancestors from the earliest times have worshipped her.” … Then, turning his eyes about him, as if to survey the land, he continued, “If this were my land, as is Kaua’i, there would be no lack of good and wholesome food-provision, and that of all kinds. Things are different here … I am a stranger in this land.”
On hearing these words, which had in them the sting of truth, for poison had been mixed with some of the food, the women stealthily hid away certain dishes and substituted for them others.
At the conclusion of the repast the women who had been in attendance brought him a girdle delicately embroidered with fibers from the coconut that he might be suitably appareled for his interview with the woman Pele. “You will find,” they said, “that Pele is in reality a woman of wonderful beauty.… In order to win her, however, you will need to use all your arts of fascination … and your caution as well. Make hot love to her, but, look out! don’t let your fancy lead you to smile upon any other beauty.”
Pele at first kept Paoa at a distance and, with deep subtlety, said to him, “Here are beautiful women—women more beautiful than I—take one of them.”
Paoa, well schooled in courtly etiquette and logomachy, was not tripped up by any such snare as Pele laid for him. He stood his ground and faced the god as an equal.
As Pele contemplated Paoa it dawned upon her that here stood a man, a being of gracious power, one who combined in himself qualities—attractions—she had never before seen materially embodied in the human form. The woman in Pele laid aside the god—the akua—and came to the front. All thought of bantering talk and word-play slunk away: her whole being was sobered and lifted up. The change in her outward, physical appearance kept pace with the inward: the rough armor that had beset her like the prongs of horned coral, both without and within, melted and dropped away; the haglike wrinkles ceased to furrow her profile. Her whole physical being took on the type of womanly perfection.
And what of Paoa, the man who had come with heart full of bitterness, determined on revenge? He was conquered, overwhelmed.