THE FISH-HOOK OF PEARL
This simple tale is given in the Fornander Collection, Vol. IV, Part III, of the Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Museum, with the title Kaao no Aiai, the Legend of Aiai.
THE STORY OF KANA, THE YOUTH WHO COULD STRETCH HIMSELF UPWARDS
This story is given in the Fornander Collection, Vol. IV, Part III, with the title Kaao no Kana a Me Niheu, Legend of Kana and Niheu. Mr. Thrum speaks of the legend of Kana and Niheu as having “ear-marks of great antiquity and such popularity as to be known by several versions.” The chant in which his grandmother prays for a double canoe for Kana is over a hundred lines long; Miss Beckwith speaks of this chant as being still used as an incantation.
THE ME-NE-HU-NE
There are no stories of the Me-ne-hu-ne in the Fornander Collection. Fornander uses the name, but only as implying the very early people of the Islands. According to W. D. Alexander the name Me-ne-hu-ne is applied in Tahiti to the lowest class of people. [[216]]
The account of the Me-ne-hu-ne that I give is taken from two sources—from Mr. William Hyde Rice’s Hawaiian Legends, published by the Bishop Museum, and from Mr. Thomas Thrum’s Stories of the Menehunes, published by A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago. I am indebted to Mr. Rice for the part that treats of the history of the Me-ne-hu-ne, and to Mr. Thrum for the two stories, “Pi’s Watercourse” and “Laka’s Adventure.”
Beginning with “The Me-ne-hu-ne,” I have treated the stories as if they were being told to a boy by an older Hawaiian. I have imagined them both as being with a party who have gone up into the highlands to cut sandalwood. That would be in the time of the first successors of Kamehameha, when the sandalwood of the islands was being cut down for exportation to China, “the land of the Pa-ke.” As the party goes down the mountain-side the boy gathers the ku-kui or candle-nuts for lighting the house at night.