PELE AND THE SNOW-GODDESS
There were four maidens with white mantles in the mythology of the Hawaiians. They were all queens of beauty, full of wit and wisdom, lovers of adventure, and enemies of Pele. They were the goddesses of the snow-covered mountains. They embodied the mythical ideas of spirits carrying on eternal warfare between heat and cold, fire and frost, burning lava and stony ice. They ruled the mountains north of Kilauea and dwelt in the cloud-capped summits. They clothed themselves against the bitter cold with snow-mantles. They all had the power of laying aside the white garment and taking in its place clothes made from the golden sunshine. Their stories are nature-myths derived from the power of snow and cold to check volcanic action and sometimes clothe the mountain tops and upper slopes with white, which melted as the maidens came down closer to the sea through lands made fertile by flowing streams and blessed sunshine.
It is easy to see how the story arose of Pele and Poliahu, the snow-goddess of Mauna Kea, [[56]]but it is not easy to understand the different forms which the legend takes while the legends concerning the other three maidens of the white mantle are very obscure indeed.
Lilinoe was sometimes known as the goddess of the mountain Haleakala. In her hands lay the power to hold in check the eruptions which might break forth through the old cinder cones in the floor of the great crater. She was the goddess of dead fires and desolation. She sometimes clothed the long summit of the mountain with a glorious garment of snow several miles in length. Some legends give her a place as the wife of the great-flood survivor, Nana-Nuu, recorded by Fornander as having a cave-dwelling on the slope of Mauna Kea. Therefore she is also known as one of the goddesses of Mauna Kea.
Waiau was another snow-maiden of Mauna Kea, whose record in the legends has been almost entirely forgotten. There is a beautiful lake glistening in one of the crater-cones on the summit of the mountain. This was sometimes called “The Bottomless Lake,” and was supposed to go down deep into the heart of the mountain. It is really forty feet in its greatest depth—deep enough for the bath of the goddess. The name Wai-au means water of sufficient depth to bathe. Somewhere, buried in the memory of some old [[57]]Hawaiian, is a legend worth exhuming, probably connecting Waiau, the maiden, with Waiau, the lake.
Kahoupokane was possibly the goddess of the mountain Hualalai, controlling the snows which after long intervals fall on its desolate summits. At present but little more than the name is known about this maiden of the snow-garment.
Poliahu, the best-known among the maidens of the mountains, loved the eastern cliffs of the great island Hawaii,—the precipices which rise from the raging surf which beats against the coast known now as the Hamakua district. Here she sported among mortals, meeting the chiefs in their many and curious games of chance and skill. Sometimes she wore a mantle of pure white kapa and rested on the ledge of rock overhanging the torrents of water which in various places fell into the sea.
There is a legend of Kauai woven into the fairy-tale of the maiden of the mist—Laieikawai—and in this story Poliahu for a short time visits Kauai as the bride of one of the high chiefs who bore the name Aiwohikupua. The story of the betrothal and marriage suggests the cold of the snow-mantle and shows the inconstancy of human hearts.
Aiwohikupua, passing near the cliffs of Hamakua, saw a beautiful woman resting on the rocks [[58]]above the sea. She beckoned with most graceful gestures for him to approach the beach. Her white mantle lay on the rocks beside her. He landed and proposed marriage, but she made a betrothal with him by the exchange of the cloaks which they were wearing. Aiwohikupua went away to Kauai, but he soon returned clad in the white cloak and wearing a beautiful helmet of red feathers. A large retinue of canoes attended him, filled with musicians and singers and his intimate companions. The three mountains belonging to the snow-goddesses were clothed with snow almost down to the seashore.
Poliahu and the three other maidens of the white robe came down to meet the guests from Kauai. Cold winds swayed their garments as they drew near to the sea. The blood of the people of Kauai chilled in their veins. Then the maidens threw off their white mantles and called for the sunshine. The snow went back to the mountain tops, and the maidens, in the beauty of their golden sun-garments, gave hearty greeting to their friends. After the days of the marriage festival Poliahu and her chief went to Kauai.