The young chief at once called his father and the people, and said: “To-morrow I am going down to fight with our enemy. Perhaps he will kill me; if so, glorious will be my death for you; but I would ask you to command the people to eat until satisfied, lest they be exhausted in the battle to-morrow; then let them sleep.”
He laid out his plan of battle and defence. His mother and the grandparents who had cared for him, with a number of the people, were to fight protected by the growth of trees at the foot of the pali, and were to turn the god and his people toward the houses filled with the wooden gods made by the aumakuas (the ghost-gods).
While all slept, Kauilani went out into the darkness and prayed to the thousands of the multitude of gods to work and establish his power from dawn until night. [[217]]
In the morning he girded around him his malo of magic power and made ready to go down. His father came to him with a polished spear, its end shaped to a sharp point, and set it up between them, saying: “This spear is an ancestor of yours. It has miraculous power and can tell you what to do. Its name is Koa-wi Koa-wa. It now belongs to you to care for you and fight for you.” The young chief gratefully took the spear and then said to his father: “Your part is to be watchman in the battle to-day. If the smoke of the conflict rises to the sky and then sweeps seaward and at last comes before you, you may know that I am dead; but if the smoke rises to the foot of the precipice and passes along to the great houses, you may know that the enemy is slain.”
Then Kauilani took his spear and went down to the open field near the shore, talking all the way to it and to the gods. When he came to the seashore, he saw the god rising up like a mighty dragon, roaring and making a noise like reverberating thunder. As he rushed upon the chief, there was the sound as of great surf-waves beating on the beach. The sand and soil of the battlefield was tossed up in great clouds. The god fought in his animal body, which was that of a great, swollen sea-monster. [[218]]
Kauilani whirled his sharp-edged spear with swift bird’s-wing movement, chanting meanwhile: “O Koa-wi Koa-wa, strike! Strike for the lives of us two! Strike!” The power of his magic girdle strengthened his arms, and the spear was ready to act in harmony with every thought of its chief. It struck the open mouth of that god, and turned it toward the precipice and thick trees. Backward it was forced by the swift strokes of the spear. When a rush was made, the chief leaped toward the pali, and thus the god was driven and lured away from his familiar surroundings. He became tangled in the thickets, and was harassed by the attacks of Kauilani’s friends.
At last his face was turned toward the houses filled with gods. The power which all the ghost gods had placed in the images of wood was now descending upon Akua-pehu-ale, and he began to grow weak rapidly. He felt the loss of strength, and turned to make a desperate rush upon the young chief.
Kauilani struck him a heavy blow, and the spear leaped again and again upon him, till he rolled into a mountain stream at a place called Kapaa, out of which he crawled almost drowned. Then he was driven along even to the image houses, where a fierce battle took place, in which the wooden images took part, many of them [[219]]being torn to pieces by the teeth of Akua-pehu-ale.
Some legends say that Kauilani’s ancestress, Ke-ao-lewa, who had watched over his sister, the bird-child, Lepe-a-moa, had come from her home in the clouds to aid in the defeat of Akua-pehu-ale.
All forces uniting drove their enemy into a great, mysterious cloud of mana, or miraculous power, and he fell dead under a final blow of the cutting spear Koa-wi Koa-wa. Then Kauilani and his warriors rolled the dead body into one of the large houses. There he offered a chant of worship and of sacrifice, consecrating it as an offering to all the gods who had aided him in his battle.