Koa-trees, out of which the finest and most enduring calabashes of the old Hawaiians were made, grew near the ocean’s sandy shore, but the koa-trees from which canoes were carved and burned were, according to some wise plan of Providence, placed on rough precipitous mountain-sides or on the ridges above.
The fierce winds of the mountains and the habit of bracing themselves against difficulties made the koa-trees cross-grained and slow in growth. The koa was the best tree of the Hawaiian Islands for the curled, twisted, and hard-grained wood needed in canoes which were beaten by overwhelming surf waves, rolled over sandy beaches, or smashed against coral or lava reefs.
From the time the canoe was cut in the mountains and was dragged and rolled over lava beds or sent crashing down steep mountain-sides to the time it lay worn out and conquered by the decay of old age it was always ready to meet the roughest kind of life into which its maker and owner could force it to go. [[98]]
The calabash used in the plains and in the mountains came from a tree grown in beautiful lines by the sea. The canoe came from the hard mountain-koa far from its final workshop. There were gods, sacrifices, ceremonies, priests and even birds in the rites and superstitions of the canoe-makers. Kupulupulu was the god of the koa forest. Any wanderer in the woods was in the domain of that god. It was supposed that every rustling footstep was heard by most acute ears, and every motion of the hand was watched by the sharpest eyes. Dread of the unseen and unheard made every forest rover tremble until he had made some proper offering and uttered some effective incantation.
The ceremony and the wages of the priest who went up the mountain to select a koa-tree for canoe-cutting were like this: First he found a fine-appearing tree which he thought would make the kind of canoe desired. Then he took out his fire-sticks and rubbed rapidly until he had sparks of fire in the wood-dust of his lower stick. He caught the fire and made a burning oven (imu), heated some stones, cooked a black pig and a chicken, and prepared food for a feast, and then prayed:
“O Kupulupulu—the god!
Here is the pig,
Here is the chicken,
Here is food. [[99]]
O Kupulupulu!