The sea rovers became great wanderers, carrying with them the name of “Kanaloa” and planting it in almost all the Pacific islands to be worshipped as one of the supreme gods.
How much these domestic troubles surrounding the name of Papa may have had to do with an early migration of the Polynesians we do not know. It may be that while the household was engaged in war the Malays came from the north and with tornado power scattered the divided family, compelling swift flight to distant lands. It is now understood that the great dispersion of the Polynesians came from the incursions of the powerful Malays during the second century of the Christian Era. Some of the Hawaiian and New Zealand legends imply that for a number of generations a part of the Polynesians remained in the old family home, Hawaiki. The New Zealanders enter quite fully into the account of the troubles attending the coming of their ancestors from Hawaiki. They mention battles and domestic discords. They tell of the long journeys and wearisome efforts put forth until their ancestors find Northern [[13]]New Zealand, Ke-ao-tea-roa (The great white land). This was pulled up out of the sea for them by Maui with his wonderful fish-hook. This story of the magic fishing of the disobedient and mischievous Maui is common in Polynesia.
After the discovery of New Zealand, boats were sent back to Hawaiki to induce large companies of colonists to leave the land of warfare and trouble and settle in rich lands bordering the beautiful bays of New Zealand.
Like stories of discovery of new lands and return for friends adorn the legends of all Polynesia. Wakea’s descendants were clannish and stood by each other in that great migration of the second century as well as in the better-remembered journeys of later years. There seems to have been a continued migration of the Polynesians. Sometimes they were apparently fought off by the black race, as in Australia; sometimes they held their own for a time, keeping the black men inland, as in Fiji; and sometimes they struck out boldly for new lands, as when they sailed long distances to the Hawaiian and Easter Islands. It is said that the purest forms of the Polynesian language, most harmonious with one another, were carried by the children of Wakea to the far distant islands of New Zealand, Hawaii and Easter Island. [[14]]
II
LEGENDARY PLACES IN HONOLULU
Ho-no-lu-lu is a name made by the union of the two words “Hono” and “lulu.” Some say it means “Sheltered Hollow.” The old Hawaiians say that “Hono” means “abundance” and “lulu” means “calm,” or “peace,” or “abundance of peace.” The navigator who gave the definition “Fair Haven” was out of the way, inasmuch as the name does not belong to a harbor, but to a district having “abundant calm,” or “a pleasant slope of restful land.”
“Honolulu” was probably a name given to a very rich district of farm land near what is now known as the junction of Liliha and School Streets, because its chief was Honolulu, one of the high chiefs of the time of Kakuhihewa, according to the legends. Kamakau, the Hawaiian historian, describes this farm district thus: “Honolulu was a small district, a pleasant land looking toward the west,—a fat land, with flowing streams and springs of water, abundant water for taro patches. Mists resting inland breathed softly on the flowers of the hala-tree.” [[15]]
Kakuhihewa was a king of Oahu in the long, long ago, and was so noted that for centuries the island Oahu has been named after him “The Oahu of Kakuhihewa.” He divided the island among his favorite chiefs and officers, who gave their names to the places received by them from the king. Thus what is now known as Honolulu was until the time of Kamehameha I., about the year 1800, almost always mentioned as Kou, after the chief Kou, who was an ilamuku (marshal), under King Kakuhihewa. Kou appears to have been a small district, or, rather, a chief’s group of houses and grounds, loosely defined as lying between Hotel Street and the sea and between Nuuanu Avenue and Alakea Street.