The wonderful bread-fruit [5] tree was a great tree growing on the
eastern bank of the rippling brook Puehuehu. [6] It was a tabu tree,
set apart for the high chief from Kou and the chiefs from Honolulu to
rest under while on their way to bathe in the celebrated diving-pool
Wai-kaha-lulu. That tree became a god, and this is the story of its
transformation:
Papa and Wakea were the ancestors of the great scattered sea-going and
sea-loving people living in all the islands now known as Polynesia.
They had their home in every group of islands where their descendants
could find room to multiply.
They came to the island of Oahu, and, according to almost all the
legends, were the first residents. The story of the magic bread-fruit
tree, however, says that Papa sailed from Kahiki (a far-off land) with
her husband Wakea, landing on Oahu and finding a home in the mountain
upland near the precipice Kilohana.
Papa was a kupua—a woman having many wonderful and miraculous powers.
She had also several names. Sometimes she was called Haumea, but at
last she left her power and a new name, Ka-meha-i-kana, in the magic
bread-fruit tree.
Papa was a beautiful woman, whose skin shone like polished dark ivory
through the flowers and vines and leaves which were the only clothes
she knew. Where she and her husband had settled down they found a
fruitful country—with bananas and sugar-cane and taro. [7] They built a
house on the mountain ridge and feasted on the abundance of food around
them. Here they rested well protected when rains were falling or the
hot sun was shining.
Papa day by day looked over the seacoast which stretches away in miles
of marvellous beauty below the precipices of the northern mountain
range of the island Oahu. Clear, deep pools, well filled with most
delicate fish, lay restfully among moss-covered projections of the
bordering coral reef. The restless murmur of surf waves beating in and
out through the broken lines of the reef called to her, so, catching up
some long leaves of the hala-tree, she made a light basket and hurried
down to the sea. In a little while she had gathered sea-moss and caught
all the crabs she wished to take home.
She turned toward the mountain range and carried her burden to Hoakola,
where there was a spring of beautiful clear, cold, fresh water. She
laid down her moss and crabs to wash them clean.
She looked up, and on the mountain-side discerned there something
strange. She saw her husband in the hands of men who had captured and
bound him and were compelling him to walk down the opposite side of the
range. Her heart leaped with fear and anguish. She forgot her crabs and
moss and ran up the steep way to her home. The moss rooted itself by
the spring, but the crabs escaped to the sea.
On the Honolulu side of the mountains were many chiefs and their
people, living among whom was Lele-hoo-mao, the ruler, whose fields
were often despoiled by Papa and her husband. It was his servants who
while searching the country around these fields, had found and captured
Wakea. They were forcing him to the temple Pakaka [8] to be there
offered in sacrifice. They were shouting, “We have found the
mischief-maker and have tied him.”
Papa threw around her some of the vines which she had fashioned into a
skirt, and ran over the hills to the edge of Nuuanu Valley.
Peering down the valley she saw her husband and his captors, and
cautiously she descended. She found a man by the side of the stream
Puehuehu, who said to her: “A man has been carried by who is to be
baked in an oven this day. The fire is burning in the valley below.”
Papa said, “Give me water to drink.”
The man said, “I have none.”
Then Papa took a stone and smashed it against the ground. It broke
through into a pool of water. She drank and hastened on to the
bread-fruit tree at Nini, where she overtook her husband and the men
who guarded him. He was alive, his hands bound behind him and his leaf
clothing torn from his body. Wailing and crying that she must kiss him,
she rushed to him and began pushing and pulling him, whirling him
around and around.
Suddenly the great bread-fruit tree opened and she leaped with him
through the doorway into the heart of the tree. The opening closed in a
moment.
Papa, by her miraculous power, opened the tree on the other side. They
passed through and went rapidly up the mountain-side to their home,
which was near the head of Kalihi Valley.
As they ran Papa threw off her vine pa-u, or skirt. The vine became the
beautiful morning-glory, delicate in blossom and powerful in medicinal
qualities. The astonished men had lost their captive. According to the
ancient Hawaiian proverb, “Their fence was around the field of
nothingness.” They pushed against the tree, but the opening was tightly
closed. They ran around under the heavy-leaved branches and found
nothing. They believed that the great tree held their captive in its
magic power.
Quickly ran the messenger to their high chief, Lele-hoo-mao, to tell
him about the trouble at the tabu bread-fruit tree at Nini and that the
sacrifice for which the oven was being heated was lost.
The chiefs consulted together and decided to cut down that tree and
take the captive out of his hiding-place. They sent tree-cutters with
their stone axes.
The leader of the tree-cutters struck the tree with his stone axe. A
chip leaped from the tree, struck him, and he fell dead.
Another caught the axe. Again chips flew and the workman fell dead.
Then all the cutters struck and gashed the tree.
Whenever a chip hit any one he died, and the sap of the tree flowed out
and was spattered under the blows of the stone axes. Whenever a drop
touched a workman or a bystander he fell dead.
The people were filled with fear and cried to their priest for help.
Wohi, the priest, came to the tree, bowed before it, and remained in
silent thought a long time. Then he raised his head and said: “It was
not a woman who went into that tree. It was Papa from Kahiki. She is a
goddess and has a multitude of bodies. If we treat her well we shall
not be destroyed.”
Wohi commanded the people to offer sacrifices at the foot of the tree.
This was done with prayers and incantations. A black pig, black awa and
red fish were offered to Papa. Then Wohi commanded the wood-cutters to
rub themselves bountifully with coconut oil and go fearlessly to their
work. Chips struck them and the sap of the tree was spattered over
them, but they toiled on unhurt until the great tree fell.
Out of this magic bread-fruit tree a great goddess was made. Papa gave
to it one of her names, Ka-meha-i-kana, and endowed it with power so
that it was noted from Kauai to Hawaii. It became one of the great gods
of Oahu, but was taken to Maui, where Kamehameha secured it as his god
to aid in establishing his rule over all the islands.
The peculiar divine gift supposed to reside in this image made from the
wonderful bread-fruit tree was the ability to aid worshippers in
winning land and power from other people and wisely employing the best
means of firmly establishing their own government, thus protecting and
preserving the kingdom.
Papa dwelt above the Kalihi Valley and looked down over the plains of
Honolulu and Ewa covered with well-watered growing plants which gave
food or shade to the multiplying people.
It is said that after a time she had a daughter, Kapo, who also had
kupua, or magic power. Kapo had many names, such as Kapo-ula-kinau and
Laka. She was a high tabu goddess of the ancient Hawaiian hulas, or
dances. She had also the power of assuming many bodies at will and
could appear in any form from the mo-o, or lizard, to a human being.
Note: Kapo is the name of a place and of a wonderful stone with a
“front like the front of a house and a back like the tail of a fish.”
The legends of sixty years ago say that Kapo still stood in that place
as one of the guardians of Kalihi Valley.
Kapo was born from the eyes of Haumea, or Papa.
Papa looked away from Kapo and there was born from her head a sharp
pali, or precipice, often mist-covered; this was Ka-moho-alii. Then
Pele was born. She was the one who had mighty battles with Kamapuaa,
the pig-man, who almost destroyed the volcano Kilauea. It was
Ka-moho-alii who rubbed sticks and rekindled the volcanic fires for his
sister Pele, thus driving Kamapuaa down the sides of Kilauea into the
ocean.
These three, according to the Honolulu legends, were the highest-born
children of Papa and Wakea.
Down the Kalihi stream below Papa’s home were two stones to which the
Hawaiians gave eepa, or gnomelike, power. If any traveller passes these
stones on his way up to Papa’s resting-place, that wayfarer stops by
these stones, gathers leaves and makes leis, or garlands, and places
them on these stones, that there may be no trouble in all that day’s
wanderings.
Sometimes mischievous people dip branches from lehua-trees in water and
sprinkle the eepa rocks; then woe to the traveller, for piercing rains
are supposed to fall. From this comes the proverb belonging to the
residents of Kalihi Valley, “Here is the sharp-headed rain of Kalihi”
(“Ka ua poo lipilipi o Kalihi”).
V