Strange things are sometimes imagined in the Hawaiian legends of
ancient time. The story of Lepe-a-moa is an illustration of the
blending of the Hawaiian idea of supernatural things with the deeds of
every-day life. It is one of those old legends handed down by native
bards through generations, whose first scenes lie on the island of
Kauai, but change to Oahu.
Keahua was one of the royal chiefs of Kauai. Apparently he was the
highest chief on the island, but it was in the days when men were few
and high chiefs and gods were many. He had spent his boyhood on the
rich lands of Wailua, Kauai, and from there had crossed the deep
channel to Oahu and had come to the home of the chiefess Kapalama after
her beautiful daughter Kauhao, to take her to Kauai as his wife. But
soon after his return one of the kupua gods became angry with him. A
kupua was a god having a double body, sometimes appearing as a man and
sometimes as an animal. The animal body always possessed supernatural
powers.
This kupua was called Akua-pehu-ale (god-of-the-swollen-billows). He
devoured his enemies, and was greatly feared and hated even by his own
tribe. He attacked Keahua, destroyed his people and drove him into the
forests far up the mountain-sides, where, at a place called Kawaikini
(The-many-waters), where fresh spring water abounded, the chief
gathered his followers together and built a new home.
One day Kapalama, who was living in her group of houses in the part of
Honolulu which now bears her name, said to her husband: “O Honouliuli,
our daughter on Kauai will have a child of magic power and of kupua
character. Perhaps we should go thither, adopt it, and bring it up;
there is life in the bones.”
They crossed the channel, carrying offerings with them to their gods.
Concealing their canoes, they went up into the forest. Their daughter’s
child was already born, and behold, it was only an egg! The chief had
given an order to carry it out into the deep sea and throw it away as
an offering to the sea-monsters; but the mother and her soothsayers
thought it should be kept and brought to life.
Kapalama, coming at this time, took the egg, wrapped it carefully in
soft kapas, bade farewell to her daughter, and returned to Oahu. Here
she had her husband build a fine thatched house of the best grass he
could gather. The kapas put inside for beds and clothing were perfumed
by fragrant ginger flowers, hala blossoms, and the delicate bloom of
the niu (coconut) while festoons of the sweet-scented maile graced its
walls. For a long time that egg lay wrapped in its coverings of soft
kapas.
One day Kapalama told her husband to prepare an imu (oven) for their
grandchild. He gathered stones, dug a hole, and took his fire-sticks
and rubbed until fire came; then he built a fire in the hole and placed
the wood and put on the stones, heating them until they were very hot.
Taking some fine sweet-potatoes, he wrapped them in leaves and laid the
bundles on the stones, covered all with mats, and poured on sufficient
water to make steam in which to cook the potatoes.
When all was fully cooked, Kapalama went to the house of the egg and
looked in. There she saw a wonderfully beautiful chicken born from that
egg. The feathers were of all the colors of all kinds of birds. They
named the bird-child Lepe-a-moa. They fed it fragments of the cooked
sweet-potato, and it went to sleep, putting its head under its wing.
This bird-child had an ancestress who was a bird-woman and who lived up
in the air in the highest clouds. Her name was Ke-ao-lewa
(The-moving-cloud). She was a sorceress of the sky, but sometimes came
to earth in the form of a great bird, or of a woman, to aid her
relatives in various ways. When the egg was brought from Kauai,
Ke-ao-lewa told her servants to prepare a swimming-pool for the use of
the child. After this bird-child had come into her new life and eaten
and rested, she went to the edge of the pool, ruffled and picked her
feathers and drank of sweet water, then leaped in, swimming and diving
and splashing all around the pool. When tired of this play, she got out
and flew up in the branches of a tree, shaking off the water and drying
herself. After a little while she flew down to her sleeping-house,
wrapped herself in some fine, soft kapas, and went to sleep.
Thus day by day she ate and bathed, and, when by herself she changed
her bird form into that of a very beautiful girl, her body shone with
beauty like the red path of the sunlight on the sea, or the rainbow
bending in the sky.
One day after she had made this change she stretched herself out with
her face downward and called to her grandparents: “Oh, where are you
two? Perhaps you will come inside.”
They heard a weak, muffled voice, and one said: “Where is that voice
calling us two? This is a strange thing. As a tabu place, no one has
been allowed to come here; it is for us and our children alone.” The
woman said, “We will listen again; perhaps we can understand this
voice.” Soon they heard the child call as before. Kapalama said: “That
is a voice from the house of our child. We must go there.”
She ran to the house, lifted the mat door, and looked in. When she saw
a beautiful and strong girl lying on the floor she was overcome with
surprise, and staggered back and fell to the ground as if dead.
Honouliuli ran to her, rubbed her body, poured water on her head and
brought her back to life. Then she said: “When I looked in, I saw our
grandchild in a beautiful human body wearing a green and yellow feather
lei. It was her voice calling us.”
Thus Lepe-a-moa came into her two bodies and received her gift of magic
powers. She was exceedingly beautiful as a girl, so beautiful that her
glory shone out from her body like radiating fire, filling the house
and passing through into the mist around, shining in that mist in
resplendent rainbow colors. The radiance was around her wherever she
went.
One day she said to her grandparents, “I want another kind of food, and
am going down to the sea for fish and moss.” In her chicken body she
ate the potato food provided, but she desired the food of her friends
when in her human form. Joyously she went down to the shore and saw the
surf waves of Palama rolling in. She chanted as she saw this white
surf: “My love, the first surf. I ride on these white waves.”
As she rested on the crest of a great comber sweeping toward the beach
she saw a squid rising up and tossing out its long arms to catch her.
She laughed and caught it in her hand, saying, “One squid, the first,
for the gods.” This she took to the beach and put in a fish-basket she
had left on the sand with her skirt and lei. Again she went out, and
saw two squid rising to meet her. This time she sang, “Here are two
squid for the grandparents.” Then she saw and caught another floating
on the wave with her. This she took, exclaiming, “For me; this squid is
mine.”
The grandparents rejoiced when they saw the excellent food provided
them. Again and again she went to the sea, catching fish and gathering
sweet moss from the reef. Thus the days of her childhood passed. Her
grandfather gave his name, Honouliuli, to a land district west of
Honolulu, while Kapalama gave hers to the place where they lived. The
bird-child’s parents still dwelt in their forest home on Kauai, hidden
from their enemy Akua-pehu-ale.
Note: In Hawaiian legends and even in history, down to the last ruler
of the islands, a divinely given rainbow was supposed to be arched from
time to time over those of high-chief birth. A child of divine and
human or miraculous power in the family of a high chief would almost
invariably have its birth attended by thunder, lightning, storm, and
brilliant rainbows. These rainbows would usually follow the child
wherever it went, resting over any place where it stopped. Sometimes
the glory of the royal blood in a child would be so great that it would
shine through the thatch of a house like a blazing fire, flashing out
in the darkness like devouring flames, or, if the child was in the sea,
the glory shone into the spray like rainbows.
Some legends state that the sorcerers could tell the difference between
the colors radiating from members of different royal families. If a
kahuna saw a canoe far away with a mass of color above it, he could
give the name of the person in it and his lineage. It is even stated
that it was possible to discern these rainbows of royalty from island
to island and know where the person was at that time staying.
Lono-o-pua-kau was the god who had charge of these signs of a chief’s
presence.