Fornander says that Kamapuaa was sometimes called “the eight-eyed” and
was also gifted with eight feet. He says, “This specialty of four faces
or heads and of corresponding limbs is peculiar to some of the
principal Hindoo deities.” The honorary designation of gods and even
high chiefs in Hawaiian mythology was frequently maka-walu
(eight-eyed), to express their great endowment of divine powers.
Fornander notes “coincidence as bearing upon the derivation of
Polynesian myths and legends. The Kamapuaa stories, however, seem to
have no counterpart in any mythology beyond the borders of the Hawaiian
Islands.”
While he lived on the Koolau coast he was simply a devastating, brutal
monster, with certain powers belonging to a demi-god, which he used as
maliciously as possible. After being driven out to the Honolulu side of
the mountains, for a time he led his band of robbers in their various
expeditions, but after a time his miraculous powers increased and he
went forth terrorizing the island from one end to the other. He had the
power of changing himself into any kind of a fish. As a shark and as a
hog he was represented as sometimes eating those whom he conquered in
battle. He ravaged the fields and chicken preserves of the different
chiefs, but it is said never stole or ate pigs or fish.
He wandered along the low lands from the taro patches of Ewa to the
coconut groves of Waikiki, rooting up and destroying the food of the
people.
At Kamoiliili he saw two beautiful women coming from the stream which
flows from Manoa Valley. He called to them, but when they saw his
tattooed body and rough clothing made from pigskins they recognized him
and fled. He pursued them, but they were counted as goddesses, having
come from divine foreign families as well as Kamapuaa. They possessed
miraculous powers and vanished when he was ready to place his hands
upon them. They sank down into the earth. Kamapuaa changed himself into
the form of a great hog and began to root up the stones and soil and
break his way through the thick layer of petrified coral through which
they had disappeared. He first followed the descent of the woman who
had been nearest to him. Down he went through soil and stone after her,
but suddenly a great flood of water burst upward through the coral
almost drowning him. The goddess had stopped his pursuit by turning an
underground stream into the entrance which he had made. [47]
After this narrow escape Kamapuaa rushed toward Manoa Valley to the
place where he had seen the other beautiful woman disappear. Here also
he rooted deep through earth and coral, and here again a new spring of
living water was uncovered. He could do nothing against the flood,
which threatened his life. The goddesses escaped and the two wells have
supplied the people of Kamoiliili for many generations, bearing the
name, “The wells, or fountains, of Kamapuaa.”
The chief of Waikiki had a fine tract [48] well supplied with bananas
and coconuts and taro. Night after night a great black hog rushed
through Waikiki destroying all the ripening fruit and even going to the
very doors of the grass houses searching out the calabashes filled with
poi waiting for fermentation. These calabashes he dashed to the ground,
defiling their contents and breaking and unfitting them for further
use. A crowd of warriors rushed out to kill this devastating monster.
They struck him with clubs and hurled their spears against his
bristling sides. The stiff bristles deadened the force of the blows of
the clubs and turned the spear-points aside so that he received but
little injury. Meanwhile his fierce tusks were destroying the warriors
and his cruel jaws were tearing their flesh and breaking their bones.
In a short time the few who were able to escape fled from him. The
chiefs gathered their warriors again and again, and after many battles
drove Kamapuaa from cave to cave and from district to district. Finally
he leaped into the sea, changed himself into the form of a fish and
passed over the channel to Kauai.
He swam westward along the coast, selecting a convenient place for
landing, and when night came, sending the people to their sleep, he
went ashore. He had marked the location of taro and sugar-cane patches
and could easily find them in the night. Changing himself into a black
hog he devoured and trampled the sugar-cane, rooted up taro and upset
calabashes, eating the poi and breaking the wooden bowls. Then he fled
to a rough piece of land which he had decided upon as his hiding-place.
The people were astonished at the devastation when they came from their
houses next morning. Only gods who were angry could have wrought such
havoc so unexpectedly, therefore they sent sacrifices to the heiaus,
that the gods of their homes might protect them. But the next night
other fields were made desolate as if a herd of swine had been wantonly
at work all through the night. After a time watchmen were set around
the fields and the mighty hog was seen. The people were called. They
surrounded Kamapuaa, caught him and tied him with strongest cords of
olona [49] fibre and pulled him to one side, that on the new day so
soon to dawn they might build their oven and roast him for a great
feast.
When they thought all was finished the hog suddenly burst his bonds,
became invisible and leaped upon them, tore them and killed them as he
had done on Oahu, then rushed away in the darkness.
Again some watchers found him lying at the foot of a steep precipice,
sleeping in the daytime. On the edge of the precipice were great
boulders, which they rolled down upon him, but he was said to have
allowed the stones to strike him and fall shattered in pieces while he
sustained very little injury.
Then he assumed the form of a man and made his home by a ledge of rock
called Kipukai. Here there was a spring of very sweet water, which lay
in the form of a placid pool of clear depths, reflecting wonderfully
whatever shadows fell upon its surface. To this two beautiful sisters
were in the habit of coming with their water-calabashes. While they
stooped over the water Kamapuaa came near and cast the shadow as a man
before them on the clear waters. They both wanted the man as their
husband who could cast such a shadow. He revealed himself to them and
took them both to be his wives. They lived with him at Kipukai and made
fine sleeping mats for him, cultivated food and prepared it for him to
eat. They pounded kapa that he might be well clothed.
At that time there were factions on the island of Kauai warring against
each other. Fierce hand-to-hand battles were waged and rich spoils
carried away.
With the coming of Kamapuaa to Kauai a new and strange appearance
wrought terror in the hearts of the warriors whenever a battle
occurred. While the conflict was going on and blows were freely given
by both club and spear, suddenly a massive war-club would be seen
whistling through the air, striking down the chiefs of both parties.
Mighty blows were struck by this mysterious club. No hand could be seen
holding it, no strong arm swinging it, and no chief near it save those
stricken by it. Dead and dying warriors covered the ground in its path.
Sometimes when Kamapuaa had been caught in his marauding expedition, he
would escape from the ropes tying him, change into a man, seize a club,
become invisible and destroy his captors. He took from the fallen their
rich feather war cloaks, carried them to his dwelling-place and
concealed them under his mats. The people of Kauai were terrified by
the marvellous and powerful being who dwelt in their midst. They
believed in the ability of kahunas, or priests, to work all manner of
evil in strange ways and therefore were sure that some priest was
working with evil spirits to compass their destruction. They sought the
strongest and most sacred of their own kahunas, but were unable to
conquer the evil. Meanwhile Kamapuaa, tired of the two wives, began to
make life miserable for them, trying to make them angry, that he might
have good excuse for killing them. They knew something of his
marvellous powers as a demi-god, and watched him when he brought
bundles to his house and put them away. The chief’s house then as in
later years was separated from the houses of the women and was tabu to
them, but they waited until they had seen him go far away. Then they
searched his house and found the war cloaks of their friends under his
mats. They hastened and told their friends, who plotted to take
vengeance on their enemy.
The women decided to try to drive the demi-god away, so destroyed the
spring of water from which they had daily brought water for his need.
They also carefully concealed all evidences of other springs. Kamapuaa
returned from his adventures and was angry when he found no water
waiting for him. He called for the women, but they had hidden
themselves. He was very thirsty. He rushed to the place of the spring,
but could not find it. He looked for water here and there, but the
sisters had woven mighty spells over all the water-holes and he could
not see them. In his rage he rushed about like a blind and crazy man.
Then the sisters appeared and ridiculed him. They taunted him with his
failure to overcome their wiles. They laughed at his suffering. Then in
his great anger he leaped upon them, caught them and threw them over a
precipice. As they fell upon the ground he uttered his powerful
incantations and changed them into two stones, which for many
generations have been guardians of that precipice. Then he assumed the
form of a hog and rooted deep in the rocky soil. Soon he uncovered a
fountain of water from which he drank deeply, but which he later made
bitter and left as a mineral-spring to the present day.
The people of Kauai now knew the secret of the wonderful swinging war
club. They knew that a hand held it and an invisible man walked beside
it, so they fought against a power which they could not see. They felt
their clubs strike some solid body even when they struck at the air.
Courage came back to them, and at Hanalei the people forced him into a
corner, and, carrying stones, tried to fence him in, but he broke the
walls down, tore his way through the people and fled. The high chief of
Hanalei threw his magic spear at him as he rushed past, but missed him.
The spear struck the mountain-side near the summit and passed through,
leaving a great hole through which the sky on the other side of the
mountain can still be seen. Kamapuaa decided that he was tired of
Kauai, therefore he ran to the seashore, leaped into the water and,
becoming a fish, swam away to Hawaii.