III.

More than one tradition avers that Kamapuaa traveled to foreign lands

after leaving Oahu, even to the lands where the sky and sea were

supposed to meet; but he made no such journey at that time. He spent

some months in sight-seeing among the islands southeast of Oahu, and

pretty nearly circumnavigated them all. Sometimes, for the lack of

better occupation, he and his companions engaged in the petty wars

of the districts visited by them; but they generally led a roving,

careless life, maintaining peaceful relations with all, and plundering

only when every other means of securing supplies failed.

And thus they journeyed from island to island until they reached

Hawaii. Kamiole, the usurper, had but just been defeated and slain

by Kalapana, the son of Kanipahu, the hunchback, and Kohala, where

Kamapuaa first landed, was still suffering from the effects of the

war. He therefore proceeded southward along the coast, touching at

several points in Kona; then rounding the southern cape of the island,

he sailed along the shores of Kau to Honuapo, where he landed and

spent several weeks.

It was while he was there that Kamapuaa first learned of the Pele

family in the adjoining district of Puna, and became acquainted with

the many stories of enchantment and sorcery connected with the little

colony. Pele was described to him as a woman of unusual personal

beauty, and the lands occupied by the family and its retainers were

said to be secure against lava inundations from Kilauea through the

especial favor and protection of the gods.

These strange stories interested Kamapuaa, and he resolved to

satisfy himself of their truth by visiting the mysterious colony. He

accordingly set sail with his companions for Puna, and, landing at

Keauhou, took up his abode near the sea-shore, not far from the lands

occupied by Pele and her relatives.

As the colonists seemed to pay but little attention to the new-comers,

at the expiration of three or four days Kamapuaa concluded to open

a way to an acquaintance with them by visiting their settlement in

person, and with a few of his companions appeared one morning before

the comfortable hale of Pele and her family.

Moho received the strangers courteously, inquired the purpose of

their visit to Keauhou and from what part of the country they came,

and hospitably invited them to a breakfast of meat, potatoes, poi and

fruits. The invitation was not declined, and during the repast Moho

learned from Kamapuaa that he was the chief of the party, and that

the visit of himself and companions to Puna had no especial object

beyond that of observation and pleasure.

The tattooed body and bristly hair and beard of Kamapuaa imparted to

his otherwise handsome person a strangely ferocious and forbidding

appearance, and at the mention of his name and place of nativity Moho

at once recognized in him, from report, the monster of Oahu, who had

ravaged the estates of Olopana and finally assassinated that chief

in the heiau of Kawaewae. His presence, therefore, in that part of

Puna, was considerably less welcome than the words of Moho implied;

but no act of the latter indicated a suspicion that the ulterior

purposes of his visitors were possibly otherwise than peaceful,

and when they took their departure for the beach it was with mutual

assurances of friendship.

But Kamapuaa did not take his leave that morning until he saw Pele. He

found a pretext for prolonging his visit until she finally appeared,

and when Moho made them known to each other Kamapuaa comported

himself with a grace and gallantry never before observed in him by

his companions. He admitted to himself that the reports of Pele's

beauty had not been exaggerated, and wondered how it happened that

she had remained for years unmarried.

The thought then came to Kamapuaa--perhaps not for the first time--that

he would marry Pele himself and settle permanently in Puna. The

idea of marriage had seldom occurred to him, but after he saw Pele

he could think of little else. He greatly admired her appearance,

and could see no reason why she should not be equally well pleased

with his. No mirror, save the uncertain reflection of the waters,

had ever shown him his hideously-tattooed face and bristly hair and

beard, and the hog-skin still worn over his stained shoulders was

regarded by him as a manly and warlike covering, well calculated to

impress with favor a woman of Pele's courage and accomplishments.

But Kamapuaa did not urge his suit at once. He visited Moho almost

every day for half a month or more, and endeavored to render himself

agreeable to Pele by sending her baskets of choice wild fruits,

fish from the sea which women were allowed to eat, and strings of

beautiful and curious shells gathered from the shores and caverns of

the coast. He saw her occasionally, and observed that she avoided him;

but he attributed her seeming repugnance to him to a coyishness common

to her sex, and drew from it no augury unfavorable to his suit.

The companions of Kamapuaa soon discovered the attraction that was

keeping him so long in the neighborhood of Keauhou, where food was

becoming the reverse of abundant, and urged him to return to Honuapo;

but he silenced their clamors with promises of good lands and lives

of ease in the valleys back of them, and they hopefully struggled on

with their unsatisfactory fare.

Kamapuaa finally made a proposal of marriage to Pele; but she refused

to entertain it, and was promptly and heartily sustained by her

brothers. But a simple refusal did not satisfy Kamapuaa. He urged

that his blood was noble, and that the proposed union was in every

way fitting and proper, and would prove mutually beneficial. Enraged

at his presumption and persistency, Pele boldly expressed her contempt

for him and aversion to his presence. In return Kamapuaa threatened to

seize her by force and desolate the colony. Tradition asserts that

she thereupon defied his power, and denounced him to his face as

"a hog and the son of a hog."

But, whatever may have been the precise language used on the occasion

by Pele, it was sufficiently definite and insulting not only to

destroy the last hope of Kamapuaa, but to arouse in his heart the

bitterest feelings of revenge, and he retired in wrath to the beach

to plan and speedily execute a terrible scheme of retaliation.

Without referring to his final interview with Pele and her brothers,

Kamapuaa informed his companions that he was at last ready to move--not

to Honuapo, however, but to the cultivated valleys immediately back of

them, occupied by a family of foreign interlopers and their adherents,

who recognized the authority neither of Kalapana nor the governing

chief of Puna, and might therefore be dispossessed without incurring

the reproach or hostility of any power competent to punish. The

project pleased them, but they doubted their ability to drive from

their lands so large a number, the most of whom were doubtless skilled

in the use of arms.

But Kamapuaa promised to make the way clear to an easy victory. He

said he had carefully noted the number of the settlers, and observed

the places where the most of them lodged. His plan was to suddenly

fall upon them in the night and massacre all the male adherents

of the family. This done, they would be masters of the situation,

and able to treat on their own terms with the few who remained. It

was proposed to include the governing family in the slaughter, but

Kamapuaa opposed the suggestion, declaring that one of the brothers

of Pele was a priest of great sanctity, whose death by violence would

kindle the wrath of the gods; and his counsel prevailed.

Several days elapsed without any movement being made. Kamapuaa

was waiting, not only for a relaxation of the vigilance which

his incautious threats may have inspired, but for the dark of the

waning moon. Finally the blow was struck. Under the favoring cover

of darkness Kamapuaa and his companions left the beach and secreted

themselves near the scattered huts of the settlers, and at a signal,

some time past midnight, rose and massacred every man within reach

of their weapons. But few escaped. The screams of the women, who had

been spared, rang through the valleys as they fled toward the mansion

of Pele and her brothers for protection, and the band of murderers

returned satisfied to the beach.

It was the purpose of Kamapuaa to surround the home of the surviving

family the next day, and capture Pele by force, as he had threatened,

or otherwise bring her and her haughty relatives to terms. But, after

what had occurred, Moho readily understood the plans of the assassins,

and early next morning abandoned the family cluster of houses, which

could not be successfully defended, and sought refuge in a cavern in

the hills, about three miles up the valley, accompanied by the entire

family and the few others who had escaped the massacre of the night

before. There was water in the cavern, and as the fugitives took with

them a considerable quantity of provisions, and the opening to the

retreat was small and easily defended, they hoped to be able, even

if discovered and besieged, to protect themselves until the arrival

of relief or the abandonment of the siege as hopeless by their enemies.

The cavern was of volcanic formation and had never been fully

explored. It embraced a number of large connecting chambers, with

ragged avenues leading back into and up the hill. The only light

came through the front entrance, into which, from the inside, were

hastily rolled heavy boulders of lava, found here and there detached,

leaving openings through which spears and javelins could be thrust. A

tiny rivulet of water trickled in somewhere from the darkness, and,

after filling a shallow basin in the floor of one of the chambers,

ran out through the opening. As air came in from the back of the

cavern, it must have been connected with the surface through some

one or more of the dark avenues referred to; but not a glimmer of

light, so far as the occupants had been able to penetrate the depths,

indicated the possibility of an escape in that direction should the

cavern be rendered untenable by assault. The party numbered, in all,

seven men and eighteen women and children, and they had taken to their

retreat a goodly supply of arms and provisions enough to sustain them

for some weeks. Thus prepared they gloomily awaited their fate.

But they had fled to the hills not a moment too soon, for early in the

day Kamapuaa and his companions appeared and surrounded the deserted

habitations of the family. Discovering that his victims had escaped,

Kamapuaa promptly divided his followers into small parties, and

despatched them to the hills in search of the fugitives or of traces

of their flight. He also joined in the search, but went unattended.

In the course of the day all returned to the deserted huts, where

they had taken up their quarters, and reported that no traces of the

missing colonists had been discovered, and the general opinion was

that they had escaped across the mountains. Kamapuaa waited until

all the rest had told the stories of their fruitless wanderings, when

he announced that he had found what they had lacked the sagacity to

discover. He informed them that the fugitives were secreted in a cavern

some distance up one of the valleys, where they could be surrounded

and captured without difficulty; but he did not mention that he had

made the discovery by shrewdly following a dog into the hills, and

watching the animal until it stopped in front of the entrance to the

cavern. He was willing that his companions should believe that his

success was due to some inspiration or prescience of his own.

A guard was immediately detailed to watch the cavern and see that no

one escaped, and the next day the place was surrounded and formally

besieged. Following these preparations, visible to Moho and his

handful of warriors, Kamapuaa approached the entrance sufficiently

near to be heard within, and demanded the surrender of the party,

promising that the lives of all would be spared.

The demand was refused with words of insult and defiance, and Kamapuaa

ordered an assault upon the entrance. Several attempts were made to

force the protecting rocks from the opening, but their interstices

bristled with spear-points, and, after a number of the assailants

had been wounded, that plan of attack was abandoned as impracticable.

A large quantity of dry wood, leaves and grass was then heaped in

front of the entrance and fired, in the hope of suffocating the inmates

with the heat and smoke of the conflagration; but the draught of air

through the cavern kept the smoke from entering, and, although the

heat for a time became oppressive immediately around the opening,

the connecting chambers were but slightly affected by it. The fire

was allowed to die out, and Kamapuaa, on too closely approaching the

entrance to note its effects, was made keenly aware of the failure

of the project by receiving a sharp spear-thrust in the arm.

As fire and assault had proved unavailing, and a long siege did

not accord with his purposes, Kamapuaa next endeavored to effect a

breach through the top of the cavern in the rear of the entrance. As

this necessitated the removal of an overlying mass of ten or fifteen

feet of soil and rocks, the undertaking involved a very considerable

amount of hard labor. But the plan met with general favor, and,

with oos and other implements obtained from the valleys below, the

besiegers entered upon the task of excavating through into the cavern.

For several days the work progressed almost uninterruptedly, and

a large pit had been lowered to a depth of eight or ten feet, when

the earth began to tremble violently, and a few minutes after the air

was filled with sulphurous smoke and ashes. But this was not the most

appalling sight beheld by Kamapuaa and his companions. Looking up the

valley, which at that point was little more than a narrow gorge, they

saw a flood of lava, full a hundred feet in width, bursting from the

hillside and pouring down the ravine, its high-advancing crest aflame

with burning timber, and sweeping before it a thundering avalanche

of half-molten boulders.

With exclamations of dismay they started in full flight down the

valley, closely followed by the devouring flood. On, on they sped,

past the deserted huts of their victims, past the sandy foothills, past

the cocoa-trees that fringed the beach. Turning at the water's edge,

they beheld the awful stream spreading its mantle of death over the

broadening valley, and speeding to the sea in broken volumes. Leaping

into their canoes, they plunged through the surf and paddled out to

sea. Setting sail for Honuapo, Kamapuaa saw, as they left the coast,

that the upper part of the valley from which they had fled was filled

with lava, and knew that the cavern in which Pele and her companions

had sought refuge from his wrath had been deeply buried by the flood.

When the news of the eruption reached Honuapo, the people, who

had heard so many strange stories of Pele and her family, did not

believe that they had perished. On the contrary, they declared that the

eruption had been invoked by Pele to drive Kamapuaa from the district,

and that if she had permitted her lands to be destroyed it was with

the view of taking up her residence in the crater of Kilauea. This

opinion soon crystalized into a belief which spread throughout the

island of Hawaii, and another generation saw temples erected to Pele,

the goddess of fire, and priests sanctified to her service. All but

three of her brothers and sisters were the creations of her early

priests, and their attributes gradually grew and took form as they

floated down the stream of tradition.

Many adventures are related of Kamapuaa after his flight from

Keauhou, but the most or all of them are the dreams of the poets of

after-generations; and further reference here to this most striking

of the early heroes of the group may be properly concluded with the

remark that, shortly after his experiences with the Pele family,

he immigrated with a considerable following to one of the southern

islands, where he married, distinguished himself in arms, and finally

died without revisiting the Hawaiian archipelago.