I.

With the reign of Hua, an ancient king of Hana, or eastern Maui,

is connected a legendary recital of one of the most terrible

visitations of the wrath of the gods anywhere brought down by Hawaiian

tradition. It is more than probable that the extent of the calamities

following Hua's defiant and barbarous treatment of his high-priest

and prophet was greatly colored and exaggerated in turn by the pious

historians who received and passed the moooelo down the centuries;

but the details of the story have been preserved with harrowing

conciseness, and for more than six hundred years were recited as a

solemn warning against wanton trespass upon the prerogatives of the

priesthood or disregard of the power and sanctity of the gods.

In some of the genealogies Hua is represented as having been the

great-grandfather of Paumakua, of Maui. This record, if accepted, would

remove him altogether from the Hawaiian group, since Paumakua himself

was undoubtedly an immigrant from Tahiti or some other of the southern

islands. As he was contemporaneous with the distinguished priest and

prophet Naula, who is said to have accompanied Laa-mai-kahiki from

Raiatea, he must have appeared two or three generations later than

Paumakua, and probably belonged to a collateral branch of the great

Hua family from which Paumakua drew his strain.

It may therefore be assumed that as early as A.D. 1170 Hua was the

alii-nui, or virtual sovereign, of eastern Maui. He is referred to

as the king of Maui, but it is hardly probable that his sway extended

over the western division of the island, as it was not until the reign

of Piilani, nearly three centuries later, that the people of Maui

became finally united under one government. Previous to that time,

except at intervals of temporary conquest or occupation, eastern

and western Maui were ruled by distinct and frequently hostile lines

of kings. Hence the sovereignty of Hua could scarcely have reached

beyond the districts of Koolau, Hana, Kipahulu and Kaupo, while the

remainder of the island must have recognized the authority either of

Palena, the grandson of Paumakua, or of Hanalaa, the distinguished

son and successor of Palena, since the later mois of Maui traced their

genealogies uninterruptedly through this branch of the Paumakua family.

But, from whatever source Hua may have derived his rank and authority,

he was a reckless, independent and warlike chief. Having access to the

largest and finest timber in the group, his war-canoes were abundant

and formidable, and when not engaged in harassing his neighboring

frontiers he was employed in plundering expeditions to the coasts of

Hawaii and Molokai. Tradition makes him the aggressor in the earliest

remembered war between Maui and Hawaii. Although the name of the war

(Kanuioohio) has been preserved, it probably did not reach beyond

the limit of a powerful marauding excursion to the coast of Hilo,

Hawaii, resulting in the defeat of the chiefs of that district by

Hua, but in nothing more than a temporary seizure and occupation of

their lands; for at that time Kanipahu was the moi of Hawaii, and

would scarcely have permitted a permanent hostile lodgment in Hilo,

whose chiefs acknowledged his suzerainty and were therefore entitled

to his protection.

The high-priest of Hua was Luahoomoe. He claimed to be an iku-pau--that

is, a direct descendant from Kane--and as such was strict in claiming

respect for his person and sacred prerogatives. He did not approve of

many of Hua's marauding acts, advising him instead to lead his people

in happier and more peaceful pursuits, and not provoke either the

retaliation of his enemies or the anger of the gods. This opposition

to his aggressive methods exasperated Hua, and a feeling of suspicion

and ill-will gradually grew up between him and the priesthood. He began

to attribute his occasional failures in arms to deliberately-neglected

prayers and sacrifices by Luahoomoe, and on one occasion, after having

returned from an unsuccessful expedition to Molokai, he placed his

tabu on a spring of water set apart for the use of the heiau, and on

another wantonly speared a puaa-hiwa, or black tabued hog, sacred to

sacrifice. When expostulated with for thus inviting the wrath of the

gods, he threatened the high-priest with similar treatment.

Hua resided principally at Hana, where he constructed one of the

largest royal mansions in the group, and all the leisure spared

from his warlike pastimes was given to revelry. He had a hundred

hula dancers, exclusive of musicians and drummers, and his monthly

feasts were prolonged into days and nights of debauchery and unbridled

license. Drunk with awa, an intoxicating drink made from a plant of

that name, he kept the whole of Hana in an uproar during his frequent

seasons of pleasure, and the attractive wives and daughters of his

subjects were not unfrequently seized and given to his favorite

companions.

The annual festival of Lono was approaching--an event marking the

winter solstice, and which was always celebrated impressively on every

island of the group. It was an occasion not only for manifesting

respect for the nearest and most popular deity of the godhead, but

for celebrating, as well, the ending of the old year and the beginning

of the new. The ancient Hawaiians divided the year into twelve months

of thirty days each. Each month and day of the month was named. They

had two modes of measuring time--the lunar and sidereal. The lunar

month began on the first day that the new moon appeared in the west,

and regulated their monthly feasts and tabu days. Their sidereal month

of thirty days marked one of the twelve divisions of the year; but as

their two seasons of the year--the Hooilo (rainy) and Kau (dry)--were

measured by the Pleiades, and their twelve months of thirty days

each did not complete the sidereal year, they intercalated five days

at the end of the year measured by months, in order to square that

method of reckoning with the movements of the stars. This annual

intercalation was made about the 20th of their month of Welehu

(December), at the expiration of which the first day of the first

month (Makalii) of the new year commenced. This was their Makahiki,

or new-year day. The five intercalated days were a season of tabu,

and dedicated to a grand yearly festival to Lono.

In preparation for this festival Hua had called for unusually large

contributions from the people, and, in anticipation of another hostile

expedition to Hawaii, had ordered quotas of warriors, canoes and

provisions from his subject chiefs, to be reported at Hana immediately

after the beginning of the new year. These exactions caused very

general dissatisfaction, and the priesthood assisted in promoting

rather than allaying the popular discontent. All this was reported to

Hua, and he resolved to liberate himself at once and for the future

from what he conceived to be an officious and unwarranted intermeddling

of the priesthood with the affairs of state, by deposing or taking the

life of Luahoomoe. In this desperate resolution he was sustained by

Luuana, a priest who had charge of the heiau or chapel of the royal

mansion, and who expected to succeed Luahoomoe as high-priest.

Hua sought in every way for a pretext for deposing or slaying

Luahoomoe; but the priest was old in years, exemplary in his

conduct, and moved among the people without reproach. Finally,

at the instigation of Luuana, who assumed that the advice was a

divine inspiration, Hua created a bungling and absurd pretence for

an assault upon Luahoomoe. The dishonesty of the scheme was exposed,

but it resulted, nevertheless, in the death of the unoffending priest.

As tradition tells the story, Hua found occasion in a public manner to

order some uwau, or uau, to be brought to him from the mountains. The

uau is a water bird, and seldom found in the uplands. As neither its

flesh for eating nor its feathers for decorating could have reasonably

been required, the object of despatching snarers in quest of it must

have been a subject of comment; but kings then, as later, did not

always deign to give reasons for their acts, and preparations were

at once made by the household servants and retainers of the king to

proceed upon the hunt.

"Be careful that the birds come from the mountains," said Hua,

addressing the trusted hoalii in charge of the hunting party--"only

from the mountains," he repeated; "I will have none from the sea."

"But can they be found in the mountains?" ventured the hoalii, looking

inquiringly toward Luahoomoe, who was standing near and watching a

flight of birds which seemed to be strangely confused and ominous

of evil.

"Do you inquire of me?" said the priest, after a pause, and finding

that the king did not answer.

"I inquire of any one who thinks he knows," returned the hoalii.

"Then the birds you seek will not be found in the mountains at this

season of the year," returned the priest, "and you must set your

snares by the sea-shore."

"Is it so that you would attempt to countermand my orders?" exclaimed

Hua, in apparent anger. "I order my servants to go to the mountains

for the uau, and you tell them to set their snares by the sea-shore!"

"I humbly ask the king to remember that I have given no orders,"

calmly replied the priest.

"But you have dared to interfere with mine!" retorted the king. "Now

listen. My men shall go to the mountains in search of the birds I

require. If they find them there I will have you slain as a false

prophet and misleader of the people!"

With this savage threat the king walked away with his hoalii, while

the priest stood in silence with his face bowed to the earth. He knew

the import of Hua's words. They meant death to him and the destruction

of his family. The bloody purpose of the king had been told to him

at the sacrificial altar, had been seen by him in the clouds, had

been whispered to him from the anu of the sanctuary.

"Since the gods so will it, I must submit to the sacrifice," was the

pious resolution of the priest; "but woe to the hand that strikes,

to the eyes that witness the blow, to the land that drinks the blood

of the son of Laamakua!"

Luahoomoe had two sons, Kaakakai and Kaanahua. Both were connected

with the priesthood, and Kaakakai had been instructed in all the

mysteries of the order in anticipation of his succession, on the death

of his father, to the position of high-priest. They were young men of

intelligence, and their lives had been blameless. Knowing that they

would not be spared, Luahoomoe advised them to leave Hana at once

and secrete themselves in the mountains, and suggested Hanaula, an

elevated spur of the mighty crater of Haleakala, as the place where

they would be most likely to escape observation.

But a few weeks before Kaakakai had become the husband of the beautiful

Oluolu, the daughter of a distinguished chief who had lost his life in

Hua's first expedition against Hilo. Twice had she sought the heiau

for protection against the emissaries of Hua, who had been ordered

to seize and bring her to the royal mansion, and in both instances

Luahoomoe had given her the shelter of the sacred enclosure. It was

there that Kaakakai first met her, and, charmed no less by her beauty

than her abhorrence of the lascivious intents of the king, he soon

persuaded her to become his wife. But, even as his wife, Kaakakai

did not deem her secure from the evil designs of the king, and had

found an asylum for her in the humble home of a distant relative in a

secluded valley four or five miles back of Hana, where he frequently

visited her and cheered her with assurances of his love.

As the danger was imminent, Luahoomoe urged his sons to leave Hana

without delay, promising Kaakakai that he would visit Oluolu the next

day, and apprise her of her husband's flight and the place to which he

had fled for concealment. But the old priest did not live to fulfil his

promise, and Oluolu was left in ignorance of the fate of her husband.

Early next morning the bird-hunters returned, bringing with them a

large number of birds, including the uau and ulili, all of which,

they averred, had been caught in the mountains, when in reality they

had been snared on the sea-shore.

Hua summoned the high-priest, and, pointing to the birds, said:

"All these birds were snared in the mountains. You are therefore

condemned to die as a false prophet who has been abandoned by his gods,

and a deceiver of the people, who are entitled to the protection of

their king."

Taking one of the birds in his hand, the priest calmly replied:

"These birds did not come from the mountains; they are rank with the

odor of the sea."

But the hoalii of the king steadfastly maintained that the birds

had been snared in the mountains, and Hua declared the assurance

of the hunters to be sufficient to outweigh the flimsy testimony of

the priest.

Luahoomoe saw that he was doomed, and that the hunters had been

schooled to sustain the lying assertion of the hoalii; yet he resolved

to disconcert them all and make good his position, no matter what

might be the result. He therefore asked permission to open a few of

the birds, and the king sullenly granted it.

"Select them yourself," said the priest to the hoalii, and the latter

took from the heap and handed to him three birds. The priest opened

them, and the crops of all were found to be filled with small fish

and bits of sea-weed.

"Behold my witness!" exclaimed the priest, pointing to the eviscerated

birds, and turning toward the hoalii with a look of triumph.

Confounded and enraged at the development, Hua seized a javelin,

and without a word savagely drove it into the breast of Luahoomoe,

killing him on the spot. A shudder ran through the witnesses as the

venerable victim fell to the earth, for violence to a high-priest

was a crime almost beyond comprehension; but the king coolly handed

the bloody weapon to an attendant, and, with a remorseless glance at

the dying priest, leisurely walked away.

Sending for Luuana, he immediately elevated him to the dignity of

high-priest, and ordered the body of Luahoomoe to be laid upon the

altar of the heiau. The house of the dead priest was then burned,

in accordance with ancient custom, and the king's executioners were

despatched with attendants in search of the sons of Luahoomoe.

Proud of his newly-acquired honors, Luuana made preparations for

extensive sacrifices, and then proceeded to the heiau with the body

of Luahoomoe. As he approached the gate of the outer enclosure, the

tall pea, or wooden cross indicative of the sanctity of the place,

fell to the ground, and on reaching the inner court the earth began

to quake, groans issued from the carved images of the gods, and the

altar sank into the earth, leaving an opening from which issued fire

and smoke. The attendants dropped the body of the priest and fled

from the heiau in dismay, followed by the no less frightened Luuana.

The priests of the temple, who knew nothing of the death of Luahoomoe

until they beheld his body about to be offered in sacrifice, stood for

a moment awe-stricken at what was transpiring around them. They had

been taught that the heiau was the only place of safety for them in

a time of danger, and after the flight of Luuana and his attendants

they tenderly conveyed the body of the high-priest to a hut within

the enclosure to prepare it for burial.

Luuana repaired in haste to the halealii to report to the king what

had occurred at the heiau. But his story excited but little surprise

in Hua, for events quite as overwhelming were occurring all around

them. The earth was affected with a slight but continuous tremor; a

hot and almost suffocating wind had set in from the southward; strange

murmurs were heard in the air; the skies were crimson, and drops of

blood fell from the clouds; and finally reports came from all parts of

Hana that the streams, wells and springs were no longer yielding water,

and a general flight of the people to the mountains had commenced.

Such chiefs as could be found were hastily called together in

council. Hua was completely subdued, and admitted that he had angered

the gods by killing Luahoomoe. But what was to be done? Perhaps

the sons of the martyred priest might be appealed to. But where were

they? No one knew. It was suggested that a hundred human sacrifices be

offered, but Luuana declined to appear again at the heiau, and resigned

his office of high-priest. Another was appointed, and the sacrifices

were ceremoniously offered. The mu had no difficulty in obtaining

victims, for the people were desperate and offered themselves by

scores. But the drought continued, and the general suffering increased

from day to day. All other signs of the displeasure of the gods had

passed away.

Other sacrifices were offered in great profusion, and an imu-loa was

constructed, where human bodies were baked and in that form presented

to the gods. But the springs and streams, remained dry, and the clouds

dropped no rain.

The gods were redecorated, and the erection of a new heiau was

commenced, but the people remaining in the district were too few

and too weak to complete it; and a strict tabu was declared for a

season of ten days, but the people were too desperate to observe it,

and no attempt was made to punish those who disregarded it. Many

drowned themselves, insane from thirst, and such as could procure the

poisonous mixture died from the effects of koheoheo administered by

their own hands.

The drought extended to the mountains, and the people fled beyond; but

wherever they went the streams became dry and the rains ceased. The

pestilence became known in western Maui, and the famishing refugees

were driven back in attempting to enter that district.

After vainly attempting to stay the dreadful scourge, and seeing

his kingdom nearly depopulated, Hua secretly embarked with a few

of his attendants for Hawaii. He landed in the district of Kona;

but the drought followed him. Wherever he went the fresh waters sank

into the earth and the clouds yielded no rain. And so he journeyed on

from place to place, carrying famine and misery with him, until in the

course of his wanderings, occupying more than three years, he rendered

almost one-half of the island of Hawaii a desolation. Finally he died,

as the gods had decreed, of thirst and starvation--one legend says

in a temple of Kohala--and his bones were left to dry in the sun;

and the saying of "rattling are the bones of Hua in the sun," or

"dry are the bones of Hua in the sun," has come down to the present

as a significant reference to the fate of one high in power who defied

the gods and persecuted the priesthood.

But rainless skies and drought did not mark alone the footsteps of Hua

and his attendants. Wherever the despairing people of the district

went the same affliction followed. Some of them sailed to Hawaii,

others to Molokai and Oahu, and a few to Kauai; but nowhere could

they find relief. Everywhere the drought kept pace with them, and

famine and suffering were the result throughout the entire group. The

diviners had discovered the cause of the scourge, but neither prayers

nor sacrifices could avert or ameliorate it. And so it continued for

nearly three and a half years.