LOHIAU COMES TO HIMSELF--HIS DEATH--THE THREAT OF PAOA
When Lohiau came to himself, as from a dream, he looked for the woman
who had lain at his side, but her place was vacant and cold. He went
out into the open air, but she was nowhere to be found, and he turned
back into the empty house.
Lohiau's stay with Pele in the sleeping house had prolonged itself
beyond all reason and his friends became concerned about him; and as
night after night and day after day passed and they neither saw nor
heard anything of him, their concern grew into alarm. Yet no one dared
enter the house. Lohiau's sister, however, made it her business to
investigate. Opening the door of the house, she entered, and, lo,
there hung the body of her brother, suspended from a rafter, his
malo about his neck. Life had been gone for many hours and the body
was cold. Her screams brought to her aid a group of Lohiau's friends
who at once lifted their voices in unison with hers, bewailing their
chief's death and denouncing the woman who had been with him as the
guilty cause.
Paoa was the most outspoken in his imprecations. Stripping off his
malo, he stood forth in the garb of nature and declared he would not
resume his loin cloth until he had sought out the woman and humiliated
her by the grossest of insults. "I will not gird my loins with a
malo until I have kindled a fire in Pele's face, pounded her face as
one pounds a taro, consumed her very eyes." This was the savage oath
with which Paoa pledged his determination to avenge the death of his
friend, his chief, Lohiau. With universal wailing, amid the waving
of kahilis, with tender care and the observance of all due rites,
his people anointed the dear body of their chief with perfumed oil,
wrapped it in scented robes of choicest tapa, and laid it to rest in
the sepulcher.
The favorite dog of Lohiau, who was greatly attached to his
master, took his station at the grave and would not be persuaded to
leave. Poha-kau, a cousin of Pele,--himself a kupua and possessed
of superhuman powers,--having journeyed from Hawaii to Haena, found
the faithful creature keeping his lonely vigil at the grave and he
brought the dog with him to Pele.
"Your man is dead; Lohiau is dead," said he. "But this animal--do
you recognize him?--I found watching by the grave in Haena."
"Yes, that is the dog I saw with Lohiau," answered Pele; and she hid
the dog away in her secret place.