HIIAKA CHOOSES THE ROUTE THROUGH PANA-EWA
Two routes offered themselves for Hiiaka's choice, a makai road,
circuitous but safe, the one ordinarily pursued by travelers; the
other direct but bristling with danger, because it traversed the
territory of the redoubtable witch-mo'o, Pana-ewa. Hiiaka had deigned
to appeal to the girl Pa-pulehu, she being a kamaaina [15], as if for
information. When Hiiaka announced her determination to take the short
road, the one of danger that struck through the heart of Pana-ewa,
Pa-pulehu drew back in dismay and expostulated: "That is not a fit
road for us, or for any but a band of warriors. If we go that way we
shall be killed." She broke forth with lamentations, bewailing her
coming fate and the desolation that was about to visit her family.
As they advanced Wahine-oma'o descried a gray scare-crow object
motionless in the road ahead of them. She thought it to be the blasted
stump of a kukui tree. Hiiaka recognized its true character, the
witch-form taken as a disguise by a mo'o. It was a scout sent out by
Pana-ewa; in real character a hag, but slimed with a gray excrement to
give it closer resemblance to a mouldering tree-stump. The deceiving
art of magic did not avail against Hiiaka. She rushed forward to
give the death stroke to the foul thing, which at once groveled in
the dirt in its true form.
Night overtook them in a dense forest. While the others lay and slept,
Hiiaka reconnoitered the situation. The repose of the wilderness
was unbroken save for the restless flitting of a solitary bird that
peered at Hiiaka obtrusively. It was a spy in the employ of Pana-ewa
and its actions roused the lively suspicions of Hiiaka, eliciting
from her an appropriate incantation:
Ka wai mukiki ale lehua a ka manu,
Ka awa ili lena i ka uka o Ka-li'u,
Ka manu aha'i lau awa o Puna:
Aia i ka laau ka awa o Puna.
Mapu mai kona aloha ia'u--
Hoolaau mai ana ia'u e moe.
E moe no au, e-e!
TRANSLATION
O honey-dew sipped by the bird,
Distilled from the fragrant lehua;
O yellow-barked awa that twines
In the upper lands of Ka-li'u;
O bird that brews from this leafage
Puna's bitter-sweet awa draught;--
Puna's potentest awa grows
Aloft in the crotch of the trees.
It wafts the seduction to sleep,
That I lock my senses in sleep!
It was a subtle temptation that suggested the awa cup as a relief
for her troubles. Hiiaka had need that all her faculties should give
her their best service. For her to have slept at this time would have
been fatal. Her song well expressed it:
E nihi ka hele i ka uka o Puna;
Mai ako i ka pua,
O lilo i ke ala o ka hewahewa.
Ua huná ia ke kino i ka pohaku,
O ka pua na'e ke ahu nei i ke alanui--
Alanui hele o ka unu kupukupu, e-e;--
Ka ulí-a!
A kaunu no anei oe o ke aloha la?
Hele a'e a komo i ka hale o Pele;
Ua huahua'i i Kahiki; lapa uila,
Pele e, hua'i'na ho'i!
TRANSLATION
Heed well your way in upland Puna;
Pluck never a single flower;
Lest you stray from the path.
The shape lies hid neath a stone,
The path is one carpet of flowers,
The blocks of stumbling overgrown.
Quick follows the downfall!
Is there a compact between us of love?
Fly, voice, assail the ear of Pele!
Erupt, Kahiki, with lightning flash!
Now, Pele, burst forth in thy might!
Pana-ewa entrusted the work of reconnaissance and scouting for
information to two of his creatures named Ke-anini and Ihi-kalo, while
he lay down and slept. Having done their work, the two scouts waked
the drowsy monster in the middle of the night with the information
that four human beings, women, had entered his domain and were coming
towards him. "Where are they?" he asked.
"Out in this direction (pointing), and they are moving this way."
"Well, this day of fasting has gone by. What a pity, however,
that the poi in my calabash has turned sour, but the taro is
sweet. Eye-balls! what juicy, delicious morsels! The day of privation
turns out to be a day of feasting." Thus muttered the cannibal monster,
gloating like Polyphemus in his cave at the prospect of a feast.
Hiiaka kept her own courage at the fine point of seeming indifference,
she also inspired her companions with the same feeling by the calm
confidence displayed in her singing:
Pau ke aho i ke kahawai lau o Hilo:
He lau ka pu'u, he mano ka iho'na;
He mano na kahawai o Kula'i-po;
He wai Honoli'i, he pali o Kama-e'e,
He pali no Koolau ka Hilo-pali-ku;
He pali Wailuku, he one ke hele ia;
He one e ke'ehia la i Wai-olama.
He aka ka wi a ka wai i Pana-ewa--
O Pana-ewa nui, moku-lehua,
Ohi'a kupu hao'eo'e i ka ua,
Lehua ula i ka wi' ia e ka manu.
A ua po, e, po Puna, po Hilo
I ka uahi o ku'u aina.
By Pana-ewa.--
"Ola ia kini! ke a mai la ke ahi, e-e!"
TRANSLATION
One's strength is exhausted, climbing, climbing
The countless valleys and ridges of Hilo,--
The streams without number of Ku-la'i-po,
The mighty water of Hono-li'i,
The precipice walls of Kama-e'e,
And the pali of Ko'olau:
Such a land is Hilo-pali-ku.
The banks of Wailuku are walls;
The road to its crossing but sand;
Sandy the way at Wai-o-lama.
How cheery the purl of these waters!--
Great Pana-ewa--her parks of lehua,
Scraggy in growth yet scarlet a-top,
Its nectar wrung out by the birds!
Black night covers Puna and Hilo,
A pall from the smoke of my home land!
(By Pana-ewa).
"Here's food for me and mine!
Behold the blaze of the ovens!"
(The last two lines are said to be the utterance of Pana-ewa
who feigned to regard the fires as those of his own people, who,
in anticipation of an easy victory, had made ready their ovens to
receive the bodies of Hiiaka and her party.)
Hiiaka bravely answered Pana-ewa:
O Pana-ewa, ohi'a loloa,
Ohi'a uliuli i ka uä,
I moku pewa ia
E ka laau o kepakepa,
A ka uka i Haili la.
Ilihia, ilihia i ka leo--
He leo wale no, e!
TRANSLATION
Pana-ewa, a tall ohi'a,
The fruit red-ripe in the rain,
Is vilely slashed with the stick
Of the mountaineer.
It stands in upland Haili:
Terrific--the voice is terrific;
Yet it's merely a voice!
"The voice was threatening only because my servants reported that
some people were trespassing. That set my tongue agoing about poi -
- - and - taro. - - - After all it's a question of strength. Your
valor it is that must win for you a passage through this land of mine."
This was Pana-ewa's ultimatum.
Hiiaka accepted the defiance of Pana-ewa by chanting a solemn kahoahoa,
which was at once a confident prediction of victory and an appeal to
the gods:
Kua loloa Keäau i ka nahele hala;
Kua huluhulu Pana-ewa i ka laau;
Inoino ka maha, ka ohi'a o La'a, e;
Ku kepakepa ka maha o ka laau,
U-á po'ohina i ka wela a ke Akua;
U-a-uahi Puna o ka oloka'a pohaku ia,
I ka huná pa'a ia e ka Wahine.
Nanahu ahi ka ka papa o Olueä;
Momoku ahi Puna, hala i Apua;
Ulu-á ka nahele me ka laau;
Ka ke kahiko ia o Papa-lau-ahi.
Ele-i [16] kahiko, e Ku-lili-kaua;
Ka ia, [17] hea [18] hala o Ka-li'u;
E ne [19] ka La, ka malama;
Onakaka ka piko [20] o Hilo i ke one,
I hu-lá [21] ia aku la e, hulihia i kai.
Ua wawahia, ua nahahá,
Ua he-helelei ka papa i Pua-le'i, e!
TRANSLATION
Long is the reach of Keäau's palms;
Bristly-backed Pana-ewa's woodlands;
Spoiled are the restful groves of La'a;
Ragged and patchy the tree-clumps--
Gray their heads from the ravage of fire.
A blanket of smoke covers Puna--
All paved with the dump from Her stone-yard.
The Goddess' fire bites Olu-eä--
One cinder-heap clean to Apua;
Food for Her oven are wildwood and brush--
The finish that to Lau-ahi's glory:
Her robe now is changed to jetty black,
At the onset of Ku-lili-kaua,
Ka-liu's palms plucked root and branch.
The Sun and the Moon are blotted out;
Hilo is shaken to its foundation,
Its lands upheaved, despoiled to the sea,
Shattered, fissured, powdered, reduced;
Its plain is ashes and dust!
The battle that ensued when Pana-ewa sent to the attack his nondescript
pack of mo'o, dragonlike anthropoids, the spawn of witchcraft,
inflamed with the spite of demons, was hideous and uncanny. Tooth
and claw ran amuck. Flesh was torn, limbs rent apart, blood ran like
water. If it had been only a battle with enemies in the open Hiiaka
would have made short work of the job. Her foes lay ambushed in every
wood and brake and assumed every imaginable disguise. A withered bush,
a bunch of grass, a moss-grown stone, any, the most innocent object
in nature, might prove to be an assailant ready to spit venom or
tear with hook and talon. Hiiaka had need of every grain of wit and
every spark of courage in her nature. Nothing could withstand her
onset and the billows of attack against her person were broken as by
a solid rock. Some described her as wielding a flaming battle-ax and
hurling missiles of burning sulphur. They might well be deceived. The
quickness of her every motion was a counterfeit of the riving blade or
blazing fire-ball. Some assert that, in her frenzy, she tore with her
teeth and even devoured the reeking flesh until her stomach rose in
rebellion. Such a notion seems incompatible with the violence of her
disgust for the reptilian blood that besmeared her from sole to crown.
Paú-o-pala'e, using her magical paú as a besom of destruction, was
transformed into a veritable Bellona; and Wahine-oma'o displayed the
courage of an amazon. These both escaped serious injury. The unhappy
fate of Pa-pulehu realized that girl's premonition. She fell into
the hands of the enemy and, as if to fulfill the prediction of Pele,
became "food for the gods of Pana-ewa."
As Hiiaka glanced heavenward, she saw the zenith filled with
cloud-forms--Kane, Kanaloa, Ka-moho-alii, Poha-kau and others,
encouraging her with their looks. The sight, while it cheered, wrung
from her a fervent prayer:
Kela pae opua i ka lani, e,
Ke ka'i a'e la mauka o Poha-kau.
He kaukau, aloha keia ia oe,
Ia oe no, e-e-e!
TRANSLATION
Yon group of god-forms, that float
And sail with the clouds heaven-high,
Mustered and led by Poha-kau;
This prayer is a love-call to you!
"Our sister is in trouble," said Ka-moho-alii, "let us go to her
assistance!" Such was the call of Ka-moho-alii when he saw his little
friend and quondam protegé Hiiaka in trouble, and theirs were the
god-forms that sailed through the sky to reinforce her.