THE VOYAGE TO MAUI
Hiiaka's voyage across the Ale-nui-haha channel, considered merely
as a sea adventure, was a tame experience. There was no storm, no
boistrous weather, sea as calm as a mill-pond, nothing to fillip the
imagination with a sense of excitement or danger; yet it was far from
being an agreeable experience to the young woman who was now having
her first hand-to-hand tussle with the world.
They had spent the night at the house of one Pi'i-ke-a-nui. In the
early morning their host and a younger man--apparently his son--named
Pi'i-ke-a-iki, made ready their canoe to sail for Maui. Hiiaka,
assuming that passage would be granted both of them, in accordance
with a promise made the previous day, stood ready against the hour
of departure. At the last moment, the younger man, having assisted
Wahine-oma'o to her seat in the bow next to himself, called to his
elder, "Pi'i-ke-a-nui, why don't you show your passenger to her seat,
the one next you?"
"I won't do it," Pi'i-ke-a-nui answered groutily. "I find that the
canoe will be overloaded if we take passengers aboard and all our
landlord's freight will get wet."
The real reason for this volte-face on the part of the old sailor was
that he had made an unseemly proposition to Hiiaka the night before
and she had repelled him.
Wahine-oma'o, thereupon, left her seat and the canoe started without
them. It was not more than fairly underway, however, when a violent
sea struck the craft and swamped it, and all the loose freight was
floating about in the ocean.
"There, you see! We'd 'ave had better luck with the women aboard." Such
was the exclamation of Pi'i-ke-a-iki.
It did not take long to convince the old man Pi'i-ke-a-nui, who was
captain of the canoe, that he had invited this disaster on himself,
the agent of which, as he rightly suspected, was none other than the
distinguished-looking young woman who now stood on the beach watching
him in his predicament with unperturbed countenance.
The two men floated their canoe, collected their baggage and came
ashore. When they had got the stuff dry and stowed in the waist of
the craft, they escorted the women aboard, seating Wahine-oma'o, as
directed by the captain, in the bow near Pi'i-ke-a-iki and Hiiaka in
the after part, within arm's length of Pi'i-ke-a-nui, and they put
to sea.
The canoe was a small affair, unprovided with that central platform,
the pola, that might serve as the cabin or quarter deck, on which the
passengers could stretch themselves for comfort. In her weariness,
Hiiaka, with her head toward the bow, reclined her body against
the top rail of the canoe, thus eking out the insufficiency of the
narrow thwart that was her seat; and she fell asleep, or rather,
entered that border-land of Nod, in which the central watchman has
not yet given over control of the muscular system and the ear still
maintains its aerial reconnoissance.
The wind, meanwhile, as it caromed aft from the triangular sail of mat,
coquetted with her tropical apparel and made paú and kihei shake like
summer leaves.
The steersman, in whom that precious factor, a chivalrous regard for
woman, was even of less value than is common to the savage breast,
in the pursuit of a fixed purpose, began to direct amorous glances at
the prostrate form before him and to the neglect of his own proper
duties. Presently he left his steering and stole up to Hiiaka with
privy paw outstretched. Hiiaka roused from her half-dreamy state on
the instant, and the man sprang back and resumed his paddle.
Hiiaka, with the utmost coolness, expressed in song her remonstrance
and sarcastic rebuke for this exhibition of inhospitable rudeness:
A Hono-ma-ele au, i Hono-ka-lani,
Ike au i ka ua o ko'u aina,
E halulu ana, me he kanaka la--
Ka ua ku a-o-a i kai.
Haki kaupaku o ka hale i ka ino, e!
Ino Ko'o-lau, ino Ko'o-lau, e-e!
TRANSLATION
With pillowed neck I lay, face to heaven:
The rain, I found, beat on my bed;
Came a tremor, like tread of a man--
The slap of a rain-squall at sea;
Within, the roof-tree broken down,
My house exposed to the storm,
My garden of herbs laid waste!
The young man added his protest: "Yes, his whole conduct is, indeed,
shameful, scandalous. He hasn't the decency to wait till he gets
ashore."
In the midst of this unpleasantness it was a comfort to hear the strong
cheerful voice of her former companion Paú-o-pala'e calling to her
across the stretch of waters. It will be remembered that their roads
had parted company sometime before Hiiaka had left the big island. The
separation had made no change, however, in their mutual affection:
O hele ana oe, e ka noe, e ka awa,
E na ki a Wahine-kapu,
E ka ua lele a'e maluna
O Ka-la-hiki-ola, la:
O hele ana, e!
TRANSLATION
Like a cloud you fleet by,
On the wings of the storm--
Vision of womanly tabu--
Of the rain-clouds that sweep
O'er the Hill-of-good-luck:
May you speed on your way!
Hiiaka replied to her kahu's mele in these words:
A noho ana,
E na hoaiku,
E na hoa haele,
I uka o Ka-li'u-la,
I Moe-awakea.
TRANSLATION
Kinsmen, allies, travel-mates,
You rest in upland Ka-li'u;
There taste you midday repose.
Perhaps it was that Hiiaka failed to manifest in her carriage and
department the dignity and tabu that hedges in an alii or an akua;
perhaps the rough hearted Pi'i-ke-a-nui, sailor-fashion, deemed himself
outside the realm of honor which rules on land. However that might
be, as Hiiaka lay decently covered against the cold wind that drew
down the flank of Hale-a-ka-la, this rude fellow, regardless of every
punctilio, stole up to Hiiaka and repeated his former attempt. Hiiaka
caught his hand in mid air and administered this rebuke:
O Ka-uwiki, mauna ki'eki'e,
Huki a'e la a pa i ka lani:
He po'o-hiwi no kai halulu;
Au ana Moku-hano i ke kai--
He maka no Hana,
O maka kilo i'a.
O kou maka kunou, a,
Ua hopu-hia.
TRANSLATION
Ka-uwiki, famous in story,
While buffeting ocean's blows,
Aspires to commerce with heaven.
Moku-hano's palms, that float
Like a boat in the water,
Are watchful eyes to Hana,
Alert for the passing school:
Your wanton vagrant eye
Is caught in the very act.
The canoe grated on the shingly beach. The two young women, rejoiced
to be free at last from the enforced proximity of ship-board, sprang
ashore and with speedy steps put a distance between themselves and
the canoe-house. "That's right," called out the steersman. "Make
haste to find a bath. We'll join you in a short time."