WHAT HIIAKA SAW FROM THE HEIGHT OF POHA-KEA
To return now to Hiiaka, who, after a hot climb, is standing on
the summit of Poha-kea; she is gazing with rapt and clear vision
far away in the direction of her own home-land, her moku lehua,
in Puna. Her eyes, under the inspiration of the moment, disregard
the ocean foreground, on whose gently heaving bosom might be seen
the canoe that holds Lohiau and Wahine-oma'o snailing along to its
appointed rendezvous. Her mind is busy interpreting the unusual signs
written in the heavens: a swelling mountainous mass of flame-shot
clouds, boiling up from some hidden source. It spells ruin and
desolation--her own forest-parks blasted and fire-smitten; but,
saddest and most heart-rending of all is the thought that her own
Hopoe, the beautiful, the accomplished, the generous, the darling
of her heart--Hopoe has been swallowed up in the rack. Hopoe, whose
accepted emblem and favorite poetical metamorphosis was a tall lehua
tree in full blossom, is now a scarred rock teetotumed back and forth
by the tides and waves of the ocean. This thought, however much she
would put it aside, remained to fester in her heart.
(We omit at this point a considerable number of mele which are ascribed
to Hiiaka and declared to have been sung by her while occupying this
mountain perch at Poha-kea. Application to them of the rule that
requires conformity to a reasonable standard of relevancy to the main
purpose of the narrative results in their exclusion.)
The song next given--by some dubbed a pule, because of its serious
purpose, no doubt--seems to be entitled to admission to the narrative:
Aluna au a Poha-kea,
Ku au, nana ia Puna:
Po Puna i ka ua awaawa;
Pohina Puna i ka ua noenoe;
Hele ke a i kai o ka La-hiku o a'u lehua,
O a'u lehua i aina [351] ka manu;
I lahui [352] ai a kapu.
Aia la, ke huki'a [353] la i kai o Nana-huki--
Hula le'a wale i kai o Nana-huki, e!
TRANSLATION
On the heights of Poha-kea
I stand and look forth on Puna:
Puna, pelted with bitter rain,
Veiled with a downpour black as night!
Gone, gone are my forests, lehuas
Whose bloom once gave the birds nectar!
Yet they were insured with a promise!
Look, how the fire-fiends flit to and fro!
A merry dance for them to the sea,
Down to the sea at Nana-huki!
Hiiaka now pays attention to the doings of the people on the canoe in
the offing. It is necessary to explain that, on landing at Mokuleia,
she had ordered her two companions to continue their voyage and meet
her on the other side of Cape Kaena whose pointed beak lay close at
hand. Lohiau, nothing loath--a pretty woman was company enough for
him--turned the prow of the canoe seaward and resumed his paddle. After
passing the cape, the ocean calmed, making the work of steering much
less arduous. Now it was that Lohiau, feeling the warm blood of young
manhood swell the cockles of his heart and finding opportunity at hand,
made ardent love to his attractive voyage-companion. He pressed nose
and lip against her's and used every argument to bring her to accept
his point of view.
Wahine-oma'o had a mind of her own and though not at all averse to love
and its doings and though very much drawn to this lover in particular,
she decidedly objected to compromising her relations with Hiiaka,
but above all, with the dread mistress of the Volcano, with whom
she must ere long make reckoning. Like Pele, Wahine-oma'o permitted
the kisses of Lohiau for a time, but, knowing that passion grows by
what it feeds on, she presently cut short his rations and told him to
behave himself, enforcing her denial with the unanswerable argument
that she was well persuaded that they would be seen by Hiiaka. It was
even so. It was worse. Hiiaka did not content herself with throwing
temptation before Lohiau, as one might place raw meat before a hungry
dog; by some witchery of psychologic power she stirred him up to do
and dare, yet at the same time she impelled Wahine-oma'o to accept,
but only a certain degree, for she carefully set bounds to their
conduct. And this, be it understood, is but the opening act of a
campaign in which Hiiaka resolves to avenge herself on Pele.
When at length Hiiaka centered her attention on the actions of
the people in the canoe, it needed but a glance to tell her that
the contagium planted in the soil of Lohiau's mind had worked to a
charm. Her own description--though in figures that seem high-wrought
and foreign to our imaginations--had better tell the tale:
Aluna au o Poha-kea,
Wehe ka ilio [354] i kona kapa;
Hanai alualu [355] i ke kula o Miki-kala, [356]
I ke kula o Puha-maló[356]
Hakaká, kipikipi o Kai-a-ulu [357] me ke kanáka;
Ua ku'i-ku'i wale a ha'ina [358] na ihu;
Ua ka i ka u me ka waimaka,
I ke kula o Lualua-lei, [359] e!
Ku'u lei aloha no olua no, e!
TRANSLATION
I stand ahigh on Poha-kea;
The dog of storm strips off his robe;
A zephyr fans yon heated plain of
Miki-kala and Puha-maló:--
Wild strife 'tween the man and the Sea breeze:
I see noses flattened, broken,
Fountains become of water and tears!
This my garland of love to you two!
Hiiaka's voice had the precious quality of carrying her words and
making them audible to a great distance, when she so willed. Her
song, therefore, did not, on this occasion, waste itself in the
wilderness of space. The caution it imposed had its effect. Lohiau
and Wahine-oma'o calmed their passionate contentions and proceeded
discreetly on their way. Having passed Kalae-loa, [360] their canoe
swung into that inverted arc of Oahu's coastline, in the middle of
which glisten, like two parted rows of white teeth, the coral bluffs
that were the only guard at the mouth of Pearl Lochs.
Before descending from her vantage ground on Pohakea, Hiiaka indulged
her fancy in a song that was of a different strain. Looking towards
Hilo, she describes the rivers, swollen by heavy rains, rushing
impetuously along in bounding torrents, while men and women leap into
the wild current and are lifted on its billows as by the ocean waves:
A makani Kua-mú [361] lehua ko uka;
Ke ho'o-wa'a-wa'a a'e la
E uä i Hana-kahi, [362] e-e:
Ke uä la, uä mai la Hilo
A moku kahawai, piha akú la
Na hale Lehua [363] a ke kai, e-e!
TRANSLATION
Kua-mú pays toll to the forests--
Cloud-columns that veer and sway,
Freighted with rain for Hilo,
The Hilo of Hana-kahi.
The channels are full to the brim--
A tide that will flood ocean's caverns,
The home of the mermaid Lehua.
After a moment's pause she resumed, though in quite a different strain:
Aia no ke 'kua la i uka;
Ke hoá la i ka papa a enaena,
A pulelo [364] mai ka ohi'a o ka lua;
Maewa [365] ke po'o, pu'u, newa i ka makani,
I ka hoonaue ia e ka awaawa, e-e!
TRANSLATION
The god is at work in the hills;
She has fired the plain oven-hot;
The forest-fringe of the pit is aflame;--
Fire-tongues, fire-globes, that sway in the wind--
The fierce bitter breath of the Goddess!
As the canoe drew near to the appointed rendezvous at Pu'u-loa,
Hiiaka lifted her voice in a chanting song addressed to Lohiau and
Wahine-oma'o:
Ku'u aikane i ke awa lau [366] o Pu'uloa,
Mai ke kula o Pe'e-kaua, [367] ke noho oe,
E noho kaua e kui, e lei i ka pua o ke kauno'a, [368]
I ka pua o ke akuli-kuli, [369] o ka wili-wili; [370]
O ka iho'na o Kau-pe'e i Kane-hili, [371]
Ua hili [372] au; akahi no ka hili o ka la pomaika'i;
Aohe mo-ewa'a [373] o ka po, e moe la nei.
E Lohiau ipo, e Wahine-oma'o,
Hoe 'a mai ka wa'a i a'e aku au.
TRANSLATION
We meet at Ewa's leaf-shaped lagoon, friends;
Let us sit, if you will, on this lea
And bedeck us with wreaths of Kauno'a,
Of akuli-kuli and wili-wili.
My soul went astray in this solitude;
It lost the track for once, in spite of luck,
As I came down the road to Kau-pe'a.
No nightmare dream was that which tricked my soul.
This way, dear friends; turn the canoe this way;
Paddle hither and let me embark.
Hiiaka again in command, the tiger in Lohiau's nature slunk away
into its kennel, allowing his energies to spend themselves in useful
work. Under his vigorous paddle the little craft once more moved like
a thing of life and long before night found itself off the harbor of
Kou, the name then applied to what we now call Honolulu.