HIWA
A TALE OF
ANCIENT
HAWAII
EDMUND
P. DOLE
[Illustration]
HARPER &
BROTHERS
NEW YORK AND
LONDON _MCM_
Copyright, 1900, by Edmund P. Dole.
_All rights reserved._
TO
SANFORD BALLARD DOLE
[Decoration]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Ku is Avenged 1
II. The Vow 8
III. A Royal Marriage 11
IV. The Rescue of the Boat 17
V. Training a Warrior 28
VI. Hiwa's Visit 38
VII. Hiwa's Teachings 44
VIII. Manoa 51
IX. Kaanaana 66
X. "The Thunderbolt is Swifter than the Thunder" 71
XI. Over the Mountains 78
XII. The Battle 84
XIII. The Sacrifice 91
Glossary 99
HIWA
A TALE OF ANCIENT HAWAII
CHAPTER I
KU IS AVENGED
THE first glimmering of dawn rested on Waipio Valley. The _moi kane_,
his great nobles and chief officers of state, his personal attendants,
his guards, heralds, priests, diviners, bards, story-tellers, dancers,
and buffoons, the whole _aialo_, even to the lowest menials of the
court, slept the deep sleep that follows a night of heavy eating and
heavier drinking. All slept except Aa, the terrible high-priest, and a
few score men of his personal following. The royal city was silent.
It lay among surroundings both lovely and grand. The valley itself,
only a few feet above sea-level and flat as a Western prairie, was,
then as now, rich almost beyond exaggeration, and green with all
edible products of the lowlands. It was thickly dotted with grass
huts, for in those times, before the great wars and centuries before
the white strangers came with their loathsome diseases that consumed
flesh and bone, the population was dense.
The valley fronted on the open ocean, unobstructed by land for
thousands of miles. On every other side it was shut in by rock walls
from two to three thousand feet high. At the southwest extremity the
Waipio River, cold from the mountain-side, clear and sparkling, fell
six hundred feet to a narrow shelf of rock, and then, dropping a
thousand feet more at a single plunge, suddenly became a sluggish
stream, with a current hardly perceptible, winding its tortuous way to
the sea. To the northwest were the Saw-Teeth of the Gods, wild and
picturesque verdure-clad mountains that to this day form impenetrable
barriers between the plantations of Hamakua and North Kohala. To the
southeast, stretching along the coast for a hundred miles, were the
rich highlands of Hamakua, Hilo and Puna, rising, ever rising, as they
recede from the sea until they reach the dizzy heights of Mauna Kea,
and of Mauna Loa, where eternal winter wages intermittent war with
rock fires from the bowels of the earth.
In the gray twilight of that morning, centuries ago, Eaeakai paddled
his fishing-canoe down the Waipio River and up the coast, straight to
the Saw-Teeth of the Gods. In the early morning there was good fishing
opposite those stupendous cliffs, and Eaeakai had taken to himself a
buxom _wahine_, who could not live on love alone any more than if she
were a _haole_ bride, but had to have her fish and poi. He was also in
daily expectation of another responsibility. Thus far there had always
been fish and poi in his hut, for he was industrious and thrifty, rich
for a landless freeman, _kanaka-wale_, as his _kaukehi_ or single
dug-out was the trimmest and swiftest on all the Windward Coast. Best
of all, he was a happy man, for he was very much in love with his own
wife. So he chanted a love _mele_ as he bent to his work.
He had scarcely reached his fishing-ground and baited his turtle-shell
hook when he heard a rustling sound overhead. As he looked up he
caught glimpses through the dense foliage of a woman, in the garb of
Eve, rapidly making her way down the steep declivity, regardless of
the sharp thorns and terrible lava that cut and tore her hands and
feet and body. Yet, in spite of her desperate haste, and at the peril
of her life, she firmly clutched and carefully guarded from rock and
thorn the _mamo_ which royalty alone might wear and live.
Eaeakai gazed for a moment, dumb and motionless with amazement. Then
he flung himself upon his face, crying, "_E moe o! E moe o! Hiwa, Moi
Wahine!_"
Hiwa gave command before she reached the bottom of the
cliff--"Fisherman, bring me the boat! _Wiki wiki!_ Quick!"
Kneeling in his canoe, Eaeakai paddled to the shore and prostrated
himself with his face to the ground, for well he knew that by Hawaiian
law it was death for a common man like him to stand in the presence or
in the shadow of Hiwa, _alii-niaupio, tabu moi wahine_, goddess-queen.
She sprang into the canoe, seized the paddle, and sped up the coast.
Eaeakai lay grovelling on the ground until she was a goodly distance
from him. Then he sat up and began to realize that probably he was
ruined. His boat, which made him the envy of fishermen for fifty miles
around, and upon which he had spent months of patient toil, was gone.
It was his pride, his wealth, his livelihood. Hiwa was fleeing from
enemies. He could expect no reward if she should escape and return in
triumph, for he was beneath her notice; but, if she should be
overtaken and slain, the service he had rendered her would not be
forgiven. The boat would tell the story, and he would be hunted down
and killed or offered a sacrifice to the gods.
Presently, as he turned his eyes in the direction of his home, he saw
a great war canoe approaching. He hid behind a rock and watched it.
He counted twenty-six warriors at the paddles, and recognized Aa, the
high-priest, commanding them. They had caught sight of Hiwa, and were
doing their utmost to overtake her.
Eaeakai knew that an heir to the throne was expected. Who in all the
land did not? "If it were not for her condition," he said to himself,
"she might give them a long chase; but the end would be the same."
Her enemies rapidly gained on her, although she handled the paddle
with marvelous strength and skill, and she seemed to have no chance of
escape. Suddenly she plunged into the water and disappeared.
Her pursuers hastened to the spot. One of them reached out to save the
boat, a chattel of great value to a Hawaiian; but the fanatical
high-priest interposed. "Let it dash itself to pieces on the rocks!"
he exclaimed. "It is accursed! _Tabu!_"
The shore at that point was a traverse section of one of the huge
Saw-Teeth, rising from deep water nearly perpendicularly two thousand
feet into the air. No living creature, save some insect or reptile
that clings to the bare face of a rock, could obtain a foothold there.
Hiwa was not a lizard to cling to that cliff, and if she were, she
would be in plain sight. Neither was she a bird to soar above and
beyond it. She was not a fish; if still alive, she must come to the
surface. After watching for her long and anxiously, they discovered a
few drops of blood. A sharp fin above the waves, slowly moving
seaward, afforded a ready explanation.
The high-priest's face lighted with savage triumph as he cried:
"Ukanipo, the Shark-God, hath her! Ku is avenged!"
So thought Eaeakai. "Black death hangs over me!" he wailed. "Lilii
will have no _kane_ to bring her fish and poi and the little _keike_
will be fatherless from its birth!"
The story of the death of Hiwa and of the unborn heir to the throne
spread from lip to lip through the nation, and all men believed it and
said, "Ukanipo, the Shark-God, hath her! Ku is avenged!" And a great
fear fell upon them, the fear of Aa, the terrible high-priest of Ku.