HAWAIIAN HISTORICAL LEGENDS
By
W. D. WESTERVELT
Author of “Maui the Demi-God of Polynesia”;
“Legends of Old Honolulu”; “Hawaiian Gods and Ghosts”;
“Around the Poi-bowl”; “Hawaiian Volcanoes,” etc.
ILLUSTRATED
New York Chicago
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh
To
my wife, Caroline Castle Westervelt,
and my son, Andrew Castle Westervelt,
this sixth of my books on Hawaiian
Literature is heartily dedicated.
PREFACE
From mist to sunshine—from fabled gods to a constitution and
legislature as a Territory of the United States—this is the outline of
the stories told in the present volume. This outline is thoroughly
Hawaiian in the method of presentation. The old people rehearsed
stories depending upon stories told before. They cared very little for
dates. This is a book of stories related to each other.
Veiled by the fogs of imagination are many interesting facts concerning
kings and chiefs which have been passed over untouched—such as the
voyages of the vikings of the Pacific, who left names and legends
around the islands. For instance, Hilo, in the island of Hawaii, is
named after Whiro, a noted viking who sailed through many island groups
with his brother, Punga, after whom the district of Puna is named.
Ka-kuhi-hewa, ruler of Oahu, was the King Arthur of the Hawaiians, with
a band of noted chiefs around his poi-bowl. Umi was a remarkable king
of the island Hawaii. Many individual incidents of these persons are
yet to be related.
The Hawaiian language papers since 1835, Fornander’s Polynesian
Researches, and many of the old Hawaiians have been of great assistance
in searching for these “fragments of Hawaiian history,” now set forth
in this book.
W. D. W.
PRONUNCIATION
In reading Hawaiian words do not end a syllable with a consonant, and
pronounce all vowels as if they were Italian or French.
a = a in father.
e = e in they.
i = i in pin.
o = o in hold.
u = oo in spoon.
This is a fairly good rule for the pronunciation of all Polynesian
words.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Maui the Polynesian 13
II. Maui Seeking Immortality 19
III. The Water of Life 24
IV. A Viking of the Pacific 35
V. Home of the Polynesians 41
VI. Sons of Kii 47
VII. Paao from Samoa 65
VIII. Moikeha the Restless 79
IX. Laa from Tahiti 86
X. First Foreigners 93
XI. Captain Cook 100
XII. The Ivory of Oahu 114
XIII. The Alapa Regiment 125
XIV. The Last Prophet of Oahu 143
XV. The Eight of Oahu 149
XVI. The Red Mouth Gun 155
XVII. The Law of the Splintered Paddle 162
XVIII. Last of the Tabu 176
XIX. First Hawaiian Printing 183
XX. The First Constitution 189
XXI. The Hawaiian Flag 200
Index 217
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Idols by Which Captain Cook Was Worshipped Title page
Spear Throwing Contest 62
Chiefs in Feather Cloaks and Helmets 88
Landing of Warriors 134
Hawaiian Grass Houses 172
First Leaflet Printed, 1822 184
Title Page of First Hymn Book, 1823 186
First Bible Printing, 1827 188
I
MAUI THE POLYNESIAN
Among the really ancient ancestors of the Hawaiian chiefs, Maui is one
of the most interesting. His name is found in different places in the
high chief genealogy. He belonged to the mist land of time. He was one
of the Polynesian demi-gods. He was possessed of supernatural power and
made use of all manner of enchantments. In New Zealand antiquity he was
said to have aided other gods in the creation of man.
Nevertheless he was very human. He lived in thatched houses, had wives
and children, and was scolded by the women for not properly supporting
his family. Yet he continually worked for the good of men. His
mischievous pranks would make him another Mercury living in any age
before the beginning of the Christian era.
When Maui was born his mother, not caring for him, cut off a lock of
her hair, tied it around him and cast him into the sea. In this way the
name came to him, Maui-Tiki-Tiki, “Maui formed in the topknot.”
The waters bore him safely. Jellyfish enwrapped him and mothered him.
The god of the seas protected him. He was carried to the god’s house
and hung up in the roof that he might feel the warm air of the fire and
be cherished into life.
When he was old enough he came to his relations while they were at
home, dancing and making merry. Little Maui crept in and sat down
behind his brothers. His mother called the children and found a strange
child, who soon proved that he was her son. Some of the brothers were
jealous, but the eldest addressed the others as follows:
“Never mind; let him be our dear brother. In the days of peace remember
the proverb, ‘When you are on friendly terms, settle your disputes in a
friendly way; when you are at war, you must redress your injuries by
violence.’ It is better for us, brothers, to be kind to other people.
These are the ways by which men gain influence—by labouring for
abundance of food to feed others, by collecting property to give to
others, and by similar means by which you promote the good of others.”
Thus, according to the New Zealand story related by Sir George Grey,
Maui was received in his home.
Maui’s home in Hawaii was for a long time enveloped in darkness.
According to some legends the skies pressed so closely and so heavily
upon the earth that when the plants began to grow all the leaves were
necessarily flat. According to other legends the plants had to push up
the clouds a little, and thus the leaves flattened out into larger
surface, so that they could better drive the skies back. Thus the
leaves became flat and have so remained through all the days of
mankind. The plants lifted the sky inch by inch until men were able to
crawl about between the heavens and the earth, thus passing from place
to place and visiting one another. After a long time Maui came to a
woman and said: “Give me a drink from your gourd calabash and I will
push the heavens higher.” The woman handed the gourd to him. When he
had taken a deep draught he braced himself against the clouds and
lifted them to the height of the trees. Again he hoisted the sky and
carried it to the tops of the mountains; then, with great exertion, he
thrust it up to the place it now occupies. Nevertheless, dark clouds
many times hang low along the great mountains and descend in heavy
rains, but they dare not stay, lest Maui, the strong, come and hurl
them so far away that they cannot come back again.
The Manahiki Islanders say that Maui desired to separate the sky from
the earth. His father, Ru, was the supporter of the heavens. Maui
persuaded him to assist in lifting the burden. They crowded it and bent
it upward. They were able to stand with the sky resting on their
shoulders. They heaved against the bending mass and it receded rapidly.
They quickly put the palms of their hands under it, then the tips of
their fingers, and it retreated farther and farther. At last, drawing
themselves out to gigantic proportions, they pushed the entire heavens
up to the very lofty position which they have ever since occupied.
On the island Hawaii, in a cave under a waterfall, dwelt
Hina-of-the-fire, the mother of Maui.
From this home Maui crossed to the island Maui, climbed a great
mountain, threw ropes made from fibres of plants around the sun’s legs,
pulled off many and then compelled the swift traveller of the heavens
to go slowly on its way that men might have longer and better days.
Maui’s home, at the best, was only a sorry affair. Gods and demi-gods
lived in caves and small grass houses. The thatch rapidly rotted and
required continual renewal. In a very short time the heavy rains beat
through the decaying roof. The home was without windows or doors, save
as low openings in the ends or sides allowed entrance to those willing
to crawl through. Here Maui lived on edible roots and fruits and raw
fish, knowing little about cooked food, for the art of fire-making was
not yet known.
By and by Maui learned to make fire by rubbing sticks together.
A family of mud hens, worshipped by some of the Hawaiians in later
years, understood the art of fire-making.
From the sea Maui and his brothers saw fire burning on a mountain side
but it was always put entirely out when they hastened to the spot.
Maui proposed to his brothers that they go fishing, leaving him to
watch the birds. But the Alae counted the fishermen and refused to
build a fire for the hidden one who was watching them. They said among
themselves, “There are three in the boat and we know not where the
other one is, we will make no fire to-day.”
So the experiment failed again and again. If one or two remained or if
all waited on the land there would be no fire—but the dawn which saw
the four brothers in the boat, saw also the fire on the land.
Finally Maui rolled some kapa cloth together and stuck it up in one end
of the canoe so that it would look like a man. He then concealed
himself near the haunt of the mud-hens, while his brothers went out
fishing. The birds counted the figures in the boat and then started to
build a heap of wood for the fire.
Maui was impatient—and just as an old bird began to select sticks with
which to make the flames he leaped swiftly out and caught her and held
her prisoner. He forgot for a moment that he wanted the secret of
fire-making. In his anger against the wise bird his first impulse was
to taunt her and then kill her for hiding the secret of fire.
But the bird cried out: “If you are the death of me—my secret will
perish also—and you cannot have fire.”
Maui then promised to spare her life if she would tell him what to do.
Then came a contest of wits. The bird told the demi-god to rub the
stalks of water plants together. He guarded the bird and tried the
plants. Then she told him to rub reeds together—but they bent and broke
and he could make no fire. He twisted her neck until she was half
dead—then she cried out: “I have hidden the fire in a green stick.”
Maui worked hard but not a spark of fire appeared. Again he caught his
prisoner by the head and wrung her neck, and she named a kind of dry
wood. Maui rubbed the sticks together but they only became warm. The
twisting process was resumed—and repeated until the mud-hen was almost
dead—and Maui had tried tree after tree. At last Maui found fire. Then
as the flames rose he said: “There is one more thing to rub.” He took a
fire stick and rubbed the top of the head of his prisoner until the
feathers fell off and the raw flesh appeared. Thus the Hawaiian mud-hen
and her descendants have ever since had bald heads, and the Hawaiians
have had the secret of fire-making.
Maui was a great discoverer of islands. Among other groups he “fished
up from the ocean” New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands with a magic
hook. One by one he pulled them to himself out of the deep waters. He
discovered them.
Thus Maui raised the sky, lassoed the sun, found fire and made the
earth habitable for man.
II
MAUI SEEKING IMMORTALITY
The story of Maui seeking immortality for the human race is one of the
finest myths in the world. For pure imagination and pathos it is
difficult to find any tale from Grecian or Latin literature to compare
with it. In Greek and Roman fables gods suffered for other gods, and
yet none were surrounded with such absolutely mythical experiences as
those through which the demi-god Maui of the Pacific ocean passed when
he entered the gates of death with the hope of winning immortality for
mankind. The really remarkable group of legends which cluster around
Maui is well concluded by the story of his unselfish and heroic battle
with death.
The different islands of the Pacific have their hades, or abode of the
dead. Sometimes the tunnels left by currents of melted lava running
toward the west are the passages into the home of departed spirits. In
Samoa there are two circular holes among the rocks at the west end of
the island Savaii. These are the entrances to the underworld for chiefs
and people. The spirits of those who die on the other islands leap into
the sea and swim around the land from island to island until they reach
Savaii. Then they plunge down into their heaven or their hades.
There is no escape from death. The natives of New Zealand say: “Man may
have descendants but the daughters of the night strangle his
offspring”; and again: “Men make heroes, but death carries them away.”
Maui once said to the goddess of the moon: “Let death be short. As the
moon dies and returns with new strength, so let men die and revive
again.”
But she replied: “Let death be very long, that man may sigh and sorrow.
When man dies let him go into darkness, become like earth, that those
he leaves behind may weep and wail and mourn.”
“Maui did not wish men to die but to live forever. Death appeared
degrading and an insult to the dignity of man. Man ought to die like
the moon which dips in the life-giving waters of Kane and is renewed
again, or like the sun, which daily sinks into the pit of night and
with renewed strength rises in the morning.”
The Hawaiian legends say that Maui was slain in a conflict with some of
the gods. The New Zealand legends give a more detailed account of his
death.
Maui sought the home of Hine-nui-te-po—the guardian of life. He heard
her order her attendants, the brightest flashes of lightning, to watch
for any one approaching and capture all who came walking upright as a
man. He crept past the attendants on hands and feet, found the place of
life, stole some of the food of the goddess and returned home. He
showed the food to his brothers and friends and persuaded them to go
with him into the darkness of the night of death. On the way he changed
them into the form of birds. In the evening they came to the house of
the goddess on an island long before fished up from the seas.
Maui warned the birds to refrain from making any noise while he made
the supreme effort of his life. He was about to enter upon his struggle
for immortality. He said to the birds: “If I go into the stomach of
this woman do not laugh until I have gone through her, and come out
again at her mouth; then you can laugh at me.”
His friends said: “You will be killed.” Maui replied: “If you laugh at
me when I have only entered her stomach I shall be killed, but if I
have passed through her and come out of her mouth I shall escape and
Hine-nui-te-po will die.”
His friends called out to him: “Go then. The decision is with you.”
Hine was sleeping soundly. The sunlight had almost passed away and the
house lay in quiet gloom. Maui came near to the sleeping goddess. Her
large fishlike mouth was open wide. He put off his clothing and
prepared to pass through the ordeal of going to the hidden source of
life, tear it out of the body of its guardian and carry it back with
him to mankind. He stood in all the glory of savage manhood. His body
was splendidly marked by the tattoo-bones, and now well oiled shone and
sparkled in the last rays of the setting sun.
He leaped through the mouth of the enchanted one and entered her
stomach, weapon in hand, to take out her heart, the vital principle
which he knew had its home somewhere within her being. He found
immortality on the other side of death. He turned to come back again
into life when suddenly a little bird laughed in a clear, shrill tone
and Great Hine, through whose mouth Maui was passing, awoke. Her sharp,
obsidian teeth closed with a snap upon Maui, cutting his body in the
centre. Thus Maui entered the gates of death, but was unable to return,
and death has ever since been victor over rebellious men. The natives
have the saying:
“If Maui had not died he could have restored to life all who had gone
before him, and thus succeeded in destroying death.”
Maui’s brothers took the dismembered body and buried it in a cave
called Te-ana-i-hana. “The cave dug out,” possibly a prepared burial
place.
Maui’s wife made war upon the gods, and killed as many as she could to
avenge her husband’s death. One of the old native poets of New Zealand
in chanting the story to Mr. White said: “But though Maui was killed
his offspring survived. Some of these are at Hawa-i-ki (Hawaii) and
some at Ao-tea-roa (New Zealand) but the greater part of them remained
at Hawaiki. This history was handed down by the generations of our
ancestors of ancient times, and we continue to rehearse it to our
children, with our incantations and genealogies, and all other matters
relating to our race.”
“But death is nothing new
Death is, and has been ever since old Maui died
Then Pata-tai laughed loud
And woke the goblin-god
Who severed him in two, and shut him in,
So dusk of eve came on.”
—Maori Death Chant.
III
THE WATER OF LIFE [1]
“The Self-reliant Dragon” is frequently mentioned in the oldest
Hawaiian legends. This dragon was probably a very old crocodile
worshipped as the ancestor goddess of the Hawaiian chief families.
She dwelt in one of the mysterious islands mentioned in the Hawaiian
chants as Kua-i-Helani, “the Far-away Helani,” lying in the ancient far
western home of the Polynesians.
Iku was the chief. He had several sons. The youngest was
Aukele-nui-a-Iku, Aukele the Great Son of Iku.
Aukele was a favorite of the Self-reliant Dragon. She gave him a large
bamboo stick. Inside she placed an image of the god Lono, and also a
magic leaf which could provide plenty of food for any one who touched
the leaf to his lips. She put in a part of her own skin.
She said, “This skin is a cloak for you. If you lift it up against any
enemies, they will fall to pieces as dust and ashes.”
They put all these treasures in the bamboo stick. Then the dragon
taught the boy all kinds of magic power.
The brothers, who were great warriors, determined to sail away, find a
new land and conquer it by fighting. Aukele persuaded them to take him.
Then he sent one to get the stick he had brought from the dragon pit
which was near the sea.
After a long time on the sea all their food was gone and they were
starving and lying in the bottom of the boat. Aukele fed them from the
leaf which he touched to their lips.
Some days passed and Aukele said, “To-morrow we will come to a land
where a woman is the ruler. Let me tell why we journey.”
They said, “Did you build this boat, and have you its chant?”
He said: “We must not call this a boat for war, but of discovery, to
find new land.”
The chiefess of that land looked out and saw a boat in the ocean, and
sent some birds to see what the boat was doing and learn whether it was
a war canoe, or a travelling boat. The birds went out, and Aukele
wanted his brothers to say it was a travelling boat. The birds asked
and the brothers said: “This is a war canoe.” The birds went away.
Aukele took up the bamboo stick and threw it in the sea, and leaped in
after it. The brothers threw the cloak of Aukele on the beach. The
chiefess found the cloak and shook it toward the boat, then threw it
away. The brothers broke into small dust and were destroyed. The boat
and the brothers sank to the bottom of the sea.
Aukele swam to the beach, pulled up his stick, found his cloak and lay
down under a tree and slept. A watchdog came out, and smelled the man,
and barked.
The chiefess called two women, and told them to see who it was, and if
they found any one, kill him. They came down and the god of Aukele
awakened him, and told him the names of the women.
The women came and he greeted them. They were ashamed because he had
found their names, and one said to the other, “What can we give him for
naming us?” The other said, “We will let him be the husband of our
ruler.” So they came and sat down by him, and they talked lovingly
together and he won their hearts.
The women told him that they had been sent to kill him, but that they
would say they did not find him; then other messengers would be sent.
They went home and told the chiefess: “We went to the precipice; there
was no one there. Then to the forest and the sea. There was no one
there. Perhaps the dog made a mistake.”
The chiefess turned the dog out again; at once there was more barking.
She told her bird brothers to go and look over the land. Lono saw them
and said; “Here is another death day for us. I will tell you who these
birds are. When they come you say their names quickly and welcome
them.” So he did. They wondered how he knew their names. This knowledge
gave him power over them and they could not harm him. The birds also
thought they would have to offer their ruler as a wife to this
wonderful stranger. They went back to their sister and told her they
had found a husband for her. This pleased her. She sent them after
Aukele. He told them he would go by and by.
Lono said to Aukele, “Death has partly passed, but more trouble lies
before us. When you go up do not sit down or enter the house. Stand at
the door. First these two women will come. If they say ‘Aloha’ it is
all right. The dog will come and will try to kill you. When he has
passed by, the brothers will come. The food they make and put in old
calabashes, do not eat. See if the calabash has anything growing in its
cracks. You will find new calabashes scattered over the ground. Food
and fish and water are inside. Eat from these.”
He made ready to go, and went up to the house, and stood by the door.
The two women said “Aloha” and called to him to come in, but he would
not enter. The dog ran out, opened her mouth and tried to bite Aukele
through the magic cloak. The dog became ashes. The chiefess saw the dog
was dead and was very sorry because he was the watchman for her land.
The brothers came to him with food which they had put in moss-covered
calabashes. He never touched it. It was the death food. He went to a
place where green calabash vines were growing, took a calabash, shook
it, broke it, opened it and found good food inside.
Then they lived as man and wife. The chiefess had been a cannibal but
at this time stopped eating men. Soon a son was born.
After a time the bird brothers taught Aukele how to leap into the air
and fly as a bird.
The chiefess told her brothers to go away into the heavens and find her
father, Ku-waha-ilo, a cannibal god. He was also the father of Pele,
the goddess of volcanic fire. They must tell him that she had given all
her treasures to her husband—stars, lands, and seas. She told them to
take her husband to see the father.
They flew away, Aukele flying faster than the others. The father saw
him and thought his daughter was dead. He said, “She is the watchman
for my land, and no man could come here if she were alive,” and he was
angry.
Lono told Aukele to put on his magic cloak that now covered him from
head to foot. Then he understood there must be a battle. The cannibal
father made fire, called Kuku-ena (the lightning); then Ikuwa, a stone
crashing like thunder. The lightning and the crashing stone were struck
by the cloak and rattled into ashes, cracking and breaking,
reverberating, sounding like a drum.
The bird brothers saw the fire and heard the thunder. They were far
behind Aukele. They saw the lightning and the thunder defeated. After
the battle, they all came before their father and told him that the
daughter was well and this was her husband.
After this flight to a cannibal land and this victory over the cannibal
god, Aukele returned to his wife.
After a time the ghosts of his brothers appeared to him and reminded
him of their grave in the sea.
Aukele was very sorry and ate nothing for days. His wife, with great
sympathy, told him if he had strength enough to find the living water
of Kane he could still restore his brothers. He was encouraged and ate.
He asked what path he should take to find the land of the water of
life. She made a straight line toward the East, the sunrise, and told
him to fly straight, not swerving to either side.
He took his bamboo stick with all his aid inside and put it under his
arm, put on his magic cloak, and said “Aloha.” A long time passed.
He thought he was flying in a straight line, but one arm became tired
because the stick was under it. He changed the stick, and this moved
his direction. His god saw this and told him he was leaving the
straight line and was flying to some other place. There was fire far
below. All the people had fled except one. The god said, “Let us go
straight till we come to that one; then you catch him and hold him
fast. We shall have life.” This was the moon, who was an ancestress of
his wife. The moon had been cooking food. She arose to take up her food
and get ready to go. But Aukele caught her, held her and ate her food.
She thus became thin—a new moon—and the traveller gained strength to
return to his home.
Aukele thought he would try again, according to his wife’s line. She
made a line from the door of the house toward the sunrise, and warned
him. He flew straight a long time until he found a strange land with a
deep pit lined with trees and wonderful plants. At the bottom was the
spring of the water of life. He leaped down upon the back of a watchman
on the edge of the pit, who had been put there by the guardian to kill
any one coming after the water. He tried to shake Aukele off, saying:
“Who are you? What do you mean, O proud man? My grandchild, the brother
of Pele, never got on my back. Who are you?” He gave his name and
ancestors, and told the watchman he had come for the water of life for
his brothers. The watchman said: “Go straight out from where I stand.
Do not turn to the side or you will strike bamboo which will make a
great noise, and my grandchild, Pele’s brother, will hear and will
cover the water tight, and you cannot get it.”
So Aukele flew and leaped straight on the second watchman, who told him
not to go to the left or he would strike the lama trees (very hard
wood, used for building houses for the gods). These trees would make a
great noise and the guardian would cover the water tight and he could
not get it.
He flew to another watchman, who told him to go straight to the bottom
of the pit. “There a blind woman will be sitting. Look at the place
where she is cooking bananas. She will take them one by one. You eat
all her bananas. Then she will become angry and throw ashes. If she
throws on the right side, you must fly to the left. Watch if she
strikes with a stick, then run quickly, sit in her lap, and tell her
who you are.”
When he had done all these things and all attempts to kill him had
failed, Aukele made the old blind woman lie down under a cocoanut tree.
He got two young cocoanuts and told her to turn her eyes toward the
sky. He dropped the cocoanuts in her eyes. She wept sorely because of
the pain. He told her to rub the water out of her eyes and not cry. She
did so, and said: “I can see you.” He came down from the tree and she
told him what he must do to get the water of life: “Go and break the
stem of a water plant, and near it a bush with white flowers. Bring
them to me.” This he did and laid the plants before her. She squeezed
the water from the plants into a cup, took charcoal and other things
and mixed them together until black; then she painted Aukele’s hands
very black, like the hands of the brother of Pele. His hands were
black, and those watching the water of life would look at the hands
reaching for water and make no mistake. They would tightly cover up the
water if a white hand came down. “Wait until the guardian god is asleep
and the servants are preparing drink for him when he should awake. Then
go to the door and one will give you some water. The first will be
dirty water; throw it away. Put your hand down again. They will give
you another calabash of water. This will be the living water of Kane;
take it.”
He went down and put his hand in for the water. The watchman handed out
a calabash of dirty water. He threw it away and again thrust his black
hand down the pit.
The watchman gave him a calabash of the pure water of life.
He flew rapidly along the path to the outside world. In his haste he
struck the leaves of the groves of trees and the noise was that of
strong winds thrashing the branches and leaves back and forth, up and
down. The sound swept through the land of the water of life like
rolling thunder.
The brother of Pele and his servants awoke and followed, but he fled
through the heavens to the place where the ghosts of his brothers lay
in the sunken ship by the home of the goddess of the sea.
They all went down to the sea. The chiefess told her husband to pour
the water of life in his hand. She put her fingers in the water and
sprinkled drops over the sea.
Out in the ocean under the moving surface was a boat, its mast coming
up through the waves. In a little while they saw men standing in the
boat. These were the brothers of Aukele. After the welcome, he gave
them lands and homes.
In that strange far-off land of the ancestors—the mysterious “Floating
Island”—the “Hidden Island of Kane,” it is said they still live under
the rule of their younger brother.
Aukele thought he would like to see his parents once more, so he went
to the far-away Helani—but the land was desolate. The parents were
gone, the people had disappeared, the houses had all decayed, and the
land was covered with a forest.
Only a dragon was left—one of the family of the “Self-reliant Dragon.”
He discovered her body fast in the coral reef near the shore. He
thought she was dead, but he stood up and stamped with full strength
and broke the coral so that the dragon was free. He saw the body
moving, but the dragon was very weak and near death.
He was sorry for her, remembering that it was by the aid of dragon
powers he had gone into the heavens and from the deep pit of the skies
secured the water of life. Therefore he provided food and gave new life
to the dragon. He asked about his parents and their gods, and the
desolation of the land.
The dragon told him how the entire household of gods, dragons and men
had found a new home, in the Islands of Oahu and Hawaii. She told how
“the child adopted or brought up by the gods,” and the Maiden of the
Golden Clouds, had been taken by the Self-reliant Dragon to Oahu, and
how all the rest had gone, leaving her as a guard in the old land of
his birth and childhood.
Aukele went back to the legendary land, the “Hidden Island of Kane,”
and there lived among the ghost gods who welcome the dead as they
escape from wandering over the islands and fly by the path of the
sunset back to the home of the most distant ancestors—the mysterious
lands in the skies of the western seas.
Here he and his brothers are high chiefs of the au-makuas, the ghost
gods of Hawaii, who wait to welcome and give peace to the spirits of
the dead.
IV
A VIKING OF THE PACIFIC
History is frequently legendary. That historian is incompetent who
deliberately ignores tradition and fable. A nation founded in the
sunlight of civilisation cannot have a legendary past, but it must
depend many times upon the cloudy memory of individuals. Legends are
the indistinct memories of nations, and are of real value when there is
any opportunity for comparison. Early Norse history was told in song
legends. The sagas of the Vikings are rivalled in some measure by the
meles of the Hawaiians. The Hawaiians have both the chant—the mele, and
the tradition—the olelo. From these come Hawaiian ancient history. The
Vikings, “sea kings,” as they are often named, the “wickel-ings,” as
Froude calls them, the men who sailed out from the “vicks,” the fjords
of the Scandinavian coast, were brave mariners. They swept the European
coast; they infested Mediterranean waters; they found the North
Atlantic islands. They made themselves at home in Sneeland (Snowland),
now Iceland and Greenland. They named the countries newly discovered
after their own fancies, as Flatland, Woodland, and Vinland, for
Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Massachusetts, respectively.
The Polynesian folklore abounds in stories of remarkable men, bold
expeditions, stirring adventures and voyages to far-off lands. The
Vikings of the Pacific gave to their foreign lands the names by which
these lands were then known, and by which they are known to-day.
In the long Hawaiian chant of Kumu Honua, “the first created,” there is
a part devoted to Hawaii-loa, the first sea-king of the Polynesians. He
is reported as making long journeys and discovering the Hawaiian
Islands. Besides this chant there are many legends and references which
make him an important ancestor among Hawaiians, an ancestor of islands
rather than of families. He lived in the “land of the handsome or
golden god, Kane.” To the north lay the land Ulu-nui or “the Great
Ulu,” possibly Ur of Chaldea. His home was near the “green precipiced
paradise” of Hawaiian legend, the place where the water of life gave
forth healing even for the dead.
Hawaii-loa was a noted fisherman. He launched out into deep waters. He
fished for new worlds and found them. From the Great Ulu to Java, from
Java to Jilolo, and from Jilolo far out into the eastern Pacific,
Hawaii-loa sailed. His relative, Ti-i, also launched out into the deep
seas. Ti-i went almost directly east from the old home, and found the
Society Islands. These he made his home, according to the Society
Island legends, becoming the creator of the islands.
Hawaii-loa sailed to the northeast, following “Iao,” Jupiter, as the
morning star. Iao was a favorite guiding star among the Hawaiians. Five
of the planets were known by the sea-rovers. The planets were called
“Na Hoku hele”—“the going stars.” Mars was known as “Hoku ula,” “the
red star.” “Na hoku paa” were “the fastened stars, immovable in the
heavens.” The name “Iao” is given to one of the mountains of the Island
of Maui.
Hawaii-loa found the fire islands—the islands somewhat like the old
Java home, luxuriant and volcanic. He named the large island
Hawa-i-i—“the little or the burning Java.”
The large island was full of delight to the bold navigator, and he
determined to bring his family to this new land for their permanent
home. He took them from “the land where his forefathers dwelt before
him.” He sailed through the “dotted sea,” the sea with many islands
lying near his old ancestral home, “the rainy Zaba”—the modern Zaba or
Saba of the Arabian seacoast—from which his own name, “Hawa,” is easily
derived. On his journey back and forth he passed through a sea which
delighted his heart as a fisherman—“a sea where the fishes run.” He
must have found excellent deep-sea fishing. He crossed the
“many-coloured ocean” and the “sky-blue sea.” He revelled in the
beauty of the sun rising and setting in glorious colours on the
restless waves. On he sailed with his family until he came to
Hawaii—“the burning Java,” the land of volcanoes and earthquakes and of
luxuriant valleys and fertile seacoasts.
Fornander suggests that Hawaii is derived from Java and Java from the
Arabian Saba.
Evidently a Polynesian chief of high rank gathered a number of
adherents or members of his tribe, and sailed eastward over the
Pacific, about the beginning of the Christian era. His descendants, or
at least such portion of his family as did not follow him on his
voyage, seem to have moved from Java to the Molucca Islands and settled
in Jilolo.
It is said that after he brought his family to Hawaii, new islands
sprang out of the sea, well wooded and well watered. These he divided
among his children.
When the later sea-rovers came to Hawaii, possibly in the fifth or
sixth century, they found the islands already inhabited by people of
their own race, and yet apparently without a chief—probably a servant
class. If we sift the legends and then assume that in the course of
three or four hundred years the family of the chief, Hawaii-loa, became
extinct in Hawaii, leaving only the servants on the islands, we have at
least a probable explanation of the coming of the so-called little
people, or fairies, from the Southern Pacific to Hawaii.
The South Pacific islanders called their servants, or laborers, the
Manahune people.
The fairies were known in the Hawaiian legends as the Menehunes.
Sometimes they were credited with powers like the gnomes of old
England. They were supposed to work only at night. A very ancient stone
water-wall along the side of one of the swift-flowing Hawaiian rivers
has no tradition or history save that the Menehune people built it in
one night. Another very ancient stone wall around a large fish pond is
referred to the Menehunes, who did not finish their work in one night,
therefore the wall has always been incomplete. So also some of the most
ancient temples were referred to the mysterious midnight labors of this
people.
One of the legends states that a priest desired to carry the Menehune
people across the long stretch of ocean between the foreign lands and
the Island of Oahu, therefore “he stretched out his hands to the
farthest bounds of Tahiti and over him the Menehunes—the
servants—crossed to Oahu.”
It was this same sorcerer-priest who saw the sun die and the earth
become dark. He leaped across to the foreign land, caught the sun
before it was buried, brought it back to Hawaii and placed it in the
heavens, where it has been ever since. These are simply graphic
descriptions of an eclipse, and also of a chief who carried his common
people—his servants—with him across the waters. The presence of this
servant class in the very ancient times is unquestioned.
Chiefs coming later found this servant class which readily accepted new
rulers.
Hawaii-loa—“the Great Hawaii”—may well be considered both a founder of
the Polynesian race and the first settler of the Hawaiian Islands.
Brave lover of the sea and founder of nations, Hawaii-loa deserves
first place among the Vikings of the Pacific.
V
LEGENDARY HOME OF THE POLYNESIANS
The Hawaiians, like the native residents of many other groups of
islands in the Pacific Ocean, have not taken kindly to the European
names tacked upon their doorposts by the sailors who discovered them.
This is very fortunate for those who desire to gather together the
facts out of which to weave a connected history of Polynesia.
It is also fortunate that the language spoken in the groups so widely
diffused over the Pacific Ocean, has the same common structure, with
only such differences as may be resolved into dialects.
The Tahitian, Samoan, New Zealander, and Hawaiian, though thousands of
miles apart, are members of one family, and require but a short period
to acquire the faculty of a free exchange of ideas.
Students find a slight difficulty in the different spellings which
different voyagers have given to the native words according to the way
in which they heard the sounds—for instance, “Hawaii” was “Owyhee” in
the days of Captain Cook.
This difficulty was not overcome when the Polynesian dialects were
reduced to writing by the many missionaries to the different parts of
the Pacific Ocean. It was impossible to adopt a uniform method. In some
places “h” was used, in others “f” and “l” or “r” or “k,” as in the
Hawaiian word “aloha”—which in other island groups was “alofa” and
“aloofa,” “aroha,” “kaoha,” “akaaroa,” all meaning “friendship.”
In attempting to trace the place of origin of the Hawaiians and other
Polynesians it is absolutely necessary to take into account this
phonetic difficulty.
Fornander gives the following list of island groups with the various
methods of using the word Hawaii:
Hawaii—Hawa-i-i.
Tahiti—Hawa-i-i.
Samoa—Sawa-i-i or Sava-i-i.
New Zealand—Hawa-iki.
Marquesas—Hawa-iki.
Raro Tonga—Awa-iki.
Tonga—Haba-i.
Hawaii in some form of the word is the most universally used name among
all the Polynesians as the place for their ancestral home.
The name of the Hawaiian Islands is taken from this mythological name.
So also is the Savaii of the Samoan Islands. So also the small island
Hawaiki in Lake Rotorua of New Zealand, where the New Zealand legends
say the ancestors of the Maoris placed the relics which they brought
with them from their ancestral Hawaiki when they settled in New
Zealand. In far eastern Tahiti is a place on Raiatea, the island now
known as Opoa. Its ancient and sacred name was Hawaii.
Some writers have thought that Samoa might be the center of dispersion
to the other Pacific islands, but the Samoan dialect is very corrupt,
its legends are fragmentary, and its history of sea rovers seems to
lack a sufficient similarity of names with the migrators from the
original home to allow this supposition to have very great weight.
It is also interesting to note that the Hawaiian Islands do not have a
good foundation for any claim to be the original centre of dispersion,
although many of the most ancient legends of Hawaii and of New Zealand
are the same. There is abundance of proof of a common origin, but not
sufficient to found any claim for Hawaiian parentage.
Ellis, writing in 1830 concerning the Tahitians and inhabitants of
neighbouring islands, says:
“A tradition stated that the first inhabitants of these islands
originally came from a country in the direction of the setting sun, to
which several names were given. Pigs and dogs were brought from the
West.”
In the Hawaiian Islands the point from which the ancient voyages sailed
away to visit the other groups of islands of the Pacific was off the
western coast of the island of Maui and was called Ke-ala-i-kahiki, The
Path to Tahiti. They might ultimately sail eastward to Tahiti or to the
Marquesas Islands, but they started toward the home of their ancestors,
westward. They called their vikings—Ka-poe-holo-kahiki, The People
Sailing to Tahiti. Tahiti at last meant any distant or foreign group of
islands, although individual names of islands are used in the
chants—such as Bolabola and Upolu.
The Hawaiian said that, ke alo, the face or front of an island, was
toward the west. The back, ke kua, was toward the east. This, as
Fornander says, was “because the ancestors of the islanders came from
the west originally.”
The students of Polynesian legends are practically united in ascribing
the Hawaii of mythology to some place west of all the islands.
Early writers on the origin of the Polynesians took it for granted that
these ancestors were Malays. Certain words and names among both Malays
and Polynesians were similar, but later study has convinced the vast
majority of students that this theory is not true. It is now believed
that the Polynesians came to the island groups from the neighbourhood
of the straits of Sunda, where they had their home for a long time. The
fierce Malay tribes descended upon them and scattered them in all
directions over the seas. A trace of the remnants of this dispersion is
found even among the mixed elements of the people of Japan. Another
trace is found in Madagascar, while the great body of the storm-tossed
people took possession of the middle and southeastern islands of the
Pacific.
Hon. Edward Tregear, of New Zealand, writing about the original home of
the Polynesians, thinks that their first residence was either India or
Central Asia, from whence they passed through India, there making a
stay of some time. Then they journeyed to the Malay archipelago,
residing there many generations until driven out by the Malays. This is
the original Hawa-iki from which Polynesia was first settled,
expeditions probably passing out to the far distant island groups. Then
lastly came the canoe voyagers—the rovings of the vikings of the
Pacific which in New Zealand meant a new peopling of the land of the
“long white cloud,” and to the Hawaiians and Tahitians and other
islands almost two centuries of adventurous sea roving.
The late Hon. S. Percy Smith, Minister of Native Affairs in New
Zealand, traces the Polynesians from Aryan connection in Asia Minor and
Western Europe to India, Malayasia and thence to the scattered islands
of the Pacific.
Max Müller calls attention to the use of the word Av-iki by both
Brahmins and Buddhists as the name of their “hades.”
Hawa-iki was the name of the place from which the Polynesians came and
about which they talked in their most ancient stories. This other world
became mysterious as the ages passed by until at last Hawa-iki meant
the place to which the spirits of the dead went, as well as the home
from which their ancestors came. A journey to or from any of the
Polynesian islands meant passing out of one world into another. The
area of vision bounded by the horizon was the world in which the people
lived. Passing out of sight over the waters was breaking through the
wall dividing one world from another. The idea that Hawa-iki was the
home of the ghosts could very easily be derived from the other world
beyond the shining wall of the sky into which any one sailing out of
sight of land might be forever lost.
The path into this other world—this Hawa-iki of the ancestors—was
universally toward the west—the golden path of the setting sun.
VI
THE SONS OF KII
Sometime during the fifth or sixth century of the Christian
era—according to estimates based on Hawaiian genealogies—two brothers,
Ulu and Nanaulu, came to the Hawaiian Islands and established a dynasty
of high chiefs. Their father was Kii, a king in the Southern Pacific
Islands. Tahiti, the chief island of the Society group, furnishes the
only ancient king of that name. We have the additional fact that in
Hawaiian legends the place to which Hawaiian Vikings frequently sailed
for centuries was usually Kahiki or Tahiti, the old home of the family
of ruling chiefs.
It has been suggested that Ulu remained in the southern islands and
that Nanaulu alone found his way to Hawaii; but the frequent use of the
name Ulu in the genealogies of the chiefs of the two large islands,
Hawaii and Maui, would support the position taken in the story that
follows—that the brothers, sailing together, found Hawaii.
Two strong young men, about six feet in stature, were hastening
together along a mountain spur leading down to the harbour of Papeete.
They had met but a short time before, one coming around the base of the
turreted crags of an extinct volcano known as “La Diademe”—The Diadem,
or crown of Tahiti. The other had left his house in the hills from
which the beautiful river of the Vai-ta-piha valley takes its source.
They had given each other the universal Polynesian greeting—“Love to
you,” with the reply, “Love indeed.”
Soon they came to the seashore where a long boat, the waa of Ulu, had
been built. Large crowds of natives were watching the workmen as the
stone adzes rang for the last time on the boarded-up sides of the boat.
As the two young chiefs drew near they saw a small company of solemn,
dignified men, evidently of high rank, emerge from the door of a large
grass house and march slowly to the side of the long boat.
A trumpet shell was sounded. The people fell with their faces toward
the ground. Another blast, and there could be seen a number of gigantic
slaves coming from the door of a stone temple not far away. Each slave
was leading a prisoner. In a few minutes they surrounded the boat. Two
prisoners were held at the prow of the boat, two at the stern, four
along the boat sides and others in a line extending to the beach.
A priest stepped forth from the little company of leaders. In a strong
and yet monotonous tone he began a chant of praise of Kii and his sons.
He sang of the boat building and the protecting care of the gods.
He chanted the charms which would control the action of the gods of the
seas over which the boats might sail. He invoked the gods of the home
land to make friendly the gods of any new country to which the sailors
might go. He pleaded for the acceptance of the human sacrifice about to
be made to the gods.
Executioners with sharp-edged clubs of heavy hardwood then struck down
the prisoners as the boat was rushed to the sea.
Human sacrifices at the launchings of the canoes of chiefs were not at
all unusual, but the two young chiefs from the mountains had never
before known such wholesale slaughter. The importance of the plans of
the high chiefs was made evident by this large human sacrifice. The new
boat of the king’s son, Ulu, was evidently destined for some very
important expedition.
“E Taunoa,” cried a chief to the two latest arrivals, calling one of
them by the name of his district. “Make haste or you will be too late
to hear the voice of the king.”
“How is it, Taunoa,” said another, “that you, a chief of Nanaulu,
should be present at the call of Kii in the interest of Ulu?”
Taunoa replied: “We shall soon see Nanaulu with a cloud of boats. I was
sent to announce his coming to his father, the king. His heart is with
his brother Ulu in the observance of the plans of Kii. I found this
young chief of Vai-ta-piha on his way hither, and made him my
companion. Take me at once to Kii, the king.”
Okela, the chief who had called to Taunoa, at once preceded the crowd
thronging hastily behind, giving Taunoa the post of honour after Okela.
As they approached the dignified high chiefs they all prostrated
themselves to the ground except Okela and Taunoa.
Taunoa drew from under his cloak a feathery frond of the cocoanut, and
raising it above his head, asked for an interview with the king.