in them their families and such provisions as were at hand. His
warriors, defeated by Lonopele, hastened to the canoes, and shoved out
into the deep waters.
The battle was evidently fierce, for the legends say that some of the
prophet friends who could not escape to their canoes, leaped from the
precipitous cliffs to “fly” to the boats, and were dashed to pieces on
the rocks below. Lonopele probably drove them over the brink of a
precipice. One of the priest-friends leaped into the water, calling for
Paao to return and rescue him. “Not so,” answered Paao, “we have left
the shore. It would be an evil omen to turn back. We will wait for you
where we are.” The legends say, “The priest flew like a bird to the
canoes” and was warmly received by Paao. Lonopele sent a storm to
destroy the canoes. Probably he launched his own fleet and made
pursuit. Two great fish aided the fugitives. The Aku pushed the boats.
The Opelea hindered the storm waves by opposing his great body and
breaking their force. Lonopele ordered his magic bird to take up great
waves of water and pour them from the sky, overwhelming the fugitives.
The canoe-men hurriedly arranged mats covering the boats, and the water
was turned into the sea. Thus they escaped.
The days passed. Sometimes showers fell upon the mats arranged like
funnels, filling the water calabashes afresh. Sometimes they passed
through a school of fish, and caught all they could, drying them for
future use. Some died and descended to the “bountiful islands in the
world under the waters.” Some of the canoes were abandoned. And they
sailed on almost hopelessly, still moving northward.
One day Paao said: “I was watching the stars last night and my thought
is that some water-god has put his hands under out boats and moved us
away from Hawaii.”
An astrologer said: “I have heard the pilots from the burning islands
talk about the water-gods and one of them claimed that sometimes a
strange god had turned their boats from a straight path.”
The action of the ocean currents was supposed to be the malicious work
of some strange deity.
That night Paao could not sleep. He studied the stars. He felt a breeze
that seemed to him in some way different from the ordinary sea-breezes.
“Do you feel the new wind from the eastern star?” he said softly to his
steersmen.
“Aye!” they replied. “We have to hold the steering paddles more
firmly.”
Paao awakened his prophet and whispered: “Does the new wind have a
voice for you?”
The prophet sniffed the air, then stepped upon the high prow and
breathed again.
“Aye, the wind has the voice of smoke, perhaps the smoke of the
burning-mountain.”
“Say nothing about the voice. We will change our course and sail toward
the bright star.”
During the day the men said, “this is a new wind and it has the storm
voice.”
The next day came, and then the next. Paao and his prophet alternated
between hope and fear. The awful suffering of hunger and thirst was
among them. If a mistake had been made there was no possible escape
from starvation. In the very early morning of the third day, as Paao
was restlessly looking eastward, his wife crept to his side.
“O my Paao,” she said, “I am about to die. I have just dreamed of the
green-walled paradise. I smelled the sweet Maile blossoms and the
leaves of our marriage wreath. I saw the spirits of my sons stand by
the cocoanut tree. The vision is from the gods, I must surely die.”
“Hush,” said Paao quickly, “I too have heard the voice of the Maile
born on the winds but I was awake. You shall not die. Call the
astrologer, and then listen to his words.”
The astrologer came quickly.
“Take breath strong and deep and tell me what the winds say.”
“I hear no voice,” was the reply.
Paao handed his friend a calabash with a little precious water, bidding
him bathe his parched mouth and nostrils.
“Now what do the winds say?”
“Hawaii! Hawaii!! and the strong voice of the Maile blossoms, and the
gentle voice of the sugar-cane. I can hear the bread-fruit call ‘Come
and eat.’ The Lau-hala’s voice comes over the sea. Awake, awake, oh
canoe-men! The fingers of the morning touch the mountains of Hawaii.
The morning is raising its hand to beckon us on. O friends of the
canoes, awake! Hear the land voices. Hear the wind that has no salt in
it. Awake and hear Hawaii.”
In a moment shouts and songs of gladness were heard from all the
canoes. When hope begins to grow, it ripens rapidly. New life, new
strength, pervaded the weakened wanderers. The steersmen unconsciously
changed the course of the boats toward the blue haze of land outlined
by the dawn.
Thus the day passed. There was no longer any need to husband food. They
ate the last morsels. They drained the water from their calabashes.
They cheered each other from boat to boat. They toiled hard in rowing,
and as the night dropped its shadows around them, they made
preparations for landing in this new home.
Bundles of feather robes were unrolled. Native cloth, brilliantly
coloured, was taken from its wrappings. Paao robed himself in a
high-priest’s tabu mantle of black feathers, wearing a white helmet
ornamented with black plumes. Around the short masts they placed new
mats as sails, inscribed with strange and mysterious emblems. All the
people put on their most gorgeous and costly apparel.
Thus, as the new morning dawned, they came to Hawaii. Thus they landed
as if their journey had known nothing of starvation and death. Thus
they met the wondering natives who hastened along the beach to the spot
where the boats must land.
Greetings were given. The language of the newcomers was almost
identical in meaning and pronunciation with the native tongue. The
priests with new gods were received with offerings. Food and clothing
in abundance were given. Land in Puna, near Hilo, was set apart for
their dwelling-place. Paao, aided by the Hawaiians, at once built a
temple at Wahaula, which after being twice restored, was destroyed in
1820. From Paao, the high priest’s family, highest in priestly rank of
all dwelling in the islands, was perpetuated, until Ka-meha-meha’s high
priest, Hewa-hewa, a lineal descendant of Paao, in 1819, aided in
destroying the temples of the gods. With his own hands Hewa-hewa set
fire to shrines and idols, overthrowing the system of worship and
sacred tabu which Paao had established nearly 700 years before. Some
years later Hewa-hewa became a devoted adherent to Christianity.
Some time during the fifth or sixth centuries two Polynesian brothers,
sons of Kii, came to the Hawaiian group with a number of followers.
They belonged to a high chief family and appeared to have assumed
authority without opposition. They divided the islands. Ulu took Maui
and Hawaii. Nanaulu settled on Oahu, taking possession of Oahu, Kauai
and Molokai.
Kapawa was the last high chief of unblemished blood in the Ulu line on
Hawaii.
The Nanaulu line maintained its independence through all the centuries,
until it was finally absorbed by the Ka-meha-meha family. The Ulu line
in Hawaii was replaced by a Samoan family of high chiefs brought into
Hawaii by Paao, in connection with the overthrow of Kapawa.
The high chiefs of “the good old days of Hawaii” had certain
prerogatives which were never questioned. They were his by “divine
right.” He visited the inferior chief of any district at pleasure. He
was readily supplied with all the available kapa cloth of the district
for clothing and sleeping mats for himself and followers. The hunters
of the district were required to search the mountain forests for birds
of rare plumage, whose feathers the women were required to weave in
mantles and helmets. All the food of the district was subject to his
command. He levied upon any canoe attracting his fancy. Food and cloth
and canoes were the wealth of the islands. The high chief usually left
each district impoverished. There was no complaint against Kapawa on
this score, although he had used his “divine right” in the most
burdensome manner. The idle, the dissolute, the depraved and the
reckless among the sub-chiefs of the various islands flocked to Kapawa
and became his “eating companions”—those who received from his bounty
their food and clothing. The atrocious lives which such men lived in
any community can be imagined. But this was not criminal.
When the Hawaiian legends say “The Ulu line of high chiefs became
extinct on account of the crimes of Kapawa,” something must be
considered besides property, morality or human life. It was not until
the sanctity of the temples was attacked that the chiefs decided that
even royal blood of many generations might become too impure for a
ruling chief.
One day the district chief of Hilo came to the temple, asking to see
“the priest of the brother tongue, who worshipped the two round white
gods.”
When he was brought before Paao he said:
“I speak to you as to a brother. But I must first ask if the priest
from afar will make his home by the burning mountain?”
“Aye,” said Paao.
“The priest is wise and knows the genealogies of the chiefs, the sons
of the gods. He knows the chant of the royal line of Hawaii.”
Paao bowed his head.
“The priest understands that our high chief, Kapawa, is descended from
Ulu. Is the priest aware that Kapawa is cruel and evil, that he
tramples the life out of the land and that he violates the temples and
drags out of the city of refuge the man who has safely entered therein?
Does the priest know that the high chief is already planning to visit
him, to examine his stores and secure whatever new ornaments have been
brought from Samoa?”
“I fear no king. I am the voice of the gods. I am the friend of ‘Lono,
who walks on the sea.’ I fear no man,” replied Paao, quietly.
“True,” said the chief. “Nevertheless the gods aid the man who crosses
the channel in a canoe a little more than the man who tries to cross by
swimming. We must plan together and hew out our canoe. We want you to
consult the gods and tell us their will.”
Paao was practical. He knew that by becoming the high priest of the
chiefs he would establish his position in Hawaii. He knew the value of
advice that comes through mysterious channels.
He went into the temple. After some time he returned and said to the
chief:
“The gods answer slowly. They show that you must gather the chiefs upon
whom you can depend and have the hard wood prepared for making spears.”
“The bird that speaks” flew to Kapawa with the news that the priest
from afar was seeking the wisdom of the gods to use against him, and
that the chiefs were organising a rebellion.
Several weeks of weary warfare followed.
Kapawa was driven from refuge to refuge. All the district chiefs
finally deserted him, and gave adherence to Paao.
The defeated king fled across the channel between the Islands of Hawaii
and Maui.
He sought the Maui branch of the Ulu descendants, a discouraged and
ruined king.
The legends say that here he died. His body was placed in the royal
burial cave, in Iao Valley, back of the village Wailuku. The native
custodians of this cave guard its secrets jealously. Probably none of
the white residents have seen its mysteries.
Thus the old royal family of Hawaii was overthrown, and the way
prepared to introduce “Pili, the king, from a foreign land.”
Paao was afraid that the district chiefs would ask him for a high chief
as soon as they should come together. Some of the chiefs had already
said, “It may be the will of the gods that the high priest become the
high chief also.”
But Paao knew the inherent reverence of the Polynesians for
blood-royal. He knew his own power. He felt that his position as high
priest was unassailable. He wanted no civil entanglements. He had
managed through all the campaign, to surround himself with mysteries,
and had gained unbounded influence through arousing superstitious fears
as well as through warlike deeds.
The Hawaiian legends tell us Pili, a very high chief of Samoa, was
persuaded by messengers from Paao to move to the islands of the north.
Pili journeyed with, what the legend called, a “cloud of boats.” It was
an eleventh century migration of a small nation to a distant home.
Thus was Pili set apart as King of Hawaii.
From Hilo, the eleventh century king went to the beautiful Waipio
Valley, taking Paao with him. Later he moved to the Kohala district.
Here Paao built the Mookini temple, in a place to which he gave the
name it still bears—Lae Upolu, the Cape of Upolu.
Here, in Kohala, from the eleventh century to 1819, the high priests
and the chiefs of Hawaii made their home. The priest and the king stand
out from the mists of the past, representing two great forces of
Hawaiian government—the religious and the civil. Independent of each
other, the rights of each were jealously guarded.
Paao gave Pili no chance for choice. While he granted to the king civil
authority, he retained absolutely independent control over the minds of
the chiefs and the people in religious matters.
Ka-meha-meha, the most noted person of all Hawaiian history, was a
descendant in a straight genealogical line from Pili, and Hewa-hewa,
the Christian, was the last high priest of the Paao line.
This is the story of the founding of the Ka-meha-meha family. The
legends have been shorn of the fabulous element which naturally
gathered around them, in order that the true names and customs of the
time might be delineated.
One of the most important results was the establishment of an
Aha-alii—council of chiefs—or herald’s college, which demanded the
genealogy and proof of high birth, before admission was granted to the
privileges of rank. In meeting this demand genealogies became of great
importance. The separation between chiefs and common people became a
gulf fixed by custom.
VIII
MOI-KEHA, THE RESTLESS
Folklore is sometimes the outgrowth of a sympathy with nature,
resulting in nature myths and sometimes it is an outgrowth of sympathy
with history. The imagination loves a truth in nature or in history and
weaves around it a web of thoughts of things which might have been.
The story of Moi-keha, the restless, is an historical myth. There are
some unquestioned facts and much which was impossible.
Fornander, the omnium-gatherum of Hawaii, thinks Moi-keha lived in the
thirteenth century.
The two boys, Moi-keha and Olopana, were born on the island of Oahu.
Their boyhood was like that of other Hawaiian youths of high chief
blood. They studied the spear and surf-board exercises. They gambled
with hidden stones. They sported with discus and javelin throwing. They
raced down green hillsides with their long coasting sleds. They
wrestled and fought with their companions and listened to the tales of
the sea rovers of the Pacific. They learned the routes to the southern
and southeastern islands and heard with fired imaginations the
descriptions of Tahiti and Samoa. If the Romans believed that an ocean
of thick mist, peopled with all imaginable terrors lay to the north of
Europe, we can well accept the fact that strange fascinations and the
hope of marvellous adventures in the South Pacific might stir the
restless minds of young Hawaiian chiefs.
Moi-keha and Olopana gathered a strong band of brave retainers and,
bidding farewell to Oahu, as their ancestors had done before them,
sailed toward the South.
For some reason the brothers took with them a young chief of high
position, whose ancestor, Pau-makua, had made renowned voyages to
far-off lands. The story of Laa, who, in late life, was known as “Laa
from Tahiti,” must be reserved for later record. Moi-keha, however,
seems to have taken this young man under his own especial protection as
his foster son.
The company from Kauai stopped at Waipio Valley, on the island of
Hawaii, one of the most beautiful and inaccessible valleys of the whole
Hawaiian group.
Here Olopana was set apart as ruler of the district.
The days and nights were filled with fishing and feasting, ruling and
revelling. Olopana soon found a beautiful young chiefess, who was in
full sympathy with his ambitions, whom he took from her home as his
life-companion. This woman, Luu-kia, was said to be a descendant of the
Nanaulu line of chiefs, originally coming to Hawaii from Tahiti.
Storms, floods and freshets swept Waipio Valley. The people fled from
the scene of disasters. The young chiefs found themselves homeless.
Again the love of adventure excited them. They prepared provisions for
a voyage of many days. They selected the wisest students of the stars.
They plotted their proposed route over the ocean. We are not told that
they had any one with them who had already been to Tahiti. It is
probable, however, that some of the old prophets and astrologers of
their fathers were with the young people as their priestly guardians.
They never seemed to doubt their ability to find their way. With their
selected companions the two brothers sailed for Tahiti.
Olopana and his wife, Luu-kia, occupied one of the large ocean-going
canoes and Moi-keha with Laa sailed in another. Some of the legends say
that they went away with a fleet of five large canoes.
The Hawaiian story says that the brothers arrived safely in Tahiti,
where Olopana soon became chief of a district known in the legends as
“The-open-great-red-Moa.” One of the harbours of Raiatea of the
Tahitian Islands was known as Ava-Moa, the Moa Harbour, or “The Sacred
Harbour.” Fornander justly argues that there is little doubt that this
was the place selected by Olopana as his permanent home.
Moi-keha appears to have been the priest of the family, for it is said
that he built a temple and called it Lanikeha or “the heavenly
resting-place.”
After a time Moi-keha found that life with his brother was not so
pleasant as might be desired, therefore he again prepared for a new
voyage, this time returning to his native land. He left Laa with
Olopana.
Two of the companions of Moi-keha on this return voyage became famous
in the annals of Hawaii. Kama-hua-lele was known through all the ages
by his chant in honour of Moi-Keha.
He superintended the building of the strong canoes. He was a kilokilo,
an astrologer who understood the places of the stars in the heavens and
the proper course to steer, guided by the sun by day and the stars by
night. He was the poet and seer and kahu or guardian of his chief
Moi-keha. The expedition was practically subject to his directions.
Laa-mao-mao, who aided Moi-keha as priest of the gods of the winds,
later dropped out of the story and moved to the island Molokai, where
he was supposed to have made his home near a place known as House of
Lono, a well-known hill on that island. Here he took his calabash of
winds and became the god of the winds, opening his calabash and letting
breezes or storms escape according to the wishes of the one seeking his
aid. He controlled the direction in which the winds should travel, by
lifting the cover on one side of the calabash. Then the imprisoned
winds burst forth and sped away in the desired direction.
It is said that when Moi-keha came back to the Hawaiian Islands he
visited all along the island coasts until he came to Kauai. Whenever he
landed he seems to have given prominence to one after another of the
companions of his long voyage. Places were named after some of them and
other places given to others for their future residence.
At last they came to Kauai, the most northerly island of the group.
They timed their approach so that the shadows of the night were around
them. Then as the light of the morning rose over sea and shore, with
his canoes flying the royal banners of a high chief, he drew near.
Kama-hua-lele, standing by the mast which bore the royal colours, sang
the chant of Moi-keha. The closing part of the chant is thus translated
by Fornander:
“O, Moikeha, the chief who is to reside.
My chief will reside on Hawaii.
Life, life, O buoyant life!
Live shall the chief and the priest.
Live shall the seer and the slave,
Dwell on Hawaii and be at rest,
And attain to old age on Kauai.
O Kauai is the island
O Moikeha is the chief.”
This chant had been clearly recited wherever Moi-keha had visited any
of the islands, and now fell for the first time on the ears of the
curious inhabitants of Kauai. The warm welcome was given to Moi-keha
and his companions, which was always extended to high chiefs.
King Kalakaua adds a romantic incident to the coming of Moi-keha to
Kauai.
Puna, the king, had a daughter who belonged to the fairy tale period of
Europe rather than to the free giving and taking in marriage of the
Hawaiians. She had many suitors among the young chiefs, but could not
decide upon the one highest in her esteem.
Her father at last had decided that the only way to keep her suitors
from always living at his cost was to have a contest. This had been
agreed upon before the coming of Moi-keha. When Moi-keha saw Hooipo,
the daughter of the king, he determined to have her for his wife and
planned to enter into the contest.
The king had sent a human hair necklace and whale tooth ornament to be
placed on one of the small islands some distance from Kauai. The first
chief to secure the necklace should have the king’s daughter.
The fine large canoes of the various chiefs with their strong crews of
oarsmen were drawn up in line. Moi-keha had only a small canoe prepared
which still lay on the shore under the care of one of his comrades from
Tahiti.
At the given signal the canoes sped on this journey, but Moi-keha
lingered. The young princess had now decided that Moi-keha was the
chief she desired, but she could not urge him to go, and still he
lingered.
After a time, when the other boats were almost lost to sight, he
launched his little canoe, and with his companion, paddled out into the
ocean. Then he raised his mast and fastened to it his mat-sail.
Soon the boat leaped through the waters. No paddle was needed save for
steering. Laa-mao-mao was in the canoe with him, holding strong winds
in his calabash. He let loose these servants just behind the sail and
they pushed the canoe forward with incredible rapidity. Long before the
other chiefs came in sight of the island Moi-keha had found the
necklace and had sailed away to Hooipo.
In time Moi-keha became the king of Kauai.
IX
LAA FROM TAHITI
When history is told by genealogies, rather than by cycles of years,
the time-problem is difficult to solve. But in the story of
Laa-mai-Kahiki [2] the stories and genealogies of two widely separated
groups of Pacific islands produce a certain degree of apparent
accuracy. The Society Islands have the story of Raa who became a ruler
and established a line of rulers which has continued to the present
day. The genealogy of this Raa family coincides very closely in extent
with the number of names given in the Hawaiian genealogies from the
time of the visit of Laa from Tahiti to his uncle Moi-keha the Restless
and his subsequent return to Tahiti. This places the time of Laa in the
thirteenth century.
Moi-keha sailed away from the Hawaiian Islands with his brother Olopana
and his nephew Laa. He returned alone, and won the island Kauai as his
kingdom. Olopana and Laa remained in the “wide spreading” valley under
the shadow of what the Hawaiians called the mountain Kapa-ahu the Tapa
Cloak in far away Tahiti.
The mountains of Tahiti have been built upward from the floors of the
ocean until their rugged ravines rise several thousand feet above the
surf-washed beach. The centuries have softened the harsh mountain
outlines and swept vast masses of debris down into the valleys, until
at last tropical luxuriance dominates mountain slope and level plain.
Here Laa’s youth was spent, and his manhood gained. Here he proved his
superiority over the Tahitian chiefs among whom he had found his
permanent home. Laa’s record is that of a Polynesian viking. He was
born on the island Oahu. He went to Hawaii with his uncles and spent a
part of his boyhood in the royal valley of Waipio. With these same
uncles he sailed the many hundred miles to Tahiti.
It has always been the ambition of Hawaiian chiefs to excel in all
athletic sports and warlike exercises. This was a course of training
well fitted to make Laa high-spirited, courageous and ever ready to
take the leadership among his fellow-chiefs in the new land where he
made his home.