This is a story from Manoa Valley, back of Honolulu. In the upper end of
the valley, at the foot of the highest mountains on the island Oahu,
lived Maluae. He was a farmer, and had chosen this land because rain
fell abundantly on the mountains, and the streams brought down fine soil
from the decaying forests and disintegrating rocks, fertilizing his
plants.
Here he cultivated bananas and taro and sweet potatoes. His bananas grew
rapidly by the sides of the brooks, and yielded large bunches of fruit
from their tree-like stems; his taro filled small walled-in pools,
growing in the water like water-lilies, until the roots were matured,
when the plants were pulled up and the roots boiled and prepared for
food; his sweet potatoes--a vegetable known among the ancient New
Zealanders as ku-maru, and supposed to have come from Hawaii--were
planted on the drier uplands.
Thus he had plenty of food continually growing, and ripening from time
to time. Whenever he gathered any of his food products he brought a part
to his family temple and placed it on an altar before the gods Kane and
Kanaloa, then he took the rest to his home for his family to eat.
He had a boy whom he dearly loved, whose name was Kaa-lii (rolling
chief). This boy was a careless, rollicking child.
One day the boy was tired and hungry. He passed by the temple of the
gods and saw bananas, ripe and sweet, on the little platform before the
gods. He took these bananas and ate them all.
The gods looked down on the altar expecting to find food, but it was all
gone and there was nothing for them. They were very angry, and ran out
after the boy. They caught him eating the bananas, and killed him. The
body they left lying under the trees, and taking out his ghost threw it
into the Under-world.
The father toiled hour after hour cultivating his food plants, and when
wearied returned to his home. On the way he met the two gods. They told
him how his boy had robbed them of their sacrifices and how they had
punished him. They said, "We have sent his ghost body to the lowest
regions of the Under-world."
The father was very sorrowful and heavy hearted as he went on his way to
his desolate home. He searched for the body of his boy, and at last
found it. He saw too that the story of the gods was true, for partly
eaten bananas filled the mouth, which was set in death.
He wrapped the body very carefully in kapa cloth made from the bark of
trees. He carried it into his rest-house and laid it on the
sleeping-mat. After a time he lay down beside the body, refusing all
food, and planning to die with his boy. He thought if he could escape
from his own body he would be able to go down where the ghost of his boy
had been sent. If he could find that ghost he hoped to take it to the
other part of the Under-world, where they could be happy together.
He placed no offerings on the altar of the gods. No prayers were
chanted. The afternoon and evening passed slowly. The gods waited for
their worshipper, but he came not. They looked down on the altar of
sacrifice, but there was nothing for them.
The night passed and the following day. The father lay by the side of
his son, neither eating nor drinking, and longing only for death. The
house was tightly closed.
Then the gods talked together, and Kane said: "Maluae eats no food, he
prepares no awa to drink, and there is no water by him. He is near the
door of the Under-world. If he should die, we would be to blame."
Kanaloa said: "He has been a good man, but now we do not hear any
prayers. We are losing our worshipper. We in quick anger killed his
son. Was this the right reward? He has called us morning and evening in
his worship. He has provided fish and fruits and vegetables for our
altars. He has always prepared awa from the juice of the yellow awa root
for us to drink. We have not paid him well for his care."
Then they decided to go and give life to the father, and permit him to
take his ghost body and go down into Po, the dark land, to bring back
the ghost of the boy. So they went to Maluae and told him they were
sorry for what they had done.
The father was very weak from hunger, and longing for death, and could
scarcely listen to them.
When Kane said, "Have you love for your child?" the father whispered:
"Yes. My love is without end." "Can you go down into the dark land and
get that spirit and put it back in the body which lies here?"
"No," the father said, "no, I can only die and go to live with him and
make him happier by taking him to a better place."
Then the gods said, "We will give you the power to go after your boy and
we will help you to escape the dangers of the land of ghosts."
Then the father, stirred by hope, rose up and took food and drink. Soon
he was strong enough to go on his journey.
The gods gave him a ghost body and also prepared a hollow stick like
bamboo, in which they put food, battle-weapons, and a piece of burning
lava for fire.
Not far from Honolulu is a beautiful modern estate with fine roads,
lakes, running brooks, and interesting valleys extending back into the
mountain range. This is called by the very ancient name Moanalua (two
lakes). Near the seacoast of this estate was one of the most noted ghost
localities of the islands. The ghosts after wandering over the island
Oahu would come to this place to find a way into their real home, the
Under-world, or, as the Hawaiians usually called it, Po.
Here was a ghostly breadfruit-tree named Lei-walo, possibly meaning "the
eight wreaths" or "the eighth wreath"--the last wreath of leaves from
the land of the living which would meet the eyes of the dying.
The ghosts would leap or fly or climb into the branches of this tree,
trying to find a rotten branch upon which they could sit until it broke
and threw them into the dark sea below.
Maluae climbed up the breadfruit-tree. He found a branch upon which some
ghosts were sitting waiting for it to fall. His weight was so much
greater than theirs that the branch broke at once, and down they all
fell into the land of Po.
He needed merely to taste the food in his hollow cane to have new life
and strength. This he had done when he climbed the tree; thus he had
been able to push past the fabled guardians of the pathway of the ghosts
in the Upper-world. As he entered the Under-world he again tasted the
food of the gods and he felt himself growing stronger and stronger.
He took a magic war-club and a spear out of the cane given by the gods.
Ghostly warriors tried to hinder his entrance into the different
districts of the dark land. The spirits of dead chiefs challenged him
when he passed their homes. Battle after battle was fought. His magic
club struck the warriors down, and his spear tossed them aside.
Sometimes he was warmly greeted and aided by ghosts of kindly spirit.
Thus he went from place to place, searching for his boy, finding him at
last, as the Hawaiians quaintly expressed it, "down in the papa-ku" (the
established foundation of Po), choking and suffocating from the bananas
of ghost-land which he was compelled to continually force into his
mouth.
The father caught the spirit of the boy and started back toward the
Upper-world, but the ghosts surrounded him. They tried to catch him and
take the spirit away from him. Again the father partook of the food of
the gods. Once more he wielded his war-club, but the hosts of enemies
were too great. Multitudes arose on all sides, crushing him by their
overwhelming numbers.
At last he raised his magic hollow cane and took the last portion of
food. Then he poured out the portion of burning lava which the gods had
placed inside. It fell upon the dry floor of the Under-world. The flames
dashed into the trees and the shrubs of ghost-land. Fire-holes opened in
the floor and streams of lava burst out.
Backward fled the multitudes of spirits. The father thrust the spirit of
the boy quickly into the empty magic cane and rushed swiftly up to his
home-land. He brought the spirit to the body lying in the rest-house and
forced it to find again its living home.
Afterward the father and the boy took food to the altars of the gods,
and chanted the accustomed prayers heartily and loyally all the rest of
their lives.