"How many other children in your family?"
He said: "There are three of us. I am the boy and there are two sisters,
Paliula and Ke-ao-mele-mele. I have been sent by Ke-ao-mele-mele to get
Kau-mai-liula and Kau-lana-iki-pokii to go to Oahu."
Ku and his wife agreed to the call of the messenger for their boy
Kau-mai-liula.
When Kahanai saw him he knew that there was no other one so fine as this
young man who quickly consented to go to Oahu with his servants.
Ku called for some beautiful red boats with red sails, red
paddles,--everything red. Four good boatmen were provided for each boat,
men who came from the land of Ulu-nui--the land of the yellow sea and
the black sea of Kane--and obeyed the call of Mo-o-inanea. They had
kupua power. They were relatives of Kane and Kanaloa.
The daughter of Hina and Olopana, Kau-lana-iki-pokii, cried to go with
her brother, but Mo-o-inanea called for her dragon family to make a boat
for her and ordered one of the sorcerer dragons to go with her and guard
her. They called the most beautiful shells of the sea to become the
boats for the girl and her attendants. They followed the boats of
Kahanai. With one stroke of the paddles the boats passed through the
seas around the home of the gods. With the second stroke they broke
through all the boundaries of the great ocean and with the third dashed
into the harbor of old Honolulu, then known as Kou.
When the boats of Kahanai and Kau-mai-liula came to the surf of Mamala,
there was great shouting inland of Kou, the voices of the eepas of
Waolani. Mists and rainbows rested over Waolani. The menehunes gathered
in great multitudes at the call of Kane, who had seen the boats
approaching.
The menehune people ran down to lift up the boats belonging to the young
chief. They made a line from Waolani to the sea. They lifted up the
boats and passed them from hand to hand without any effort, shouting
with joy.
While these chiefs were going up to Waolani, Ke-ao-mele-mele came from
Hawaii in her cloud boats.
Kane had told the menehunes to prepare houses quickly for her. It was
done like the motion of the eye.
Ke-ao-mele-mele entered her house, rested, and after a time practised
the hula.
The chiefs also had houses prepared, which they entered.
The shell boats found difficulty in entering the bay because the other
boats were in the way. So they turned off to the eastern side of the
harbor. Thus the ancient name of that side was given Ke-awa-lua (the
second harbor, or the second landing-place in the harbor). Here they
landed very quietly. The shell boats became very small and Kau-lana and
her companions took them and hid them in their clothes. They went along
the beach, saw some fish. The attendants took them for the girl. This
gave the name Kau-lana-iki-pokii to that place to this day. As they went
along, the dragon friend made the signs of a high chief appear over the
girl. The red rain and arching bow were over her, so the name was given
to that place, Ka-ua-koko-ula (blood rain), which is the name to this
day.
The dragon changed her body and carried the girl up Nuuanu Valley very
swiftly to the house of Ke-ao-mele-mele (the maiden of the golden
cloud) without the knowledge of Kane and the others. They heard the hula
of Ke-ao-mele-mele. Soon she felt that some one was outside, and looking
saw the girl and her friend, with the signs of a chief over her.
So she called:
"Is that you, O eye of the day?
O lightning-like eye from Kahiki,
The remembered one coming to me.
The strong winds have been blowing,
Trembling comes into my breast,
A stranger perhaps is outside,
A woman whose sign is the fog,
A stranger and yet my young sister,
The flower of the divine home-land,
The wonderful land of the setting sun
Going down into the deep blue sea.
You belong to the white ocean of Kane,
You are Kau-lana-iki-pokii,
The daughter of the sunset,
The woman coming in the mist,
In the thunder and the flash of lightning
Quivering in the sky above.
Light falls on the earth below.
The sign of the chiefess,
The woman high up in the heavens,
Kau-lana-iki-pokii,
Enter, enter, here am I."
Those outside heard the call and understood that Ke-ao-mele-mele knew
who they were. They entered and saw her in all the beauty of her high
divine blood.
They kissed. Kau-lana told how she had come. Ke-ao-mele-mele told the
dragon to go and stay on the mountain by the broken pali at the head of
Nuuanu Valley. So she went to the precipice and became the watchman of
that place. She was the first dragon on the islands. She watched with
magic power. Later, Mo-o-inanea came with many dragons to watch over the
islands. Ke-ao-mele-mele taught her young sister the different hulas and
meles, so that they were both alike in their power.
When the young men heard hula voices in the other houses they thought
they would go and see the dancers. At the hour of twilight Waolani shook
as if in an earthquake, and there was thunder and lightning.
The young men and Anuenue went to the house and saw the girls dancing,
and wondered how Kau-lana had come from the far-off land.
Ke-ao-mele-mele foretold the future for the young people. She told
Kau-lana that she would never marry, but should have magic medicine
power for all coming days, and Kahanai should have the power over all
customs of priests and sorcerers and knowledge of sacrifices, and should
be the bosom friend of the medicine-goddess. She said that they would
all go to Waipio, Hawaii. Kane, Kanaloa, and Anuenue approved of her
commands.
Ke-ao-mele-mele sent Kau-lana to Hawaii to tell Paliula to come and live
with them at Waipio and find Kahanai once more. Kau-lana hastened to
Hawaii in her shell boat. She called, "O my red shell boat of the deep
blue sea and the black sea, come up to me."
The shell boat appeared on the surface of the sea, floating. The girl
was carried swiftly to Hawaii. There she found Waka and Paliula and took
them to Waipio. They lived for a time there, then all went to Waolani to
complete the marriage of Ke-ao-mele-mele to Kau-mai-liula.
Kane sent Waka and Anuenue for Ku and Hiilei, Hina and Olopana with
Mo-o-inanea to come to Oahu.
Mo-o-inanea prepared large ocean-going canoes for the two families, but
she and her people went in their magic boats.
Mo-o-inanea told them they would never return to these lands, but should
find their future home in Hawaii.
Waka went on Ku's boat, Anuenue was with Hina. Ku and his friends looked
back, the land was almost lost; they soon saw nothing until the
mountains of Oahu appeared before them.
They landed at Heeia on the northern side of the Nuuanu precipice, went
over to Waolani, and met all the family who had come before.
Before Mo-o-inanea left her land she changed it, shutting up all the
places where her family had lived. She told all her kupua dragon family
to come with her to the place where the gods had gone. Thus she made the
old lands entirely different from any other lands, so that no other
persons but gods or ghosts could live in them.
Then she rose up to come away. The land was covered with rainclouds,
heavy and black. The land disappeared and is now known as "The Hidden
Land of Kane."
She landed on Western Oahu, at Waialua, so that place became the home of
the dragons, and it was filled with the dragons from Waialua to Ewa.
This was the coming of dragons to the Hawaiian Islands.
At the time of the marriage of Ke-ao-mele-mele and Kau-mai-liula, the
Beautiful Daughter of Sunset came from the island Hawaii bringing the
two trees Makalei and Makuukao, which prepared cooked food and fish.
When she heard the call to the marriage she came with the trees. Makalei
brought great multitudes of fish from all the ocean to the Koo-lau-poko
side of the island Oahu. The ocean was red with the fish.
Makuukao came to Nuuanu Valley with Kau-lana, entered Waolani, and
provided plenty of food.
Then Makalei started to come up from the sea.
Kau-lana-iki-pokii told the gods and people that there must not be any
noise when that great tree came up from the sea. They must hear and
remain silent.
When the tree began to come to the foot of the pali, the menehunes and
eepas were astonished and began to shout with a great voice, for they
thought this was a mighty kupua from Kahiki coming to destroy them.
When they had shouted, Makalei fell down at the foot of the pali near
Ka-wai-nui, and lies there to this day. So this tree never came to
Waolani and the fish were scattered around the island.
Kau-lana's wrath was very great, and he told Kane and the others to
punish these noisy ones, to take them away from this wonderful valley of
the gods. He said, "No family of these must dwell on Waolani." Thus the
fairies and the gnomes were driven away and scattered over the islands.
For a long time the Maiden of the Golden Cloud and her husband, Twilight
Resting in the Sky, ruled over all the islands even to the mysterious
lands of the ocean. When death came they laid aside their human bodies
and never made use of them again--but as aumakuas, or ghost-gods, they
assumed their divine forms, and in the skies, over the mountains and
valleys, they have appeared for hundreds of years watching over and
cheering their descendants.
NOTE.--See now article on "Dragon Ghost-gods" in the Appendix.