In Puna lived the Princess Kama, and she was so beautiful that two
Kings strove to win her—the King of Puna and the King of Hilo. They
sent presents to her mother and to her father and to herself. But Kama
never saw either of those Kings. She was sent to live in a house that
no one was permitted to enter except herself and her brother. “In a
while Kama will come to the height of her beauty,” her parents said,
“and then we will give her to be Queen to one of these Kings. But until
that time comes no one must speak to her.” And so, in a house that was
forbidden to every one else, Kama lived with only her young brother for
her companion.
Far away, on the Island of Oahu, there lived a youth whose name was
Ha-le-ma-no. Every night he had a dream in which he met a beautiful
maiden who talked to him and whose name in his dream he knew. But when
he wakened up he could not remember what name she had told him to call
her by, nor what words they had said to each other. He remembered only
her beautiful form and face, the dress and the wreaths she wore, and
the scent that was in her dress. The youth became so that he could
think of nothing else except this maiden, and he wasted away because of
this thought that put every other thought out of his mind. Then it came
about that he would eat no food, and at last his fasting and his
wasting thought brought him near his death.
But Ha-le-ma-no had a sister who had magical powers. Her name was
Lae-ni-hi. She was travelling with her other sisters when she saw
Ha-le-ma-no’s image in the sky, and she knew by that sign that her
brother was near his death. Her sisters wept for Ha-le-ma-no when they
saw that sign in the sky, but Lae-ni-hi uttered a magic spell, and
through that spell Ha-le-ma-no was brought back to life.
Then she went and she visited her brother, and when she was with him
she asked what it was that had brought him so near his death. “It is
because of a maiden whom I dream of continually,” he told her, “that I
was near my death, and that I may come near my death again.”
His sister asked him what the maiden was like, and he told her. “She is
tall and very beautiful, and she seems to be a Princess. She has a
wreath of hala on her head and a lei of lehua-blossoms around her neck.
Her dress is of scented tapa, and it is dyed red.” “It is in Puna,”
said his sister, “that the women wear the lehua lei, and have scented
tapa for their dresses.”
Then she asked, “How do your meetings come about?” “When I fall
asleep,” said Ha-le-ma-no, “the maiden comes to me. Then she tells me
her name. But when I waken up I do not know the name I called her by.”
He slept, and his wise sister watched over him. In his sleep he again
met the beautiful maiden. She heard him speak the dream-woman’s name.
It was Kama. Soon afterwards Ha-le-ma-no wakened from his sleep.
“She is Kama, and of her I have heard much,” said his sister. “She is
very beautiful. But no one is permitted to come into the house where
she lives. And in a while, when she has reached the height of her
beauty, she will be given in marriage to the King of Puna or the King
of Hilo.” “Unless I can take her out of that forbidden house and away
from these two Kings,” said Ha-le-ma-no, “I shall surely die.”
Then his sister promised him that she would strive to find some way of
bringing him and Kama together. He ate his food because she made that
promise, and he became well again. Then, that he might be able to
follow her travels, she told him of the signs she would show. “If it
rains here,” she said, “you will know that I have got as far as the
Island of Mo-lo-kai. If the lightning flashes, you will know that I
have reached the Island of Maui. If it thunders, I am at Kohala. And if
you see red water flowing, I have reached Puna, where your Princess
lives.”
Ha-le-ma-no’s sister started off. Soon it rained; soon the lightning
flashed; soon thunder was heard; soon red water flowed. Lae-ni-hi had
come to Puna.
When she came there she began to devise ways by which she could come to
the Princess in her forbidden house. She caused the wind to blow. It
aroused the sea from its repose, and the surf began to roll in on the
beach of Kai-mu. That was a place where the people used to go for
surf-riding. When they saw the surf coming in in great rollers they
began to shout. They got their surf-boards and prepared to ride in on
the rolling surf.
When Kama’s brother heard the shouting he came down on the beach. He
saw the people riding the surf, and he went back to ask his sister’s
permission to ride the surf like the others. She came down to the beach
with him. And when she saw the surf coming in in such fine rollers she
too became excited, and she longed to go riding it.
She allowed the first roller to come in until it reached the shore; she
allowed the second roller to come in; then the third. And when that
roller reached the shore she plunged in and swam out with her board to
the place where the rollers began to curve up. When she reached that
place she took the first roller that came along, and, standing on her
surf-board, she rode in on it. The people watching shouted in
admiration for her, so beautiful was her figure as she stood upon the
board that came racing in with the rolling surf.
She rode the surf three times, and she was becoming more and more
delighted with the sport, when the wind ceased to blow and the surf
went down. Kama was left in shallow water. She looked down, and she saw
a bright fish in the water. And her brother, who was looking towards
her, saw the fish at the same time. He called out to her, “O my sister,
take up and bring to me the bright fish that is in the shallow water.”
Now the fish was Lae-ni-hi, who had transformed herself. Kama put her
hands under her and took her up. She put the fish into a calabash of
water and gave her to her brother for a plaything. He carried the fish
with him, and in that way Lae-ni-hi came into the house that was
forbidden to all except the Princess and her brother.
In the middle of the night she changed back into a woman, and she stood
above where the Princess lay. Kama wakened up and saw the strange woman
near her. “Where are you from?” the Princess asked. “I am from near
here.” “There is no woman who is like you anywhere near. Besides, no
one belonging to this place would come into this house, for all know
that it is forbidden.” “I have come from beyond the sea.” “Yes, now you
are telling me the truth.”
Then Lae-ni-hi asked the Princess if she had ever met a youth in her
dream. The Princess would not answer when she asked this. “If you would
have me bring one to you, give me a wreath that you have worn, and a
dress,” said Ha-le-ma-no’s sister. Kama gave her a wreath that was
withered and one of her scented dresses.
Lae-ni-hi went back to her brother. She showed him the wreath and the
dress that the Princess had worn. Upon seeing these things Ha-le-ma-no
was sure that his sister had been with the dream-maiden, and he rose up
to go at once to where she was.
But his sister would not let him go without her. And before she would
go back to Puna she had toys and playthings made—toys and playthings
that would take the fancy of Kama’s young brother. She had wooden birds
made that would float on the waves; she had a toy canoe made and
painted red; in it there were men in red to paddle it; she had other
figures made that could stand upright; then she fixed up a colored and
high-flying kite.
With the toys and playthings in their canoe, Ha-le-ma-no and Lae-ni-hi
started off for Puna. And when they drew near the shore Ha-le-ma-no let
the kite rise up. As it went up in the air the people on the beach saw
it, and they shouted. The Princess’s brother heard the shouts, and he
came out to see what was happening.
When he saw the kite he ran down to the beach. He saw a canoe with two
persons in it, and one of them held the string of the kite. He called
out to them, “Oh, let me have the thing that flies!” Lae-ni-hi then
said to her brother, “Let the boy have it,” and he put the string of
the kite into the boy’s hand. Then the birds were put into the water,
and they floated on the waves. Then the toy canoe with its men in red
was let down, and it floated on the water. The boy cried out, “Oh, let
me have these things,” and Lae-ni-hi gave them to him.
And then she put along the side of the canoe the standing figures that
she had brought. The boy saw them, and them he wanted too. Then
Lae-ni-hi said to him, “Are you a favorite with your sister?” “I am,”
the boy said; “she will do anything I ask her to do.” “Call her so that
she comes near us, and I will give you these figures.” The boy then
called her. “Unless you come here, sister,” he said, “I cannot get
these playthings.”
Kama came near. Then Ha-le-ma-no saw that she had the very height of
the maiden whom he had seen in his dreams. “Are you a favorite with
your sister, and would she mind if you asked her to turn her back to
us?” Lae-ni-hi said. The boy asked his sister to turn her back, and
then Ha-le-ma-no saw how straight her back was. After this Lae-ni-hi
said, “Are you a favorite with your sister, and would she mind if you
asked her to show her face to us?” After that Kama stood facing the
canoe, and Ha-le-ma-no saw that this was indeed the maiden of his
dream.
Then they met, Ha-le-ma-no and Kama. The Princess knew him for the
youth she had seen in her dreams. She let him take her by the hands and
bring her into the canoe. When they were in the canoe Lae-ni-hi paddled
it off. The people of Puna and the people of Hilo came in chase of
them. But by the power that Lae-ni-hi had, the canoe was made to go so
swiftly that those who followed were left far behind.
After this the two Kings said to each other: “Yes, we have sent much of
what we owned to her and to her parents with the idea that one or the
other of us would get her for his wife. Now she has been carried off
from us. Let us make war upon those who have taken her, and punish them
for having carried her off.”
And so the two Kings made war upon Ha-le-ma-no’s people. Ha-le-ma-no
and Kama had to flee away. And after enduring much suffering and much
poverty they came to the Island of Maui. There they lived; but instead
of living in state and having plenty, they had to dig the ground and
live as a farmer and a farmer’s wife.
Near where they lived there was a beach, and people used to go down to
it for surf-riding. One day Kama went down to this beach. She took a
board and went surf-riding. And when she was racing in on the surf she
remembered how she had once lived as a Princess, and she remembered how
Ha-le-ma-no had come and had taken her away, and how she had nothing
now but a grass hut and the roots that she and her husband pulled out
of the ground. And then she was angry with Ha-le-ma-no, and she longed
to be back again in Puna.
When she finished surf-riding and came in on to the shore she saw that
there were red canoes there—the canoes of a King. And then she saw
Hua-a, the King of Puna. He came to her, and he took her by the hands.
She went with him, leaving her husband, who was working in his fields.
But in a while she was sorry for what she had done, and she left Hua-a.
And after that Kama went wandering through the Islands.
Now when Ha-le-ma-no knew that his wife had left him, he grew so ill
that again he was near his death. But again his sister saved him. Then,
when he was well, Ha-le-ma-no told his sister that he would learn to be
a fisherman, for he thought that if he were something else than a
farmer Kama would come back to him.
His sister told him to learn to be a singer and a chanter of verses;
she told him that, if he had that art, he would be most likely to win
his wife back to him. Ha-le-ma-no made up his mind to learn the art of
singing and of chanting verses.
When he was on his way to learn this art he passed by a grove at
Ke-a-kui. He went within the grove, and he saw the mai-le vine growing
on the ohia trees. Then he began to strip the vine from the trees and
make wreaths of it. He was sitting down making the wreaths when he saw
the top of the mountain Ha-le-a-ka-la, like a pointed cloud in the
evening, with other clouds drifting about it. And when he looked upon
that mountain he thought of the places where he and his wife had
travelled. And as he was thinking of her, his wife, who had been
wandering about that Island, came near where he was. She saw him and
she knew him; she came and she stood behind him. And then Ha-le-ma-no,
looking upon the mountain, was moved to chant these verses:
“I was once thought a good deal of, O my love!
My companion of the shady trees.
For we two once lived on the food from the long-speared
grass of the wilderness.
Alas, O my love!
My love from the land of the Kau-mu-ku wind,
As it comes gliding over the ocean,
As it covers the waves of Papa-wai,
For it was the canoe that brought us here.
Alas, O my love!
My love of the home where we were friendless,
Our only friend being our love for one another.
It is hooked, and it bites to the very inside of the bones.”
Kama was going to put out her hand to touch him, but, hearing him chant
this, she thought that he was in such sorrow that he would never
forgive her. She wept and she went away, leaving the place without
speaking to him.
After that Ha-le-ma-no went on his way; he learned the art of singing
and of chanting verses. Afterwards, when he was very famous, it
happened that he was invited to a place where there were games and
singing.
He came to that place; covered over with a mantle, he sat by himself,
and he watched those who came in. Many people came in, and amongst them
a woman who wanted to be a wife to Ha-le-ma-no—a woman of great riches.
But as Ha-le-ma-no looked towards this woman, he saw sitting there, in
all her beauty and her grace, his own wife Kama. They asked him to
chant to them. Then he remembered how he and she had lived together and
had wandered together in different places; and, remembering this, he
chanted:
“We once lived in Hilo, in our own home,
For we had suffered in the home that was not ours,
For I had but one friend, myself.
The streams of Hilo are innumerable,
The high cliff was the home where we lived.
Alas, my love of the lehua blossoms of Moku-pa-ne!
The lehua blossoms that were braided with the hala blossoms,
For our love for one another was all that we had.
The rain fell only at Le-le-wi,
As it came creeping over the hala trees at Po-mai-kai,
At the place where I was punished through love.
Alas, O my love!
My love from the leaping cliffs of Pi-i-kea;
From the waters of Wai-lu-ku where the people are carried under,
Which we had to go through to get to the many cliffs of Hilo,
Those solemn cliffs that are bare of people,
Peopled by you and me alone, my love,
You, my own love!”
And when she heard these verses Kama knew who the man was who chanted
them. She bowed her head, and she chanted:
“Alas, thou art my bosom companion, my love!
My companion of the cold watery home of Hilo.
I am from Hilo,
From the rain that pelts the leaves of the bread-fruit
of Pi-i-honua;
For we live at the bread-fruit trees of Malama.
Love is shown by the tears,
Love is the friend of my companion,
My companion of the thick forests of Pana-ewa,
Where you and I have trod,
Our only fellow-traveller our love.
Alas, O my companion, my love!
My love of the cold, watery home of Hilo,
The friendless home where you and I lived.”
And when she had chanted this, Kama looked towards Ha-le-ma-no, and she
saw that forgiveness was in his eyes. They stood up then, and they
joined each other. Then they went away together.
“You will surely see Hai-li,
Hai-li where the blossoming lehua trees
Are haunted by the birds,
The o-o of the forest,
Whose sweet notes can be heard at eventide.”
So they sang to each other as they went away together.