The Country that Supports the Heavens, Ku-ai-he-lani, was where Maki-i
lived and ruled as King. He came to one of our Islands, and there he
took a wife. After a while he had to go back to Ku-ai-he-lani, and
before he went he said this to the woman he had married: “I know that a
daughter will be born to us. I would have you name the girl
Lau-kia-manu. If, when you have brought her up, she has a desire to
come to live with me, let her make the journey to Ku-ai-he-lani. But
she must come in a red canoe with red sails and red cords, with red
bailing-cups, and with men in red to have charge of it. And she must be
accompanied by a large canoe and a small canoe, by big men and by
little men. And give her these; they will be tokens by which I shall
know her for my daughter—this necklace of whales’ teeth, this bracelet,
and this bright feather cloak.” Maki-i then gave the tokens to his
wife, and he departed for the land of Ku-ai-he-lani.
A child was born to the wife whom he had left behind, and she named the
child Lau-kia-manu. Meanwhile Maki-i in his own land had planted a
garden and had filled it with lovely flowers, and another garden and
had filled it with pleasant fruits, and had made a bathing pool; he
made the gardens and the pool forbidden places to every one except the
daughter who might come to him in Ku-ai-he-lani. And he had instructed
the guards about the tokens by which they would know Lau-kia-manu, his
daughter.
The girl grew up under her mother’s care. As she grew older she began
to ask about her father—who was he and where had he gone to? And once
when she asked about him, her mother said to her: “Go to the cliff
yonder; that is your father.” The child went to the cliff and asked:
“Are you my father?” The cliff denied it and said, “I am not your
father.” The child came back and craved of her mother, again, to tell
her who her father was. “Go to the bamboo bush yonder,” said her
mother; “that is your father.” The child went to the bamboo bush and
said, “Are you my father?” “I am not,” said the bamboo bush. “Maki-i is
your father.” “And where is he?” said the child. “He has gone back to
Ku-ai-he-lani.”
She went back and said to her mother, “Maki-i is my father, and he is
in the land of Ku-ai-he-lani, and you have hidden this from me.” Her
mother said: “I have hidden it because if you went to visit him
terrible things would befall you. For he told me that you should go to
him in a red canoe with red sails and red cords, with red bailing-cups,
and with men in red to have charge of it. And he said that you should
be accompanied by a large canoe and a small canoe, by big men and
little men. He gave me tokens for you to bring also, but there is no
use in giving you these, for you cannot go except in the canoes he
spoke of, and there is no way by which you can come by possessions that
denote such royal state.”
So her mother said, but Lau-kia-manu still had thoughts of going to
Ku-ai-he-lani, where her father was King. She grew to be a girl, and
then one day she said to her mother, “I have no way by which I can come
into possession of canoes that would denote my royal state, but for all
that I will make a journey to Ku-ai-he-lani; I will not remain here.”
Her mother said, “Go if you will, but terrible things will befall you.”
And then her mother said: “Go on and on until you come to where two old
women are roasting bananas by the wayside. They are your grandmother
and your grand-aunt. Reach down and take away the bananas they are
roasting. Let them search for them until they ask who has taken them.
Tell them then who you are. When they ask ‘What brings you this way?’
say, ‘I have come because I must have a roadway.’ When you say this to
them, your grandmother and your grand-aunt will give you a roadway to
Ku-ai-he-lani.”
Lau-kia-manu left her mother and went upon her way. She came where the
two old women were by the wayside, and she did as her mother had told
her. “Whose offspring are you?” asked the old women. “Your own,” said
Lau-kia-manu, and she told them the name of her mother. “What brings
you, lady, to us here?” asked the old women. And the girl answered, “I
have come to you because I want a roadway.”
Thereupon one of the old women said: “Here is a roadway; it is this
bamboo stalk. Climb to the top of it, and when it leans over it will
reach into Ku-ai-he-lani.” Lau-kia-manu went to the top of the bamboo
stalk and sat there. It began to shoot up. When it reached a great
height it leaned over; the end of it reached Ku-ai-he-lani, the Country
that Supports the Heavens.
Lau-kia-manu then went along until she came to a garden that was filled
with lovely flowers. She went into it. There grew the ilima and the
me-le ku-le and the mai-le vine. She gathered the vines and the
flowers, and she twined them into wreaths for herself. And she went
from that garden into another garden. There all kinds of pleasant
fruits were growing. She plucked and she ate of them. She saw beyond
that garden the clear, cool surface of a pool. She went there; she
undressed herself, and she bathed in that pool. And when she was in the
water there, a turtle came and rubbed her back.
She dressed, and she sat on the edge of the pool. And then the guards
who had been placed over the flower garden and the fruit garden and the
bathing pool came to where she was. “You are indeed a strange girl,”
they said to her, “for you have plucked the flowers and the fruit in
the gardens that are forbidden to all except the King’s daughter, and
you have bathed in the pool that is for her alone. You will certainly
die for doing these things,”
The guards went to Maki-i: they told him about the strange girl and
what she had done. The King ordered that they should tie her hands and
stand guard over her all night, and that when the dawn came they should
take her to the sea-shore and slay her there.
The guards took Lau-kia-manu; they tied her hands, they flung her into
a pig-pen, and they remained on watch over her all night. At midnight
an owl came and perched over where the girl lay. Then the owl called
out to her:
“Say, Lau-kia-manu,
Daughter of Maki-i!
Do you know what will befall you?
Die you will, die you must!”
To that the girl made answer:
“Wicked owl, wicked owl!
You are bad indeed,
Thus to reveal me:
Lau-kia-manu, Lau-kia-manu,
Daughter of Maki-i.”
The call of the owl and the answer of the girl came twice before the
guards heard them. Then they stood up and they listened. They heard the
call again, and they heard the answer of the girl within the pig-pen.
Then one of the guards said, “This must be Lau-kia-manu, the King’s own
daughter; we must tell him about it all.” But the other guard said:
“No. Lau-kia-manu, the King’s daughter, was to come in a red canoe,
having red sails, red cords, and red bailing-cups, with men in red in
charge, and with a large canoe, a small canoe, big men, and little men
accompanying it. This is a low-class girl; she has come with none of
these things.” The owl spoke again, and the girl made answer, and when
they heard what was said the guards agreed that they should go to the
King and tell him all that they had heard.
The King went back with the two guards. The owl was still above the
pig-pen, and the girl still within it. The owl called out:
“Say, Lau-kia-manu,
Daughter of Maki-i!
Do you know what will befall you?
Die you will, die you must!”
And to that the girl made answer:
“Wicked owl, wicked owl!
You are bad indeed,
Thus to reveal me:
Lau-kia-manu, Lau-kia-manu,
Daughter of Maki-i.”
When the King heard this he went into the pig-pen.
Now, after the guards had gone to inform the King of what they had
heard the owl flew down upon Lau-kia-manu; it clapped its wings over
the girl; it placed the necklace of whales’ teeth around her neck, it
placed the bracelet upon her arm, it put the cloak of bright feathers
around her. For this owl was really her grand-aunt, and it was to her
that Lau-kia-manu’s mother had given the tokens by which the girl was
to be recognized when she came into Maki-i’s kingdom.
When her father broke into the pig-pen he saw her standing there with
the necklace of whales’ teeth around her neck, with the bracelet upon
her wrist, and with the cloak of bright feathers around her. He took
her up and he wept over her; he gave her the garden of flowers and the
garden of fruits and the bathing pool with the clear cool water. Then,
in a while, he brought Ula to her.
Ula was a prince from Kahiki-ku, and he was as handsome as she was
lovely. What a sight it was to see them together, Lau-kia-manu and Ula,
the prince from Kahiki-ku! “What light is that in yonder house?” he had
said to her father on the night that he came to Ku-ai-he-lani, “That is
not a light,” said Maki-i; “it is the radiance of the woman who is
within.” He brought Ula into the house, and Ula and Lau-kia-manu met.
For fifty days they were together. Then Ula had to return to his own
land, to Kahiki-ku. “You cannot go there unless you take me with you,”
said Lau-kia-manu. “You cannot come with me,” said Ula. “If you came
you would meet with terrible suffering at the hands of the Queen of
Kahiki-ku.”
He went back to his own land. Lau-kia-manu remained in Ku-ai-he-lani,
but she was so overcome by her love for Ula that, every morning when
she saw the clouds in the sky drifting towards Kahiki-ku, she would
chant this poem:
“The sun is up, it is up:
My love is ever up before me:
Love is a burthen when one is in love,
And falling tears are its due.”
She would weep then. And when she found out that she could not put her
love away from her, either by night or by day, she went down to the
sea-shore and she wept there. Then, when her weeping was at an end, she
called out, “O turtle with the shiny back, O my grandmother of the sea,
come to me.”
The turtle with the shiny back appeared. She opened her shell at her
back. Lau-kia-manu went within the shell. Then the turtle went under
the water. She swam under the sea, and she swam on and on until she
came with Lau-kia-manu to the land of Kahiki-ku. The girl stepped on
the sea-shore, and the turtle dived into the ocean and disappeared.
Lau-kia-manu went along by the sea-shore. She came to where there was a
fish pond that belonged to the Queen of Kahiki-ku. She stayed beside
the fish pond while she uttered a charm, saying:
“Ye forty thousand gods,
Ye four hundred thousand gods,
Ye rows of gods,
Ye assemblies of gods,
Ye older brothers of the gods,
Ye four-fold gods,
Ye five-fold gods,
Take away from me my beauty, make it hidden:
Give me the form of a crone, bowed and blear-eyed.”
And when she had said that, her beauty was taken away from her, and she
appeared as an old woman, bent and wandering, with a stick in her hand,
gathering sea-eggs.
In the fish pond there were many kinds of silver fish. Lau-kia-manu
uttered a spell, and caused them all to disappear a minute after she
had seen them swimming about. Still she stayed near, dragging herself
here and there about the sea-shore. And while she was there, messengers
came to bring from the Queen’s pond silver fish for the Queen.
There was not a single fish in the pond. When the messengers saw this,
they accused the old woman who was near by of having taken the fish out
of the pond. She made no reply to them. Then nothing would do the
messengers but to take her before the Queen and charge her with having
stolen the silver fish out of her pond.
So they brought her before the Queen. “There is not a single fish in
your pond,” they said, “and we found this old woman near it, going up
and down.” The Queen said, “Nothing will happen to you, old woman, if
you will take as your name the name of my sickness.” The old woman said
that she would do that. Then the Queen named her Li-pe-wa-le, the name
of the Queen’s sickness; she let her stay in the house, and she gave
her food.
So Lau-kia-manu became known as Li-pe-wa-le. In the Queen’s house she
did menial tasks. And into the house came the Prince who was to wed the
Queen. He was Ula. Once when she was lying on her mat asleep, Ula came
and kissed Lau-kia-manu. She wakened up and cried out, “Who is kissing
me?” The Queen heard her voice and said, “What is it, Li-pe-wa-le?”
Lau-kia-manu made no answer. We can see by what Ula did that he knew
his sweetheart of Ku-ai-he-lani in spite of her being transformed into
an old woman.
One day the Queen went down to the sea-shore to bathe. She bade
Li-pe-wa-le stay within the house and decorate a dress that she was to
wear. Li-pe-wa-le did as she was ordered. But she worked so quickly on
the dress that she had it all done very soon, and she was able to
follow the Queen and her attendants down to the sea-shore. And on her
way she caused herself to be transformed back into her own shape, with
her own beauty. She passed the others by; she bathed near where the
Queen bathed, and the Queen and all her attendants were able to look
upon her. Then she dressed herself and hurried away.
They all hurried after her; the Queen was angry that one who was more
beautiful than she was should be in her country. Lau-kia-manu went more
quickly than they did, and when they came to the Queen’s house she had
already transformed herself, and the only one they saw there was
Li-pe-wa-le, the old and withered woman.
That night the Queen and her attendants and Ula the Prince went to
dance in a house that the Queen had built. She put on her beautiful
wreaths with the dress that Li-pe-wa-le had decorated for her. But she
ordered Li-pe-wa-le to stay within the house and decorate another
dress.
There she stayed, and the sounds of the music and the dancing came to
her. And then the girl went without. She looked over to the house where
the dance was going on, and she uttered this charm:
“Ye forty thousand gods,
Ye four hundred thousand gods,
Ye rows of gods,
Ye assemblies of gods,
Ye older brothers of the gods,
Ye gods that whisper,
Ye gods that watch by night,
Ye gods that show your gleaming eyes by night,
Come down, awake, make a move, stir yourselves!
There is the house, the house.”
And when she uttered this spell the Queen, who was dancing, fell down
on the ground. Fire burst out all around the house. And then
Lau-kia-manu, in the light of the fires, in the light of her own
beauty, stood in the doorway of the house. Ula the Prince saw her
there. “Come to me, oh, come to me, beautiful woman,” he said. But
Lau-kia-manu made answer: “I will not go to you now, nor ever again. In
your own country you did not cherish me, but you left me to sorrow and
affliction. Now I go back to Ku-ai-he-lani.” So she left the burning
house, and she went down to the sea-shore. She called upon the turtle
with the shiny back, her grandmother of the sea; and the turtle came
and opened the shell on her back, and Lau-kia-manu went within it. And
she journeyed through the ocean, under the waves, and came back again
to the land of Ku-ai-he-lani, and there ever afterwards she stayed.