Kana and Ni-he-u were brothers. Ni-he-u was such a great warrior that
he would fight against a whole army without thinking about the odds,
and he was able to carry such a war-club that, by resting one end of it
in his canoe and putting the other end against a cliff, he could walk
from the canoe on to the land. Certainly an extraordinary man was
Ni-he-u.
But if Ni-he-u was extraordinary, Kana was many times more
extraordinary. And what an extraordinary life Kana had! When he was
born he was in the form of a piece of rope—just a piece of rope! But
his grandmother (Uli was her name) took him to her house and reared
him. As he began to grow she had to have a special house built for him;
it had to be a very long house, a house that had to be lengthened out
as Kana kept growing. At last the house that Kana lived in stretched
from the mountains to the edge of the sea.
The name of the mother of Ni-he-u and Kana was Hina. She was carried
away from her husband, the boys’ father. And the way Hina was carried
away was very remarkable.
There was a Chief named Pe-pe’e who wanted to take Hina. He owned a
hill that was called Hau-pu. He lived on that hill; it was very
strange, but he was able to make that hill move about and do things for
him. I have heard that the hill was really a turtle, and that its real
name was Ka-honu-nunui ma-eleka. And if that was so, it is easy to see
how Pe-pe’e could get it to move about and do things for him.
One of the things that it did for him was to carry off Hina, the mother
of Ni-he-u and Kana. The hill came across the sea from Mo-lo-kai to
Hilo, carrying Pe-pe’e and his people upon it. Hina saw the hill when
it came over to Hilo. It looked so fresh and so green that she thought
it would be nice to walk upon it. So she went over and she climbed up
Hau-pu. And then, all at once, the hill moved from Hilo and went over
to the Island of Mo-lo-kai.
When Ni-he-u heard that his mother had been carried off he went to his
father and said: “Neither I nor you can get to her and bring her back.
Only Kana, my brother, can do that. You must go to him yourself, my
father, and ask him to do it. Don’t be afraid of him and run away if he
should turn and look at you. Just keep your eyes away from him, and
then you won’t be frightened.” After Ni-he-u had told him this, the
Chief, his father, went off to find Kana.
When he came to where his son was living, Kana looked at him, and the
sight of Kana was so terrible that his father turned around and would
have run away. But Kana called to him and said, “What have you come
for?” “I have come to tell you that the mother of you two has been
carried off by Pe-pe’e, the Chief of the Hill of Hau-pu, and she is now
in Mo-lo-kai, and unless you, Kana, go to bring her back, no one can
bring her back.”
When Kana heard this, he said, “Go and call all your people together
and order them to hew out a canoe by which we can get to Mo-lo-kai.”
The Chief then went back, and he sent out an order to his people: they
should gather together and hew out a great double canoe that would be
ten fathoms in length. His people did as they were ordered. Then they
thought that all was ready for the voyage to Mo-lo-kai.
But when the double canoe was brought down to where Kana was, he just
stretched out his hand and laid it upon it, and the canoe sank out of
sight. Other canoes of the same length were hewn out. But Kana did the
same thing to them; he laid his hand on one after another of them, and
one after another they all sank down into the sea. His father and the
men of the Island were left without a canoe in which to make the voyage
to Mo-lo-kai.
When the Chief told this to his son Ni-he-u, Ni-he-u said, “Then the
only thing to do is to go to Uli, my grandmother and Kana’s
grandmother, and ask her what we are to do about it.” The Chief went to
her. And when he came before Uli, she said, “What have you come for?”
“I have come for a canoe for Kana, in which he will be able to make the
voyage to Mo-lo-kai and fight Pe-pe’e, who lives on the hill Hau-pu,
and bring back Hina, my wife, to me.”
And when he had told her that, Uli said: “There is only one canoe that
Kana can travel in; it is in Pali-uli, and it is buried there. Go, get
all your people together and send them off to get that canoe.” And Uli
chanted:
“Go, get it,
Go, get it,
Go, get the canoe:
The canoe that is covered with the cloak of the old woman;
The canoe that jumps playfully in the calm;
The canoe that rises and eats the cords that bind it:
Go, get it,
Go, get it,
Go, get the canoe.”
She told the Chief where to dig and how to dig for the canoe that would
bring Kana to Mo-lo-kai.
So he took his men to Pali-uli, and there they all began to dig. The
men all thought that their labor would be in vain, for they never
expected that they would come by a canoe by digging for it. They worked
in the rain and under the thunder and lightning. And when they had dug
for the whole length of a day they came, first on the sticks at the bow
and stern of the canoe, and then the body of it. It was a great double
canoe. With much labor it was dragged down to the sea.
Then Ni-he-u and Kana made ready to go aboard it with their father and
his people and sail over to the Island of Mo-lo-kai. And that night
Pe-pe’e’s wizard—Moi was his name—had a dream; he went to Pe-pe’e about
it. He told the Chief what he had dreamt, and it was this:
“A long man, a short man,
A stunted youth, a god-man.
The eyes touched the heaven,
The earth was o’ershadowed:
Such was my dream.”
And when Pe-pe’e asked him what the dream meant, he said: “It means
that the borders of Hau-pu will be broken and that the hill will fall
to pieces in the sea. Therefore, depart from this place now while your
death is still at a distance.”
Pe-pe’e was very angry when his wizard told him this. “You are the one
that death is close to, you deceiving wizard. And if my hill is not
conquered in the coming fight, look out, for I shall kill you.”
Then Pe-pe’e made preparations against the people who were coming
against him. He sent the plover, Ko-lea, and the wandering tattler,
Uli-li, to fly around and look out for Kana and Ni-he-u. And he told
them to go also to his warrior, the one who had charge of. the ocean,
Ke-au-lei-na-kahi the Sword-fish, and command him to pierce the canoe
that was coming and slay Ni-he-u and Kana.
So Ko-lea the Plover, and Uli-li the Tattler, flew around until they
came to the place where Kana was lying. Said Ko-lea to Uli-li, “Let us
fly so high that we shall be out of reach of his long arms, and then
let us call out to him and tell him that he is going to be killed.” So
the plover and the wandering tattler, flying high, called out to Kana.
He lifted his hands to catch the birds; if he had not been lying down
he would have caught them, so high did his hands stretch up. The birds
went higher. But the wind that was made with the sweep of his arms sent
them far over the sea. There they hovered above Ke-au-lei-na-kahi the
Swordfish. “You are commanded to pierce the double canoe that is coming
over the ocean, and to kill Ni-he-u and Kana,” they said.
Kana and Ni-he-u boarded the canoe. Kana folded himself into many
folds, but for all his folding he took up the full length of the canoe.
When they were halfway across they were met by Ke-au-lei-na-kahi the
Sword-fish. He smote the canoe with the sword that was in his snout. He
thought he could pierce it and then slay Ni-he-u and Kana. But Ni-he-u
stood up, and with his great war-club he struck at the Sword-fish. He
killed Ke-au-lei-na-kahi there and then, and after that there was no
one to guard the seas before them.
So they came before where the hill Hau-pu was standing. Hau-pu rolled a
great rock towards the canoe. Kana was lying on the platform of the
canoe, and the people shouted that the rock was coming. “We shall be
killed, we shall all be killed,” they shouted. Then Kana stretched
himself out. He put out his hand, and he stopped the rock. He held the
rock with his right hand, and with his left hand he picked up a small
stone from the beach and placed it under the rock; that stopped it from
rolling any farther. It was stopped halfway down a steep cliff, and
there that rock is to be seen to this day.
The canoe was saved and the people were saved from destruction. Then
Ni-he-u started off. He wanted to go by himself to the top of Hau-pu
and rescue his mother all alone. He did not know what I have already
told you, that the hill was really a turtle; it was, and it had
flippers on its sides; when it closed these flippers the hill would
rise up; it could keep on rising until it touched the sky.
Around the house that was on the top of the hill there was a fence of
thick and wide leaves—they were thick enough and wide enough to keep
the wind from the Chief’s house. When Ni-he-u came up to this fence he
began to beat the leaves down with his great war-club. Then the wind
that was around the hill-top blew upon the house that was called
Ha-le-hu-ki. “What has caused the wind to blow on my house?” said
Pe-pe’e. “There is a boy outside with a club, and he has beaten down
your fence,” said his watchmen. “It is Ni-he-u, my brave son. He is
without fear,” said Hina.
Then Ni-he-u came in. He took hold of Hina and started to carry her off
and down the hill. And as they were going Hina said, very foolishly:
“What great strength you have, my brave son! And who would have known
that all that strength is in the strands of your hair?” Ko-lea and
Uli-li heard what she said. They flew after them; they flew down, and
they held Ni-he-u by the hair.
Then Ni-he-u had to put Hina down while he took up his club and fought
with the birds. They were drawing his strength away as they pulled out
of his head the strands of his hair. He struck at Ko-lea and Uli-li.
But while he was striking at them, Hina, frightened, ran back to the
Chief’s house.
When Ni-he-u came down to the canoe he was questioned by Kana. “Where
is our mother?” “I had taken her; we were on our way when I was
attacked by two birds. I had to lay her down; then she was frightened,
and she ran back, and I could not go back to fetch her again, or all my
strength would have been drawn from me by the birds.” “Now you stay and
watch in the canoe while I go to rescue our mother,” said Kana.
With that he stood up in the canoe and peeped over the hill Hau-pu.
Then Kana rose above the hill. He stretched himself until he was up in
the blue of the sky. The hill rose up too. Kana had to stretch himself
and stretch himself. And as he stretched himself he became thinner and
thinner. When he stood up in the blue of the sky his body was as thin
as the thread of a spider’s web.
Now all that Ni-he-u could see of his brother was his legs, and he saw
them grow thinner and thinner as the days passed and Kana had no food.
Ni-he-u knew that Kana was starving. He shouted up to him, “Lie over
towards Kona, towards the house of Uli, our grandmother, and she will
give you something to eat.”
It took three days for the words that Ni-he-u shouted to reach Kana. At
last he heard the words, and he stooped over the sea and over the
mountain He-le-a-ka-la. (It was then that he made the groove in the
mountain that is there to this day.) And so he reached to Kona, and he
put his head down at his grandmother’s door.
There he stayed until Uli rose up in the morning. She went outside, and
there she saw Kana, her grandson. She began to feed him. She fed him,
and she fed him, and she fed him. He got fat in his body, and then the
fatness of his body began to reach down into his legs. Ni-he-u saw the
fatness coming on the legs that were in the canoe where he watched and
waited.
Ni-he-u watched the legs getting fatter and fatter. But still he had to
wait, for his brother was doing nothing. Then he became angry, and he
made a cut in one of Kana’s legs.
It was three days before the numbness of this cut reached up to Kana’s
head. At last it came to him, and then he spoke to his grandmother
about it. “It is because your brother Ni-he-u is angry with you because
you have not remembered him or your mother, but stay here all the time
feeding yourself, and he has made a cut in your leg.” Then his
grandmother said, “The hill keeps towering up, but if you rise up above
it, and then stoop over and break off the flipper on the right side
(for the hill is really a turtle, as I have told you), and then stoop
over and break off the flipper on the left side, it will not be able to
rise up any more, and you will then be able to conquer it.”
When he heard that said, Kana arose once more. He extended himself up.
He towered over Hau-pu. Then he stooped over, and he reached down, and
he broke off the flipper that was on the right side. Again he stooped
over, and he broke off the flipper that was on the left side. And when
these two flippers were broken off the power went out of Hau-pu. It
rose no more. Then Kana stepped on the hill, and it broke to pieces.
The pieces fell into the sea. They were left there in the forms of
rocks and little hills. There they are to this day, and that is all
that is left of the hill that carried off Hina.
The Chief Pe-pe’e was conquered, for he had no power after his hill was
destroyed. Kana and Ni-he-u took back their mother in the canoe, and
she lived ever afterwards with her own husband in her own house. But
Kana did not live there. He went to stretch himself in the long house
that went from the mountains to the edge of the sea. And this ends the
story of Kana’s victory over the hill Hau-pu.