Given in the Fornander Collection, Vol. IV, Part III, of the Memoirs of
the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, with the title Kaao no
Laukiamanuikahiki. The girl’s full name means “Bird catching leaf of
Kahiki.” Her mother is Hina, a mortal woman apparently, but her father
is a demi-god, a dweller in “the Country that Supports the Heavens.” In
the original, Ula the Prince is the son of Lau-kia-manu’s father; such
a relation as between lover and lover is quite acceptable in Hawaiian
romance. When she comes into her father’s country the girl incurs the
death-penalty by going into a garden that has been made tapu.
Lau-kia-manu, in Kahiki-ku, seems to have the rôle of Cinderella;
however, the Hawaiian story-teller gives her a ruthlessness that is not
at all in keeping with our notion of a sympathetic character.