Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate Part 10

The Resurrections of Kaha

Kaha was granddaughter of the Wind and the Rain, whose home is still among the vapory darks that settle in the valley of Manoa, back of Honolulu, her remote ancestors being the mountain Akaaka and the Cape Nalehuaakaaka. She was of such beauty that light played about her when she bathed, a rosy light such as the setting sun paints on eastern clouds, and an amber glow hovered above the roof that sheltered her. From infancy she had been betrothed to Kauhi, a young chief whom every one supposed to be worthy of her, because his parentage was high, and he could name more grandfathers than he had toes and fingers. He did not deserve this esteem, for he was not only cruel and jealous, but spoiled, petulant, and thick-headed. His qualities were exhibited on his very first meeting with his promised bride, for neither had seen the other until reaching marriageable age. Two braggarts, who were so ill formed and ugly that their boasts of winning ladies'

favor would have been taken by any one else for lies, declared, in Kauhi's hearing, that they were lovers of Kaha, and they wore wreaths of flowers which they said she had hung over their shoulders.

Setting his teeth with a vengeful scowl and wrenching a stout branch from a tree, the prince strode over to the house of his bride-to-be. She received him modestly and pleasantly, and her beauty struck him into such an amazement that he could not at first find words to express the charge he wished to make. At last, by turning his back, he managed to speak his base and foolish thought. She, thinking this a jest, at first made light of it, but when he faced her once more, frowning this time, like a thunder-cloud, and brandis.h.i.+ng the cudgel above his head, she was filled with fear and could hardly keep her feet. She denied the charge. She begged that he would tell the names of her accusers that she might prove her innocence.

"You are fair to see and to hear, but you are as fickle as your parents. I will have no such woman for a wife," shouted the chief, las.h.i.+ng himself into a rage. She extended her arms appealingly. He struck her on the temple, and she fell dead. He had gone but a mile or so when her voice was heard in song behind him, and the fall of her steps on the path. To his astonishment, she now appeared bearing no mark of injury, save that the rough way had cut her feet, and again she besought him to say on whose charge he had so foully wronged her in his thought, and why he wished to kill her. His answer was another blow, more savage than the first, and this time there was no doubt that he left her dead. Yet, before he had gone another mile, her lamenting song was heard; she came to him, and he struck her down again. Five times this monster laid the defenceless girl a corpse, and the last time he sc.r.a.ped a hole under the tough roots of a tree, crowded her body into it, covered it with earth, and went on to Waikiki without further interruption.

The owl-G.o.d had been Kaha's friend. After each stroke he had flown to her, rubbed his head against the bruised and broken temple, and restored her to life. To drag her from under the tangled roots was beyond his strength, and he flapped away into the depths of the wood, filled with sadness that such beauty had been lost to the world. But it was not lost. The girl's spirit could not rest under the false accusal that had caused her death. All b.l.o.o.d.y and disfigured, her ghost presented itself before Mahana, a young warrior of the nearest town, with whom she had in life exchanged a kind though casual word or two, and understanding, through his own deep but unspoken love, the reason for this visitation, he hurried after the phantom as it drifted back to the tree. The disturbed earth and the splashes of blood explained enough. He set to work vigorously, exhumed the body while it was still warm, and holding it close to his breast, with eyes fixed on the hurt but lovely face, he carried it to his home.

Once more the G.o.ds befriended her and restored Kaha to life. For many days she was ill and weak, and throughout those days it was Mahana's delight to serve her, to talk with her, to sit at her side, and hold her hand. This life of love and tenderness was a new and delightful one; yet she sorrowfully declared that she must become the wife of Kauhi, because her parents had so intended. The lover was not content with this. He made a visit to Kauhi, and in the course of their talk he mentioned, as the merest matter of fact, the visit of the famous beauty to his home. Kauhi pooh-poohed this. He was sure of the girl's death. Mahana adroitly kept the conversation on this theme until Kauhi lost his temper, confessed that he had killed Kaha for faithlessness, and swore that the woman whom Mahana sheltered was a spirit or an impostor. He would wager his life that it was so. The lover took the wager. It was agreed that the loser should be roasted alive. A number of chiefs, priests, and elderly men were a.s.sembled, and the girl was brought into their presence. It was no spirit that bent the gra.s.s and fixed on the quailing ruffian that look of soft reproach. No impostor could boast such beauty. Kauhi tried to exonerate his conduct by repeating the falsehoods of the two men who claimed to have received her favors. They were dragged before the a.s.sembly, confronted by the innocent Kaha, made confession, and were ordered to the ovens, where Kauhi also went to his death, vaunting to the last. The lands and fish-ponds of this chief, who had no owl-G.o.d to resurrect his ashes, were, with general acclaim, awarded to Mahana, and as chief he ruled happily for many years with the fair Kaha for his wife.

Hawaiian Ghosts

Hawaii has its "haunts" and "spooks," just as do some countries that do not believe in such things. One of the spectres troubles a steep slope near Lihue, Kauai. An obese and lazy chief ordered one of his retainers to carry him to the top of the slope on his shoulders. It was a toilsome climb, the day was hot, hence it is no wonder that just before he gained the summit the man staggered, fell, and sent his dignified and indignant lord sprawling on the rocks. This was a fatal misstep, for the chief ran the poor fellow through with his spear. And the ghost possibly laments because it did not drop its burden sooner and with more emphasis.

Another place that the natives avoid is the Sugar Loaf on Wailua River, Kauai. Hungry robbers broke a taboo and ate some bananas that had been consecrated to a local G.o.d, Kamalau. Missing the fruit, the deity turned himself into the rock known as the Sugar Loaf, which is sixty feet high, that he might watch his plantation without being identified. The thieves noticed the rock, however, could not recall that it had been there on the day before, and suspecting something kept away. The sister of the G.o.d, believing him to be lost, leaped into the river and became a stone herself. And so, having rid themselves of the flesh, these two are free to wander in the spirit.

Another deity that is occasionally seen is Kamehameha's large war G.o.d, from his temple in Hawaii, that even in his lifetime would leave its pedestal and thrash among the trees like a lost comet.

At Honuapo, Hawaii, is the rock Kaverohea, jutting into the sea, where at night a murdered wife calls to her jealous husband, a.s.suring him of her love and innocence. The voice is oftenest heard when a great disaster is at hand: war, storm, earthquake, the death of a chief, or a season of famine.

The Three Wives of Laa

Laa, a young man of distinguished family, who had gone to Raiatea in his boyhood, returned a number of years after to visit his foster-father, Moikeha, then chief of Kauai. The boats that were sent for him were painted yellow, the royal color, and Laa was invested in a feather robe that had cost a hundred people a year of labor, and caused the killing of at least ten thousand birds, since the mamo had but one yellow feather under each wing. Hawaiian millinery was, therefore, as cruel a business as it became in America several centuries later. When this favorite scion landed his path was strewn with flowers, and the feasts in his honor lasted for a month. He had agreed to go back to Raiatea, for he had been accepted there as heir-apparent, yet it was thought a pity that his line should cease in his native land; and while he felt that for state reasons he must take a Raiatea woman for his queen,--for the people there would never consent to his carrying home a Hawaiian to help rule over them,--he cheerfully consented to take a temporary wife during his stay in Kauai. His house and grounds were, therefore, decorated, the n.o.bility was a.s.sembled, musicians and poets and dancers were engaged, and a great feast was ordered, when a hitch arose over the choice of a bride. Each of the three leading priests had a marriageable daughter of beauty and proud descent. How were their claims to be settled? Easily enough, as it fell out. Laa married all three on the same day, and before his departure for Raiatea each wife on the same day presented a son to him. From these three sons sprang the governing families of Oahu and Kauai.

The Misdoing of Kamapua

When a child was born to Olopana, a lord of Oahu, in the twelfth century, he conceived a dislike to it, and freely alleged that his brother was its father. Such as dared to speak ill of dignitaries, and there were gossips in those days, as in all other, chuckled, at safe distance, that if Olopana's suspicions were correct, the boy should have somewhat of his--er--uncle's good looks and pleasant manner, whereas he was hairy, ill-favored, and, as his nature disclosed itself with increasing years, violent, thievish, treacherous; in short, he was Olopana at his worst. Every day added to the bad feeling between the boy and his father, for when he had grown old enough to appreciate the position to which he had been born, the youngster repaid the hate of his parent, and strove to deserve it. Vain the attempt of the mother to make peace between them and direct her offspring into paths of rect.i.tude. In contempt, the chief put the name of Kamapua, or hog-child, on the boy, and in some of the older myths he actually figures as a half-monster with a body like that of a man, but with the head of a boar.

Kamapua gathered the reckless and incorrigible boys of the neighborhood about him, and the band became a terror by night, for in the dark they broke the taboo and heads as well, stripped trees of their fruit, stole swine and fowls, staved in the bottoms of canoes, cut trees, and in order to look as bad as he felt, the leader cropped his hair and his beard (when one came to him) to the shortness of an inch, tattooed the upper half of his body in black, and wore a hog-skin over his shoulders with bristles outward. On attaining his majority he left his parents, taking with him some of his reprobates, and set up in life as a brigand, making his home in lonely defiles of the hills, and subsisting almost entirely by pillage. Several attempts were made to catch him, and a local legend at Hauula has it that when close pressed by an angry crowd he turned himself into a monstrous hog, made a bridge of himself across a narrow chasm, so that his companions could run over on his back, scrambled on after them, and so escaped.

The neighbors endured these goings-on until Kamapua had added murder to his other crimes, when they resolved that he was no longer a subject for public patience. An army was sent against him, most of his a.s.sociates were killed, he was caught, and was taken before his father for judgment. Olopana sternly ordered that he be given as a sacrifice to the G.o.ds. His mother was in despair at this, for though he was a most unworthy fellow, a nuisance, a danger, still, he was her son, and she loved him better than her life. She bribed the priests, whose duty it was to slay him, and they, having smeared him with chicken-blood, laid him on the altar. The eye that was gouged from the body of a victim, and offered to the chief who made the sacrifice, was in this case the eye of a pig. Olopana did not even pretend to eat this relic, as he should have done, to follow custom, but flung it aside and gazed with satisfaction at the gory features of the man who was shamming death. He had turned to leave the temple when Kamapua leaped from the altar, picked up the bone dagger with which a feint had been made of cutting out his eye and stabbed his father repeatedly in the back. At the sight of a corpse butchering their chief the people fled in panic, the priests, awe-struck at the result of their corruption, hid themselves, and the murderer, so soon as he was sure that Olopana was dead, hurried away, a.s.sembled the forty surviving members of his band, leaped into his canoe, and left Oahu forever.

He landed at Kauai, on the cliff of Kipukai, and remembering a well of sweet water on its side, he sought for it, up and down, and back and forth, for he had a raging thirst. Two spirits of the place, knowing him to be evil, had concealed the spring under a ma.s.s of shrubbery that he might not pollute it; but he found it, and as he drank he saw their figures reflected in the surface, despite their concealment in the shadow, and heard their laughter at his greed and his uncouthness. That angered him. He sprang up, chased them through the wood, caught them, and with a swing of his great arms hurled them to the hill across the valley, where they became stone and art seen to this day. So ill did he behave in Kauai, a.s.sailing innocent people and destroying their taro patches, that they determined to despatch him, and in order to have him under their advantage it was resolved to fence him in near Ha.n.a.lei. The wall of mountain now existing there is the fence. Just before it was finished the prince in charge of the work sat to rest in a gap which admits the present road. He heard a harsh laugh, and looking up saw Kamapua sitting on the top of h.o.a.ry Head. A running fight ensued, in which the outlaw escaped across the mountain, and the prince, hurling his spear, but missing his mark, sent the weapon through the crest of the peak, making the remarkable window that is one of the sights of the island. And now, when a cloud rests on this mountain, the people say that Kamapua is sitting there.

Some years before this Pele and her brothers had migrated from the far southern islands and had made their home in Hawaii, close to the crater of Kilauea,--so close that they were believed to be under the special protection of the G.o.ds; and from that belief no doubt grew the later faith that Pele and her family were G.o.ds themselves; that they lived in the cones thrust up from the floor of Kilauea by gas and steam while it was in a viscid state; that the music of their dances came up in thunder gusts, and that they swam the white surges of lava in the h.e.l.l-pit.

Having heard of the beauty of this woman, Kamapua resolved to abduct her, and after a visit, in which the usual courtesies and hospitalities were observed, but which he paid in order to estimate the strength of her following, he attacked the outlying huts of the village in the night and killed their occupants, intending to follow this a.s.sault by surrounding Pele's house and forcing the surrender of all within: but hearing the outcry in the distance and divining its meaning, she and her brothers hastily gathered weapons and provisions and fled to a cave in the hills three miles away. There was a sufficient spring in this place, and the entrance was defended by heavy blocks. The fugitives could have endured a siege of a week with little likelihood of loss. In the morning a dog, following their scent, led Kamapua to this stronghold. An attack costing several lives on his side, and making no effect on those entrenched within, convinced him that it was useless to expect success from this method, so he piled fuel against the entrance and set it afire, hoping to suffocate the defenders to unconsciousness, when he would force his way to the interior and rescue Pele. Here again he failed, for a strong draft blowing from the cave carried the smoke into his own face. Then he ordered a hole to be cut in the cavern roof, for this appeared to be not more than fifteen or twenty feet thick, and being friable was easily worked by the stone drills and axes of his men. The workers plied their tools industriously, while Kamapua shouted threats and defiance through the c.h.i.n.ks in the wall before the cavern door.

His taunts were vain. While the sinking of the shaft was in progress, a strange new power was coming upon Pele. The G.o.ds of the earth and air had seen this a.s.sault and had resolved to take her part. The sky became overcast with brown, unwholesome-looking clouds, the ground grew hot and parched, vegetation drooped and withered, birds flew seaward with cries of distress, and a waiting stillness fell upon the world. Kamapua had cut away ten feet of rock, when the voice of Pele was heard in long, shrill laughter, dying in far recesses of the mountain, as if she were flying through pa.s.sages of immense length. The hills began to shake; vast roarings were beard; a choking fume of sulphur filled the air, dust rolled upward, making a darkness like the night; then, with a crash like the bursting of a world, the top of Kilauea was blown toward the heavens in an upward shower of rock; a fierce glow colored the ash-clouds that volleyed from the crater, and down the valley came pouring a flood of lava, a river of white fire, crested with the flame of burning forests, as with foam.

Kamapua and his bandits fled, but again he heard the laughter, this time from the crater, which Pele had reached from within, and was now mounting, free, vaulting through the clouds, revelling in the heat and blaze and din, and hurling rocks and thunderbolts at the intruder. At the ocean's edge the lava was still close at his heels. Its heat blistered his skin. He had no time to reach his boats. With his spear he struck a mighty blow on the ground and cracked the mountain to its base, so that the ocean flowed in, and a fearful fight of fire and sea began. Steam shot for miles into the air, with vast geysers leaping through it, and the hiss and screech and bellow were appalling. The crater filled with water, so that Pele and her brothers had to drink it dry, lest the fires should be quenched. When they had done this they resumed the attack on Kamapua, emptying the mountain of its ash and molten rock, and hurling tons of stone after the wretch, who was now straining every muscle to force his boat far enough to sea to insure his safety. He did not retaliate this time, but was glad to make his escape; for Pele had come to her G.o.dhood at last.

Pele's Hair

Fiercest, though loveliest, of all the G.o.ds is Pele, she whose home is in Kilauea, greatest of the world's volcanoes. When this mountain lights the heavens, when lava pours from its miles of throat, when stone bombs are hurled at the stars, when its ash-clouds darken the sun and moon, when there are thunders beneath the earth, and the houses shake, then does this spirit of the peak, in robes of fire, ride the hot blast and shriek in the joy of destruction,--a valkyrie of the war of nature. Kanakas try to keep on the good side of this torrid divinity by secret gifts, either of white chickens or of red ohelo berries, and an old man once put into a guide's hand the bones of a child that he might throw them down the inner crater,--Halemaumau, the House of Eternal Burning, whose ruddy lava cones are homes of the G.o.ddess and her family. The dogs sacrificed to Pele, when human victims were scant, were nursed at the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of slaves, and the priests and virgins received as their portion, after the killing, the heart and liver. Next to her eyes, of piercing brightness, the most striking thing in the aspect of this deity is her wealth of hair, silky, s.h.i.+ning red in the glow, and shaken from her head in a cloud-like spread as of flame. When the eruption is at an end and a sullen peace follows the outbreak, tufts _of_ this hair are found in hollows for miles around. Birds gather it for their nests, and unfearing visitors collect it for cabinets and museums.

Science tells us that Pele's hair is a molten gla.s.s; threads of pumice: a stony froth. When a mighty blast occurs, or when steam escapes through the boiling ma.s.s, particles of pumice shred off in the upward flight, or are wire-drawn by winds that rage over the earth. These viscid threads cool quickly in that chill alt.i.tude, and float down again. They can be artificially made by pa.s.sing jets of steam through the slag of iron furnaces while it is in a melted state, the product, which resembles raw cotton, being used, in place of asbestos, for the packing of boilers, steam-pipes, and the like. To such base uses might the G.o.ddess' s.h.i.+ning locks be put, if she tore them out in large enough handfuls during the carnival of fire and earthquake; but they are not found in quant.i.ties to justify this search by commercial-minded persons, and conservative Kanakas might be alarmed by thought of revenges which Pele would visit on them should they misuse her hair as the foreign heathen do.

The Prayer to Pele

Although Pele is the most terrible of deities, she can be kind. If a village makes sacrifices to her she is liable at any hour to continue to keep the peace. Otherwise, she loses her temper and pours out floods of lava or showers of ashes on the neglectful people, or dries their springs and wastes their farms. Sacrifices of unhappy beings were made to her whenever the volcano spirits began to growl, the victims being bound and thrown into the crater of the threatening mountain. Princess Kapiolani was probably the first native to protest against these sacrifices, and in 1824, after her conversion to Christianity, she gave an instructive exhibition by defying the taboo of Kilauea, eating the berries growing on the sides of the peak, in defiance of the priestly order, and throwing rocks contemptuously into the pit.

Pele is the Venus of the islands, and is of wondrous beauty when she takes a human form, as she does, now and again, when she falls in love with some Mars or Adonis of the native race, or when she intends to engage in coasting down the slippery mountain sides,--a sport of which she is fond. As always with distinguished company, you must let your compet.i.tor win, if you fancy that it is Pele in disguise who is your rival in a toboggan contest; for a chief of Puna having once suffered himself to distance her, she revengefully emptied a sea of lava from the nearest crater and forced him to fly the region. Many tales of her amours survive. Kamehameha the Great was among her most favored lovers. It was to help him to a victory that she suffocated a part of the army of his enemy with steam and sulphur fumes.

It fared less happily with the debonnair Prince Kaululaau when he attempted force in his wooing. He found Pele watching the surf-riders at Keauhou, and was ravished by her loveliness. Her skirt glittered with crystal, her mantle was colored like a rainbow, bracelets of sh.e.l.l circled her wrists and ankles, her hair was held in a wreath of flowers. His admiration was not returned. She was contemptuous toward him,--one could almost say cold, but Pele was seldom that, for when the young chief approached, the earth about her was blistering hot and he was compelled to dance. With his magic spear he dissipated her power for a little and lowered the temperature she had inflamed the very earth withal. So soon, however, as she had regained her freedom, and had pa.s.sed beyond the influence of this spear, she undertook to avenge herself by opening the gates of the mountain and letting loose a deluge of lava. Again with his spear-point Kaululaau drew lines on the ground, beyond which the deadly torrent could not pa.s.s, and through the hot air, amid the rain of ashes and the belching of sulphurous steam, he regained his canoe and escaped.

Only so far back as 1882 this G.o.ddess was pet.i.tioned by one of the faithful, and with effect. Mauna Loa was in eruption. A river of lava twenty-five miles long was creeping down the slope and was threatening the town of Hilo. The people raised walls and breaks of stone to deflect this stream; they dug pits across its course to check it, but without avail. The vast flow of melted rock kept on, lighting the skies, charring vegetation at a distance, and filling the air with an intolerable heat. Princess Ruth, a descendant of Kamehameha, was appealed to. She hated the white race, and would have seen with little emotion the destruction of all the European and American intruders in Hilo; but it was her own people who were most in danger, so she answered, "I will save the Hilo fish-ponds. Pele will hear a Kamehameha." A steamer was obtained for her, and with many attendants she sailed from Honolulu to the threatened point. Climbing the slope behind the village, she built an altar close to the advancing lava, cast offerings upon the glowing ma.s.s, and solemnly prayed for the salvation of Hilo. That night the lava ceased to flow. It still forms a s.h.i.+ning bulwark about the menaced town. The princess sailed back to Honolulu, and the faithful asked the Christians why the pagan divinity alone had answered the many prayers.

Lohiau and the Volcano Princess

With G.o.ds, as with men, who would speed his affairs must keep them in his own hands. Pele, the volcano G.o.ddess, fell in love with Lohiau, a Kauaian prince, and in human guise remained with him so long that her sisters were afraid the Kilauea fires would go out. The prince took an illness, and appeared to die, ere the honeymoon was over, so, wrapped in cloth of bark, he was put under guard to lie in state. When Pele had gone back alone to her mountain home a longing came upon her to feel the young man's arms about her once more and hear the words of love he had such a pretty talent for telling. But, instead of going herself, she sent her sister Hiika to rescue his soul and bring it to her. This was a mistake, for the sister was not a serious creature. Stopping to brave the devils and giant lizards of the woods, turning the boards of surf-riders to stone for a prank, and scaring a fisherman by causing him to pull a human head out of the sea, the sister next found a half-released spirit hovering near a dying chief. She tied it in a corner of her skirt and slapped the skirt against a rock, so the chief finished his dying promptly. In Kauai, at last, her search was rewarded. She saw the ghost of Lohiau beckoning from a cave, in which it had been imprisoned by demons, who fled, hissing, on her approach. She broke the bars of moonbeam that confined it, tied it in her skirt, carried it to its body, restored the prince to life, then led him to Hawaii and with him scaled the mountain where Pele was waiting in great dudgeon. For Hiika had been gone so long on this journey that a wrong construction had been put on her delay. Lohiau and Hiika had, indeed, learned to esteem each other, but they had not violated the trust imposed in them by the G.o.ddess.

Pele was madly jealous, however. She turned the prince to stone on the crater brink,--the poor fellow was growing used to dying now,--and, dismayed by this act of cruelty, Hiika descended through the five spheres to the dark underworld where the spirits lived. She hoped that the young man's ghost would follow her, for pity in his sufferings had fast increased to love. As the spirit did not come, she returned to the surface of the earth and went on a voyage of search in a boat that a G.o.d had lent to her,--a boat of cowrie sh.e.l.l, which in overland travel would shrink so that it could be carried in the hand; then, at the word, would swell to a stately barge of pearl with ivory masts and sails as white as the snow on the mountain. This vessel moved with the speed of the wind in any direction the occupant indicated by pointing the finger. The prince's wandering spirit was found in Kauai, its old home; was taken by a messenger to the stone image on the crater, and put back into the body, and the prince lived again. Pele was by this time in a soft and repentant humor. She asked forgiveness of Lohiau and bade him love and wed her sister, who was good, and had earned his love. This Lohiau did, whereupon Pele restored to life several of Hiika's friends whom, also, in her first anger, she had turned to statues of lava.