Part 9

Ai-ai came back to his wife without any aku for her. Again she was sick, and she begged Ai-ai again to get her the aku fish. “It may be,” he said, “that the King has another pearl hook. Go to him once more and ask him for one. Tell him that in the calabash in which he keeps the fishing utensils that he used long ago there may be another pearl fish-hook.”

So again she went before the King. “I have come for a pearl fish-hook so that my husband may go out and catch me the aku fish that I long for.” “I gave the pearl fish-hook that I had.” “In the calabash in which you keep the fishing utensils that you used long ago there may be another pearl fish-hook.”

The King ordered that this calabash be brought to him. He searched amongst all the utensils that were in it, and at last he found the pearl fish-hook that he had taken. He had left it there and had forgotten it, for he had gone fishing only once after he had taken it from Ku-ula.

And now he gave the hook Ka-hu-oi to his daughter. She hurried home, and she put the pearl hook into the hands of her husband Ai-ai. He went straight down to the beach and took out the canoe and went fishing in the place where his father used to go. As he went the bird Ka-manu-wai flew down and lighted on the rail of the canoe. It opened wide its eyes to watch him let down the shining hook.

When he came to Mamala the aku began to jump to the hook. They threw themselves up and into the canoe. They filled it up—even that ten-fathom canoe was deep with them, and Ai-ai was hardly strong enough to paddle it back. The bird Ka-manu-wai ate of the fish, and as it ate the gleam came back into its plumage, and it was a wide-eyed, strong-winged bird once more.

It took the pearl fish-hook and flew away with it. But every day it would come back with the hook when Ai-ai took out his canoe. The bird guarded the hook and would never let it go into a stranger’s hands again. Sometimes it would bring Ka-hu-oi to Ku-ula, Ai-ai’s father; for the old man took to going out in his canoe again, and he would fish for aku outside of Mamala.

THE STORY OF KANA, THE YOUTH WHO COULD STRETCH HIMSELF UPWARDS.

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.

THE ME-NE-HU-NE.

Ka-u-ki-u-ki—that was the name of the Me-ne-hu-ne who boasted to the rest of his folk that he could catch the Moon by holding on to her legs; Ka-u-ki-u-ki, the Angry One.

The Me-ne-hu-ne folk worked only at night; and if one could catch and hold on to the legs of the Moon, the night would not go so quickly, and more work could be done by them. They were all very great workers. But when the Angry One made his boast about catching the legs of the Moon, the rest of the Me-ne-hu-ne made mock of him. That made Ka-u-ki-u-ki more angry still. Straightway he went up to the top of the highest hill. He sat down to rest himself after his climb; then, they say, the Owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him. Ka-u-ki-u-ki might well have been frightened, for the big, round-eyed bird could easily have flown away with him, or flown away with any of the Me-ne-hu-ne folk. For they were all little men, and none of them was higher than the legs of one of us—no, not even their Kings and Chiefs. Little men, broad-shouldered and sturdy and very active—such were the Me-ne-hu-ne in the old days, and such are the Me-ne-hu-ne to-day.

But Ka-u-ki-u-ki was brave: the Me-ne-hu-ne stared back at the Owl, and the Owl of Ka-ne stared back at the little man, and at last the bird flew away. Then it was too late for him to try to lay hold on the legs of the Moon that night.

That was a long time ago, when the Me-ne-hu-ne were very many in our land. They lived then in the Valley of Lani-hula. There they planted taro in plants that still grow there—plants that they brought back with them from Kahiki-mo-e after they had been there. It was they who planted the bread-fruit tree first in that valley.

Our fathers say that when the men-folk of the Me-ne-hu-ne stood together in those days they could form two rows reaching all the way from Maka-weli to Wai-lua. And with their women and children there were so many of them that the only fish of which each of the Me-ne-hu-ne could have one was the shrimp, the littlest and the most plentiful fish in our waters.

For the rest of their food they had hau-pia, a pudding made of arrow-root sweetened with the milk of coco-nut; they had squash and they had sweet potato pudding. They ate fern fronds and the cooked young leaves of the taro. They had carved wooden dishes for their food. For their games they had spinning-tops which they made out of ku-kui nuts, and they played at casting the arrow, a game which they called Kea-pua. They had boxing and wrestling, too, and they had tug-of-war: when one team was about to be beaten all the others jumped in and helped them. They had sled races; they would race their sleds down the steep sides of hills; if the course were not slippery already, they would cover it with rushes so that the sleds could go more easily and more swiftly.

But their great sport was to jump off the cliffs into the sea. They would throw a stone off the cliff and dive after it and touch the bottom as it touched the bottom. Once, when some of them were bathing, a shark nearly caught one of the Me-ne-hu-ne. A-a-ka was his name. Then they all swam ashore, and they made plans for punishing the shark that had treated them so. Their wise men told them what to do. They were to gather the morning-glory vine and make a great basket with it. Then they were to fill the basket with bait and lower it into the sea. Always the Me-ne-hu-ne worked together; they worked together very heartily when they went to punish the shark.

They made the basket; they filled it with bait, and they lowered it into the sea. The shark got into the basket, and the Me-ne-hu-ne caught him. They pulled him within the reef, and they left him there in the shallow water until the birds came and ate him up.

One of them caught a large fish there. The fish tried to escape, but the little man held bravely to him. The fish bit him and lashed him with its tail and drew blood from the Me-ne-hu-ne. The place where his blood poured out is called Ka-a-le-le to this day—for that was the name of the Me-ne-hu-ne who struggled with the fish.

Once they hollowed out a great stone and they gave it to their head fisherman for a house. He would sit in his hollow stone all day and fish for his people.

No cliff was too steep for them to climb; indeed, it was they who planted the wild taro on the cliffs; they planted it in the swamps too, and on cliff and in swamp it grows wild to this day. When they were on the march they would go in divisions. The work of the first division would be to clear the road of logs. The work of the second division would be to lower the hills. The work of the third division would be to sweep the path. Another division had to carry the sleds and the sleeping mats for the King. One division had charge of the food, and another division had charge of the planting of the crop. One division was composed of wizards and soothsayers and astrologers, and another division was made up of story-tellers, fun-makers, and musicians who made entertainment for the King. Some played on the nose-flute, and others blew trumpets that were made by ripping a ti-leaf away from the middle ridge and rolling over the torn piece. Through this they blew, varying the sound by fingering. They played stringed instruments that they held in their mouths, and they twanged the strings with their fingers. Others beat on drums that were hollow logs with shark-skin drawn across them.

It would have been wonderful to look on the Me-ne-hu-ne when they were on the march. That would be on the nights of the full moon. Then they would all come together, and their King would speak to them.

And that reminds me of Ka-u-ki-u-ki, the Angry One. Perhaps he wanted to hold the legs of the Moon so that they might be able to listen a long time to their King, or march far in a night. I told you that he kept staring at the Owl of Ka-ne until the bird flew away in the night. But then it was too late to catch hold of the legs of the Moon. The next night he tried to do it. But although he stood on the top of the highest hill, and although he reached up to his fullest height, he could not lay hold on the legs of the Moon. And because he boasted of doing a thing that he could not do, the rest of the Me-ne-hu-ne punished him; they turned him into a stone. And a stone the Angry One is to this day—a stone on the top of the hill from which he tried to reach up and lay hold upon the legs of the Moon.

Perhaps it was on the very night which Ka-u-ki-u-ki tried to lengthen that their King told the Me-ne-hu-ne that they were to leave these Islands. Some of the Me-ne-hu-ne had married Hawaiian women, and children that were half Me-ne-hu-ne and half Hawaiian were born. The King of the Me-ne-hu-ne folk did not like this: he wanted his people to remain pure Me-ne-hu-ne. So on a bright moonlit night he had them all come together, men, women, and children, and he spoke to them. “All of you,” he said, “who have married wives from amongst the Hawaiian people must leave them, and all of the Me-ne-hu-ne race must go away from these Islands. The food that we planted in the valley is ripe; that food we will leave for the wives and children that we do not take with us—the Hawaiian women and the half-Hawaiian children.”

When their King said this, no word was spoken for a long time from the ranks of the Me-ne-hu-ne. Then one whose name was Mo-hi-ki-a spoke up and said: “Must all of us go, O King, and may none of us stay with the Hawaiian wives that we have married? I have married an Hawaiian woman, and I have a son who is now grown to manhood. May he not go with you while I remain with my wife? He is stronger than I am. I have taught him all the skill that I possessed in the making of canoes. He can use the adze and make a canoe out of a tree trunk more quickly than any other of the Me-ne-hu-ne. And none of the Me-ne-hu-ne is so swift in the race as he is. Take my son in my place, and if it ever happens that the Me-ne-hu-ne need me, my son can run quickly for me and bring me back.”