Part 10

One day they heard great shouting and clapping of hands on the beach, and Kawelo went down to see the sport. His brothers had been well taught all the arts of boxing and wrestling, and they were very strong; but they were not able to overthrow a very strong man from Halemanu. Kawelo challenged the strong man. His elder brothers ridiculed him, but Kawelo persevered. The strong man was much larger and taller than Kawelo. He uttered his boast as Kawelo came before him. “Strong is the koa [36] of Halemanu. The kona [wind] cannot bend it.” Kawelo boasted in reply, “Mauna Waialeale will try against Mauna Kaala.” Then the strong man said: “When I call ‘swing your hands’ we will fall against each other.” With this word he advanced and struck at Kawelo, bending him over, but not knocking him down. Kawelo returned the blow with such force that the mighty boxer fell dead. Kawelo gave the body to the king of Oahu to be carried as a sacrifice to the gods in the heiau, or temple, Lualualei at Waianae. “This is said to have been a very ancient temple belonging to the chief Kakuhihewa.”

Kawelo’s brothers were greatly mortified to see their younger brother accomplish what they had failed to do, so in their shame they returned to Kauai with their parents.

The king of Oahu gave Kawelo lands. His grandparents built him a house. It was well thatched except the top. He was a high tabu chief, and the kahunas (priests) said he must finish it with the work of his own hands. This he thought he would do with the beautiful feathers of the red and yellow birds. He lay down and slept. When he awoke he saw his rat-brother, who had miraculous power, finishing all the roof with most beautiful feathers of red and gold. The king of Oahu came to see this wonderful place, and blessed it, and lifted his tabu from it so that it would belong fully to Kawelo, although it was more beautiful than that of the king himself.

Kawelo learned the hula (dance), and went around the island attending all hula gatherings until the people called him “the great hula chief.” At the village of Kaneohe he met the most beautiful woman of that part of the island, Kane-wahine-ike-aoha. He married her, gave up the hula, and returned home to learn the art of battle with spears and clubs. No one was more strong or more skilful than his wife’s father. Kawelo sent his wife to the other side of the island to ask her father to teach him to fight with the war-club. She went to her father and persuaded him to aid Kawelo. For many days they practised together, until Kawelo was mighty in handling both spear and club.

After this Kawelo learned the prayers and incantations and offerings upon which good fishing depended. Then he took the fisherman and went out in the ocean to do battle with a great fish which had terrified the people of Oahu many years. This was a kupua, or magic fish, possessing exceeding great powers. As they went out from Waikiki, with one stroke of the paddle Kawelo sent the canoe to Kou, with another stroke he passed to Waianae, and then began to fish from the shore far out to the sea, using a round, deep net. This method of fishing continues to the present day. A fish is caught and a weight tied to it so that it must swim slowly. Other fish come to see the stranger, and the net is drawn around them. Many good fish were caught, but the great fish did not come. Again Kawelo came to hunt this Uhumakaikai, but the Uhu sent fierce storm-waves against the canoe to drive it to land. Kawelo held the boat strongly with his paddle. Soon the Uhu appeared, trying to strike the boat and upset it. Kawelo and his fisherman carefully watched every move and balanced the boat as needed. Kawelo’s net was in the water, its mouth open, and its full length dragging far behind the boat. The Uhu was swimming around the net as if despising its every motion, but Kawelo swept the net sideways and the fish found himself swimming into the net. Kawelo swiftly rushed the net forward until the Uhu was fully enclosed. Then came a marvellous fish-battle. The waves swept high around the boat. Kawelo and the fisherman covered it so that the water poured off rather than into it. Then the Uhu swam swiftly out into the blue waters. The fisherman begged Kawelo to cut the cord which held the net. Far out they went—out to the most distant island, Niihau. Kawelo saw a great battle in the net which held the Uhu. There were many fish inside attacking the Uhu. They were a kind of whiskered fish, biting like rats, digging their teeth into the flesh of the great fish. Kawelo uttered incantations, and the fish became weaker and weaker until it ceased to struggle. Kawelo paddled with strong strokes back to Oahu.

Meanwhile the brothers and parents, who had gone to Kauai, were in great trouble under the persecutions of Aikanaka and his strong man Kauahoa. At last the mother sent the brothers to Oahu after Kawelo. They came to Waikiki while Kawelo was away trying to kill the Uhu. The youngest brother, Kamalama, received them and sent two messengers to find Kawelo. He recited a family chant, in which the names of the visiting brothers as well as the name of Kawelo’s gods were honored. He charged them to remember the brothers’ names or they would have trouble. They paddled out on the ocean calling for Kawelo and repeating the names from time to time. Suddenly a high surf wave caught their canoe and overturned it, leaving them to struggle in the fierce waters. Soon they saw Kawelo coming with his great fish near his canoe. “O Kawelo!” they cried. “We had the names of your friends from Kauai—but our trouble in the water made us forget.” Then Kawelo recited his chant, giving his brothers’ names and also those of the tabu gods. Only the chiefs to whom the gods belonged could speak their names. When Kawelo uttered their names, the two men cried out, “Those are the men, and Kuka-lani-ehu is their god.” Kawelo was very angry at the desecration of the name of his family god in the mouths of the common men. He stuck his paddle deep into the sea, tearing the coral reef to pieces, but the great fish caught on the coral and Kawelo could not row to the men. They rushed their boat to the beach and escaped. Kawelo then took a part of the captured fish and offered it for sacrifice in the temple at Waianae. The rest he brought to his people at Waikiki.

As he came near the shore he called for his spear-throwers to meet him on the beach. Seven skilled men stood before him as he landed. They hurled their spears at one time straight at him, but he moved himself skilfully from side to side and threw the ends of his malo (loincloth) around them and caught them all together. Then he called his two adopted boys to throw. This they did with great skill, but he caught both spears in one hand. Kamalama took two spears, and Kawelo’s wife stood on one side with a fishhook and line in her hand. As the spears flew by her she threw out the hook and caught each one.

The story of the Kauai trouble was soon told. The king of Oahu furnished a large double canoe. From his father-in-law Kawelo secured the historic battle-weapons—war-club and spear—with which he had learned to fight. Food in abundance was placed on the boats, and the household went back to Kauai to wage war with Aikanaka and Kauahoa, stopping at the heiau Kamaile—afterward called Ka-ne i ka pua lena (Ka-ne of the yellow flower)—to offer sacrifices. Some legends say this temple was at Makaha, and that Kane-aki was the name. This Ka-ne was one of the gods of Kawelo. Kawelo, according to one legend, had his people tie him in a mat as if dead as they approached Wailua, the home of Aikanaka. The beach was covered with people—the warriors of Aikanaka. As the double canoe came to the beach, the people made ready to attack. They waited, however, for the newcomers to land and prepare for fight. This was a formal courtesy always demanded by the ethics of olden times. When all was ready, Kamalama stood by the apparently dead body of Kawelo, and pulled a cord which unloosed the mats. Kawelo rose up with his war-club and spear in hand and rushed upon the multitude. He struck from side to side, and the people fell like the leaves of trees in a whirlwind.

Again new bodies of warriors hastened from Aikanaka. Kamalama, the seven spearmen and the two adopted boys fought this army and drove it back under a cliff where Aikanaka had his headquarters. The seven spearmen, known in the legends as Naulu (the-seven-bread-fruit-trees), were afraid and retreated to the boat.

Two noble chiefs asked Aikanaka for two large bodies of men (two four-hundreds), but Kawelo and his handful of helpers defeated them with great slaughter. Thus several larger bodies of soldiers were destroyed, and Aikanaka became cold and afraid in his heart.

Then Kahakaloa, the best skilled in the use of war-clubs in all the islands, rose up and went down with the two hundred warriors to fight with Kawelo and his family. The father-in-law of Kawelo knew this chief well and thought that by him Kawelo might be killed if he went to Kauai, but Kawelo had learned strokes of the club not understood on Kauai. Soon all the warriors were slain, and Kahakaloa stood alone against Kawelo. As they faced each other Kahakaloa swiftly struck Kawelo, but Kawelo while falling gave his club an upward stroke, breaking his enemy’s arm. In the next struggle Kawelo’s swift upward stroke killed his foe.

Then Kauahoa, the strongest, tallest and most skilful man of Kauai, arose and went down to meet Kawelo. Kauahoa took a magic koa-tree, root, stem and branches, for his club with which to fight Kawelo. His heart was full of anger as he remembered the troubles between Kawelo and himself in their boyhood. As he passed the multitude of his dead people he became beside himself with rage and rushed upon Kawelo. Kawelo stationed his wife on one side with her powerful fishhooks and lines to catch the branches of the mighty tree and hold them fast. Some of the legends say that she was very skilful in the use of the ikoi. This was a straight, somewhat heavy, stick with a strong cord fastened around the middle. It was said that she was to throw this stick over the branches, whirling and twisting the cord around them, greatly entangling them, so that she could pull the tree to one side. Kawelo ordered his warriors to watch the spots of sunlight sifting through the branches. As the tree was hurled down upon them they must leap into the open places and seize the branches, holding on as best they could. When the giant struck down with his strange war-club, Kawelo’s friends followed his directions, while he leaped swiftly to one side and ran around back of Kauahoa while he was bending over trying to free his tree from its troubles. Kawelo struck down with awful force, his war-club cutting Kauahoa in pieces, which fell by the side of the koa-tree.

Somewhere in the battles waged by Kawelo along the coasts of Kauai he was fighting with his giant enemy and struck his spear against the mountain ridge at Anahola, piercing it through and through, leaving a great hole through which the sky is always to be seen.

Aikanaka fled to the region near Hanapepe, where he dwelt in poverty. Kawelo divided the districts of Kauai among his warriors. Kaeleha received the district in which Aikanaka was sheltered. Soon this adopted son of Kawelo met the daughter of Aikanaka and married her. After a while he wanted Aikanaka to again rule the island. He proposed rebellion and told Aikanaka that they could destroy Kawelo because he had never learned the art of fighting with stones. He only understood the use of the war-club and spear. They ordered the women and children to gather great piles of stones to hurl against Kawelo.

When Kawelo heard about this insurrection, he was very angry. He seized his war-club, Kuikaa, and hastened to Hanapepe. As he came near he saw that the people had barricaded his way with canoes, and that back of these canoes were many large piles of stones in the care of warriors. He raised his war-club and leaped toward his enemies. A sling-stone reached him. Then the stones came like heavy rain. He dodged, but there were so many that when he avoided one he would be struck by others. He was bruised and wounded and stunned until he sank to the ground unconscious under the fierce shower.

The people rejoiced, and, to make death sure, threw off the stones and beat the body with clubs until it was cold and they could detect no sign of breathing.

Aikanaka had built a new unu, or heiau, at Mauilli, in the district of Koloa, but no man had been offered as a sacrifice upon its altars. He thought he would take Kawelo as the first human sacrifice. The people carried the body of Kawelo to the pa, or outside enclosure, of the temple, but it was dark when they arrived, and they laid the body down, covering it with banana leaves, saying they would come the next morning and place the body on the altar, where it should lie until decomposition had taken place.

Two watchmen had been appointed, one of whom was a near relative to Kawelo. He soon discovered that Kawelo was not dead. He told Kawelo about the plan to place him on the altar in the morning. He covered Kawelo again, placing his war-club by his side. In the morning the chiefs and people came to the heiau with Aikanaka and Kaeleha. When all were gathered together the watchman whispered to Kawelo. The leaves were thrown off, and Kawelo attacked the multitude and destroyed all who had rebelled against him.

Some of the legends say that Aikanaka had placed Kawelo on the sacrificial platform and in the morning had begun to offer the prayer consecrating the dead body to the gods, when Kawelo struck him dead before his own altar.

When this rebellion had been overcome, Kawelo gave a large district with good lands to the watchman who had befriended him. He retained his younger brother Kamalama in the district of Hanamaulu and committed their parents to his care.

Kawelo, as was his right, ruled over all the island, passing from place to place, establishing peace and prosperity. He made his home at Hana, planting and fishing for himself, not burdening chiefs or people, but beloved by all. Thus he gained the honored name Kawelo-lei-makua (Kawelo, garland-of-his-parents).

XXIII

“CHIEF MAN-EATER”

“Chief man-eater,” the cannibal, lived in the Hawaiian Islands. He was also one of the inhabitants of mistland. Legends gathered around him like clouds. Facts also stood out like tall trees through the clouds. He was a real cannibal, of whom the Hawaiians are not proud.

The Hawaiians have frequently been called cannibals. Secretaries of the Missionary Board under which the first missionaries came to Hawaii, and papers of the denomination supporting that mission, have uttered the untruth, “The cannibals of the Sandwich Islands would erewhile cook and carve a merchant or marine and discourse on the deliciousness of cold missionary.” It was a very forcible background against which to paint moral improvement, but it was not accurate. The Hawaiians claim that they never practised cannibalism. If anything like a feast of human flesh was partaken of, it was only in exceedingly rare and obscure cases. And of these only “Chief Man-eater” is accepted as a historical fact. Legends that possibly have had a hint of cannibalism are very few.

It is recorded that after certain fierce battles of the long ago, as a method of showing indignity to dead chiefs, their bodies were baked and thrown into the sea.

It is barely possible that the baking was followed by cannibalism, but there is nothing in the record beyond the suggestion.

The daring act of “heart-eating” is mentioned in Hawaiian annals. This came during or after a battle, when two warriors had been engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle. The victor, whose strength was almost gone, would sometimes tear out the heart of the dying opponent and eat it on the spot. It was believed that the strength and courage of the dead entered immediately into the living.

That the Hawaiian chiefs and priests set small value upon life is well attested by the large number of human sacrifices required for almost all civil and religious ceremonies. For instance, when the famous war-god Kaili was taken to a temple dedicated to it by Kamehameha, eleven human victims were placed at once upon the altar before it. When a chief desired a new canoe a man was usually slain at the foot of the tree from which the canoe was to be made. Another was slain when the canoe was complete, and others might be sacrificed at different stages of the work. When a chief’s house was to be erected, sometimes a victim was sacrificed and buried at each corner, and when the house was completed another slaughter occurred. When an idol was to be made, substantially the same sacrifices accompanied the ceremony of choosing the tree and carving the image. At certain times the priests of all the temples demanded human victims, and regularly appointed officers, or man-catchers, were appointed to provide for the sacrifice. Not even their own relatives were spared in the search. Women were almost always exempt from this horrible termination of life. When a battle had been fought, many captives were sacrificed by both victor and vanquished.

Infanticide was freely practised up to the time of the advent of the missionaries. Even for old people there was often but little love, and the aged and the infirm were left to care for themselves, or placed on the beach for the outstretched hands of the incoming tide.

A native historian says: “The ancient restrictions of chiefs and priests were like the poisoned tooth of a reptile. If the shadow of a common man fell on a chief, it was death. If he put on any part of the garments of a chief, it was death. If he went into the chief’s yard or upon the chief’s house, it was death. If he stood when the king’s bathing water or his garments were carried along, or in the king’s presence, it was death. If he stood at the mention of the king’s name in song, it was death. There were many other offences of the people which were made capital by the chiefs. The king and the priests were much alike. The priesthood was oppressive to the people. Human victims were required on many occasions. If tabus were violated it meant death. It was death to be found in a canoe on a tabu or sacred day. If a woman ate pork, coconuts, bananas, or certain kind of fish or lobster, it was death.”

This much, and more, of human cruelty is acknowledged concerning the savage life of ancient Hawaii. Nevertheless, from the beginning of the earliest acquaintance of white people with the Hawaiian not an instance or hint of cannibalism has been known.

The idea of eating human flesh was thoroughly repugnant. Alexander, in his brief history of the Hawaiian people, says, “Cannibalism was regarded with horror and detestation.” Isaac Davis, one of the first white men to make his home in the islands, declared that the Hawaiians had never been cannibals since the islands were inhabited.

To the Hawaiian, “Chief Man-eater” was the unique and horrid embodiment of an insane appetite. He was the “Fe-fi-fo-fum” giant of the Hawaiian nursery. The very thought of his worse than brutal feast made the Hawaiian blood run cold.

One of the legends of Ke-alii-ai Kanaka (The-chief-who-eats-men) tells of the sudden appearance on the island of Kauai, in the indefinite past, of a stranger chief from a foreign land, with a small band of followers. The king of Kauai made them welcome. Feasts and games were enjoyed, then came the discovery that secret feasts of a horrible nature were eaten by the strangers. They were driven from the island. They crossed the channel to Oahu. They knew their reputation would soon follow them, so they went inland to the lofty range of the Waianae Mountains. Here they established their home, cultivated food and captured human victims, until finally driven out. Then they launched their boats and sailed away toward Kahiki, a foreign land.

Ai-Kanaka (Man-eater) was the name given to a bay on the island of Molokai, now known as the leper island. Here dwelt the priest Kawelo, who, by the aid of the great shark-god Kauhuhu, brought upon his enemies a storm which swept them into the sea, where they were eaten by the subjects and companions of the shark-god.

A legend, or, rather, a genealogy, placed a “Chief Man-eater” on the island of Hawaii, but no hints are given of man-eating feasts, or of journeys to other islands, and the name may simply refer to a fierce disposition. The Oahu chief, Ke-alii-ai Kanaka, lived some time about the middle of the eighteenth century, as nearly as can be estimated. Up to the middle of the nineteenth century the accounts of Chief Man-eater’s deeds and the accurate knowledge of his place of residence were quite fresh in the minds of old Hawaiians.

It is still a problem to be decided whether Chief Man-eater was a foreigner or a Hawaiian. The difficulty that makes his foreign birth a problem is the accepted date of the close of all intercourse with far-away island groups, such as Samoa and Fiji—at least three hundred years earlier than the century assigned to Ke-alii-ai Kanaka.

It would seem best to accept the legend that the degenerate chief was a desperado and an outcast from the high chief family of Waialua, on the northwest coast of Oahu.

Ke-alii-ai Kanaka was a powerful man. He is described as a champion boxer and wrestler. In some way he learned to love the taste of human flesh. When his awful appetite became known he was driven from his home. As he passed through the village the women who had been his playmates and companions fled from him. His former friends, the young warriors, called out “Man-eater! Man-eater!” and openly despised him. In bitter anger he called the few servants who would follow him, and fled to the royal Waianae Mountains. Driven from his kindred and friends, he buried himself and his brutal appetite in the mountain forests.

It is possible that soon after this he visited the island Kauai, and there passed himself off as a chief from a foreign land. But “his hand was against every man” and therefore “every man’s hand was against him.” Finally he made his permanent home among the Waianae Mountains, in the range that borders Waialua.

His followers numbered only a handful, for a single canoe brought them away from Kauai—if his was indeed the band driven from the hospitable shores of that fertile island.

Kokoa and Kalo were the names by which he was known in his nobler young manhood, and Kokoa was his name to his followers, but he was ever after Chief Man-eater to the Hawaiian world.