Notes

Notes.

THE BOY PU-NIA AND THE KING OF THE SHARKS

Given in the Fornander Collection of Hawaiian Antiquities and Folk-lore, Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History, Vol. V, Part II, with the title Kaao no Punia, Legend of Pu-nia.

Like many another Polynesian hero, Pu-nia had a mother whose name was Hina. The shark’s name, Kai-ale-ale, means “Sea in great commotion.” But the kindling of the fire inside the shark with the fire-sticks could not have been so easy as it is made to appear. Melville, in Typee, describes the operation of fire-making as laborious. This is how he saw it being done:

“A straight, dry, and partly decayed stick of the hibiscus, about six feet in length, and half as many inches in diameter, with a smaller bit of wood not more than a foot long, and scarcely an inch wide, is as invariably to be met with in every house in Typee as a box of lucifer matches in the corner of the kitchen cupboard at home. The islander, placing the larger stick obliquely against some object, with one end elevated at an angle of forty-five degrees, mounts astride of it like an urchin about to gallop off upon a cane, and then grasping the smaller one firmly in both hands, he rubs its pointed end slowly up and down the extent of a few inches on the principal stick, until at last he makes a narrow groove in the wood, with an abrupt termination at the point furthest from him, where all the dusty particles which the friction creates are accumulated in a little heap.

“At first Kory-Kory goes to work quite leisurely, but gradually quickens his pace, and waxing warm in the employment, drives the stick furiously along the smoking channel, plying his hands to and fro with amazing rapidity, the perspiration starting from every pore. As he approaches the climax of his effort, he pants and gasps for breath, and his eyes almost start from their sockets with the violence of his exertions. This is the critical stage of the operation; all his previous labours are in vain if he cannot sustain the rapidity of the movement until the reluctant spark is produced. Suddenly he stops, becomes perfectly motionless. His hands still retain their hold of the smaller stick, which is pressed convulsively against the further end of the channel among the fine powder there accumulated, as if he had just pierced through and through some little viper that was wriggling and struggling to escape from his clutches. The next moment a delicate wreath of smoke curls spirally into the air, the heap of dusty particles glow with fire, and Kory-Kory, almost breathless, dismounts from his steed.”

THE SEVEN GREAT DEEDS OF MA-UI

The number seven has no significance in Polynesian tradition; the number eight has. It just happened that the number of Ma-ui’s deeds that had interest for me as a story-teller was seven. Fornander has only short and passing notices of Ma-ui, and all the material for the stories given here has been taken from Mr. W. D. Westervelt’s valuable Ma-ui the Demi-God. Ma-ui is a hero for all the Polynesians, and Mr. Westervelt tells us that either complete or fragmentary Ma-ui legends are found in the single islands and island groups of Aneityum, Bowditch or Fakaofa, Efate, Fiji, Fotuna, Gilbert, Hawaii, Hervey, Huahine, Mangaia, Manihiki, Marquesas, Marshall, Nauru, New Hebrides, New Zealand, Samoa, Savage, Tahiti or Society, Tauna, Tokelau, and Tonga. Ma-ui is, in short, a Pan-Polynesian hero, and it is as a Pan-Polynesian hero that I have treated him, giving his legend from other sources than those that are purely Hawaiian. However, I have tried to make Hawaii the background for all the stories. Note that Ma-ui’s position in his family is the traditional position for a Polynesian hero—he is the youngest of his brothers, but, as in the case of other heroes of the Polynesians, he becomes the leader of his family.

Ma-ui’s mother was Hina. She is distinguished from the numerous Hinas of Polynesian tradition by being “Hina-a-ke-ahi,” “Hina-of-the-Fire.” I follow the New Zealand tradition that Mr. Westervelt gives in telling how Ma-ui was thrown into the sea by his mother and how the jelly-fish took care of him. Ma-ui’s throwing the heavy spear at the house is also out of New Zealand. His overthrowing of the two posts is out of the Hawaiian tradition. But in that tradition it is suggested that his two uncles were named “Tall Post” and “Short Post.” They had been the guardians of the house, and young Ma-ui had to struggle with them to win a place for himself in the house. Ma-ui’s taking away invisibility from the birds and letting the people see the singers is out of the Hawaiian tradition. So is Ma-ui’s kite-flying. The Polynesian people all delighted in kite-flying, but the Hawaiians are unique in giving a kite to a demi-god. The incantation beginning “O winds, winds of Wai-pio” is Hawaiian; the other incantation, “Climb up, climb up,” is from New Zealand.

The fishing up of the islands is supposed by scholars to be a folk-lore account of the discovery of new islands after the Polynesian tribes had put off from Indonesia. The story that I give is mainly Hawaiian—it is out of Mr. Westervelt’s book, of course—but I have borrowed from the New Zealand and the Tongan accounts too; the fish-hook made from the jaw-bone of his ancestress is out of the New Zealand tradition, and the chant “O Island, O great Island” is Tongan.

The story of Ma-ui’s snaring the sun is Hawaiian, and the scene of this, the greatest exploit in Polynesian tradition, is on the great Hawaiian mountain Haleakala. The detail about the nooses of the ropes that Ma-ui uses—that they were made from the hair of his sister—is out of the Tahitian tradition as given by Gill.

The Hawaiian story about Ma-ui’s finding fire is rather tame; he forces the alae or the mud-hen to give the secret up to him. I have added to the Hawaiian story the picturesque New Zealand story of his getting fire hidden in her nails from his ancestress in the lower world. There is an Hawaiian story, glanced at by Fornander, in which Ma-ui obtains fire by breaking open the head of his eldest brother.

The story of Ma-ui and Kuna Loa, the Long Eel, as I give it, is partly out of the Hawaiian, partly out of the New Zealand tradition, and there is in it, besides, a reminiscence of a story from Samoa. All of these stories are given in Mr. Westervelt’s book. That Kuna Loa tried to drown Ma-ui’s mother in her cave—that is Hawaiian; that Hina was driven to climb a bread-fruit tree to get away from the Long Eel—that is derived from the Samoan story. And the transformation of the pieces of Kuna Loa into eels, sea monsters, and fishes is out of the New Zealand tradition about Ma-ui. “When the writer was talking with the natives concerning this part of the old legend,” says Mr. Westervelt, “they said, ‘Kuna is not a Hawaiian word. It means something like a snake or a dragon, something we do not have in these islands.’ This, they thought, made the connection with the Hina legend valueless until they were shown that Tuna (or Kuna) was the New Zealand name of the reptile which attacked Hina and struck her with his tail like a crocodile, for which Ma-ui killed him. When this was understood, the Hawaiians were greatly interested to give the remainder of the legend, and compare it with the New Zealand story.” “This dragon,” Mr. Westervelt goes on, “may be a remembrance of the days when the Polynesians were supposed to dwell by the banks of the River Ganges in India, when crocodiles were dangerous enemies and heroes saved families from their destructive depredations.” Mrs. A. P. Taylor of Honolulu writes me in connection with this passage: “There is a spring in the Palama district in Honolulu called Kuna-wai (‘Eel of Water’). In Hawaiian, kuna-kuna means eczema, a skin disease.”

The story of the search that Ma-ui’s brother made for his sister is from New Zealand. Ma-ui’s brother is named Ma-ui Mua and Rupe. His sister is Hina-te-ngaru-moana, “Hina, the daughter of the Ocean.”

The splendidly imaginative story of how Ma-ui strove to win immortality for men is from New Zealand. The Goblin-goddess with whom Ma-ui struggles is Hina-nui-te-po, “Great Hina of the Night,” or “Hina, Great Lady of Hades.” According to the New Zealand mythology she was the daughter and the wife of Kane, the greatest of the Polynesian gods. There seems to be a reminiscence of the myth that they once possessed in common with the New Zealanders in the fragmentary tale that the Hawaiians have about Ma-ui striving to tear a mountain apart. “He wrenched a great hole in the side. Then the elepaio bird sang and the charm was broken. The cleft in the mountain could not be enlarged. If the story could be completed it would not be strange if the death of Ma-ui came with his failure to open the path through the mountain.” So Mr. Westervelt writes.

The Ma-ui stories have flowed over into Melanesia, and there is a Fijian story given in Lorimer Fison’s Tales of Old Fiji, in which Ma-ui’s fishing is described. Ma-ui, in that story, is described as the greatest of the gods; he has brothers, and he has two sons with him. With his sons he fishes up the islands of Ata, Tonga, Haabai, Vavau, Niua, Samoa, and Fiji. Ma-ui’s sons depart from the Land of the Gods and seize upon the islands that their father had fished up. Then Disease and Death come to the islands that the rebel gods, Ma-ui’s sons, have seized. Afterwards Ma-ui sent to them “some of the sacred fire of Bulotu.”

AU-KE-LE THE SEEKER

Given in the Fornander Collection, Vol. IV, Part I, of the Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, with the title He Moolelo no Aukelenuiaiku, the Legend of Aukelenuiaiku.

Like many another Polynesian hero, Au-ke-le (to cut down his name from the many-syllabled one which means Great Au-ke-le, son of Iku) was the youngest born of his family. Fornander thought that his story “has marked resemblances in several features to the Hebrew account of Joseph and his brethren, and is traced back to Cushite origin through wanderings and migrations”—an idea which is wholly fantastic. The story as I have retold it is very much condensed.

Au-ke-le’s grandmother is a mo-o—literally, a lizard. Dr. Nathaniel Emerson and Mr. William Hyde Rice translate “mo-o” by “dragon,” and I fancy that “mo-o” created a sufficiently vague conception to allow the fantastic and terrifying dragon to become its representative. On the other hand, “dragon” tends to bring in a conception that is not Polynesian. I have not rendered “mo-o” by either “lizard” or “dragon.” I prefer to let “mo-o” remain mysterious. Note what Mr. Westervelt says about the “mo-o” or “dragon” being a reminiscence of creatures of another environment.

The story of Au-ke-le is mythical: it is a story about the Polynesian gods. Au-ke-le and his brothers go from one land of the gods to another. The “Magic” that he carries in his calabash is a godling that his grandmother made over to him. There are many things in this story that are difficult to make intelligible in a retelling. It is difficult, for instance, to convey the impression that the maids whom the Queen sends to Au-ke-le, and her brothers too, were reduced to abject terror by Au-ke-le’s disclosing their names. But to the Polynesians, as to other primitive peoples, names were not only private, and intensely private, but they were sacred. To know one’s name was to be possessed of some of one’s personality; magic could be worked against one through the possession of a name. Our names are public. But suppose that a really private name—a name that was given to us by our mother as a pet name—was called out in public: how upset we might be! Stevenson’s mother named him “Smootie” and “Baron Broadnose.” How startled R. L. S. might have been if a stranger in a strange land had addressed him by either name!

Later on Au-ke-le goes on the quest that was the Polynesian equivalent of the Quest of the Holy Grail; he goes in quest of the Water of Everlasting Life, the Water of Kane. The Polynesian thought that there was no blessing greater than that of a long life. There are many stories dealing with the Quest of the Water of Kane, and there is one poem that has been translated beautifully by Dr. Nathaniel Emerson. It is given in his Unwritten Literature of Hawaii.

A query, a question,

I put to you:

Where is the Water of Kane?

At the Eastern Gate

Where the Sun comes in at Haehae;

There is the Water of Kane.

A question I ask of you:

Where is the Water of Kane?

Out there with the floating Sun,

Where cloud-forms rest on the Ocean’s breast,

Uplifting their forms at Nohoa,

This side the base of Lehua;

There is the Water of Kane.

One question I put to you:

Where is the Water of Kane?

Yonder on mountain peak,

On the ridges steep,

In the valleys deep,

Where the rivers sweep;

There is the Water of Kane.

This question I ask of you:

Where, pray, is the Water of Kane?

Yonder, at sea, on the ocean,

In the drifting rain,

In the heavenly bow,

In the piled-up mist-wraith,

In the blood-red rainfall,

In the ghost-pale cloud-form;

There is the Water of Kane.

One question I put to you:

Where, where is the Water of Kane?

Up on high is the Water of Kane,

In the heavenly blue,

In the black-piled cloud,

In the black-black cloud,

In the black-mottled sacred cloud of the gods;

There is the Water of Kane.

One question I ask of you:

Where flows the Water of Kane?

Deep in the ground, in the gushing spring,

In the ducts of Kane and Loa,

A well-spring of water, to quaff,

A water of magic power—

The water of Life!

Life! O give us this life!

The story of Au-ke-le has a solemn if not a tragic ending, which is unusual in Polynesian stories. Its close makes one think of that chant that Melville heard the aged Tahitians give “in a low, sad tone”:

A harree ta fow,

A toro ta farraro,

A now ta tararta.

The palm-tree shall grow,

The coral shall spread,

But man shall cease.

PI-KO-I: THE BOY WHO WAS GOOD AT SHOOTING ARROWS

Given in the Fornander Collection, Vol. IV, Part III, of the Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, with the title Kaao No Pikoiakaalala, Legend of Pikoiakaalala (Pi-ko-i, the son of the Alala).

His father was Raven or Crow, his sisters were Rat and Bat. The arrows that Pi-ko-i shot were not from the sort of bow that we are familiar with; the Hawaiian bow, it must be noted, was not a complete bow. The string hung untied from the top of the shaft; the shooter put the notch of the arrow into the hanging string, whipped forward the shaft, and at the same time cast the arrow, which was light, generally an arrow of sugar-cane. The arrow was never used in war; it was used in sport—to shoot over a distance, and at birds and at rats that were held in some enclosure. The bird that cried out was evidently the elepaio. “Among the gods of the canoe-makers,” says Mr. Joseph Emerson, “she held the position of inspector of all koa trees designed for that use.” The Hawaiian interest in riddles enters into Pi-ko-i’s story.

PAKA: THE BOY WHO WAS REARED IN THE LAND THAT THE GODS HAVE SINCE HIDDEN

Given in the Fornander Collection, Vol. V, Part II, of the Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, with the title Kaao no Kepakailiula, the Legend of Kepakailiula.

Pali-uli, where Paka’s uncles reared him, is the Hawaiian paradise. In a chant that Fornander quotes it is described:

O Pali-uli, hidden Land of Kane,

Land in Kalana i Hauola,

In Kahiki-ku, in Kapakapaua of Kane,

The Land whose foundation shines with fatness,

Land greatly enjoyed by the god.

“This land or Paradise,” says Fornander, “was the central part of the world … and situated in Kahiki-ku, which was a large and extensive continent.” Paka emerges from this Fairy-land into a world that is quite diurnal when he sets about winning Mako-lea. The boxing, spear-throwing, and riddling contests that he engages in reflect the life of the Hawaiian courts.

THE STORY OF HA-LE-MA-NO AND THE PRINCESS KAMA

Given in the Fornander Collection, Vol. V, Part II, of the Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, with the title Kaao no Halemano, Legend of Ha-le-ma-no.

Kama, or, to give her her full name, Kamalalawalu, was living under a strict tapu. Ha-le-ma-no is no thoughtless tapu-breaker, as are other young men in Hawaiian romance; there is very little of the mythical element in this story; the enchantress-sister, however, is a figure that often comes into Hawaiian romance. This story is remarkable for its vivid rendering of episodes belonging to the aristocratic life—the surf-riding, surely the greatest of sports to participate in, as it is the most thrilling of sports to watch; the minstrelsy; the gambling. The poems that Ha-le-ma-no and Kama repeat to each other are very baffling, and are open to many interpretations. In this respect they are like most Hawaiian poetry, which has a deliberate obscurity that might have won Mallarmé’s admiration.

THE ARROW AND THE SWING

This is one of the most famous of the Hawaiian stories. It is given in the Fornander Collection, Vol. V, Part I, of the Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, with the title He Kaao no Hiku a me Kawelu, the Legend of Hi-ku and Ka-we-lu. It should be remembered that Hi-ku’s arrow was more for casting than for shooting: the game that he was playing at the opening of the story consisted in casting his arrow, Pua-ne, over a distance. Ka-we-lu was living under tapu. But, like many another heroine of Polynesian romance, she was not reluctant about having the tapu broken. There is one very puzzling feature in this story. Why did Ka-we-lu not give her lover food? Her failure to provide something for him is against all traditions of Hawaiian hospitality. Of course, in the old days, men and women might not eat together; Ka-we-lu, however, could have indicated to Hi-ku where to go for food. The food at hand might have been for women only, and tapu as regards men. Or it might have been tapu for all except people of high rank. If this was what was behind Ka-we-lu’s inhospitality it would account for a bitterness in Hi-ku’s anger—she was treating him as a person of a class beneath her. But these are guesses merely. I have asked those who were best acquainted with the Hawaiian tradition to clear up the mystery of Ka-we-lu’s behavior in this particular, but they all confessed themselves baffled by it. The poems that Ka-we-lu chants to Hi-ku, like the poems that Ha-le-ma-no chants to Kama, have a meaning beneath the ostensible meaning of the words.

With regard to Ka-we-lu’s death it should be remembered that according to Polynesian belief the soul was not single, but double. A part of it could be separated or charmed away from the body; the spirit that could be so separated from the body was called hau. In making the connection between Hi-ku and the lost Ka-we-lu I have gone outside the legend as given in the Fornander Collection. I have brought in Lolupe, who finds lost and hidden things. This godling is connected with the Hi-ku-Ka-we-lu story through a chant given by Dr. Nathaniel Emerson in his notes to David Malo’s Hawaiian Antiquities.

Mr. Joseph Emerson gives this account of Lua o Milu, the realm of Milu, the Hawaiian Hades: “Its entrance, according to the usual account of the natives, was situated at the mouth of the great valley of Waipio, on the island of Hawaii, in a place called Keoni, where the sands have long since covered up and concealed from view this passage from the upper to the nether world.” Fornander says that the realm of Milu was not entirely dark. “There was light and there was fire in it.” The swing chant that I have given to Hi-ku does not belong to the legend; it is out of a collection of chants that accompany games. The Hawaiian swing was different from ours; it was a single strand with a cross-piece, and it was pulled and not pushed out.

Mr. Joseph Emerson, in a paper that I have already quoted from, The Lesser Hawaiian Gods, says that Hi-ku’s mother was Hina, the wife of Ku, one of the greater Polynesian gods. In that case, Hi-ku was originally a demi-god.

THE DAUGHTER OF THE KING OF KU-AI-HE-LANI

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.

THE FISH-HOOK OF PEARL

This simple tale is given in the Fornander Collection, Vol. IV, Part III, of the Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Museum, with the title Kaao no Aiai, the Legend of Aiai.

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

This story is given in the Fornander Collection, Vol. IV, Part III, with the title Kaao no Kana a Me Niheu, Legend of Kana and Niheu. Mr. Thrum speaks of the legend of Kana and Niheu as having “ear-marks of great antiquity and such popularity as to be known by several versions.” The chant in which his grandmother prays for a double canoe for Kana is over a hundred lines long; Miss Beckwith speaks of this chant as being still used as an incantation.

THE ME-NE-HU-NE

There are no stories of the Me-ne-hu-ne in the Fornander Collection. Fornander uses the name, but only as implying the very early people of the Islands. According to W. D. Alexander the name Me-ne-hu-ne is applied in Tahiti to the lowest class of people.

The account of the Me-ne-hu-ne that I give is taken from two sources—from Mr. William Hyde Rice’s Hawaiian Legends, published by the Bishop Museum, and from Mr. Thomas Thrum’s Stories of the Menehunes, published by A. C. McClurg & Co., Chicago. I am indebted to Mr. Rice for the part that treats of the history of the Me-ne-hu-ne, and to Mr. Thrum for the two stories, “Pi’s Watercourse” and “Laka’s Adventure.”

Beginning with “The Me-ne-hu-ne,” I have treated the stories as if they were being told to a boy by an older Hawaiian. I have imagined them both as being with a party who have gone up into the highlands to cut sandalwood. That would be in the time of the first successors of Kamehameha, when the sandalwood of the islands was being cut down for exportation to China, “the land of the Pa-ke.” As the party goes down the mountain-side the boy gathers the ku-kui or candle-nuts for lighting the house at night.

THE STORY OF MO-E MO-E: ALSO A STORY ABOUT PO-O AND ABOUT KAU-HU-HU THE SHARK-GOD, AND ABOUT MO-E MO-E’S SON, THE MAN WHO WAS BOLD IN HIS WISH

The story of Opele, who came to be called Mo-e Mo-e, is given in the Fornander Collection, Vol. V, Part I, of the Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, with the title He Kaao no Opelemoemoe, Legend of Opelemoemoe; the story about Po-o is given in the Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Vol. V, Part III (the stories in this volume do not belong to the Fornander Collection); the story about the Shark-God is taken from an old publication of the Islands, the Maile Quarterly; the story of the Man who was Bold in his Wish is given in the Fornander Collection, Vol. IV, Part III, of the Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, with the title Kaao no Kalelealuaka a Me Keinohoomanawanui, the Legend of Kalelealuaka and Keinohoomanawanui.

THE WOMAN FROM LALO-HANA, THE COUNTRY UNDER THE SEA

This story is taken from David Malo’s Hawaiian Antiquities. A variant is given in the Fornander Collection. There are many Hinas in Hawaiian tradition, but the Hina of this story is undoubtedly the Polynesian moon-goddess.

HINA, THE WOMAN IN THE MOON

This story is from Mr. Westervelt’s Ma-ui the Demi-God. The husband of this Hina was Aikanaka.