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RUNNERS, MAN-EATERS,
DOG-MEN
A-Lani-Menehune, younger son of Lua-nu‘u, K had
two sons, the older of whom, called Aholoholo (Runner), is said to have
been "renowned for his swiftness." Legends tell of famous runners (kukini)
employed by chiefs to act as messengers and especially to bring fresh
fish from distant fishponds. Trained thieves too were employed to steal
from an enemy, and for them swiftness of foot was an essential
qualification. Chiefs looked doubtfully upon the first horses introduced
upon the islands; their runners were swift of foot and could easily run
down goats on the mountain. There is a well-attested incident told of a
native Hawaiian in early days who staked his own speed on the race
course against the competing horse and won the race. The names of famous
runners and their deeds have passed into legend and sometimes into myth.
Ulua-nui, a famous runner of Oahu, could carry a
fish from Kaele-pulu pond in Kailua around by way of Waialua and bring
it in at Waikiki alive and wriggling. Makoa (or Makoko), the swift
runner of Kau, when Kamehameha had his awa preparing (at Kailua), was
sent to Hilo to fetch mullet from the pond of Waiakea adjoining Puna, a
journey which today would take a man four days, and returned with the
fish still quivering. A similar story is told of Kane-a-ka-ehu in the
same period, who used to run back and forth between Kailua and Hilo by a
steep and precipitous trail, starting when the preparations began for
the feast and returning by the time the meal was cooked and ready. Other
famous runners mentioned in the stories are Ka-leo-nui, sent by
Kakuihewa to intercept Lono-i-ka-makahiki's kahuna on his way from
Hawaii to help his master, who circled the island twice without finding
the kahuna; Ka-ehu-iki-a-wakea, the best runner of Aikanaka on Kauai; Kalamea,
the swift runner of Maui in Lono-a-pi‘i's service who could go around
Maui in a day; Pakui, special attendant of Haumea at Kailua, who could
circle Oahu six times in a day (see Pupuhuluana); Ku-hele-moana and
Keakea-lani, the swift runners of Kakuhihewa, who could compass Oahu
twelve times in a day; Kama (or Kane) -a-ka-mikioi and Kama (or Kane)
-aka-ulu-ohia, sons of Halulu of Ni‘ihau, so fleet of foot that they
could make ten circuits of Kauai in a day, and run on land or ocean,
from earth to sky.
Dwarfs (kupa-li‘i) are mentioned in traditions of
early migrations as "noted for their swiftness as runners." It was said
of the Menehune, to indicate their stature, that they were "below the
knees of Naipualehu," a Kauai dwarf about three feet in height. Kamakau
says of the forefathers that "they often speak of the land of the dwarfs
(ka aina o ke kupali‘i), a land of people so small that it would take
ten of them to equal one ordinary man." One of these little men was
brought to Punalu‘u in Kau district on Hawaii and lived above Kopu and
Moaula and was called an ili (which is the name given to a small
"parcel" of land) and a pilikua (back-clinger), and Wahanui brought some
to Kauai.
LEGENDS OF FAMOUS RUNNERS
Keli‘i-malolo is born at Hana and noted as the
fastest runner of Maui in the time of Kahekili. He joins a canoe trip to
Kapakai in Kohala, Hawaii, and after a little run of about ninety miles
to Kaawaloa and back finds the canoes not yet covered or the baggage
removed. His friends challenge the truth of his story, contending that
it would take two days to go and return from such a distance. His
account of the places along the way however tallies with the facts, and
at the end of the run he has been careful to leave two joints of sugar
cane set up as proof of his story.
Kao-hele, noted runner of Molokai, is pursued in
vain by Kahekili's men when they come to make war on Molokai. They
station relays, but he outdistances them all, hence the saying, "Combine
the speed to catch Kaohele" (E ku‘i ka mama i loaa o Kaohele). At one
time chiefs and people are crowded at a famous cliff for the sport of
leaping into the bathing pool below, and Kaohele, finding himself headed
for this cliff and closely pursued, leaps across to the opposite bank, a
distance of thirty-six feet. Kao-hele is runner and protector for four
chiefs who live at the heiau of Kahokukano on Molokai and have a
fishpond mountainward. He is killed by a slingstone in a battle with men
from Hawaii but his chiefs escape.
Manini-holo-kuaua (named by Rice as head fisherman
of the Menehune at Haena on Kauai) is known as a noted thief of Molokai,
so strong he can carry away a whole canoe on his back and so swift he
can escape all pursuit. His mo‘o grandmother, Kalama-ula, lives in a
cave in the uplands which opens and shuts at command, and it is his
custom to run with his booty to this cave and hide it away there. When
Ke-lii-malolo, the fleet runner of Oahu, comes to Molokai on a visit and
in contempt of warnings leaves his canoe unguarded while he goes in for
a bath, Manini lays claim to it and carries it away with all it contains
to his cave in the uplands, into which he disappears before its owner
can overtake him. Ke-li‘i-malolo engages the help of the two
supernatural sons of Halulu, Kama-aka-mikioi and Kama-aka-ulu-ohia, and
sails with them to Molokai. Manini, in con-tempt of his grandmother's
warning, seizes their canoe also, but is overtaken by one of the men,
who overhears his command and orders the cave to shut just as he is
entering so that he is caught and crushed within its jaws. Within the
cave are found innumerable possessions.
At the time of the discovery of the Polynesian
islands, cannibalism was practised by Maori, Rarotongans, Paumotuans,
and Marquesans. It was introduced late among the Tongans from Fiji and,
although rare, was practised on Tongatapu more than in other Tongan
islands. In Rarotonga cannibalism began as a means of revenge after a
war; it was against the law of the ali‘i to practise it in time of
peace. Among the Maori the story is told of Uenuku who practised
cannibalism in revenge for the death of his children. Among one tribe it
was said to have been introduced by Kai. Churchill finds the practice
noted by Friederici among the Sissano of eating the bodies of dead
relatives. Brewster describes the Fiji method of preparing a cannibal
feast.
Despite the fact that man-eating is ascribed to
legendary figures and that a class called olohe are sometimes spoken of
as cannibals, there is no proof that cannibalism was ever practised in
the Hawaiian group. Man-slaying however was common and the lua or
bone-breaking art was practised by highwaymen. In North Tahiti, whence
early Hawaiian migrations seem to have come, Mei-hiti is spoken of in
chants as a famous place for man-slayers. The most celebrated of
Hawaiian man-eating legends, the story of Ai-kanaka of Oahu, corresponds
closely with one recorded from Tahiti, as follows:
Ellis version. Cannibals lived on the
island of Tepuaemanu between Eimeo and Huahine. Men who went near the
island were found to be missing. At length the man-eater's wife
discovered that her own brother Tebuoroo was to be killed and eaten. She
exposed her husband's habit and two men lay in wait for him and stoned
him to death.
In Wahiawa on Oahu, near the place called
Kukaniloko, once sacred to the birth of chiefs, is a narrow ridge of
land forming a curving pathway between two steep gulches along which men
used to travel to reach the mountain timber. At this defile, tradition
says, the last cannibals of Oahu took their stand and seized upon
victims for their cannibal feasts. Aikanaka (Man-eater) was the name of
their chief, called in legend Ka-lo-aikanaka, Ke-ali‘i-ai-kanaka (The
chief who eats men), Kokoa, or merely Kalo. The band lived beyond the
defile at a place called Hale-manu (House of birds) or Hale-mano. There
the foundation of a heiau used to be pointed out, and the large flat
rock called the ipukai (platter) where their victims were laid, and the
hollow where the oven was dug in which such victims were baked. The
story is circumstantially related as follows:
(a) Ka-lo-aikanaka (Lo the man-eater) is
chief of a band of strangers who land first on Kauai and are given lands
near the foot of the mountain back of Waimea. Darker than the Hawaiians,
with a different speech and no tapu laws, they have religious feasts at
which human flesh is eaten. The chief himself is tattooed with figures
of birds, sharks, and other fishes. Ka-lo's daughter is very beautiful
with hair to her ankles, bright eyes, sparkling teeth, set off by pearl
necklaces and anklets. Married to a Kauai chief, she is put to death for
breaking the tapu. The band retaliate by a cannibal feast and are
obliged to flee to Oahu. Landing first at Kawailoa and then going on to
Waialua, they proceed upland and establish themselves eight miles east
of Haleiwa in the mountains of Haupu. The chief's servant Kaanokaewa(or
-keewe), also called Lotu, builds his house across the pass at a place
called Kanewai, and pushes travelers over the cliff. Lotu's wife
Kaholehua sees even her own brothers sacrificed to satisfy the chief's
hunger when other victims fail, until the youngest, named Napopo,
escapes to Kauai, learns the art of wrestling, and in a final struggle
with Lotu falls with him over the cliff and both are killed together.
The chief is then obliged to sail with his people to other lands.
(b) Westervelt version (dated 1848). The
man-eater lives at Hele-mano. Ke-ali‘i-ai-kanaka is described as "either
a foreigner or a Hawaiian." Little by little his band of warriors are
killed in forays until he alone remains. Hoa-hanau, the brother of one
of his victims, learns boxing and wrestling in Waialua, covers his body
with oil, and in a struggle to the death, hurls the cannibal chief over
the edge of the gulch.
Connected with a somewhat similar Aikanaka legend
is the stone called Oahu-nui which is said to have the shape of the
island of Oahu and which lies in the gulch between Ewa and Waialua.
Those who would go "entirely around Oahu" used to visit this stone.
Lo-Aikanaka is the name given to a family of South
Sea chiefs who are driven from the plains of Mokuleia into the hills to
a place called Hele-mano, where they are received by the chief Oahu-nui
east of that locality and the two chiefs exchange courtesies. Oahu-nui
develops a passion for human flesh and finally the two chubby sons of
his sister Kilikiliula, wife of Lehua-nui, are sacrificed to his
appetite during the absence of their father. Warned by a vision, the
father returns, puts to death the chief and his sister, and abandons the
place with his men. A curse hangs over the place. The headless body of
Oahu-nui became petrified where it lay; his sister also turned to stone
where she fell on the opposite hillside, and all who had partaken of the
feast were turned to stone. None has ever dared to live there since.
In romantic fiction Ai-kanaka is represented as
the ruling chief on Oahu in the time of Halemano. He lives at Ulukou at
Waikiki. Hearing of the beauty of Halemano's wife, he summons her to him
and when she refuses to come he sends men to kill Halemano and the two
are obliged to hide in the uplands of Wahiawa until they can escape to
another island. Dibble says that with Ka-hanu-nui-a-lewa-lani, who came
from foreign lands to Oahu by way of Kauai, came also his younger
brother Kawelo-ai-kanaka, both sons of Neva and both man-eaters,
together with the followers who came with them. It would be interesting
to know whether this Kawelo bears any relation to the legendary
Ai-kanaka who is dispossessed by his relative of a younger branch from
Oahu in the Kauai legend of Kawelo, or whether he may be connected with
Lono-ka-ehu and his man-eating dog Ku-ilio-loa, or whether the followers
who came with the "two sons of Neva" have anything to do with the
Menehune whom Ka-hano brought from Kahiki to serve the chiefess (or
chief Kahanai) on Oahu.
Among the peoples said to have appeared during the
fifth period of the Kumulipo, when the hog-man was building up his
family line, are the dog people: "Hanau ka Huelo Maewe, he (p)aewe kona"
(Born were the wagging tails; they had no fixed line of descent), says
the chant. This seems to mean that they intermarried without regard to
class distinction and hence built up no inherited chief class. The
reference is to the Ha‘a people, according to David Malo Kupihea, the
hairless olohe people first discovered on Maui on the plains in Kula
called Oma‘oma‘o. He says, "In the story of Alapai-nui on Hawaii it is
said that messengers to Maui landed on the Hana side and found these
Ha‘a people and were afraid, so they went on to Oahu and Kauai. Both on
Kauai and on Maui 'dogs' were taken out to fight Alapai-nui and they
were still there in Kahekili's time. Some were in his army. They lived
in the sand hills and they had mystical power of the demigods (kupua) in
the form of big war dogs. These dog people still appear on Maui in the
procession of spirits known as 'Marchers of the night.' They look like
other human beings but have tails like a dog."
A Hawaiian will not touch a dog of the hairless
variety; it represents an olohe. About Pearl harbor on Ewa beach,
supposed to be the place at which "human beings" first landed on Oahu,
many caves of the olohe (ka-lua-olohe) are to be seen. In Honolulu there
used to be a pit called Hole-of-the-olohe near where Palm drive enters
King street into which an olohe disappeared who was being pursued. These
olohe were human beings; they were "born in the day."
Olohe, or Ha‘a people, were hence a
well-recognized class in old days, skilled in wrestling and
bone-breaking (lua) and with hairless bodies. It is said that they used
to pull out their hair and smear their bodies with oil in order to give
no hold to an antagonist. Legend represents them as professional robbers
or even with man-eating habits, who used to station themselves at a
narrow pass along the highway and kill and rob travelers. Many such
robber stations are pointed out to-day. Makua, one of the most western
valleys in Waianae, is a traditional haunt on Oahu. Here Makaioulu met
two robber women who were professional bone-breakers. Similar olohe
legends occur on Maui and Hawaii.
LEGENDS OF OLOHE
Kapakohana, after killing the kupua Kalae-hina who
has terrorized the island of Maui, goes on to Oahu to challenge the
hairless cannibal (olohe) of Hanakapiai. Finding himself unable to
overcome the olohe in wrestling, he pretends friendship and gathers men
to burn him while asleep in his grass house. The olohe overhears the
plot and, making a hole in the top of the house, crawls into a tree,
then begins eating the men until he comes to Kapakohana, who grapples
with him and eventually kills him and sets up his bones to hang gourds
upon.
Kapuaeuhi, an olohe of Ola‘a, uses his two strong
daughters to decoy travelers to his cave, where he has a stone, or, as
most say, a beam, which he causes to fall and kill the traveler as he
enters. Finally two cousins of a plundered man are successful in setting
upon and killing the daughters, then the old man himself, whom they
leave in the cave. Some say that he lies there yet, but since the death
of the olohe no one has been able to raise the stone (or beam).
On the shore road toward Ka-u district just out of
Kalapana is a spot where the lava rock is contorted as if by a great
struggle. A famous robber used to live in a cave above this road with
his two daughters. He hides himself along the road and the daughters
watch from the cave. If many people are coming together along the road
they signal "High tide!" but when a single traveler comes along they
give the sign for "Low tide!" and the olohe drops a great tree upon the
man, thus disabling him, and then kills and robs him.
Uma, a dwarf skilled in the art of bone breaking,
lives at Puehuehu in Kohala in the days of Kamehameha the first. On a
journey through the country, which is at that time infested by robbers,
he repels every attack by his swiftness and skill.
Similar conditions seem to have prevailed among
the Maori.
Moko is a robber chief who establishes himself in
a cave beside the highway traveled by those who trade up and down the
coast. Finally he kills the brother of the chief Tu-te-wai-mate and the
chief goes with a body of men to avenge the dead, but Moko takes
advantage of his chivalrous warning to give an unexpected thrust which
kills the avenger.
Among dog-men represented as overthrowing the
chief of a district and terrorizing the country, the most famous is the
cannibal dog-man Kaupe who overthrew the government of Ka-hanai-a-ke-akua
(Reared by the gods) and ruled the land from Nu‘uanu to the sea.
Kaupe lives at Lihue on Oahu. He never attacks a
high chief but eats some of the people both of Oahu and Maui. At last he
crosses over to Hawaii and brings back a chief's son to sacrifice in the
heiau at Lihue. The father follows to Oahu and consults Kahilona, the
great kahuna at the heiau of Kaheiki just below the hill called today
Pacific Heights, which was built by the Menehune and which becomes under
Kahilona the center for the mo‘o-kahuna class of priests; that is, for
kilokilo who read the signs of earth and sky and sea. This kahuna
teaches the chief from Hawaii the prayer to recover his son, which runs
"O Ku,! O Lono! O Kanaloa!
By the power of the gods, by the strength of this prayer,
Save us two, save us two!"
The prayer unfastens the boy's fetters and father
and son flee and hide under a rock at Moanalua while Kaupe goes on to
look for them on Hawaii. The father learns the prayer for killing an
enemy, and overcomes Kaupe on Hawaii.
The story resembles one told locally of the heiau
of Wahaula in Puna district on Hawaii.
The smoke from the altar at Waha-ula is regarded
as the shadow cast by the god of the heiau and hence to cross through
the smoke is sacrilege. A young chief, forgetful of the tapu, allows
himself to be touched by the smoke and is accordingly seized and
sacrificed and his bones thrown into the bone pit. His spirit comes in
dream to his father, who is the high chief of Ka-u, and the father sets
out at once to recover his son's bones. After first encountering and
killing the olohe who slays travelers along the sea road out of Kalapana,
he arrives at the heiau. As the spirits dance at night, he recognizes
and seizes the spirit of his son, who points out to him where the bones
are to be found. Some say that the father restores his son to life,
others that he merely gives the bones a proper burial.
As a ghost god resting in the clouds stretched
over the mountaintops of the Koolau range on Oahu, Kaupe's spirit body
is today confused with legends of a dog-like creature called Poki,
spotted or brindled in color and very long in body, who guards a certain
section outside Honolulu, although he may appear at other places. Some
say it is the spirit of the old chief Boki who in 1829 filled two ships
for the sandalwood trade and sailed away and never came back, but the
legend is doubtless much older. Travelers report having seen the
creature and having made a long detour to avoid it. It sometimes appears
as a form in the clouds, either resting or in motion. A foreigner
reports seeing, as he was entering Moanalua valley from Honolulu just as
the moon was rising, "a shapeless white form," a mist "convulsed with
movement," which passed over the treetops from the Koolau range,
preceded as it came by "the wailing of dogs" and followed as it passed
by "a deathlike stillness."
Both the shape-shifting hog-man Kamapua‘a and the
dog-man Ku-ilio-loa, together with the spirit forms of Kaupe and Poki,
are in some way connected with those signs in the sky called oila which
the Hawaiians worshiped, believing that the animal shapes in such clouds
could be used to foretell the movements of chiefs descended from their
kupua ancestors because denoting the presence of their aumakua
protectors in the heavens.
Kamakau says of the dog-man Ku-ilio-loa (Ku long
dog) that lono-ka-ehu came to Oahu from Kahiki with his "great dog" Ku-ilio-loa
to seek his brother. He pierced the hill Kane-hoa-lani at Kualoa, cleft
Kahuku and Kahipa apart, and broke Ka-pali-ho‘oku‘i at Kailua. He found
his brother in the heiau at Palaa near Kuone at Waialua and took him
back to Kahiki. The heiau named is the ancient heiau Kapukapu-akea said
to have been built by Menehune out of kauila wood. The heiau of Lono-a-ke-ahu
(Lono-ka-ehu?) at Keehu is said to have "worked with" that of
Kapukapu-akea and at Kane-ilio at the lighthouse point stood the heiau
of Ku-ilio-loa.
Ku-long-dog is described as a dog with a human
body and supernatural power, "a great soldier and famous warrior," who
terrorizes Kahiki. His wives betray him to Kamapua‘a and the hog-man
conquers him by stuffing his own supernatural plant bodies between the
gaping jaws of the dog and "eating his inwards"; that is, by performing
the common folktale trick of allowing himself to be swallowed by a
monster and then cutting his way out. The contest follows directly that
with Lono-ka-eho, elsewhere described as the dog's master. In the Ka-ulu
legend the fight with Lono-ka-eho (The stone god) is similarly followed
by an attack upon a "dangerous kupua" of Kualoa who waylays and kills
travelers at the narrow pass about Kaoio point. Ka-ulu lifts the kupua
and dashes him down, breaking his body into bits, one of which forms the
rock islet Mokoli‘i just off Kualoa. The kupua is evidently not a "rat"
as the story says, but the "great dog" of Lono, and the islet Mokoli‘i
(Little mo‘o), by adding elided sounds and transposing, becomes
Mok(u)-ilio (Dog island), the part played by the kupua as a waylayer of
travelers classing him unquestionably with the dog-men or olohe of other
stories.
Ku-ilio-loa passes into legend as "the man-eating
dog of Hina" whom travelers fear, in the Waha-nui legend, and in that of
Ka-ulu as the monster whom Ka-ulu tears into bits with his hands; hence
dogs are small today. Although these encounters take place on an ocean
voyage it may be significant that Kane and Kanaloa, whom Waha-nui
voyages to "tread upon," are represented in Hawaiian tradition as gods
dwelling at Waolani on Oahu, the same island upon which is localized the
Lono-ka-ehu legend.
Ku-ilio-loa, as "the great dog of Hina," is also
connected with the Pele cycle of romances. The foster parents of
Ke-ahi-wela (Hot fire) send Ku-ilio-loa in the shape of a dog to the
Rolling island to save the girl from the wrath of her older sister, and
he loses both ears and tail in the fight and goes to live on
Kauai. Na-maka-o-kaha‘i, the analogous figure in the Aukelenuiaiku
legend to the chiefess of the Rolling island, has a guardian dog Moela
who is reduced to ashes when he touches Aukele. In the Laieikawai
romance, Aiwohikupua, a chief of Kauai, brings his kupua dog Kalahumoku
to fight against the mo‘o guardian of Paliuli named Kiha-nui-lulu-moku,
and the dog runs home stripped, like Ahi-wela's pet, of both ears and
tail Finally, Ku-ili(o)-loa, "a girl of fire," is the fifth child born
to Kane-huna-moku and his wife in Kuaihelani.
A somewhat similar story to that of Ku-ilio-loa is
told in Tonga among the adventures of Muni-of-the-torn-eye. Muni comes
to Fiji and finds the people harassed by a being "part man and part
god," and wrestles with him in the cave where he lives until both fall
dead. In another version a man-eating dog lives in a cave and terrorizes
the people into giving up a man daily. The king's daughter is about to
be sacrificed when Muni appears, takes her place, and slays the monster,
this last evidently a foreign turn to the story. See also Caillot's
version where Maui kills the great cannibal dog of Fiji. In Samoa one of
Maui-ti‘iti‘i's feats is the slaying of a big red dog.
The Maori are said to know two varieties of native
dogs, one, generally regarded as sacred, with soft white hair and traced
to the Pomeranian breed found on the shores of the Baltic, the other
larger with coarse short hair and very strong, of Asiatic pariah
breed. The legendary dog Moho-rangi is left to guard the steep rock
island of Whanga-o-kino when Tara-whata made it sacred for his reptiles.
Ponui-o-hine goes with her father to help kindle fire in order to remove
the tapu on this island but forgets to veil her eyes and is hence turned
to stone. Women today fear to go near this island and strangers veil
their eyes lest they see the dog Moho-rangi.
In a Dobu story a monster dog acts as the savior
of the land by slaying an ogre and his wife who have devastated the
country. A woman digs the dog out of a heap of rubbish and the
inhabitants return and give him a wife to tame him down. He is believed
still to roam the country.
Another famous dog kupua of Hawaiian story is
Puapualenalena (Pupualenalena), a great thief and runner of Waipio
valley who can take the shape of a yellow dog and thus provide his
master with all possible good things. He is finally engaged to steal for
the chief the famous conch shell called Kiha-pu (or puana) which has
been stolen from its place in a heiau on Oahu by the spirits of the
valley. The place is still shown along the road leading down into Waipio
where the spirit (eepa) beings lived who disturbed the chief's repose
with their eerie sounding of the sacred conch, and a shell called
Kiha-pu has been handed down by Kamehameha kings and is now preserved in
the Bishop Museum, a small piece broken from it serving to motivate an
incident which has since been incorporated into the legend.
(a) Westervelt version. Kapuni is
brought up in the heiau of Pakaalana in Waipio. Two "gods," Kaakau and
Kaohu-walu, look down into the valley and see him practising the art of
leaping and they cut off a part of his body to make him lighter, teach
him to fly, and take him with them overseas to Kauai. There they hear
the sound of the Kiha-pu at Waolani: "The voice of Kiha-pu calls Kauai,"
is the saying. Flying across from Kauai to Oahu, Kapuni waits until the
guards are asleep, then flies into the heiau and steals the Kiha-pu and
hides it under the waves until he can reach the heiau on Hawaii where
live the eepa beings to whom it is entrusted. The bones of Kapuni are
worshiped as a god at Kaawaloa.
Kiha-lulu-moku has set a tapu, which is broken by
the continual blowing of the conch by the gods on the plateau above. In
the meantime the dog-man Puapualenalena has joined a new master who is a
great awa drinker, and is sent to steal awa from the chief's tapu crop.
The dog is traced and the chief agrees to pardon both man and master if
the dog is cunning enough to steal the conch Kiha-pu from its new
owners.
(b) Fornander version. The dog
Pupualenalena is a clever thief living at Puako on Hawaii. When his new
master goes fishing he finds the dog eating the fish as fast as he pulls
them up. The master promises him pardon if he will bring him awa from
the chief Hakau's tapu crop. This the dog achieves, until he is followed
and both master and dog brought before the chief. Hakau promises them
their lives if the dog will bring him the Pu-ana (trumpet) which the
spirits living above Waipio blow every night, disturbing the chief's
sleep.
(c) Kalakaua version. The Kiha-pu is
owned by Kiha-lulu-moku in Waipio valley and if properly blown can
control the hosts of the gods. Its sound is like weird music and if
blown during battle it repeats the cries and groans of conflict. It was
Lono (as god of sound) who gave it this power by blowing into it.
The Kiha-pu is stolen by a band of spirit beings
under their leader Ika (Iku) and carried away to Waimea on Kauai and
thence to Oahu to a place in the neighborhood of Waolani. A rival places
a magic mark upon the shell in the shape of a cross (pe‘a) which takes
away its power of sound. A kahuna tells Ika that the shell will not
sound again except on Hawaii. On the way thither the shell is chipped by
the waves and the sign lost. Above Waolani the spirit band blow the
shell once more and Kiha engages the dog Puapualenalena to steal it back
from Ika.
(d) Emerson version. Kane and his
companions revel all night above Waipio and blow blasts upon their conch
shells which pre-vent the proper observance of religious ceremonies,
until the chief Liloa sends the clever thief Puapualenalena to steal the
Kiha-pu away from Kane, and this puts an end to the reveling.
Emerson prints a hula on the subject, part of
which reads:
Meha na pali o Waipio
A ke kani mau o Kiha-pu;
A ono ole ka awa a ke alii
I ke kani mau o Kiha-pu;
Moe ole kona po o ka Hooilo;
Uluhua, a uluhua,
I ka mea nana e huli a loaa
I kela kupua ino i ka pali,
Olali la, a olali.
"Wearisome the cliffs of Waipio
With the constant sounding of the Kiha-pu;
Ineffective is the chief's awa
With the constant sounding of the Kiha-pu;
The chief cannot sleep all winter,
Vexed and worried
With the search for someone who will find
That cursed kupua on the cliff
Where it gleams there."
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