INTRODUCTION
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Emerson, Nathaniel Bright
According to Hawaiian myth, Pele, the volcanic fire-queen and the chief architect of the Hawaiian group, was a foreigner, born in the mystical land of Kuai-he-lani, a land not rooted and anchored to one spot, but that floated free like the Fata Morgana, and that showed itself at times to the eyes of mystics, poets and seers, a garden land, clad with the living glory of trees and habitations—a vision to warm the imagination. The region was known as Kahiki (Kukulu o Kahiki), a name that connotes Java and that is associated with the Asiatic cradle of the Polynesian race.
Pele’s mother was Haumea, a name that crops up as an ancestor in the hoary antiquity of the Hawaiian people, and she was reputed to be the daughter of Kane-hoa-lani.
Pele was ambitious from childhood and from the earliest age made it her practice to stick close to her mother’s fireplace in company with the fire-keeper Lono-makua, ever watchful of his actions, studious of his methods—an apprenticeship well fitted to serve her in good stead such time as she was to become Hawaii’s volcanic fire-queen. This conduct drew upon Pele the suspicion and illwill of her elder sister Na-maka-o-ka-ha’i, a sea-goddess, who, fathoming the latent ambition of Pele, could not fail to perceive that its attainment would result in great commotion and disturbance in their home-land.
Her fears and prognostications proved true. Namaka, returning from one of her expeditions across the sea, found that Pele, taking advantage of her absence, had erupted a fiery deluge and smothered a portion of the home-land with aä.
It would have gone hard with Pele; but mother Haumea bade her take refuge in the fold (pola) of Ka-moho-alii’s malo. Now this elder brother of Pele was a deity of great power and authority, a terrible character, hedged about with tabus that restricted and made difficult the approach of his enemies. Such a refuge could only be temporary, and safety was to be assured only by Pele’s removal from her home in the South land, and that meant flight. It was accomplished in the famed mythical canoe Honua-i-a-kea.
The company was a distinguished one, including such godlike beings as Ka-moho-alii, Kane-apua, Kane-milo-hai and many other relations of Pele, the youngest, but not the least important, of whom was the girl Hiiaka, destined to be the heroine of the story here unfolded and of whom it was said that she was born into the world as a clot of blood out of the posterior fontanelle (nunoi) of her mother Haumea, the other sisters having been delivered through the natural passage.
The sailing course taken by Pele’s company brought them to some point northwest of Hawaii, along that line of islets, reefs, and shoals which tail off from Hawaii as does the train of a comet from its nucleus. At Moku-papápa Pele located her brother Kane-milo-hai, as if to hold the place for her or to build it up into fitness for human residence, for it was little more than a reef. Her next stop was at the little rock of Nihoa that lifts its head some eight hundred feet above the ocean. Here she made trial with the divining rod Paoa, but the result being unfavorable, she passed on to the insignificant islet of Lehua which clings like a limpet to the flank of Niihau. In spite of its smallness and unfitness for residence, Pele was moved to crown the rock with a wreath of kau-no’a, while Hiiaka contributed a chaplet of lehua which she took from her own neck, thus christening it for all time. The poet details the itinerary of the voyage in the following graphic lines:
Ke Kaao a Pele i Haawi ia Ka-moho-alii i ka Haalele ana ia Kahiki
Ku makou e hele me ku’u mau poki’i aloha,
Ka aina a makou i ike ole ai malalo aku nei,
A’e makou me ku’u poki’i, kau i ka wa’a;
No’iau ka hoe a Ka-moho-alii;
A’ea’e, kau i ka nalu—
He nalu haki kakala,
He nalu e imi ana i ka aina e hiki aku ai.
O Nihoa ka aina a makou i pae mua aku ai:
Lele a’e nei makou, kau i uka o Nihoa.
O ka hana no a ko’u poki’i, a Kane-apua,
O ka hooili i ka ihu o ka wa’a a nou i ke kai:
Waiho anei o Ka-moho-alii ia Kane-apua i uka o Nihoa.
No’iau ka hoe a Ka-moho-alii
A pae i ka aina i kapa ia o Lehua.
TRANSLATION
Pele’s Account to Ka-moho-alii of the Departure from Kahiki
We stood to sail with my kindred beloved
To an unknown land below the horizon;
We boarded—my kinsmen and I—our craft,
Our pilot well skilled, Ka-moho-alii.
Our craft o’ermounted and mastered the waves;
The sea was rough and choppy, but the waves
Bore us surely on to our destined shore—
The rock Nihoa, the first land we touched;
Gladly we landed and climbed up its cliffs.
Fault of the youngster, Kane-apua,
He loaded the bow till it ducked in the waves;
Ka-moho-alii marooned the lad,
Left the boy on the islet Nihoa
And, pilot well skilled, he sailed away
Till we found the land we christened Lehua.
When they had crowned the desolate rock with song and wreath, Ka-moho-alii would have steered for Niihau, but Pele, in a spasm of tenderness that smiles like an oasis in her life, exclaimed, “How I pity our little brother who journeyed with us till now!” At this Ka-moho-alii turned the prow of the canoe in the direction of Nihoa and they rescued Kane-apua from his seagirt prison. Let the poet tell the story: