HIIAKA LOOPS BACK IN HER JOURNEY
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Emerson, Nathaniel Bright
Ka wahine o ka Lua;
Uä ia iho la e ka ua,
A kilinahe ka maka o ka lehua ma-uka.
Ma-uka oe e hele ai,
Ma ka hoauau wai.
E waiho ke ala no maua,
No na kupuna, e.
TRANSLATION
She has grown a fine figure,
Our girl from the Fire-pit.
The plentiful rain has made bright
This bud of upland lehua.
Pray choose your road farther inland;
That way will offer good fordage—
This road leave to your ancient kin.
Hiiaka spared not, but pursued them to their cavernous rock-heaps in which they thought to hide themselves, and, having seized them, rent them asunder jaw from jaw. Thus did Hiiaka add one more to the score of her victories in the extermination of the mo’o.
Source notes
1Wai-luku, water of destruction. ↑
2Mo’o-puna, a grandchild, nephew or niece. ↑
3Kahuli-huli.Kahuli, or its intensive, kahuli-huli, primarily means to upset, to overturn. A secondary meaning, much employed in the argot of hula folk, is to hand over, to pass this way; as when one guest at table might say to a neighbor, “hand me the salt (if you please).” ↑
4Nuku-o-ka-manu, literally, the beak of the bird; said to be a cape in the neighborhood of Hilo. ↑