Pele and Hiiaka: A Myth From Hawaii

Hiiaka’s sense of outrage touched every fiber of her being and stirred such indignation against her sister that she could not again take her former place as a member of Pele’s court. Hawaii was the largest island of the group, but it was not large enough to hold herself and Pele. Of all the islands Kaua’i was the one most remote from the scene of her troubles; it was also the land which Lohiau had claimed as his own—and his was a name that called up only the most tender emotions. To Kaua’i would she go.

The company of those who shared her feelings and whose personal attachment to her was sufficient to lead them with herself in a venture of new fortunes was not large. It included, of course, her two staunch attendants, Pau-o-pala’e and Wahine-oma’o and, strangely enough, a considerable quota of the sisters who shared with her the name Hiiaka (qualified though it was in each case by some additional distinguishing epithet). Towards Kaua’i, then, did they set their faces or, more literally, turn the prow of their canoe.

In the ancient regime of Hawaii, the halau, as the home and school of the hula, stood for very much and for many things. It served, after a fashion, as a social exchange or clearing house for the whole nation; the resort of every wandering minstrel, bohemian soul or beau esprit whose oestrus kept him in travel; the rallying point of souls dislocated from an old and not yet accommodated to a new environment; a place where the anxious and discouraged, despairing of a new outlook, or seeking balm for bruised hearts, might quaff healing nepenthe.

It is not to be wondered at, then, that Hiaaka, not yet healed of her bruises, on reaching Oahu and finding herself in the peaceful haven of Kou, should turn her steps to the home of that hospitable siren and patroness of the hula Pele-ula, as to a sanitarium or hospital whose resources would avail for the assuagement of her troubles. It was almost an article of Pele-ula’s creed that in the pleasures and distractions of the hula was to be found a panacea for all the wounds of the spirit; and Pele-ula, as if taking her cue from the lady of the Venusberg, offered her consolations generously to every comfort-needing soul that fared her way.

Hiiaka stepped into the life at Pele-ula’s court as if she had been absent from it for only a day. Madame Pele-ula, good sport that she was, bore no grudge against the woman who had outplayed her at every turn, and would do it again. She received Hiiaka with open arms. As to entertainment, the play was the thing and that, fortunately, was already appointed for the same evening. It was the same old performance, the hula kilu, with but slight change in the actors and with full opportunity for Hiiaka to display her marvelous skill in hurling the kilu.

It was Hiiaka’s play and she, following the custom of the game, was caroling—in sober strain—a song of her own; when, to her astonishment, a voice from the crowd struck in and carried the song to completion in the very words that would have been her’s. Hiiaka stood and listened. The voice had a familiar ring; the song was not yet in the possession of the public, being known only to a few of her own household, among whom was to be reckoned Lohiau. There was no avoiding the conclusion: it was Lohiau.

It remains to tell the miracle of Lohiau’s reappearance among men in living form and at this time. While the body of Lohiau lay entombed in its stony shroud, his restless spirit fluttered away and sought consolation in the companionship of the song-birds that ranged the forests of Hawaii.

When the magician La’a, who lived in Kahiki, contemplated the degraded condition of Lohiau, alienated from all the springs of human affection, living as a wild thing in the desert, he determined on his rescue and despatched Kolea (plover), one of his ancestral kupuas, to fetch him. The mission of Kolea was not a success. The voice, the manner, the arguments of the bird made no appeal to Lohiau; they were, in fact, distasteful to him and rather increased his devotion to his other bird-friends.

When Kolea returned and reported his failure to La’a, that magician sent another bird on the same errand, one of more seductive ways, Ulili. There was something in the voice and manner of Ulili that touched the fancy and won the heart of Lohiau at once and he began to follow him. Ulili skilfully lured him on and at last brought him to Kahiki and delivered him over to his master. La’a ministered to the soul of Lohiau with such tenderness and skill that he became reconciled once more to human ways. But the soul of Lohiau still remained an unhoused ghost, and at times ranged afar in its restless excursions.

Now it happened that at the very time when these events were taking place Kane-milo-hai, an elder brother of Pele, was voyaging from Kahiki to Hawaii. His canoe was of that mystical pattern, the leho (cowry) in which Mawi had sailed. While in the middle of the Iëië-waho channel he caught sight of the distracted spirit of Lohiau fluttering like a Mother Carey’s chicken over the expanse of waters. The poor ghost, as if desirous of companionship, drew nigh and presently came so near that Kane-milo-hai captured it and, having ensconced it in his ipu-holoho-lona,1 he sailed on his way.

Reaching Hawaii and coming to the desolate scene of Lohiau’s tragedy, he recognized a charred heap as the former bodily residence of the shivering ghost in his keeping. He broke the stony form into many pieces and then, by the magical power that was his, out of these fragments he reconstructed the body of Lohiau, imparting to it its original form and lineaments. Into this body Kane-milo-hai now introduced the soul and Lohiau lived again.

Having come to himself, Lohiau sought his own. His chancing at Kou and his appearance at the halau in which Pele-ula was holding her kilu performance, and on the very evening of Hiiaka’s arrival, was an arrangement of converging lines that reflected great credit on the god of Destiny.

Lohiau arrived at the kilu hall just in time to witness the opening of the game. Having seated himself quietly in the outskirts of the assembly, he begged a neighbor to permit him, as a favor, to conceal himself under the ample width of his kihei, exacting of him also the promise not to betray his retreat. Thus hidden, he could see without being seen. The sight of Hiiaka, the words of her song—he had heard them a score of times before—stirred within him a thousand memories. Without conscious effort of will, the words of his response sprang from his heart almost with the spontaneity of an antiphonal echo. Let us bring together the two cotyledons of this song: