THE LAME FISHERMAN—HIS EPIC RECITAL CELEBRATING PELE
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Emerson, Nathaniel Bright
I hail thee, Malae-ha’a-koa,
Thou fisherman of the cliffs.
As a youth you fished at Wai-niha;
Grandson thou to Ka-noa-lani,
Fishing now ’neath the bluffs of Haena,
Sometime breasting the steep mountain ladder.
Send fish, O Heaven, to this fisherman;
Send fish to Malae-ha’a-koa.
As if obedient to the charm of Hiiaka’s incantation, the breeze sank to a whisper and the ruffled surface of the ocean took on a calm that brought fish to the fisherman’s hooks.
Malae-ha’a-koa looked up from his work and, though he did not recognize Hiiaka, he had an intuitive sense that it was her power that had quieted the elements and, with a shrewd insight, he divined that she was of the Pele family. “It is you then that has made this day one of calm;” and he continued his address in song:
Ooe ia, e ka wahine ai laau o Puna,
E ka lalá i ka ulu1 o Wahine-kapu, e;
He i’a, he i’a na ka lawaia,
Na na Akua wahine o Puna, e.
TRANSLATION
Thou art she, O tree-eater of Puna,
O branch of Wahine-kapu’s bread-tree.
Swarm, fish, to the fisherman’s hook—
Fish for the godlike woman of Puna.
Malae-ha’a-koa felt a genial thrill pervading his system; new vigor came to him; he found himself able to stand on his feet and walk. Some new and wonderful power had come into his life. In the first flush of his ecstacy, he gathered up his fishing tackle, thrust the hooks and lines into his basket and walked triumphantly home on his own feet. Without a word to his wife, he began to tear down a portion of the fence that enclosed the house-lot.
“What are you about?” exclaimed his wife; “tearing down our fence!… But what has happened to you? Here you are for the first time in many years able to walk on your feet!”
The man made no immediate reply, but kept on with his work. When she repeated her questionings and expressions of wonder, he quietly asked, “Have you not seen two women about the place?”
“There were two women who came this way,” she answered thoughtfully.
“Would you think it! They were divine beings,” he exclaimed in a tone of conviction. “We must spread for them a feast. You had better prepare some luau.”
Malae-ha’a-koa himself, alii as he was, with his own hands set about dressing and preparing a dog for the oven. This was his own token of service. At his command his people brought the material for an abundant feast.
Hiiaka saw from a distance the smoke of Malae-ha’a-koa’s imu and recognized the bustle preparatory to a feast, she exclaimed to her companion, “The lame man has saved the day.”
When the repast was nearing its end and the people had well eaten, Malae-ha’a-koa and his wife stood forth and led in the performance of a sacred dance, accompanying their rhythmic motions with a long mele that recited the deeds, the events, the mysteries that had marked Pele’s reign since the establishment of her dominion in Hawaii:
O kaua a Pele i haká i Kahiki,
I hakaká ai me Na-maka-o-ka-ha’i.2
Mahuka mai Pele i Hawaii;
Mahuka Pele i ona onohi,
I na lapa uwila,
E lapa i na mahina, la!
Elieli, kau mai!3
He kai moe nei no Pele,
No ke Akua;
He kai hoolale i na moku.
Ha’i aku kai i Hana-kahi,4
I ke one o Wai-olama5 iluna.
Ako ia ka hale6 a ke Akua;