HIIAKA’S ADDRESS TO CAPE KAENA
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Emerson, Nathaniel Bright
How it quivers at Ohiki-lele—
’Tis the Sun-god’s dance o’er the plain,
A riot of dance at Makaha.
The sun-tooth is sharp at Kumano;
Life comes again to Maile ridge,
When the Sun-god ensheaths his fang.
The plain Walió is sunburned and scorched;
Kua-iwa revives with the nightfall;
Waianae is consoled by the breeze
Kai-a-ulu and waves its coco fronds;
Kane-pu-niu’s fearful of sunstroke;5
A truce, now, to toil and fatigue:
We plunge in the Lua-lei water
And feel the kind breeze of Kona,
The cooling breath of the goddess,
As it stirs the leaves of ilima.
The radiant heat scorches the breast
While I sidle and slip and climb
Up one steep hill then another;
Thus gain I at last Moa-ula,
The summit of Poha-kea.
There stand I and gaze oversea
To Hilo, where lie my dewy-cool
Forest preserves of lehua
That reach to the sea in Puna—
My lehuas that enroof Kuki’i.
According to another account,—less mythical—Hiiaka, on her departure from Haena, packed off Wahine-oma’o and Lohiau in the canoe, while she herself started on afoot. Before proceeding on her way she turned herself about and, as was her wont, made a farewell address to the precipitous cliffs of Ka-lalau and to the deity therein enshrined:
O Ka-lalau, pali a’ala ho’i, e,
Ke ako ia a’e la e ka wahine;
A’ala ka pali i ka laua’e6 e
I Hono-pú, Wai-aloha.
Aloha oe la, e-e!
TRANSLATION
Your verdant mountain walls, Lalau—
Where the nymphs pluck harvest of wreaths—
Fragrant with breath of lau-a’e,
Fed by love’s waters at Hono-pú;
My farewell love goes forth to you.
Hiiaka now left behind her the wild and precipitous region of Kalalau and, passing through Miloli’i, came into Mana, a region famous for its heat, its sand-hills, and its tantalizing mirage. Mana was also the haunt of a swarm of little beings, elfs, brownies and what not, to whom Hiiaka courteously offered her salutations:
O Maná, aina a ke Akua,7 e-e,