HIIAKA CHOOSES THE ROUTE THROUGH PANA-EWA
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Emerson, Nathaniel Bright
Two routes offered themselves for Hiiaka’s choice, a makai road, circuitous but safe, the one ordinarily pursued by travelers; the other direct but bristling with danger, because it traversed the territory of the redoubtable witch-mo’o, Pana-ewa. Hiiaka had deigned to appeal to the girl Pa-pulehu, she being a kamaaina1, as if for information. When Hiiaka announced her determination to take the short road, the one of danger that struck through the heart of Pana-ewa, Pa-pulehu drew back in dismay and expostulated: “That is not a fit road for us, or for any but a band of warriors. If we go that way we shall be killed.” She broke forth with lamentations, bewailing her coming fate and the desolation that was about to visit her family.
As they advanced Wahine-oma’o descried a gray scare-crow object motionless in the road ahead of them. She thought it to be the blasted stump of a kukui tree. Hiiaka recognized its true character, the witch-form taken as a disguise by a mo’o. It was a scout sent out by Pana-ewa; in real character a hag, but slimed with a gray excrement to give it closer resemblance to a mouldering tree-stump. The deceiving art of magic did not avail against Hiiaka. She rushed forward to give the death stroke to the foul thing, which at once groveled in the dirt in its true form.
Night overtook them in a dense forest. While the others lay and slept, Hiiaka reconnoitered the situation. The repose of the wilderness was unbroken save for the restless flitting of a solitary bird that peered at Hiiaka obtrusively. It was a spy in the employ of Pana-ewa and its actions roused the lively suspicions of Hiiaka, eliciting from her an appropriate incantation:
Ka wai mukiki ale lehua a ka manu,
Ka awa ili lena i ka uka o Ka-li’u,
Ka manu aha’i lau awa o Puna:
Aia i ka laau ka awa o Puna.
Mapu mai kona aloha ia’u—
Hoolaau mai ana ia’u e moe.
E moe no au, e-e!
TRANSLATION
O honey-dew sipped by the bird,
Distilled from the fragrant lehua;
O yellow-barked awa that twines
In the upper lands of Ka-li’u;
O bird that brews from this leafage
Puna’s bitter-sweet awa draught;—
Puna’s potentest awa grows
Aloft in the crotch of the trees.
It wafts the seduction to sleep,
That I lock my senses in sleep!
It was a subtle temptation that suggested the awa cup as a relief for her troubles. Hiiaka had need that all her faculties should give her their best service. For her to have slept at this time would have been fatal. Her song well expressed it:
E nihi ka hele i ka uka o Puna;
Mai ako i ka pua,
O lilo i ke ala o ka hewahewa.
Ua huná ia ke kino i ka pohaku,
O ka pua na’e ke ahu nei i ke alanui—
Alanui hele o ka unu kupukupu, e-e;—
Ka ulí-a!
A kaunu no anei oe o ke aloha la?
Hele a’e a komo i ka hale o Pele;
Ua huahua’i i Kahiki; lapa uila,
Pele e, hua’i’na ho’i!
TRANSLATION
Heed well your way in upland Puna;
Pluck never a single flower;
Lest you stray from the path.
The shape lies hid neath a stone,
The path is one carpet of flowers,
The blocks of stumbling overgrown.