Pe-le, Hawaii's Goddess Of Volcanic Fire, Part II

PE-LE, HAWAII'S GODDESS OF VOLCANIC FIRE

II

Far did Hi-i-aka and her woman-companion journey, long were they upon the way, many dangers did they face and overcome, and at last they came to the village that had Lo-hi-au for its lord. "Why have you come?" said the people who entertained the worn travellers. "I have come to bring Prince Lo-hi-au to Pe-le, that they may be lovers." "Lo-hi-au has been dead many days. He fell under the spell of a witch, and he took his own life." Then they pointed out to her the cave in the mountain-side in which his sister had laid the body of Lo-hi-au.

Then was Hi-i-aka greatly stricken. But she drew together all the power that she had--the power that Pe-le had endowed her with--and looked towards the cave in the mountain-side. And she saw some thing hovering around the cave, and she knew it, thinned and wan as it was, for the ghost-body of Lo-hi-au. She knew that she had to bring that ghost-body back to the body that lay in the cave, and she knew that all the toils she had been through would be nothing to the toils that this would entail. She raised her hands towards the cave, and she uttered a chant to hold that ghost-body in the place. But as she looked she saw that the ghost-body was even more thinned and wan than she had thought. She was frightened by its shadowiness. The voice that came to her from before the cave was as thin and faint as the murmur that the land-shell gives out. She answered it back in a voice that was filled with pity:

My man of the wind-driven mist,
Or rain that plunges clean as a diver
What time the mountain-stream runs cold
Adown the steps at Ka-lalau--
Where we shall ere long climb together,
With you, my friend, with you.
Companion of the pitchy night,
When heavenward turns my face--
Thou art, indeed, my man.

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[paragraph continues] With her woman-companion she came to the mountain-side. The sun was going down; they would have barely time to climb the ladder that was there and go into the cavern before the night fell. Then the ladder was taken away by witches who bore an enmity to Hi-i-aka; and the ghost-body of Lo-hi-au wailed thinly and more faintly.

Hi-i-aka chanted an incantation that held the sun from sinking down. And while the sun stayed to give them light, she and her companion toiled up the cliff. They came to the entrance of the cave. Hi-i-aka caught in her hand Lo-hi-au's ghost-body. They went within. Hi-i-aka directed her companion to take hold of the dead feet. The fluttering ghost-body that she held in her hand she brought to the eye-socket and strove to make it pass through at that place. With spells she strove to make the soul-particle pass on. It went within; it reached the loins; it would pass no farther. Hi-i-aka forced it on. It went to the feet; the hands began to move, the eyelids quiver. Then breath came into the body. Hi-i-aka and her companion lifted it up and laid the body on a mat. With restoring herbs Hi-i-aka and her companion swathed the body from head to foot. But her companion said, "He will not recover in spite of all that you have done."

"I will make an incantation," Hi-i-aka said, "if it is rightly delivered, life will come back to him." Then she chanted:

Ho, comrades from the sacred plateau!
Ho, comrades from the burning gulf!
Hither fly with art and cunning:
Ku, who fells and guides the war-boat;
Ku, who pilots us through dream-land;
All ye Gods of broad Hawaii;
Kanaloa, guard well your tapus;
Candle-maker, candle-snuffer;
Goddess, too, of passion's visions;
Lightning red all heaven filling--
Pitchy darkness turned to brightness--
Lono, come, thou God of fire;
Come, too, thou piercing eye of rain;
Speed, speed, my prayer upon its quest!

[paragraph continues] More and more incantations Hi-i-aka made as the night passed and the day following passed. The people of the place were kept at a dance so that Hi-i-aka's task might not be broken in on. She made her last and

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her mightiest incantation; the soul-particle stayed in the body, and Prince Lo-hi-au lived again.

They brought him to the entrance of the cave. Three rainbows arched themselves from the mouth of the cave, and adown these three rainbows Prince Lo-hi-au, Hi-i-aka, and her companion went. To the beach they went. And in the ocean the three performed the cleansing rite. And now that the toils of the journey and the toils of restoring the man to life were past, Hi-i-aka thought upon the groves of lehua and upon her dear and lovely friend, Ho-po-e.

And now that the time had come for her to make the journey back she turned towards Hawaii and chanted:

Oh, care for my parks of lehua--
How they bloom in the upland Ka-li-’u!
Long is my way and many a day
Before you shall come to the bed of love,
But, hark, the call of the lover,
The voice of the lover, Lo-hi-au!

[paragraph continues] And when they had passed across many of the islands, and had crossed their channels, and had come at last to Hawaii, Hi-i-aka sent her companion before her to let Pe-le know that Lo-hi-au was being brought to her. When she had come with Lo-hi-au to the eastern gate of the sun, when she had come to Puna, she went swiftly ahead of Prince Lo-hi-au that she might look over her own land.

Pe-le had broken out in her fires; in spite of the agreement she had made with her sister and her messenger, she had wasted with fire the lehua groves. No tree now stood decked with blossoms. And the life of Ho-po-e, Hi-i-aka's dear and lovely friend, was ended with her lehua groves.

Blackness and ruin were everywhere Hi-i-aka looked. She stood in a place that overlooked her well-loved land, and all the bitterness of her heart went into the chant that she made then:

On the heights of Poha-ke
I stand, and look forth on Puna--
Puna, pelted with bitter rain,
Veiled with a downpour black as night!
Gone, gone are my forests, lehuas
Whose bloom once gave the birds nectar!
Yet they were insured with a promise!

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[paragraph continues] Then she said, "I have faithfully kept the compact between myself and my sister. I have not touched her lover, I have not let him caress me, I have not given him a kiss. Now that compact is at an end. I am free to treat this handsome man as my lover, this man who has had desire for me. And I will let Pe-le, with her own eyes, see the compact broken."

When he came to where she was, she took his hand; she made herself kind to him; she told him she had been longing for the time when her companion would have gone and they two would be together. Hand in hand they went over the blackened and wasted land. They came to where an unburnt lehua grew upon a rock. There Hi-i-aka gathered blossoms to make a wreath for Lo-hi-au.

And on the terrace of Ka-hoa-lii where they were in full view of Pe-le and her court, she had him sit beside her. She plaited wreaths of lehua blossoms for him. She put them around his neck, while he, knowing nothing of the eyes that were watching them, became ardent in love-making.

"Draw nearer," said Hi-i-aka, "draw nearer, so that I may fasten this wreath around your neck." She put her arm around the neck of Lo-hi-au; her body inclined towards his. She drew him to herself. The sisters around Pe-le cried out at that. "Hi-i-aka kisses Lo-hi-au! Look, Hi-i-aka kisses Lo-hi-au!" "Mouths were made for kissing," Pe-le said, but the flame came into her eyes.