XXIV. Runners, Man-Eaters, Dog-Men
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p. 337
XXIV
RUNNERS, MAN-EATERS, DOG-MEN
A-LANI-MENEHUNE, younger son of Lua-nu‘u, K had two sons, the older of whom, called Aholoholo (Runner), is said to have been "renowned for his swiftness." Legends tell of famous runners (kukini) employed by chiefs to act as messengers and especially to bring fresh fish from distant fishponds. Trained thieves too were employed to steal from an enemy, and for them swiftness of foot was an essential qualification. Chiefs looked doubtfully upon the first horses introduced upon the islands; their runners were swift of foot and could easily run down goats on the mountain. There is a well-attested incident told of a native Hawaiian in early days who staked his own speed on the race course against the competing horse and won the race. The names of famous runners and their deeds have passed into legend and sometimes into myth.
Ulua-nui, a famous runner of Oahu, could carry a fish from Kaele-pulu pond in Kailua around by way of Waialua and bring it in at Waikiki alive and wriggling. 1 Makoa (or Makoko), the swift runner of Kau, when Kamehameha had his awa preparing (at Kailua), was sent to Hilo to fetch mullet from the pond of Waiakea adjoining Puna, a journey which today would take a man four days, and returned with the fish still quivering. 2 A similar story is told of Kane-a-ka-ehu in the same period, who used to run back and forth between Kailua and Hilo by a steep and precipitous trail, starting when the preparations began for the feast and returning by the time the meal was cooked and ready. Other famous runners mentioned in the stories are Ka-leo-nui, sent by Kakuihewa to intercept Lono-i-ka-makahiki's kahuna on his way from Hawaii to help his master, who circled the island twice without finding the kahuna; 3 Ka-ehu-iki-a-wakea, the
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best runner of Aikanaka on Kauai; 4 Kalamea, the swift runner of Maui in Lono-a-pi‘i's service who could go around Maui in a day; 5 Pakui, special attendant of Haumea at Kailua, who could circle Oahu six times in a day (see Pupuhuluana); Ku-hele-moana and Keakea-lani, the swift runners of Kakuhihewa, who could compass Oahu twelve times in a day; 6 Kama (or Kane) -a-ka-mikioi and Kama (or Kane) -aka-ulu-ohia, sons of Halulu of Ni‘ihau, so fleet of foot that they could make ten circuits of Kauai in a day, and run on land or ocean, from earth to sky. 7
Dwarfs (kupa-li‘i) are mentioned in traditions of early migrations as "noted for their swiftness as runners." 8 It was said of the Menehune, to indicate their stature, that they were "below the knees of Naipualehu," a Kauai dwarf about three feet in height. 9 Kamakau says of the forefathers that "they often speak of the land of the dwarfs (ka aina o ke kupali‘i), a land of people so small that it would take ten of them to equal one ordinary man." One of these little men was brought to Punalu‘u in Kau district on Hawaii and lived above Kopu and Moaula and was called an ili (which is the name given to a small "parcel" of land) and a pilikua (back-clinger), and Wahanui brought some to Kauai. 10
LEGENDS OF FAMOUS RUNNERS
Keli‘i-malolo is born at Hana and noted as the fastest runner of Maui in the time of Kahekili. He joins a canoe trip to Kapakai in Kohala, Hawaii, and after a little run of about ninety miles to Kaawaloa and back finds the canoes not yet covered or the baggage removed. His friends challenge the truth of his story, contending that it would take two days to go and return from such a distance. His account of the places along the way however tallies with the facts, and at the end of the run he has been careful to leave two joints of sugar cane set up as proof of his story. 11
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Kao-hele, noted runner of Molokai, is pursued in vain by Kahekili's men when they come to make war on Molokai. They station relays, but he outdistances them all, hence the saying, "Combine the speed to catch Kaohele" (E ku‘i ka mama i loaa o Kaohele). At one time chiefs and people are crowded at a famous cliff for the sport of leaping into the bathing pool below, and Kaohele, finding himself headed for this cliff and closely pursued, leaps across to the opposite bank, a distance of thirty-six feet. 12 Kao-hele is runner and protector for four chiefs who live at the heiau of Kahokukano on Molokai and have a fishpond mountainward. He is killed by a slingstone in a battle with men from Hawaii but his chiefs escape. 13
Manini-holo-kuaua (named by Rice as head fisherman of the Menehune at Haena on Kauai) 14 is known as a noted thief of Molokai, so strong he can carry away a whole canoe on his back and so swift he can escape all pursuit. His mo‘o grandmother, Kalama-ula, lives in a cave in the uplands which opens and shuts at command, and it is his custom to run with his booty to this cave and hide it away there. When Ke-lii-malolo, the fleet runner of Oahu, comes to Molokai on a visit and in contempt of warnings leaves his canoe unguarded while he goes in for a bath, Manini lays claim to it and carries it away with all it contains to his cave in the uplands, into which he disappears before its owner can overtake him. Ke-li‘i-malolo engages the help of the two supernatural sons of Halulu, Kama-aka-mikioi and Kama-aka-ulu-ohia, and sails with them to Molokai. Manini, in con-tempt of his grandmother's warning, seizes their canoe also, but is overtaken by one of the men, who overhears his command and orders the cave to shut just as he is entering so that he is caught and crushed within its jaws. Within the cave are found innumerable possessions. 15
At the time of the discovery of the Polynesian islands, cannibalism was practised by Maori, Rarotongans, Paumotuans, and Marquesans. It was introduced late among the Tongans from Fiji and, although rare, was practised on Tongatapu
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more than in other Tongan islands. 16 In Rarotonga cannibalism began as a means of revenge after a war; it was against the law of the ali‘i to practise it in time of peace. 17 Among the Maori the story is told of Uenuku who practised cannibalism in revenge for the death of his children. 18 Among one tribe it was said to have been introduced by Kai. 19 Churchill finds the practice noted by Friederici among the Sissano of eating the bodies of dead relatives. 20 Brewster describes the Fiji method of preparing a cannibal feast. 21
Despite the fact that man-eating is ascribed to legendary figures and that a class called olohe are sometimes spoken of as cannibals, there is no proof that cannibalism was ever practised in the Hawaiian group. Man-slaying however was common and the lua or bone-breaking art was practised by highwaymen. In North Tahiti, whence early Hawaiian migrations seem to have come, Mei-hiti is spoken of in chants as a famous place for man-slayers. 22 The most celebrated of Hawaiian man-eating legends, the story of Ai-kanaka of Oahu, corresponds closely with one recorded from Tahiti, as follows:
Ellis version. Cannibals lived on the island of Tepuaemanu between Eimeo and Huahine. Men who went near the island were found to be missing. At length the man-eater's wife discovered that her own brother Tebuoroo was to be killed and eaten. She exposed her husband's habit and two men lay in wait for him and stoned him to death. 23
In Wahiawa on Oahu, near the place called Kukaniloko, once sacred to the birth of chiefs, is a narrow ridge of land forming a curving pathway between two steep gulches along which men used to travel to reach the mountain timber. At this defile, tradition says, the last cannibals of Oahu took their stand and seized upon victims for their cannibal feasts. Aikanaka (Man-eater) was the name of their chief, called in
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legend Ka-lo-aikanaka, Ke-ali‘i-ai-kanaka (The chief who eats men), Kokoa, or merely Kalo. The band lived beyond the defile at a place called Hale-manu (House of birds) or Hale-mano. There the foundation of a heiau used to be pointed out, and the large flat rock called the ipukai (platter) where their victims were laid, and the hollow where the oven was dug in which such victims were baked. The story is circumstantially related as follows:
(a) Ka-lo-aikanaka (Lo the man-eater) is chief of a band of strangers who land first on Kauai and are given lands near the foot of the mountain back of Waimea. Darker than the Hawaiians, with a different speech and no tapu laws, they have religious feasts at which human flesh is eaten. The chief himself is tattooed with figures of birds, sharks, and other fishes. Ka-lo's daughter is very beautiful with hair to her ankles, bright eyes, sparkling teeth, set off by pearl necklaces and anklets. Married to a Kauai chief, she is put to death for breaking the tapu. The band retaliate by a cannibal feast and are obliged to flee to Oahu. Landing first at Kawailoa and then going on to Waialua, they proceed upland and establish themselves eight miles east of Haleiwa in the mountains of Haupu. The chief's servant Kaanokaewa(or -keewe), also called Lotu, builds his house across the pass at a place called Kanewai, and pushes travelers over the cliff. Lotu's wife Kaholehua sees even her own brothers sacrificed to satisfy the chief's hunger when other victims fail, until the youngest, named Napopo, escapes to Kauai, learns the art of wrestling, and in a final struggle with Lotu falls with him over the cliff and both are killed together. The chief is then obliged to sail with his people to other lands.
(b) Westervelt version (dated 1848). The man-eater lives at Hele-mano. Ke-ali‘i-ai-kanaka is described as "either a foreigner or a Hawaiian." Little by little his band of warriors are killed in forays until he alone remains. Hoa-hanau, the brother of one of his victims, learns boxing and wrestling in Waialua, covers his body with oil, and in a struggle to the death, hurls the cannibal chief over the edge of the gulch. 24
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Connected with a somewhat similar Aikanaka legend is the stone called Oahu-nui which is said to have the shape of the island of Oahu and which lies in the gulch between Ewa and Waialua. Those who would go "entirely around Oahu" used to visit this stone.
Lo-Aikanaka is the name given to a family of South Sea chiefs who are driven from the plains of Mokuleia into the hills to a place called Hele-mano, where they are received by the chief Oahu-nui east of that locality and the two chiefs exchange courtesies. Oahu-nui develops a passion for human flesh and finally the two chubby sons of his sister Kilikiliula, wife of Lehua-nui, are sacrificed to his appetite during the absence of their father. Warned by a vision, the father returns, puts to death the chief and his sister, and abandons the place with his men. A curse hangs over the place. The headless body of Oahu-nui became petrified where it lay; his sister also turned to stone where she fell on the opposite hillside, and all who had partaken of the feast were turned to stone. None has ever dared to live there since. 25
In romantic fiction Ai-kanaka is represented as the ruling chief on Oahu in the time of Halemano. He lives at Ulukou at Waikiki. Hearing of the beauty of Halemano's wife, he summons her to him and when she refuses to come he sends men to kill Halemano and the two are obliged to hide in the uplands of Wahiawa until they can escape to another island. 26 Dibble says that with Ka-hanu-nui-a-lewa-lani, who came from foreign lands to Oahu by way of Kauai, came also his younger brother Kawelo-ai-kanaka, both sons of Neva and both man-eaters, together with the followers who came with them. 27 It would be interesting to know whether this Kawelo bears any relation to the legendary Ai-kanaka who is dispossessed by his relative of a younger branch from Oahu in the Kauai legend of Kawelo, or whether he may be connected with Lono-ka-ehu and his man-eating dog Ku-ilio-loa, or whether the followers who came with the "two sons of Neva"
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have anything to do with the Menehune whom Ka-hano brought from Kahiki to serve the chiefess (or chief Kahanai) on Oahu.
Among the peoples said to have appeared during the fifth period of the Kumulipo, when the hog-man was building up his family line, are the dog people: "Hanau ka Huelo Maewe, he (p)aewe kona" (Born were the wagging tails; they had no fixed line of descent), says the chant. This seems to mean that they intermarried without regard to class distinction and hence built up no inherited chief class. The reference is to the Ha‘a people, according to David Malo Kupihea, the hairless olohe people first discovered on Maui on the plains in Kula called Oma‘oma‘o. He says, "In the story of Alapai-nui on Hawaii it is said that messengers to Maui landed on the Hana side and found these Ha‘a people and were afraid, so they went on to Oahu and Kauai. Both on Kauai and on Maui 'dogs' were taken out to fight Alapai-nui and they were still there in Kahekili's time. Some were in his army. They lived in the sand hills and they had mystical power of the demigods (kupua) in the form of big war dogs. These dog people still appear on Maui in the procession of spirits known as 'Marchers of the night.' They look like other human beings but have tails like a dog."
A Hawaiian will not touch a dog of the hairless variety; it represents an olohe. About Pearl harbor on Ewa beach, supposed to be the place at which "human beings" first landed on Oahu, many caves of the olohe (ka-lua-olohe) are to be seen. In Honolulu there used to be a pit called Hole-of-the-olohe near where Palm drive enters King street into which an olohe disappeared who was being pursued. These olohe were human beings; they were "born in the day." 28
Olohe, or Ha‘a people, were hence a well-recognized class in old days, skilled in wrestling and bone-breaking (lua) and with hairless bodies. It is said that they used to pull out their hair and smear their bodies with oil in order to give no hold to an antagonist. Legend represents them as professional robbers or even with man-eating habits, who used to station
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themselves at a narrow pass along the highway and kill and rob travelers. Many such robber stations are pointed out to-day. Makua, one of the most western valleys in Waianae, is a traditional haunt on Oahu. Here Makaioulu met two robber women who were professional bone-breakers. 29 Similar olohe legends occur on Maui and Hawaii.
LEGENDS OF OLOHE
Kapakohana, after killing the kupua Kalae-hina who has terrorized the island of Maui, goes on to Oahu to challenge the hairless cannibal (olohe) of Hanakapiai. Finding himself unable to overcome the olohe in wrestling, he pretends friendship and gathers men to burn him while asleep in his grass house. The olohe overhears the plot and, making a hole in the top of the house, crawls into a tree, then begins eating the men until he comes to Kapakohana, who grapples with him and eventually kills him and sets up his bones to hang gourds upon. 30
Kapuaeuhi, an olohe of Ola‘a, uses his two strong daughters to decoy travelers to his cave, where he has a stone, or, as most say, a beam, which he causes to fall and kill the traveler as he enters. Finally two cousins of a plundered man are successful in setting upon and killing the daughters, then the old man himself, whom they leave in the cave. Some say that he lies there yet, but since the death of the olohe no one has been able to raise the stone (or beam). 31
On the shore road toward Ka-u district just out of Kalapana is a spot where the lava rock is contorted as if by a great struggle. A famous robber used to live in a cave above this road with his two daughters. He hides himself along the road and the daughters watch from the cave. If many people are coming together along the road they signal "High tide!" but when a single traveler comes along they give the sign for "Low tide!" and the olohe drops a great tree upon the man, thus disabling him, and then kills and robs him. 32
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Uma, a dwarf skilled in the art of bone breaking, lives at Puehuehu in Kohala in the days of Kamehameha the first. On a journey through the country, which is at that time infested by robbers, he repels every attack by his swiftness and skill. 33
Similar conditions seem to have prevailed among the Maori.
Moko is a robber chief who establishes himself in a cave beside the highway traveled by those who trade up and down the coast. Finally he kills the brother of the chief Tu-te-wai-mate and the chief goes with a body of men to avenge the dead, but Moko takes advantage of his chivalrous warning to give an unexpected thrust which kills the avenger. 34
Among dog-men represented as overthrowing the chief of a district and terrorizing the country, the most famous is the cannibal dog-man Kaupe who overthrew the government of Ka-hanai-a-ke-akua (Reared by the gods) and ruled the land from Nu‘uanu to the sea.
Kaupe lives at Lihue on Oahu. He never attacks a high chief but eats some of the people both of Oahu and Maui. At last he crosses over to Hawaii and brings back a chief's son to sacrifice in the heiau at Lihue. The father follows to Oahu and consults Kahilona, the great kahuna at the heiau of Kaheiki just below the hill called today Pacific Heights, which was built by the Menehune and which becomes under Kahilona the center for the mo‘o-kahuna class of priests; that is, for kilokilo who read the signs of earth and sky and sea. This kahuna teaches the chief from Hawaii the prayer to recover his son, which runs
"O Ku,! O Lono! O Kanaloa!By the power of the gods, by the strength of this prayer,
Save us two, save us two!"
[paragraph continues] The prayer unfastens the boy's fetters and father and son flee and hide under a rock at Moanalua while Kaupe goes on to look for them on Hawaii. The father learns the prayer for killing an enemy, and overcomes Kaupe on Hawaii. 35
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The story resembles one told locally of the heiau of Wahaula in Puna district on Hawaii.
The smoke from the altar at Waha-ula is regarded as the shadow cast by the god of the heiau and hence to cross through the smoke is sacrilege. A young chief, forgetful of the tapu, allows himself to be touched by the smoke and is accordingly seized and sacrificed and his bones thrown into the bone pit. His spirit comes in dream to his father, who is the high chief of Ka-u, and the father sets out at once to recover his son's bones. After first encountering and killing the olohe who slays travelers along the sea road out of Kalapana, he arrives at the heiau. As the spirits dance at night, he recognizes and seizes the spirit of his son, who points out to him where the bones are to be found. Some say that the father restores his son to life, others that he merely gives the bones a proper burial. 36
As a ghost god resting in the clouds stretched over the mountaintops of the Koolau range on Oahu, Kaupe's spirit body is today confused with legends of a dog-like creature called Poki, spotted or brindled in color and very long in body, who guards a certain section outside Honolulu, although he may appear at other places. Some say it is the spirit of the old chief Boki who in 1829 filled two ships for the sandalwood trade and sailed away and never came back, but the legend is doubtless much older. Travelers report having seen the creature and having made a long detour to avoid it. It sometimes appears as a form in the clouds, either resting or in motion. A foreigner reports seeing, as he was entering Moanalua valley from Honolulu just as the moon was rising, "a shapeless white form," a mist "convulsed with movement," which passed over the treetops from the Koolau range, preceded as it came by "the wailing of dogs" and followed as it passed by "a deathlike stillness."
Both the shape-shifting hog-man Kamapua‘a and the dog-man Ku-ilio-loa, together with the spirit forms of Kaupe and Poki, are in some way connected with those signs in the sky called oila which the Hawaiians worshiped, believing that the
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animal shapes in such clouds could be used to foretell the movements of chiefs descended from their kupua ancestors because denoting the presence of their aumakua protectors in the heavens. 37
Kamakau says of the dog-man Ku-ilio-loa (Ku long dog) that lono-ka-ehu came to Oahu from Kahiki with his "great dog" Ku-ilio-loa to seek his brother. He pierced the hill Kane-hoa-lani at Kualoa, cleft Kahuku and Kahipa apart, and broke Ka-pali-ho‘oku‘i at Kailua. He found his brother in the heiau at Palaa near Kuone at Waialua and took him back to Kahiki. 38 The heiau named is the ancient heiau Kapukapu-akea said to have been built by Menehune out of kauila wood. The heiau of Lono-a-ke-ahu (Lono-ka-ehu?) at Keehu is said to have "worked with" that of Kapukapu-akea and at Kane-ilio at the lighthouse point stood the heiau of Ku-ilio-loa. 39
Ku-long-dog is described as a dog with a human body and supernatural power, "a great soldier and famous warrior," who terrorizes Kahiki. His wives betray him to Kamapua‘a and the hog-man conquers him by stuffing his own supernatural plant bodies between the gaping jaws of the dog and "eating his inwards"; that is, by performing the common folktale trick of allowing himself to be swallowed by a monster and then cutting his way out. The contest follows directly that with Lono-ka-eho, elsewhere described as the dog's master. 40 In the Ka-ulu legend the fight with Lono-ka-eho (The stone god) is similarly followed by an attack upon a "dangerous kupua" of Kualoa who waylays and kills travelers at the narrow pass about Kaoio point. Ka-ulu lifts the kupua and dashes him down, breaking his body into bits, one of which forms the rock islet Mokoli‘i just off Kualoa. 41 The kupua is evidently not a "rat" as the story says, but the "great dog" of Lono, and the islet Mokoli‘i (Little mo‘o), by adding elided sounds and transposing, becomes Mok(u)-ilio (Dog island), the part played by the kupua as a waylayer of travelers
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classing him unquestionably with the dog-men or olohe of other stories.
Ku-ilio-loa passes into legend as "the man-eating dog of Hina" whom travelers fear, in the Waha-nui legend, 42 and in that of Ka-ulu as the monster whom Ka-ulu tears into bits with his hands; hence dogs are small today. 43 Although these encounters take place on an ocean voyage it may be significant that Kane and Kanaloa, whom Waha-nui voyages to "tread upon," are represented in Hawaiian tradition as gods dwelling at Waolani on Oahu, the same island upon which is localized the Lono-ka-ehu legend.
Ku-ilio-loa, as "the great dog of Hina," is also connected with the Pele cycle of romances. The foster parents of Ke-ahi-wela (Hot fire) send Ku-ilio-loa in the shape of a dog to the Rolling island to save the girl from the wrath of her older sister, and he loses both ears and tail in the fight and goes to live on Kauai. 44 Na-maka-o-kaha‘i, the analogous figure in the Aukelenuiaiku legend to the chiefess of the Rolling island, has a guardian dog Moela who is reduced to ashes when he touches Aukele. 45 In the Laieikawai romance, Aiwohikupua, a chief of Kauai, brings his kupua dog Kalahumoku to fight against the mo‘o guardian of Paliuli named Kiha-nui-lulu-moku, and the dog runs home stripped, like Ahi-wela's pet, of both ears and tail 46 Finally, Ku-ili(o)-loa, "a girl of fire," is the fifth child born to Kane-huna-moku and his wife in Kuaihelani. 47
A somewhat similar story to that of Ku-ilio-loa is told in Tonga among the adventures of Muni-of-the-torn-eye. Muni comes to Fiji and finds the people harassed by a being "part man and part god," and wrestles with him in the cave where he lives until both fall dead. In another version a man-eating dog lives in a cave and terrorizes the people into giving up a man daily. The king's daughter is about to be sacrificed when Muni appears, takes her place, and slays the monster, this last evidently a foreign turn to the story. 48 See also Caillot's
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version where Maui kills the great cannibal dog of Fiji. 49 In Samoa one of Maui-ti‘iti‘i's feats is the slaying of a big red dog. 50
The Maori are said to know two varieties of native dogs, one, generally regarded as sacred, with soft white hair and traced to the Pomeranian breed found on the shores of the Baltic, the other larger with coarse short hair and very strong, of Asiatic pariah breed. 51 The legendary dog Moho-rangi is left to guard the steep rock island of Whanga-o-kino when Tara-whata made it sacred for his reptiles. Ponui-o-hine goes with her father to help kindle fire in order to remove the tapu on this island but forgets to veil her eyes and is hence turned to stone. Women today fear to go near this island and strangers veil their eyes lest they see the dog Moho-rangi. 52
In a Dobu story a monster dog acts as the savior of the land by slaying an ogre and his wife who have devastated the country. A woman digs the dog out of a heap of rubbish and the inhabitants return and give him a wife to tame him down. He is believed still to roam the country. 53
Another famous dog kupua of Hawaiian story is Puapualenalena (Pupualenalena), a great thief and runner of Waipio valley who can take the shape of a yellow dog and thus provide his master with all possible good things. He is finally engaged to steal for the chief the famous conch shell called Kiha-pu (or puana) which has been stolen from its place in a heiau on Oahu by the spirits of the valley. The place is still shown along the road leading down into Waipio where the spirit (eepa) beings lived who disturbed the chief's repose with their eerie sounding of the sacred conch, and a shell called Kiha-pu has been handed down by Kamehameha kings and is now preserved in the Bishop Museum, a small piece broken from it serving to motivate an incident which has since been incorporated into the legend. 54
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(a) Westervelt version. Kapuni is brought up in the heiau of Pakaalana in Waipio. Two "gods," Kaakau and Kaohu-walu, look down into the valley and see him practising the art of leaping and they cut off a part of his body to make him lighter, teach him to fly, and take him with them overseas to Kauai. There they hear the sound of the Kiha-pu at Waolani: "The voice of Kiha-pu calls Kauai," is the saying. Flying across from Kauai to Oahu, Kapuni waits until the guards are asleep, then flies into the heiau and steals the Kiha-pu and hides it under the waves until he can reach the heiau on Hawaii where live the eepa beings to whom it is entrusted. The bones of Kapuni are worshiped as a god at Kaawaloa.
Kiha-lulu-moku has set a tapu, which is broken by the continual blowing of the conch by the gods on the plateau above. In the meantime the dog-man Puapualenalena has joined a new master who is a great awa drinker, and is sent to steal awa from the chief's tapu crop. The dog is traced and the chief agrees to pardon both man and master if the dog is cunning enough to steal the conch Kiha-pu from its new owners. 55
(b) Fornander version. The dog Pupualenalena is a clever thief living at Puako on Hawaii. When his new master goes fishing he finds the dog eating the fish as fast as he pulls them up. The master promises him pardon if he will bring him awa from the chief Hakau's tapu crop. This the dog achieves, until he is followed and both master and dog brought before the chief. Hakau promises them their lives if the dog will bring him the Pu-ana (trumpet) which the spirits living above Waipio blow every night, disturbing the chief's sleep. 56
(c) Kalakaua version. The Kiha-pu is owned by Kiha-lulu-moku in Waipio valley and if properly blown can control the hosts of the gods. Its sound is like weird music and if blown during battle it repeats the cries and groans of conflict. It was Lono (as god of sound) who gave it this power by blowing into it.
The Kiha-pu is stolen by a band of spirit beings under their
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leader Ika (Iku) and carried away to Waimea on Kauai and thence to Oahu to a place in the neighborhood of Waolani. A rival places a magic mark upon the shell in the shape of a cross (pe‘a) which takes away its power of sound. A kahuna tells Ika that the shell will not sound again except on Hawaii. On the way thither the shell is chipped by the waves and the sign lost. Above Waolani the spirit band blow the shell once more and Kiha engages the dog Puapualenalena to steal it back from Ika. 57
(d) Emerson version. Kane and his companions revel all night above Waipio and blow blasts upon their conch shells which pre-vent the proper observance of religious ceremonies, until the chief Liloa sends the clever thief Puapualenalena to steal the Kiha-pu away from Kane, and this puts an end to the reveling. 58
Emerson prints a hula on the subject, part of which reads:
Meha na pali o WaipioA ke kani mau o Kiha-pu;
A ono ole ka awa a ke alii
I ke kani mau o Kiha-pu;
Moe ole kona po o ka Hooilo;
Uluhua, a uluhua,
I ka mea nana e huli a loaa
I kela kupua ino i ka pali,
Olali la, a olali. "Wearisome the cliffs of Waipio
With the constant sounding of the Kiha-pu;
Ineffective is the chief's awa
With the constant sounding of the Kiha-pu;
The chief cannot sleep all winter,
Vexed and worried
With the search for someone who will find
That cursed kupua on the cliff
Where it gleams there."
Footnotes
337:2 For. Col. 5: 490; Malo, 289.
338:9 Thrum, More Tales, 214 note 2.
338:10 Kuokoa, December 22, 1866.
339:12 Ibid. 496; Malo, 289; Hyde, HAA 1883, 56.
340:16 Gifford, Bul. 61: 206, 227-229; Mariner 1: 265.
341:24 Dibble, 113-115; For. Pol. Race 2:23 note 1; Kalakaua. 371-380; Westervelt, Honolulu, 194-203; McAllister, Bul. 104: 137-140.
344:30 Ibid. 210-213; Dickey, HHS Reports 25: 25.
344:31 Green and Pukui, 132-133.
344:32 Westervelt, Gods and Ghosts, 11; local information.
345:34 White 3: 192-194, 291-292.
345:35 Westervelt, Honolulu, 90-96.
346:36 Westervelt, Gods and Ghosts, 1-13; local information, 1915.
347:37 Westervelt, Gods and Ghosts, 128-132; AA 30 (1928): 13.
347:38 Kuokoa, January 12, 1867.
348:48 Gifford, Bul. 8: 121-122.
349:51 JPS 23: 173-175; 24: 69.
349:54 For. Pol. Race 2: 72; N. Emerson, "Hula," 131.
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