Hawaiian idylls of love and death

Kaneakama was as handsome a young fellow as you could have found on the eight islands; neither unknown to war nor unskilled in divination and the learning of the priests. But he had one vice—he was an inveterate gambler.

And here he sat in his grass hut on the slopes of the Olukui, feeling as miserable as any wretch of to-day who had squandered his patrimony at Monte Carlo, for he had been playing maika the whole day long and luck had been against him at every throw. The devil, he thought, must have been in the smooth black stones; throw as he might, they would not go straight. Yes, they were certainly bewitched. And now he had nothing to call his own but one little pig—everything was lost.

Why did he not stake the pig? you ask. Ah! Kaneakama had asked himself that question many a time that evening, but had each time repelled the very thought as a temptation. For he had dedicated this pig to his Aumakua, or tutelary divinity, and with all his faults he was too pious to break his vows to the gods.

So, although happy thus far in the possession of a good conscience, he nursed his grief until the kind divinities sent their messenger, sleep—welcome to all men everywhere.

And, as Kaneakama slept, he had a wonderful vision. The song of a bird broke upon his ear, then the sweet sounds transformed themselves into an aura of radial light and in the light he beheld the loveliest form he had ever seen.

It was that of a young girl, but Kaneakama’s first impression was that it was some glorious bird, for he wanted to get up and throw a mat across the door lest she should fly away. Her black hair fell in a great shadow behind her like a pair of wings; no chief arrayed for battle had feather cloak so rich in orange and scarlet as that which clung to her perfect form from throat to shapely knee. Her eyes, too, even in the bright aura which encircled her, shone like stars in the night.

Kaneakama gazed he knew not how long, and when he came to himself he was only conscious of having received a command from the goddess (for such indeed was his adorable visitant) to take his dedicated pig and stake it as he had done the rest. You see, the gods and goddesses of ancient Hawaii had rather backward ideas regarding the morality of gambling.

However, Kaneakama is not to be blamed for this. He did as his divinity had told him, and now if the ill-luck of his former experience had been surprising, still more so was the turn of fortune which seemed to pour riches into his lap. He went home from that day’s maika-playing a rich man, but, remembering the source of his wealth, he determined to dedicate one-half of it to the service of the goddess, and to build a temple where she might dwell and receive his worship.

This he did, and no sooner was the temple so far completed that it only lacked its central idol, than once more the vision of the Aumakua broke in upon his sleep.

This time there was no doubt about the voice. It was as sweet to hear as the vision was to see.

“Go to the king, O Kaneakama,” it said; “tell him that the akua wish to dwell in the temple made by man in the shadow of his court. Power shall be his if he will shelter them. Let him send warriors with their axes and knives to the top of Maunaloa. Out of the wood let them hew me an image, and this shall be my shrine in the heiau you have built, and you, O Kaneakama, shall be my high-priest, worshipper and lover of Kalaipahoa, terrible to mortals.”

When Kaneakama awoke he hastened to obey the command, and the king was pleased to hear of the honours in store. Three hundred men were chosen; and these, carrying, besides their weapons, great folds of kapa (for the venom of the poison goddess was a thing to be dreaded), set out on their march. Kaneakama, commissioned by the king, went before them as a guide to the spot designated in his sleep.

As they marched they recalled all they had heard of the poison goddess—how she had come from an unknown land to Molokai and had made her home on Maunaloa. There, so it was said, the earth was burnt and blackened, and the birds fell dead as they flew over it. It was, moreover, the dwelling-place of Laamaomao, the god of the winds, and at any moment a strong spirit of the air might break loose from the calabash of the god and hurl the intruders afar into the Paiolo Channel.

So they journeyed on with teeth chattering and hearts cold within them. They climbed upwards along the torrent-bed over boulders for two hours or more; then they came to the forest belt where the silver leaves of the kukui seemed to shiver with sympathetic fear; then they came to the black lava slopes, where they had to look carefully to their steps.

At last they heard a rumbling like that of the winds of Laamaomao wrestling in his calabash, and suddenly before them lay the vast extinct crater, half hidden in the mist.

Their way lay downwards, the mist parting to receive them, until they saw in front of them a great black blot, such as a fire would make in some weird forest which shrivels and blackens but will not burn. The only whiteness was the whiteness of the bones strewn around, and the only greenness came from one tree in the centre, which rose erect and plumy in this wilderness of death. Some said they beheld a scarlet and yellow bird perched in its branches, but many doubted, as they saw strong-winged birds fly right up to the rim of the circle and fall dead as though pierced by an arrow.

It was true, then, this story of the poison goddess; it was true that her touch was death. One hundred men went straightway back to the king, afraid. But Kaneakama stayed the fear of the others and commanded them to do their work.

Twenty men took their axes and went forward to hew down the tree, but, alas! they fell dead before they had advanced twenty yards. Five times did Kaneakama send fresh detachments forward, moving slowly in a circle, and five times did they perish as beneath a blast of death. So five circles of dead men lay round about the tree.

Then Kaneakama commanded half the remaining hundred to take kapa and wrap themselves in it, making of it masks and shields, and they went forward till they reached the tree. Then they hewed at it, each man dying with the blow he struck, till, with a noise that awoke echoes in Maunaloa, the great tree fell crashing through the shrivelled trunks around it. Then the remaining band, still shielding themselves as best they could with the kapa, took their pahoas and cut away the branches, working feverishly, for men fainted and fell apace, till at last a rough shape was ready to be carried back to the heiau.

It was a rough and ugly idol, with widely distended mouth (to be filled presently with hideous rows of shark’s teeth), extended arms, hands and fingers, but Kaneakama looked beyond the art of the craftsman, and, wrapping the image in fold upon fold of kapa, he with his few remaining men wended his way down the mountainside, through the long valley to the seashore.

There was great rejoicing at the court when Kalaipahoa, for so the goddess hewn out with daggers was named, was placed in her shrine, and the temple dedicated with many victims; but all the rejoicing was faint and hollow as compared with the joy of the man who was at once the high-priest and lover of the goddess.

When he ministered before the shrine he saw not the rough and hideous idol, but the celestial beauty of the birdlike maiden who had visited him in the night visions. If she was terrible to others, she was always smiling and beneficent to him.

Yet, though he faithfully performed his duties at the heiau, carrying and presenting the offerings, interpreting the wishes of the goddess to the king, performing all the accustomed rites and observing all the prescribed tabus, he was not yet satisfied. It grew more and more hard to nourish himself on visions of the past. He recalled how that Pele, the volcano goddess, had had a mortal lover and had come down on earth to dwell. Why should not Kalaipahoa give him at least a sign? From pitying those who had died in the mountain, he began to envy them.

O man of little faith! The sign came. He dreamed and seemed in his dreams in Paliuli, the Elysian land, land of the blue mountain and the water of life, and, as soon as his eyes could bear the light, he saw Kalaipahoa in all her radiance, and around her stood the men who had perished at the shaping of the idol. They bore her calabashes, waved her kahilis, and stood about her as her soldiers and her slaves. But after one swift glance around him, Kaneakama saw only Kalaipahoa, and she, so he believed, saw only him.

“O Kalaipahoa,” he cried, “why am I worse off than the serfs who died in Maunaloa? They stand in thy presence and see thy face, while I toil in thy service and have no reward!”

Kalaipahoa’s face lightened with a smile.

“Foolish mortal!” she cried, “did you not see that my court is incomplete, wanting its greatest? The great chiefs have their ‘companions in death,’ but you have your household gone before you. However, you shall have your reward to-night.”

Then she bade him bring the puhenehene board and play.

He played; but, alas! such was his confusion that he lost every game, and such his preoccupation that he was not even sorry to find himself once again a pauper. At last he had nothing left to lose, and knew not what to do.

“Stake yourself!” cried a sweet voice.

No sooner said than done. Once more the stones were thrown. Once more Kaneakama lost. And the vision vanished, the goddess with a smile still upon her face.

“Ah, well!” said Kaneakama, “I am the lover of the goddess; I will die. Let me prepare an offering for her; I will place bananas in her hands and will share her feast. It may be she will bid me come sit at her feet.”

He prepared his offering, and dared to take of the food presented to the goddess. The banana he ate must have received from the hands of the goddess the gift of death, for when the temple slaves came next morning to the heiau, there, before the shrine of wickerwork, lay the lover of the goddess—dead, and, by the look of his eyes, he had died neither unwillingly nor afraid.

It was this image of Kalaipahoa that Kamehameha long begged in vain from Kahekili. It came to him after the death of the savage old Maui chief and he kept it always near him. It was a useful idol to him, for a single chip placed in the food of an obnoxious person would send him to the shades in less than twenty-four hours. Kamehameha, by his will, had the image divided among some of his chiefs, but the good Queen Kaahumanu collected all the chips she could lay her hands on, and burned them.

It is said, however, one or two fragments are still in existence. Perhaps the visitor to Honolulu may find them in the Kamehameha museum, but let us hope their virulent properties may never be put to the test.