W. D. Westervelt

“ Hiiaka looked upon the imperious goddess of fire and said: “That is right. I go after your husband but I lay my charge upon you: You must take care of my lehua forest and not permit it to be injured. You may eat all other places of ours, but you must not touch my own lehua grove, my delight. You will be waiting here. Anger will arise in you. You will destroy inland; you will destroy toward the sea; but you must not touch my friend—my Hopoe. You will eat Puna with your burning wrath, but you must not go near Hopoe. This is my covenant with you, O Pele.” ”

“ Into these hundreds the eight boldly charged. The conflict was hand to hand, and in that respect was favourable to the eight men well skilled in the use of spear and javelin. Side by side, striking and smiting all before them, the little band forced its way into the heart of the body of its foes. The Maui warriors had expected to take these men, as a fire without trouble swallows up splinters cast into it. They had thought that this little company would afford them an excellent sacrifice for their war gods, and had hoped to take them alive, even at the expense of the lives of a few men. ”

“ Incessantly the restless sea dashed its spray over the picturesque groups of splintered lava rocks which form the Kauiki headland. Here above the reach of the surf still lies the long, black stone into which the legends say Hina's kapa board was changed. Here Hina took the leaves of the hala tree and, after the manner of the Hawaiian women of the ages past, braided mats for the household to sleep upon, and from the nuts of the kukui trees fashioned the torches which were burned around the homes of those of high chief rank. ”

“ The clouds on the mountains are ever multiform. Sometimes the dim mist in the moonlight rears its dog-shaped head over the sloping hills and stretches its shadowy length up to the faintly outlined peaks above; and sometimes the small cloud, like a dog at rest, lies quietly in the skies above the mountain forest. It was a beautiful outgrowth of Hawaiian imagination.
The same nature-myth has been applied to the cloud forms of lower Manoa Valley, a suburb of Honolulu. This cloud-myth was known as the story of Poki, the wonder-dog. ”

“ He passed around a corner of the island and planned to surprise the natives of a noted fishing-ground, hoping to make captives and secure booty from some of the warriors against whom the recent battle had been fought.
The morning light was touching the inland mountain tops. It rested, a silver star, on the snowy summit of Mauna Kea. It made a golden glory of the fire clouds of the volcano Kilauea. It glistened over the black beds of pa-hoe-hoe, or smooth, shining lava. It began to bring into strong relief the uplifted heads of the cocoanut trees of a century’s growth. ”

“ As the morning light brought a wonderful view of the Lua Pele (The-pit-of-Pele) with its great masses of steam and smoke rising from the immense field of volcanic activity below, and as the rush of mighty waves of lava broke again and again against the black ledge with a roar exceeding that of a storm-driven surf beating upon rocky shores, and as fierce explosions of gases bursting from the underworld in a continual cannonade, deafened the ears of the company, Kapiolani prepared to go down to defy Pele. ”

“ During that night a heavy wind tossed the sea waves into foam, but as the morning broke the wind died away, leaving ideal surf waves rolling in from the far-off coral reef, through the harbour, up to the beach.
A number of chiefs, taking long boards, thinned and smoothed by stone knives and polished with the rough skin of the shark, swam far out into the ocean. There where the surf waves began to form as the tide rolled landward each chief turned his surf board to follow the tidal pathway. Canoes were stationed at the point from which the older chiefs had decided that the swimmers must start. ”

“ Brave Maui caught his magic stone club or axe, and began to strike and wound the sun, until he cried: "Give me my life." Maui said: "If you live, you may be a traitor. Perhaps I had better kill you." But the sun begged for life. After they had conversed a while, they agreed that there should be a regular motion in the journey of the sun. There should be longer days, and yet half the time he might go quickly as in the winter time, but the other half he must move slowly as in summer. Thus men dwelling on the earth should be blessed. ”

“ What food makes her fair as the moonlight?
Even her eyebrows were shaved off by some god.”
Pele was bitterly angry and tried her best to destroy her tormentor. She stamped on the ground, the earth shook, cracks opened in the surface and sometimes clouds of smoke and steam arose around Kama-puaa. He was unterrified and matched his divine powers against hers. It was demi-god against demi-goddess. It was the goddess-of-fire of Hawaii against the hog-god of Oahu. Pele’s home life was given up, the bitterness of strife swept over the black sands of the seashore. ”

“ One day Kapalama, who was living in her group of houses in the part of Honolulu which now bears her name, said to her husband: “O Honouliuli, our daughter on Kauai will have a child of magic power and of kupua character. Perhaps we should go thither, adopt it, and bring it up; there is life in the bones.”
They crossed the channel, carrying offerings with them to their gods. Concealing their canoes, they went up into the forest. Their daughter’s child was already born, and behold, it was only an egg! ”

“ There was the strong, brave convert to Christianity standing above the open lake of fire, the red glowing lava rolling in waves below, with rough blocks of hardened lava on every side, the locks (Pele’s hair) of the fire-goddess, torn out and whirling around in the air, the timid fearful faces of the people and their attitude of terror and anxiety showing the half-hope that the tabu might be broken and the half-dread lest the evil spirit might breathe fire upon them and destroy them at once. ”

“ In former years a naval battle meant the clash of canoe against canoe, the heavy stroke of war clubs against war clubs and clouds of hurled javelins and spears. The conflict was largely a matter of taunts and shouts, broken canoes and drowning warriors. But in this fight the opposing parties combined the rattle of firearms and the roar of small cannon with the usual war of words. Boats were shattered and the sea filled with swimming men.
The people on the bluffs saw the red flashes of the guns and noted the increasing noise of the artillery until they could no longer hear the voices of men. ”

“ It became a tree, and finally produced a cocoanut, whose two eyes could continually look into the face of Sina.
Tuna, in the legends of Fiji, was a demon of the sea. He lived in a deep sea cave, into which he sometimes shut himself behind closed doors of coral. When he was hungry, he swam through the ocean shadows, always watching the restless surface. When a canoe passed above him, he would throw himself swiftly through the waters, upset the canoe, and seize some of the boatmen and devour them. He was greatly feared by all the fishermen of the Fijian coasts. ”