Edmund P. Dole

“ As he looked up he caught glimpses through the dense foliage of a woman, in the garb of Eve, rapidly making her way down the steep declivity, regardless of the sharp thorns and terrible lava that cut and tore her hands and feet and body. Yet, in spite of her desperate haste, and at the peril of her life, she firmly clutched and carefully guarded from rock and thorn the mamo which royalty alone might wear and live.
Eaeakai gazed for a moment, dumb and motionless with amazement. Then he flung himself upon his face, crying, “E moe o! E moe o! Hiwa, Moi Wahine!” ”

“ Kaanaana lay sleeping on a mat, his sling, spears, and war-club beside him. Hiwa stood motionless for some moments, gazing upon him. Of the two master passions of her life she herself could not have told which was the stronger: love for the man sleeping before her eyes, or for her child sleeping in the hollow of the mountain. ”

“ Our scouts, as you know, report the gleam of spears on the heights of Kukuihaele. It is Kaaahu and his thousand men come to the help of Aa. Our men are outnumbered three to one, and so worn out they can hardly stand. Some of them are dying of fatigue, and some have already died.”
“And you, my love,” interrupted Kaanaana, “will also die unless you sleep this night.”
“No,” replied Hiwa, “I shall not die of fatigue, nor yet of spear-thrust from mortal man. I shall live until our son is unquestioned moi. A goddess gave me life, and only through a god shall it be taken from me. ”

“ She spent much time in teaching him the ancient meles, the unwritten literature of the nation, its epic and romantic poems and love songs, perpetuated from generation to generation by men set apart for that purpose, for in her father’s reign—before a drunkard came to the throne—they were always chanted at feasts and at human sacrifices, and when the bones of great chiefs were hidden in caves, and she had learned them by heart. ”

“ A fourth of Kaanaana’s men perished also. In all more than a thousand men lay dead and dying on the field. The victorious survivors, worn out with marching and slaughter, sank on the ground beside them and slept until morning.
Hiwa and Kaanaana slept from dark till dawn; but the young moi kane, who had that day won his kingdom, lay awake many hours, and when sleep came to him he dreamed of love, and not of glory. ”

“ But Hiwa did not look to a safe and easy existence. She had devoted her life to a great purpose. She had become more than a woman, more than a mother. Her son was Aelani, The Pledge from Heaven. The rainbow had covered him at his birth, and Ku had answered her irrevocable vow with thunder from the mountains. ”

“ Kaanaana fell upon his knees and bowed his head to the ground. “Child of the gods,” he said, “shall I speak my manao?”
“Rise and speak!” exclaimed Aelani. “Thou art the greatest and wisest of my nobles. Thy moi will ever listen to thy manao.”
“My manao is that the great chiefs will not hasten from the south. They do not love Aa, and will stand aloof if they dare, or side with us if we seem the stronger. Moreover, Aa has twelve hundred fighting men at Waipio, and Kaaahu can bring him a thousand more before we can get there. ”

“ The great chiefs were becoming restive and alarmed. Yet who should take up arms against the Lord of Life and Death, vice-gerent of Ku? Ii and Aa were of the blood of the gods. Hiwa knew how matters stood, and believed the time for action would come soon if the great nobles understood they could have a leader of divine birth.
Aelani had not reached his seventeenth year—a mere smooth-water swimmer. The pool, swarming with sharks, was a fine training school for a boy of twelve; but the ocean was the only proper place for an athletic young man, big, powerful, destined for great deeds. ”

“ Yet, although my bones will be put to shame, I am content, knowing that Ku’s heavy wrath will fall upon my enemies, and that I shall glory in their destruction, and mock them in the other world. If Hiwa had been slain when she committed the unpardonable sin against Ku his anger might have been appeased; but now that it has been growing these sixteen years, the whole people are doomed, for they are her people and her son’s. Behold I, Aa, high-priest of Ku, proclaim that his implacable wrath rests upon the whole kingdom, and shall eat up its inhabitants. ”

“ Our god, Lono, dwells there, and [Pg 12] some time, ages hence perhaps, he will return and tell us of these things; but now we know nothing of them. There are only three men in the world we know about whose blood is fit to mate with yours. I am too old to marry you. Your uncle, Aa, shall not. There is no one else but your brother, Ii.”
“But, father,” pleaded Hiwa, “I do not love Ii.”
“That is a small matter,” said Papaakahi.
“But, father, I love Kaanaana, and he loves me. Why cannot I marry him?”
“He is not of the blood of Wakea, and Papa, my child, he is not descended from the gods.” ”

“ The spearmen raised a great shout and cried: “His word is as the word of Ku, and we will follow Kaanaana, our high-chief, where spears are thickest, even unto death!”
Hiwa accompanied them. When Kaanaana privately remonstrated, she replied: “Hardships and hunger and thirst are [Pg 79] heaven with you, my lover, and so are wounds and death; but without you, all the world is hell to me. What mortal man can do and suffer, that surely can I, daughter of the gods. Moreover, if the chiefs do not see me, whom they know, they will say that Aelani, whom they do not know, is but an impostor. ”

“ I loathe the custom of our race! I want one man as both husband and lover! I had rather be Kaanaana’s wife one hour and then die body and soul than to marry Ii and be goddess-queen forever!”
[Pg 16] “Hiwa, pau! It is not fitting that a daughter of the gods should marry a man of mortal blood. It has been done and, out of my great love for you, I might consent to it even now if I could not foresee war and death. Nothing could save you but Aa’s death. The gods, our ancestors, tell me to kill him. It is my unquestioned right, for I am moi, Lord of Life and Death ”

“ The child was about the age and size of Aelani, and her features were strikingly like his and very beautiful. As Hiwa looked at the mother she saw that she bore an equally close resemblance to herself. The family likeness was plain as day, the blood of Wakea and Papa through forty generations. Hiwa had heard of a fisher-girl of marvellous beauty, but had never before deigned to notice her. This, then, must be that girl; for [Pg 40] no other woman in all the land could be compared with Hiwa. ”

“ THE RESCUE OF THE BOAT
THE Hawaiian Islands, as all the world knows, are entirely of volcanic origin. The soil, whether red or black, that produces a hundred tons of sugar-cane and fourteen tons of sugar to the acre, is lava pulverized by the suns and rains of thousands of years. The coffee lands are lava, rotten, honey-combed, porous, to a degree still unpulverized, but far on the way to becoming so. And the recent flows show what every part of every island has been—first, an overflowing sea of boiling rock; then, when the rock-currents froze, weird, fantastic, utter desolation. ”

“ You know our law; the child takes the rank of its mother, instead of the rank of its father, for all men know its mother and no man knows its father. [Pg 14] You yourself take divine rank from your mother, who was my sister.”
Hiwa shuddered, and made no reply.
“Your brother,” continued Papaakahi, “spends his nights drinking awa, and his days in sleep. He will rule in name only. Your uncle will be the real moi. He hates Kaanaana, and, if you marry him and have an heir, he will raise the standard of revolt as soon as I am dead.”
“Then let spears settle it!” cried Hiwa, with flashing eyes. ”

“ No living creature, [Pg 7] save some insect or reptile that clings to the bare face of a rock, could obtain a foothold there. Hiwa was not a lizard to cling to that cliff, and if she were, she would be in plain sight. Neither was she a bird to soar above and beyond it. She was not a fish; if still alive, she must come to the surface. After watching for her long and anxiously, they discovered a few drops of blood. A sharp fin above the waves, slowly moving seaward, afforded a ready explanation.
The high-priest’s face lighted with savage triumph as he cried: “Ukanipo, the Shark-God, hath her! ”

“ My love, you know that your spearmen, exhausted as they are, cannot fight two thousand men. They will be slaughtered like swine in to-morrow’s battle, and our cause will be lost unless I put fresh fear in the hearts of the enemy. ”

“ If I had won the battle I would have gone to Kohala and put every man, woman and child to the spear, save Aelani and Hiwa and Kaanaana and all of noble birth, whom I would have kept for the sacrifice; I would have made Kohala fat with slaughter; I would have drenched Ku’s altar with the blood of the goddess-born. Then Ku would have had [Pg 95] more cause for rejoicing than in the sacrifice of one old man. ”

“ She felt that the few years given her to prepare her son for his future work and station should be improved to the utmost, for, as soon as he were grown, she could be no more with him, but must pass from the altar of Ku to the gods from whom she came. She believed that a great moi should be a god among men by his attainments and qualities of mind, as well as by birth, and she was well qualified to instruct Aelani in all the learning and accomplishments of her age and nation, for there was no seclusion of women among Hawaiians, and she had seen and heard much both at court and in camp. ”

“ And the mountain rivulet, after its wild leap of two thousand feet, lazily crawled along the bottom of the crater till it reached the pool.
So Hiwa and Aelani were safe from hunger and thirst. Nature provided a varied and abundant diet. They had no need of clothes, for the days were not hot nor the nights cold. They had no enemies to fear. No other human being knew of their refuge or dreamed of their existence. There were no wild beasts to attack them, no poisonous serpents, no snakes of any kind, no reptiles or insects that could seriously injure or annoy them. ”

“ Hiwa’s bones and Kaanaana’s were hidden in a cave, at dead of night, by Aelani himself, for he would not intrust this pious [Pg 98] duty to meaner hands, that touch of mortal might not profane them so long as the world should endure. Hiwa had made such atonement, lifting Ku’s curse from all the people, that they revered her memory and worshipped her as a goddess even as if she had not committed that great sin. ”

“ Our spearmen, exhausted with the journey, must fight men strong with rest and sleep. If we start to-morrow, we shall also be greatly outnumbered, and if we lose the battle not one of us will ever return. If we wait till the fourth day, and only one or two chiefs come against [Pg 76] us from the south, we can meet Aa with equal numbers. Yet it shall be as the moi kane says. His word is as the word of Ku.”
“Kaanaana, Lord of Kohala,” said Aelani, “I thank thee for honest counsel, and I would also have the lesser chiefs freely speak their manao.” ”

“ Kaanaana forbade all noise in that part of the camp, and made it silent as the grave, so that Hiwa might sleep until the men were ready to go forth to battle. Then he awoke her gently, and she arose and took her place beside him at the head of the warriors, armed as a warrior, and so she marched to the fight. ”

“ How, then, could her claimant to the throne enjoy Ku’s favor? And how could he be of the sacred race which the gods had sent from heaven to rule men? Yet Hiwa’s spirit had thrice proclaimed him as heaven-born, The Chosen of Ku, and living witnesses had seen him [Pg 85] and Hiwa and Kaanaana issue from the depths of the sea, where mortals unaided by the gods would have perished. Superstition balanced superstition. Men were afraid to support Aelani, and afraid to fight against him, lest the heavy wrath of Ku should fall upon them. ”

“ Their moi kane was at their head, and beside him the moi wahine, and Kaanaana, their high-chief, the foremost warrior in the land. So, although they fell thick and fast before Aa’s skilled spearmen, they pressed on and slew and slew and slew. The moi kane and the moi wahine and the Lord of Kohala, excelling all others in deeds of strength, and skill and valor, were ever in advance, their spears, dripping with blood, yet they received no hurt so that men said that Ku went before them. They continually strove to reach Aa and kill him, for his death would end the war ”

“ Ii worships only awa, and Aa rules the land. One squanders the wealth of the kingdom, and the other is grasping and cruel. The time may come, perhaps too soon, when the chiefs will be ready to fight against them both.”
On this occasion the retainers of the court were too drunk to take note of passers-by, and they had become so habitually turbulent and lawless that honest people avoided that part of the town after nightfall. Hiwa, therefore, had no difficulty in making her way undiscovered to a distant camp. ”

“ More kittens are drowned than grow up, yet there is no dearth of cats. Infanticide was regarded in much the same way by the ancient Hawaiians. No woman was thought worse of on account of killing her babies, and a large percentage of new-born children were exposed to perish, or to be picked up and adopted, as chance might direct. Hiwa [Pg 64] and Lilii, therefore, might be twin sisters, and it might have been thought that twin princesses, too divine to marry mortal men, would cause state embarrassments. The more Hiwa thought it over the more probable it seemed. ”