that same day pele and the other sisters returned to kilauea, while hiiaka went back to resume her visit with hopoe, each party reaching its destination at about the same time. early the next morning pele called to her sister hiiaka-i-ka-ale-i (hiiaka-of-the-choppy-sea) and said, “i want you to go on an errand for me.” [13]
“no doubt i shall agree to go when you have told me what it is,” was the answer of the young woman.
“you are to journey to kaua’i and escort hither our lover—yours and mine. while on the way you are not to lie with him; you are not to touch noses with him; you are not to fondle him or snuggle close to him. if you do any such thing i will kill both of you. after your return, for five days and five nights, i will have him to myself, and after that he shall be your lover.”
on hearing this, the young woman hung her head and wept.
pele then made the same proposal to each of the other sisters in turn. not one of them would consent to undertake the mission. they knew full well the perils of the undertaking: the way was beset with swarms of demons and dragons, with beings possessed with powers of enchantment; and pele did not offer to endow them with the power that would safeguard them on their journey.
pele, finding herself foiled on this tack, as a diversion, said, “let us refresh ourselves and have some luau.” the sisters immediately set to work, and, when they had made up the bundles of delicate taro leaves and were about to lay them upon the fire, pele called to paú-o-pala’e and bade her go straightway to haena and fetch hiiaka, “and you are to be back here by the time the luau is cooked.”
now the girl, whose full name was hiiaka-i-ka-poli-o-pele, was the youngest of the sisters, and, by reason of her loveliness and accommodating disposition, she was pele’s favorite. she was, moreover, gifted with a quick intuition and a clairvoyant perception of distant happenings and coming events. at the time of the conversation between pele and the seven sisters, hiiaka was sporting in the ocean with her surf-board in the company of hopoe. while thus engaged, the whole matter of the proposed journey to haena came to her as in a vision. in the midst of her surfing she turned to hopoe and said, “i perceive that i am about to undertake a long journey; and during my absence you will remain here in puna waiting my return.”
“no! what puts such a notion into your head?” said hopoe.
“yes, i must go,” insisted hiiaka. then they mounted a roller, and, as their boards touched the beach, there stood the messenger of pele; and this was the message: “gird on your paú and come with me to kilauea. your sister commands it.”
as the two jogged on their uphill way, an impulse seized hiiaka, and she gave voice to a premonition, a shadow of coming [14]trouble, as it were, and, standing in the road at mokau-lele, she sang:
he u? kui lehua ko pana-ewa;
he u? ma kai kui hala ko puna, e!
aloha e, aloha wale koloa, e-e!
na mau’u i moe o malei.
translation
pana-ewa’s rain beats down the lehuas,
a rain by the sea smites the halas of puna.
my love, my pity go out to koloa;—
her fare, wilted herbs at malei.
hiiaka—true poet that she was, and alive to every colorable aspect of nature—as she trudged on her way, came upon a sight that touched her imagination; two birds were sipping together in loving content of the water that had collected in the crotch of a tree, in which also was growing an awa plant.—such nature-planted awa was famed as being the most toxic of any produced in puna.—her poetic mind found in the incident something that was in harmony with her own mood, and she wove it into a song:
o ka manu múkimukí,
ale lehua a ka manu,
o ka awa ili lena
i ka uka o ka-li’u;
o ka manu ha’iha’i lau awa o puna:—
aia i ka laau ka awa ona o puna,
o puna, ho’i, e-e!
translation
o bird that sips with delight
the nectar-bloom of lehua,
tasting the yellow-barked awa
that climbs in ka-liu’s uplands;
o bird that brews from this leafage
puna’s bitter-sweet awa draught;—
puna’s potentest awa grows
aloft in the crotch of a tree;—
most potent this awa of puna!
