the refusal of her sisters to undertake the mission to fetch lohiau had angered hiiaka. her intrepid fealty to pele, their oldest sister and their alii, laughed to scorn the perils of the journey. she could not and, for a time, would not bring herself to understand their prudential attitude. pele was their alii, and it was rank disloyalty in them to shirk any danger or to decline any command pele might think fit to impose. in judging the conduct of her sisters, it did not at first enter the head of hiiaka that motives of sound worldly prudence justified them in declining for themselves an errand full of danger, or in putting obstacles in the way of her going on the same errand: she saw in it only a failure to rise to the level of her own loyalty.
the situation, then, was heavily charged with estrangement, and when the woman in hiiaka could not refrain from one more farewell, the color and tone of voice and song had in them the snap of electricity:
ke ku nei au e hele, a noho oe;
a noho ana na wahine o lu-lu’u
e ka pae1 moku lehua
i uka o ka-li’u, la.
li’uli’u wale ka hele ana
o ka huaka’i moe ipo.
aloha mai ka ipo,
o lohiau ipo, e-e!
[23]
translation
here stand i begirt for travel;
you must tarry at home, and these …
these … women … who sit downcast.
oh, care for my parks of lehua—
how they bloom in upland ka-li’u!
long is the way and many the day
before you shall come to the bed of love,
but, hark! the call of the lover,
the voice of the lover, lohiau!
at the utterance of this name pele brightened and called to hiiaka, “yes, that is the name of our man. i purposely kept it back until you should have reached the water-shed (kaupaku2 o ka hale o kaua, literally the ridgepole) of our house, intending then to reveal it to you; but you have divined the man’s name. go on your journey. nothing shall avail to block your road. yours is the power of woman; the power of man is nothing to that.”
on reaching the plateau of wahine-kapu hiiaka received a spiritual message telling her that lohiau—the object of her errand—was dead. she at once turned towards pele and commemorated the fact in song:
i akani-hia,
i akani-kolea,
i pu’u-wa’a-hia,
i pu’u-manawa-le’a,
i pu’u-aloha, la:
he mea e ke aloha o ke kane, e.
ke haale iho nei au e hanini, e;
e uwé au, e!
translation
let us sound it aloud—
far as the plover’s flight;
with full breath shout it,
and with a full heart,
big with affection. [24]
ah, wondrous the love for a man!
the feelings that strive,
as these tears, to rush out—
i can not repress them!
pele did not know this name-song of lohiau until she heard it recited by hiiaka. this it was that led hiiaka to come back within easy hearing distance:
ke uwá ia mai la e ka ua;
ke kahe ia mai la e ka wai:
na lehua i wai-a’ama, la, lilo,
lilo a’u opala lehua
i kai o pi’i-honua, la;
mai po’i-honua no a pi’i-lani.
translation
it sobs in the rain;
it moans in the rushing tide.
gone is my grove of lehuas—
my rubbish grove, that stood
by the pilfering waters—flown,
he has flown, like its smoke, to heaven.
’tis there i must seek him!
“how absurd of you,” said pele; “you were not sent on an expedition to heaven, but to bring a man who is here on earth. if you fly up to heaven, you will pass him by and leave him here below.”
hiiaka and her faithful companion—pau-o-pala’e—had gotten well away from the vast pit of kilauea, with its fringe of steam-cracks and fumaroles that radiate from it like the stays of a spider-web, and they were nearing the borders of pana-ewa, when hiiaka’s quick ear caught the sound of a squealing pig. her ready intuition furnished the right interpretation to this seemingly insignificant occurrence:
a loko au o pana-ewa,
halawai me ka pua’a
a wahine-oma’o,
me ku’u maka lehua i uka. [25]
me ka malu-ko’i3 i ka nahele,
e uwé ana i ka laau.
alalá ka pua’a a ka wahine—
he pua’a kanaenae,
he kanaenae mohai ola—
e ola ia pele,
i ka wahine o ka lua, e-e!
translation
in the heart of pana-ewa—
lehuas were heavy with bud,
the dim aisles solemn with shadow—
i met with a suckling pig,
the pet of wahine-oma’o,
a wailing voice in the wilderness:
’twas the creature wail of the thing,
foredoomed as an offering, this
wailing thing was a sacrifice,
an appeal to pele for life,
to the woman who dwells in the pit.
at this moment a young woman of attractive person appeared on the scene and, prostrating herself to the earth, said, “o, pele, behold my offering, which i bring to thee in fulfillment of the pledge made by my parents, that i should first seek thee, o pele, before i come to my marriage bed. accept this suckling which i offer to thee, o pele.”
“i am not the one you are seeking: i am not pele,” said hiiaka. “pele is over yonder in the pit.”
the woman was persistent and begged that hiiaka would not despise her offering. after undeceiving her, hiiaka carefully instructed her, lest she make some fatal mistake in her approach to the jealous goddess: “when you come to the pit you must be careful in your approach to pele. the least departure from the etiquette she demands would be the cause of your death. do not imagine that the fine large woman sitting at the door is pele, nor that any one of the women seated within is she. you must pay no attention to these. look for the figure of a wrinkled old woman lying bundled up on the hearth: that is pele: make the offering to no one else but to her.” [26]
“alas for me,” said wahine-oma’o. “you will be gone a long way from this place by the time i shall return to seek you. i shall not be able to find you.”
“you will find us here,” replied hiiaka assuringly.
hiiaka used her power to bring the woman at once to her destination. following the instructions given her, wahine-oma’o was quickly transported into the presence of pele and, having made her offering in due form, was about to retire, when pele called her back and said, “did you not meet some women going from here as you came this way?”
“i met some women,” she answered.
“make haste and come up with them,” said pele. “the younger woman is very dear to me. attach yourself to her as a friend.”
“that i will do,” said wahine-oma’o. then, moved by an impulse that came to her (the work, it is said, of hiiaka), she said to pele, “i had imagined you to be a beautiful woman, pele. but, lo, you are old and wrinkled; and your eyes are red and watery.” thus saying, wahine-oma’o took her departure and almost immediately found herself again with hiiaka.
“you have made quick time,” hiiaka said. “how did you get on?”
“i followed your instructions and presented my offering to the woman who was lying on the hearth. she asked me if i had met you, and when i said yes, she told me to look after you as a friend.”
“is that all?”
“she also told me to watch you, to observe how you behaved towards the man—whether you kissed him or had any dalliance with him.”
“and did you say anything to pele?”
“u-m, i bantered her about her looks; told her she was a very ill-favored woman, while the women attending her were very handsome.”
hiiaka laughed at this naive account.
night shut down upon them at kuolo, a place just on the border of pana-ewa. paú-o-pala’e proposed that they should seek a resting place for the night with the people of the hamlet. hiiaka would not hear to it: “travelers should sleep in the open, in the road; in that way they can rise and resume their journey with no delay.” (o ka po’e hele he pono ia lakou e moe i ke alanui, i ala no a hele no.) [27]
1 one critic says it should be po’e. ↑
2kaupaku o ka hale o kaua. a hidden reference to sexual intercourse. ↑
3malu-ko’i, dark and gloomy.
