Legends of Gods and Ghosts (Hawaiian Mythology) Part 23

Or hit you with a stone And hurt you. Amama [Amen]."

So also they prayed to Kukea-olo-walu (a taro aumakua G.o.d):

"O Kukea-olo-walu!

Make the taro grow, Let the leaf spread like a banana.

Taro for us, O Kukea!

The banana and the taro for us.

Pull up the taro for us, O Kukea!

Pound the taro, Make the fire for cooking the pig.

Give life to us-- To the farmers-- From sunrise to sunset From one fastened place to the other fastened place [_i.e._, one side of the sky to the other fastened on each side of the earth]. Amama [Amen]."

Trees with their branches and fruit were frequently endowed with spirit power. All the different kinds of birds and even insects, and also the clouds and winds and the fish in the seas were given a place among the spirits around the Hawaiians.

The people believed in life and its many forms of power. They would pray to the unseen forces for life for themselves and their friends, and for death to come on the families of their enemies. They had special priests and incantations for the pule-ana-ana, or praying to death, and even to the present time the supposed power to pray to death is one of the most formidable terrors to their imagination.

Menehunes, eepas, and kupuas were cla.s.ses of fairies or gnomes which did not belong to the ancestor-G.o.ds, or aumakuas.

The menehunes were fairy servants. Some of the Polynesian Islands called the lowest cla.s.s of servants "manahune." The Hawaiians separated them almost entirely from the spirits of ancestors. They worked at night performing prodigious tasks which they were never supposed to touch again after the coming of dawn.

The eepas were usually deformed and defective gnomes. They suffered from all kinds of weakness, sometimes having no bones and no more power to stand than a large leaf. They were sometimes set apart as spirit caretakers of little children. Nuuanu Valley was the home of a mult.i.tude of eepas who had their temple on the western side of the valley.

Kupuas were the demons of ghost-land. They were very powerful and very destructive. No human being could withstand their attacks unless specially endowed with power from the G.o.ds. They had animal as well as human bodies and could use whichever body seemed to be most available.

The dragons, or mo-os, were the most terrible kupuas in the islands.

THE DRAGON GHOST-G.o.dS

Dragons were among the ghost-G.o.ds of the ancient Hawaiians. These dragons were called mo-o. The New Zealanders used the same names for some of their large reptile G.o.ds. They, however, spelled the word with a "k," calling it mo-ko, and it was almost identical in p.r.o.nunciation as in meaning with the Hawaiian name. Both the Hawaiians and New Zealanders called all kinds of lizards mo-o or mo-ko; and their use of this word in traditions showed that they often had in mind animals like crocodiles and alligators, and sometimes they referred the name to any monster of great mythical powers belonging to a man-destroying cla.s.s.

Mighty eels, immense sea-turtles, large fish of the ocean, fierce sharks, were all called mo-o. The most ancient dragons of the Hawaiians are spoken of as living in pools or lakes. These dragons were known also as kupuas, or mysterious characters who could appear as animals or human beings according to their wish. The saying was: "Kupuas have a strange double body."

There were many other kupuas besides those of the dragon family. It was sometimes thought that at birth another natural form was added, such as an egg of a fowl or a bird, or the seed of a plant, or the embryo of some animal, which when fully developed made a form which could be used as readily as the human body. These kupuas were always given some great magic power. They were wonderfully strong and wise and skilful.

Usually the birth of a kupua, like the birth of a high chief, was attended with strange disturbances in the heavens, such as reverberating thunder, flashing lightning, and severe storms which sent the abundant red soil of the islands down the mountain-sides in blood-red torrents known as ka-ua-koko (the blood rain). This name was also given to misty fine rain when shot through by the red waves of the sun.

By far the largest cla.s.s of kupuas was that of the dragons. These all belonged to one family. Their ancestor was Mo-o-inanea (The Self-reliant Dragon), who figured very prominently in the Hawaiian legends of the most ancient times, such as "The Maiden of the Golden Cloud."

Mo-o-inanea (The Self-reliant Dragon) brought the dragons, the kupua dragons, from the "Hidden Land of Kane" to the Hawaiian Islands.

Mo-o-inanea was apparently a demi-G.o.ddess of higher power even than the G.o.ds Ku, Kane, or Ka.n.a.loa. She was the great dragon-G.o.ddess of the Hawaiians, coming to the islands in the migration of the G.o.ds from Nuu-mea-lani and Kuai-he-lani to settle. The dragons and other kupuas came as spirit servants of the G.o.ds.

For a while this Mo-o-inanea lived with her brothers, the G.o.ds, at Waolani, but after a long time there were so many dragons that it was necessary to distribute them over the islands, and Mo-o-inanea decided to leave her brothers and find homes for her numerous family. So she went down to Puunui in the lower part of Nuuanu Valley and there made her home, and it is said received worship from the men of the ancient days. Here she dwelt in her dual nature--sometimes appearing as a dragon, sometimes as a woman.

Very rich clayey soil was found in this place, forced out of the earth as if by geyser action. It was greatly sought in later years by the chiefs who worshipped this G.o.ddess. They made the place tabu, and used the clay, sometimes eating it, but generally plastering the hair with it. This place was made very tabu by the late Queen Kaahumanu during her lifetime.

Mo-o-inanea lived in the pit from which this clay was procured, a place called Lua-palolo, meaning pit-of-sticky-clay. After she had come to this dwelling-place the dragons were sent out to find homes. Some became chiefs and others servants, and when by themselves were known as the evil ones. She distributed her family over all the islands from Hawaii to Niihau. Two of these dragon-women, according to the legends, lived as guardians of the pali (precipice) at the end of Nuuanu Valley, above Honolulu. After many years it was supposed that they both a.s.sumed the permanent forms of large stones which have never lost their a.s.sociations with mysterious, miraculous power.

Even as late as 1825, Mr. Bloxam, the chaplain of the English man-of-war, recorded in "The Voyage of the Blonde" the following statement:

"At the bottom of the Parre (pali) there are two large stones on which even now offerings of fruits and flowers are laid to propitiate the Aku-wahines, or G.o.ddesses, who are supposed to have the power of granting a safe pa.s.sage."

Mr. Bloxam says that these were a kind of mo-o, or reptile, G.o.ddesses, and adds that it was difficult to explain the meaning of the name given to them, probably because the Hawaiians had nothing in the shape of serpents or large reptiles in their islands.

A native account of these stones says: "There is a large grove of hau-trees in Nuuanu Valley, and above these lie the two forest women, Hau-ola and Ha-puu. These are now two large stones, one being about three feet long with a fine smooth back, the other round with some little rough places. The long stone is on the seaward side, and this is the Mo-o woman, Hau-ola; and the other, Ha-puu. The leaves of ferns cover Hau-ola, being laid on that stone. On the other stone, Ha-puu, are lehua flowers. These are kupuas."

Again the old people said that their ancestors had been accustomed to bring the navel cords of their children and bury them under these stones to insure protection of the little ones from evil, and that these were the stone women of Nuuanu.

Ala-muki lived in the deep pools of the Waialua River near the place Ka-mo-o-loa, which received its name from the long journeys that dragon made over the plains of Waialua. She and her descendants guarded the paths and sometimes destroyed those who travelled that way.

One dragon lived in the Ewa lagoon, now known as Pearl Harbor. This was Kane-kua-ana, who was said to have brought the pipi (oysters) to Ewa.

She was worshipped by those who gathered the sh.e.l.l-fish. When the oysters began to disappear about 1850, the natives said that the dragon had become angry and was sending the oysters to Kahiki, or some far-away foreign land.

Kilioe, Koe, and Milolii were noted dragons on the island of Kauai. They were the dragons of the precipices of the northern coast of this island, who took the body of the high chief Lohiau and concealed it in a cave far up the steep side of the mountain. There is a very long interesting story of the love between Lohiau and Pele, the G.o.ddess of fire. In this story Pele overcame the dragons and won the love of the chief. Hiiaka, the sister of the fire-G.o.ddess, won a second victory over them when she rescued a body from the cave and brought it back to life.

On Maui, the greatest dragon of the island was Kiha-wahine. The natives had the saying, "Kiha has mana, or miraculous power, like Mo-o-inanea."

She lived in a large deep pool on the edge of the village Lahaina, and was worshipped by the royal family of Maui as their special guardian.

There were many dragons of the island of Hawaii, and the most noted of these were the two who lived in the Wailuku River near Hilo. They were called "the moving boards" which made a bridge across the river.

Sometimes they accepted offerings and permitted a safe pa.s.sage, and sometimes they tipped the pa.s.sengers into the water and drowned them.

They were destroyed by Hiiaka.

Sacred to these dragons who were scattered over all the islands were the mo-o priests and the sorcerers, who propitiated them with offerings and sacrifices, chanting incantations.

CHAS. R. BISHOP

Mr. Chas. R. Bishop died in California early in 1915, having just pa.s.sed his ninety-third birthday. He was born in Glens Falls, N.Y., and sailed around Cape Horn to Hawaii in the early days before steamship communication.

His wife, Pauahi, was a very high chiefess descended from the royal line of Kamehameha the Great. To her Kamehameha V. offered the throne, and on her refusal to espouse him remained a bachelor and died without heir.

Mrs. Pauahi Bishop bequeathed her vast estate and fortune to found the schools for Hawaiian boys and girls, known as the Kamehameha Schools, Honolulu, and near these Mr. Bishop founded the Bishop Museum; which contains all the magnificent feather-cloaks, helmets, calabashes, etc., handed down from generation to generation through the royal line of the Kamehamehas and inherited by Mrs. Bishop. This has been greatly increased by other gifts and purchases and now forms the finest museum in the world, of relics of the Polynesian race.