Part 12 (2/2)
The Hina of Hilo was grieved as she toiled because after she had pounded the sheets out so thin that they were ready to be dried, she found it almost impossible to secure the necessary aid of the sun in the drying process. She would rise as soon as she could see and hasten to spread out the tapa made the day before. But the sun always hurried so fast that the sheets could not dry. He leaped from the ocean waters in the earth, rushed across the heavens and plunged into the dark waters again on the other side of the island before she could even turn her tapas so that they might dry evenly. This legend of very short days is strange because of its place not only among the myths of Hawaii but also because it belongs to practically all the tropical islands of the Pacific Ocean.
In Tahiti the legends said that the sun rushed across the sky very rapidly. The days were too short for fruits to ripen or for work to be finished. In Samoa the ”mats” made by Sina had no time to dry. The ancestors of the Polynesians sometime somewhere must have been in the region of short days and long nights. Hina found that her incantations had no influence with the sun. She could not prevail upon him to go slower and give her more time for the completion of her task. Then she called on her powerful son, Maui-ki-i-ki-i, for aid.
Some of the legends of the Island Maui say that Hina dwelt by the sea coast of that island near the high hill Kauwiki at the foot of the great mountain Haleakala, House of the Sun, and that there, facing the southern skies under the most favorable conditions for making tapa, she found the days too short for the tapa to dry. At the present time the Hawaiians point out a long, narrow stone not far from the surf and almost below the caves in which the great queen Kaahumanu spent the earliest days of her childhood. This stone is said to be the kua or tapa board on which Hina pounded the bark for her cloth. Other legends of that same island locate Hina's home on the northeast coast near Pohakuloa.
The Hilo legends, however, do not deem it necessary that Hina and Maui should have their home across the wide channel which divides the Island Hawaii from the Island Maui in order to wage war successfully with the inconsiderate sun. Hina remained in her home by the Wailuku river, sometimes resting in her cave under Rainbow Falls, and sometimes working on the river bank, trusting her powerful son Maui to make the swiftly-pa.s.sing lord of day go more slowly.
Maui possessed many supernatural powers. He could a.s.sume the form of birds or insects. He could call on the winds to do his will, or he could, if he wished, traverse miles with a single stride. It is interesting to note that the Hilo legends differ as to the way in which Ma-ui the man pa.s.sed over to Mau-i the island. One legend says that he crossed the channel, miles wide, with a single step. Another says that he launched his canoe and with a breath the G.o.d of the winds placed him on the opposite coast, while another story says that Maui a.s.sumed the form of a white chicken, which flew over the waters to Haleakala. Here he took ropes made from the fibre of trees and vines and la.s.soed the sun while it climbed the side of the mountain and entered the great crater which hollows out the summit. The sun came through a large gap in the eastern side of the crater, rus.h.i.+ng along as rapidly as possible. Then Maui threw his la.s.soes one after the other over the sun's legs (the rays of light), holding him fast and breaking off some of them. With a magic club Maui struck the face of the sun again and again. At last, wounded and weary, and also limping on its broken legs, the sun promised Maui to go slowly forevermore.
”La” among the Polynesians, like the word ”Ra” among the Egyptians, means ”sun” or ”day” or ”sun-G.o.d”--and the mountain where the son of Hina won his victory over the monster of the heavens has long borne the name Hale-a-ka-la, or House of the Sun.
Hina of Hilo soon realized the wonderful deed which Maui had done. She spread out her fine tapas with songs of joy and cheerily performed the task which filled the hours of the day. The comfort of suns.h.i.+ne and cooling winds came with great power into Hina's life, bringing to her renewed joy and beauty.
XIII.
HINA AND THE WAILUKU RIVER.
There are two rivers of rus.h.i.+ng, tumbling rapids and waterfalls in the Hawaiian Islands, both bearing the name of Wailuku. One is on the Island of Maui, flowing out of a deep gorge in the side of the extinct volcano Iao. Yosemite-like precipices surround this majestically-walled crater.
The name Iao means ”asking for clouds.” The head of the crater-valley is almost always covered with great ma.s.ses of heavy rain clouds. Out of the crater the ma.s.sed waters rush in a swift-flowing stream of only four or five miles, emptying into Kahului harbor. The other Wailuku river is on the Island of Hawaii. The snows melt on the summits of the two great mountains, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. The water seeps through the porous lava from the eastern slope of Mauna Loa and the southern slope of Mauna Kea, meeting where the lava flows of centuries from each mountain have piled up against each other. Through the fragments of these volcanic battles the waters creep down the mountain side toward the sea.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Rainbow Falls, Hina's Home.]
At one place, a number of miles above the city of Hilo, the waters were heard gurgling and splas.h.i.+ng far below the surface. Water was needed for the sugar plantations, which modern energy has established all along the eastern coast of the large island. A tunnel was cut into the lava, the underground stream was tapped--and an abundant supply of water secured and sluiced down to the large plantations below. The head waters of the Wailuku river gathered from the melting snow of the mountains found these channels, which centered at last in the bed of a very ancient and very interesting lava flow. Sometimes breaking forth in a large, turbulent flood, the stream forces its way over and around the huge blocks of lava which mark the course of the eruption of long ago.
Sometimes it courses in a tunnel left by the flowing lava and comes up from below in a series of boiling pools. Then again it falls in majestic sheets over high walls of worn precipices. Several large falls and some very picturesque smaller cascades interspersed with rapids and natural bridges give to this river a beauty peculiarly its own. The most weird of all the rough places through which the Wailuku river flows is that known as the basin of Rainbow Falls near Hilo. Here Hina, the moon G.o.ddess of the Polynesians, lived in a great open cave, over which the falls hung their misty, rainbow-tinted veil. Her son Maui, the mighty demi-G.o.d of Polynesia, supposed by some writers to be the sun-G.o.d of the Polynesians, had extensive lands along the northern bank of the river.
Here among his cultivated fields he had his home, from which he went forth to accomplish the wonders attributed to him in the legends of the Hawaiians.
Below the cave in which Hina dwelt the river fought its way through a narrow gorge and then, in a series of many small falls, descended to the little bay, where its waters mingled with the surf of the salt sea. Far above the cave, in the bed of the river, dwelt Kuna. The district through which that portion of the river runs bears to this day the name ”Wai-kuna” or ”Kuna's river.” When the writer was talking with the natives concerning this part of the old legend, they said ”Kuna is not a Hawaiian word. It means something like a snake or a dragon, something we do not have in these islands.” This, they thought, made the connection with the Hina legend valueless until they were shown that Tuna (or kuna) was the New Zealand name of a reptile which attacked Hina and struck her with his tail like a crocodile, for which Maui killed him. When this was understood, the Hawaiians were greatly interested to give the remainder of this legend and compare it with the New Zealand story. In New Zealand there are several statements concerning Tuna's dwelling place. He is sometimes represented as coming from a pool to attack Hina and sometimes from a distant stream, and sometimes from the river by which Hina dwelt.
The Hawaiians told of the annoyances which Hina endured from Kuna while he lived above her home in the Wailuku. He would stop up the river and fill it with dirt as when the freshets brought down the debris of the storms from the mountain sides. He would throw logs and rolling stones into the stream that they might be carried over the falls and drive Hina from her cave. He had sought Hina in many ways and had been repulsed again and again until at last hatred took the place of all more kindly feelings and he determined to destroy the divine chiefess.
Hina was frequently left with but little protection, and yet from her home in the cave feared nothing that Kuna could do. Precipices guarded the cave on either side, and any approach of an enemy through the falling water could be easily thwarted. So her chants rang out through the river valley even while floods swirled around her, and Kuna's missiles were falling over the rocky bed of the stream toward her. Kuna became very angry and, uttering great curses and calling upon all his magic forces to aid him, caught a great stone and at night hurled it into the gorge of the river below Hina's home, filling the river bed from bank to bank. ”Ah, Hina! Now is the danger, for the river rises.
The water cannot flow away. Awake! Awake!”
Hina is not aware of this evil which is so near. The water rises and rises, higher and higher. ”Auwe! Auwe! Alas, alas, Hina must peris.h.!.+”
The water entered the opening of the cave and began to creep along the floor. Hina cannot fly, except into the very arms of her great enemy, who is waiting to destroy her. Then Hina called for Maui. Again and again her voice went out from the cave. It pierced through the storms and the clouds which attended Kuna's attack upon her. It swept along the side of the great mountain. It crossed the channel between the islands of Hawaii and Maui. Its anguish smote the side of the great mountain Haleakala, where Maui had been throwing his la.s.soes around the sun and compelling him to go more slowly. When Maui heard Hina's cry for help echoing from cliff to cliff and through the ravines, he leaped at once to rush to her a.s.sistance.
Some say that Hina, the G.o.ddess, had a cloud servant, the ”ao-opua,” the ”warning cloud,” which rose swiftly above the falls when Hina cried for aid and then, a.s.suming a peculiar shape, stood high above the hills that Maui might see it. Down the mountain he leaped to his magic canoe.
Pus.h.i.+ng it into the sea with two mighty strokes of his paddle he crossed the sea to the mouth of the Wailuku river. Here even to the present day lies a long double rock, surrounded by the waters of the bay, which the natives call Ka waa o Maui, ”The canoe of Maui.” It represents to Hawaiian thought the magic canoe with which Maui always sailed over the ocean more swiftly than any winds could carry him. Leaving his canoe, Maui seized the magic club with which he had conquered the sun after la.s.soing him, and rushed along the dry bed of the river to the place of danger. Swinging the club swiftly around his head, he struck the dam holding back the water of the rapidly-rising river.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Wailuku River, the Home of Kuna.]
”Ah! Nothing can withstand the magic club. The bank around one end of the dam gives way. The imprisoned waters leap into the new channel. Safe is Hina the G.o.ddess.”
Kuna heard the crash of the club against the stones of the river bank and fled up the river to his home in the hidden caves by the pools in the river bed. Maui rushed up the river to punish Kuna-mo-o for the trouble he had caused Hina. When he came to the place where the dragon was hidden under deep waters, he took his magic spear and thrust it through the dirt and lava rocks along one side of the river, making a long hole, through which the waters rushed, revealing Kuna-mo-o's hiding place. This place of the spear thrust is known among the Hawaiians as Ka puka a Maui, ”the door made by Maui.” It is also known as ”The natural bridge of the Wailuku river.”
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