Part 13 (2/2)

The second sister, Hina Kuluua, the G.o.ddess of rain, was always very jealous of her beautiful sister Hina Ke Ahi, and many times sent rain to put out fires which her sister tried to kindle. Hina Ke Ahi could not stand the rain and so fled with her people to a home by the seaside.

Hina Kuluua (or Hina Kuliua as she was sometimes known among the Hawaiians) could control rain and storms, but for some reason failed to provide a food supply for her people, and the famine wrought havoc among them. She thought of the stories told and songs sung about her sister and wished for the same honor for herself. She commanded her people to make a great imu for her in the hill Puu Honu. She knew that a strange power belonged to her and yet, blinded by jealousy, forgot that rain and fire could not work together. She planned to furnish a great supply of food for her people in the same way in which her sister had worked.

The oven was dug. Stones and wood were collected and the same ghostly array of potatoes, taro, pig and dog prepared as had been done before by her sister.

The kahunas or priests knew that Hina Kuluua was going out of her province in trying to do as her sister had done, but there was no use in attempting to change her plans. Jealousy is self-willed and obstinate and no amount of reasoning from her dependents could have any influence over her.

The ordinary incantations were observed, and Hina Kuluua gave the same directions as those her sister had given. The imu was to be well heated.

The make-believe food was to be put in and a place left for her body. It was the G.o.ddess of rain making ready to lie down on a bed prepared for the G.o.ddess of fire. When all was ready, she lay down on the heated stones and the oven mats were thrown over her and the ghostly provisions. Then the covering of dirt was thrown back upon the mats and heated stones, filling the pit which had been dug. The G.o.ddess of rain was left to prepare a feast for her people as the G.o.ddess of fire had done for her followers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: On Lava Beds.]

Some of the legends have introduced the demi-G.o.d Maui into this story.

The natives say that Maui came to ”burn” or ”cook the rain” and that he made the oven very hot, but that the G.o.ddess of rain escaped and hung over the hill in the form of a cloud. At least this is what the people saw--not a cloud of smoke over the imu, but a rain cloud. They waited and watched for such evidences of underground labor as attended the pa.s.sage of Hina Ke Ahi through the earth from the hill to the sea, but the only strange appearance was the dark rain cloud. They waited three days and looked for their chiefess to come in the form of a woman. They waited another day and still another and no signs or wonders were manifest. Meanwhile Maui, changing himself into a white bird, flew up into the sky to catch the ghost of the G.o.ddess of rain which had escaped from the burning oven. Having caught this spirit, he rolled it in some kapa cloth which he kept for food to be placed in an oven and carried it to a place in the forest on the mountain side where again the attempt was made to ”burn the rain,” but a great drop escaped and sped upward into the sky. Again Maui caught the ghost of the G.o.ddess and carried it to a pali or precipice below the great volcano Kilauea, where he again tried to destroy it in the heat of a great lava oven, but this time the spirit escaped and found a safe refuge among kukui trees on the mountain side, from which she sometimes rises in clouds which the natives say are the sure sign of rain.

Whether this Maui legend has any real connection with the two Hinas and the famine we do not surely know. The legend ordinarily told among the Hawaiians says that after five days had pa.s.sed the retainers decided on their own responsibility to open the imu. No woman had appeared to give them directions. Nothing but a mysterious rain cloud over the hill. In doubt and fear, the dirt was thrown off and the mats removed. Nothing was found but the ashes of Hina Kuluua. There was no food for her followers and the G.o.ddess had lost all power of appearing as a chiefess.

Her bitter and thoughtless jealousy brought destruction upon herself and her people. The ghosts of Hina Ke Ahi and Hina Kuluua sometimes draw near to the old hills in the form of the fire of flowing lava or clouds of rain while the old men and women tell the story of the Hinas, the sisters of Maui, who were laid upon the burning stones of the imus of a famine.

XV.

HINA, THE WOMAN IN THE MOON.

The Wailuku river has by its banks far up the mountain side some of the most ancient of the various interesting picture rocks of the Hawaiian Islands. The origin of the Hawaiian picture writing is a problem still unsolved, but the picture rocks of the Wailuku river are called ”na kii o Maui,” ”the Maui pictures.” Their antiquity is beyond question.

The most prominent figure cut in these rocks is that of the crescent moon. The Hawaiian legends do not attempt any direct explanation of the meaning of this picture writing. The traditions of the Polynesians both concerning Hina and Maui look to Hina as the moon G.o.ddess of their ancestors, and in some measure the Hawaiian stories confirm the traditions of the other island groups of the Pacific.

Fornander, in his history of the Polynesian race, gives the Hawaiian story of Hina's ascent to the moon, but applies it to a Hina the wife of a chief called Aikanaka rather than to the Hina of Hilo, the wife of Akalana, the father of Maui. However, Fornander evidently found some difficulty in determining the status of the one to whom he refers the legend, for he calls her ”the mysterious wife of Aikanaka.” In some of the Hawaiian legends Hina, the mother of Maui, lived on the southeast coast of the Island Maui at the foot of a hill famous in Hawaiian story as Kauiki. Fornander says that this ”mysterious wife” of Aikanaka bore her children Puna and Huna, the latter a noted sea-rover among the Polynesians, at the foot of this hill Kauiki. It can very easily be supposed that a legend of the Hina connected with the demi-G.o.d Maui might be given during the course of centuries to the other Hina, the mother of Huna. The application of the legend would make no difference to anyone were it not for the fact that the story of Hina and her ascent to the moon has been handed down in different forms among the traditions of Samoa, New Zealand, Tonga, Hervey Islands, Fate Islands, Nauru and other Pacific island groups. The Polynesian name of the moon, Mahina or Masina, is derived from Hina, the G.o.ddess mother of Maui. It is even possible to trace the name back to ”Sin,” the moon G.o.d of the a.s.syrians.

The moon G.o.ddess of Ponape was Ina-maram. (Hawaiian Hina-malamalama), ”Hina giving light.”

In the Paumotan Islands an eclipse of the sun is called Higa-higa-hana (Hina-hiua-hana), ”The act (hana) of Hina--the moon.”

In New Zealand moonless nights were called ”Dark Hina.”

In Tahiti it is said there was war among the G.o.ds. They cursed the stars. Hina saved them, although they lost a little light. Then they cursed the sea, but Hina preserved the tides. They cursed the rivers, but Hina saved the springs--the moving waters inland, like the tides in the ocean.

The Hawaiians say that Hina and her maidens pounded out the softest, finest kapa cloth on the long, thick kapa board at the foot of Kauiki.

Incessantly the restless sea dashed its spray over the picturesque groups of splintered lava rocks which form the Kauiki headland. Here above the reach of the surf still lies the long, black stone into which the legends say Hina's kapa board was changed. Here Hina took the leaves of the hala tree and, after the manner of the Hawaiian women of the ages past, braided mats for the household to sleep upon, and from the nuts of the kukui trees fas.h.i.+oned the torches which were burned around the homes of those of high chief rank.

At last she became weary of her work among mortals. Her family had become more and more troublesome. It was said that her sons were unruly and her husband lazy and s.h.i.+ftless. She looked into the heavens and determined to flee up the pathway of her rainbow through the clouds.

The Sun was very bright and Hina said, ”I will go to the Sun.” So she left her home very early in the morning and climbed up, higher, higher, until the heat of the rays of the sun beat strongly upon her and weakened her so that she could scarcely crawl along her beautiful path.

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