Kotharian Lightning

From Hawaiian Folklore

After a time Lepe-a-moa’s mother gave birth to a fine boy, who was named Kauilani. He was born in the forest by the water-springs Kawaikini. On the day of his birth a great storm swept over the land. Rain fell in torrents and swept in red streams down the valleys, thunder rolled, lightning flashed, earthquakes shook the land, and rainbows arched his birthplace. This time, since a boy was born, he belonged to the family of the father. His grandparents were Lau-ka-ie-ie and Kani-a-ula.

They took the child and bathed him in a wonderful fountain called Wai-ui (Water-of-strength), which had the power of conferring rapid growth, great strength, and remarkable beauty upon those who bathed therein. The child was taken frequently to this fountain, so that he grew rapidly and was soon a man with only the years of a boy. The two old people were kupuas having very great powers. They could appear as human beings or could assume wind bodies and fly like the wind from place to place. They could not give the boy a magical body, but they could give him supernatural powers with his name Kaui-lani (The-divine-athlete). They bound around him their marvellous malo (loin cloth) called Paihiku.

When Keahua, the father, saw the boy, he said: “How is it that you have grown so fast and become a man so soon? Life is with you. Perhaps now you can help me. A quarrelsome friend sought war with me a long time ago and came near killing me; that is why we dwell in this mountain forest beyond his reach. Maybe you and my servants can destroy this enemy,” telling him also the character and dwelling-place of Akua-pehu-ale.

Kauilani said to his father, “If you adopt my plan, perhaps we may kill this Akua-pehu-ale.” The father agreed and asked what steps should be taken. He was then told to send his servants up into the mountain to cut down Ahakea-trees and shape them into planks, then carry some of the sticks to the foot of the precipice near their home, and set them in the ground and to take the others to the sea and there set them up like stakes close together.

That night was made very dark by the sorcery of the young chief. All the people slept soundly. At midnight Kauilani went out into the darkness and called thus to his gods:

“O mountain! O sea! O South! O North! O all ye gods! Come to our aid! Inland at the foot of the Pali is the Ahakea; by the sea stands the ahakea, there by the beach of Hina. Multiply them with the wauke at the foot of the pali of Halelea and by the shore of Wailua. Bananas are ready for us this night. The bread-fruit and the sugar-cane are ours, O ye gods!”

Repeating this incantation, he went into his house and slept. In the morning the high chief, Keahua, went out and looked, and behold! The sticks planted below the precipice had taken root and sent out branches and intertwined until it spread an almost impenetrable thicket. There were also many groups of wauke-trees which had sprung up in the night. He called his wife, saying, “While we slept, this wonderful thing has transpired.”

Kauilani came out and asked his father to call all the people and have them go out and cut the bark from the wauke-trees, beat it into hapa, and spread it out to dry. This was quickly done, and two large houses also built and finished the same day. A taboo of silence was claimed for the night while he again petitioned the gods.

Soon deep darkness rested on the land, and all the people fell asleep, for they were very tired. Kauilani only remained awake at his incantations, listening to the rapid work of the gods in cutting trees, carving images, and filling the houses with them.

Awaking the next day, the chief and his people went to the houses and saw they were filled to overflowing with images, and covering the platforms and fences around the houses.

Kauilani said to his father, “Let the men go up to a high hill inland and burn the dry wood and brush to attract the attention of your enemy while we prepare our battle.”

Akua-pehu-ale was sporting in the sea when he saw the smoke rising from the hills and mingling with the clouds. He said: “That is something different from a cloud, and must be smoke from a fire made by some man. What man has escaped my eyes? I will go and see, and when I find him he shall be food for me.” Then he came to the beach, and his magic body flew to the lands below Hawaikini.

All the people had been concealed by Kaui-lani, who alone remained to face the sea-monster. He stood in the doorway of one of one of the two large houses, with an image on each side, for which he had made eyes looking like those of a man.

The god came up, and, fixing his eyes on the young chief, said: “Why are you hiding here? You have escaped in the past, but now you shall become my food.” He opened his mouth wide, one jaw rising up like a precipice, the other resting on the ground, his double-pointed tongue playing swiftly and leaping to swallow the chief and the images by his side.

Kauilani said sternly, “Return to your place to-day and you shall see my steps toward you place to-morrow for battle.”

The god hesitated, and then said: “Sweet is the fatness of this place. Your bones are soft, your skin is shining. The glory of your body this day shall cease.”

The chief, without making any motion, replied: “Wait a little; perhaps this means work for us two. This is my place. If I strike you, you may be my food, and the pieces of your body and your lands and property may fall to me like raindrops. It may be best that you should die, for you are very old, your eyelids hang down, and your skin is dry like that of an inihipili god (a god of skin and bones). But I am young. This is not the day for your fight. To-morrow we can have our contest. Return to your sea beach; to-morrow I will go down.”

The god thought a moment, and, knowing that the word of a chief was pledged for a battle, decided that he would return to a better place for a victory, so turned and went back to the shore.

The young chief at once called his father and the people, and said: “To-morrow I am going down to fight with our enemy. Perhaps he will kill me; if so, glorious will be my death for you; but I would ask you to command the people to eat until satisfied, let they be exhausted in the battle to-morrow; then let them sleep.”

He laid out his plan of battle and defence. His mother and the grandparents who had cared for him, with a number of the people, were to fight protected by the growth of trees at the foot of the pali, and were to turn the god and his people toward the houses filled with the wooden gods made by the aumakuas (the ghost-gods).

While all slept, Kauilani went out into the darkness and prayed to the thousands of the multitude of gods to work and establish his power from dawn until night.

In the morning he girded around him his malo of magic power and made ready to go down. His father came to him with a polished spear, its end shaped to a sharp point, and set it up between them, saying: “This spear is an ancestor of yours. It has miraculous power and can tell you what to do. Its name is Koa-wi Koa-wa. It now belongs to you to care for you and fight for you.” The young chief gratefully took the spear and then said to his father: “Your part is to be watchman in the battle to-day. If the smoke of the conflict rises to the sky and then sweeps seaward and at last comes before you, you may know that I am dead; but if the smoke rises to the foot of the precipice and passes along to the great houses, you may know that the enemy is slain.”

Then Kauilani took his spear and went down to the open field near the shore, talking all the way to it and to the gods. When he came to the seashore, he saw the god rising up like a mighty dragon, roaring and making a noise like reverberating thunder. As he rushed upon the chief, there was the sound as of great surf-waves beating on the beach. The sand and soil of the battlefield was tossed up in great clouds. The god fought in his animal body, which was that of a great, swollen sea-monster.

Kauilani whirled his sharp-edged spear with swift bird’s-wing movement, chanting meanwhile: “O Koa-wi Koa-wa, strike! Strike for the lives of us two! Strike!” The power of his magic girdle strengthened his arms, and the spear was ready to act in harmony with every thought of its chief. It struck the open mouth of that god, and turned it toward the precipice and thick trees. Backward it was forced by the swift strokes of the spear. When a rush was made, the chief leaped toward the pali, and thus the god was driven and lured away from his familiar surroundings. He became tangled in the thickets, and was harassed by the attacks of Kauilani’s friends.

At last his face was turned toward the houses filled with gods. The power which all the ghost gods had placed in the images of wood was now descending upon Akua-pehu-ale, and he began to grow weak rapidly. He felt the loss of strength, and turned to make a desperate rush upon the young chief.

Kauilani struck him a heavy blow, and the spear leaped again and again upon him, till he rolled into a mountain stream at a place called Kapaa, out of which he crawled almost drowned. Then he was driven along even to the image houses, where a fierce battle took place, in which the wooden images took part, many of them being torn to pieces by the teeth of Akua-pehu-ale.

Some legends say that Kauilani’s ancestress, Ke-ao-lewa, who had watched over his sister, the bird-child, Lepe-a-moa, had come from her home in the clouds to aid in the defeat of Akua-pehu-ale.

All forces uniting drove their enemy into a great, mysterious cloud of mana, or miraculous power, and he fell dead under a final blow of the cutting spear Koa-wi Kow-wa, Then Kau-ilani and his warriors rolled the dead body into one of the large houses. There he offered a chant of worship and of sacrifice, consecrating it as an offering to all the gods who had aided him in his battle.

When this ceremony was over he set fire to the houses and burned the body of Akua-pehu-ale and all the wooden images which remained after the conflict, the smoke of which rose up and swept along the foot of the precipice.

The father saw this, and told his people that the young chief had killed their enemy, so with great rejoicing they prepared a feast for the victorious chief and his helpers.

Kauilani went with his parents and grand-parents down to the shore and took possession of all that part of the island around Wailua, comprising large fish-ponds, and taro and sweet-potato lands, held by the servants of the vanquished god. These he placed under the charge of his father’s own faithful chiefs, and made his father once more king over the lands from which he had been driven.

Source:

Legends of Old Honolulu, W.D. Westervelt, 1916