HAWAIIAN MYTHOLOGY
Waiakeakua: Water of the Gods
http://apdl.kcc.hawaii.edu/~oahu/stories/kona/waiakeakua.htm
Kane and Kanaloa (a) came from the land of Kuaihelani (b) on a pointed cloud and arrived at Hanauma, O'ahu.
Kane was a kindly god, courteous ('olu'olu) in all his ways. As they traveled about the island, Kanaloa
complained of hunger and, turning to his older brother, said "O Kane! We keep on going and we are dying of
hunger! Let us eat."
Kane looked about and saw that there was no water for mixing their refreshment of 'awa drink (c). He struck the
earth with his staff and water gushed forth. When the two had eaten, they started on again along the highway.
They had not gone far when Kanaloa wanted to eat again. The country through which they were passing had no
water. As he had done before, Kane again struck the earth with his staff and water gushed forth. Wherever they
stopped to rest, Kanaloa asked for food, and many were the waterholes made by Kane between Hanauma and
Laeahi (d).
Photo: Laeahi
When the two reached 'Apuakehau (where the Moana Surfrider Hotel stands), they went sea-bathing, and then
lay on the beach with their backs to the sun to dry. As the sun went down, they set out again to ascend Manoa
valley. Passing through Kamo'ilili (Mo'ilili), they washed off the sand from their skin in the Papa'akea stream
(e). Sand said to have been left by these gods was for many years to be seen there, but today it is covered over.
On their way they rested on the Keapapa hill (at the place now called Punahou) and again Kanaloa teased his
brother for water and challenged his ability to produce it. Kane smiled, for he could hear the noise of water
within the hill, and he thrust his staff into the ground and the water gushed forth in abundance. It has been a
great blessing to the natives of that region and is said to be the source of the water on the McCullly tract. This
water of Kane was called "The new spring," Ka-puna-hou (f).
The two continued their journey up Manoa to Pu'ahu'ula (g). As they stood there facing the cliff, Kanaloa asked
his older brother if there were kupua (h) in that place. The two climbed a perpendicular cliff and found a pretty
woman living there with her woman attendant. Kameha'ikana (i) was the name of this kupua. Such was the
nature of the two women that they could appear in the form of human beings or of stones. Both Kane and
Kanaloa longed to possess this beauty of upper Manoa. The girl herself, after staring at them, was smitten with
love for the two gods. Kameha'ikana began to smile invitingly. The attendant saw that her charge did no know
which one of the two gods she wanted and knew that if they both got hold of her, she would be destroyed, and
she was furious. Fearing death for her beloved one, she threw herself headlong between the strangers and her
charge and blocked the way. Kane leaped to catch the girl, but could not reach her. The body of Kameha'ikana's
attendant stands there to this day, with the head down and the feet up. The mark of Kane's footprint remains
where he trod. At the place where the gods stood, 'ohi'a 'ai (mountain apple trees) sprang up whose branches
drooped over the surface of the water. The original trees are dead but their seedlings are grown and guard
Waiakeakua, Water of the Gods.
NOTES:The story of the spring and stream of Waiakeakua, the easternmost stream at the back of Manoa
valley, was publsihed in Green and Pukui, The Legend of Kawelo and Other Hawaiian Folk Tales (112-115; in
Hawaiian and English). Editor Martha Warren Beckwith notes: "Mr. John Holani Hao of Waialua, O'ahu, thinks
that this is a fanciful story and that the name [of the spring Waiakeakua] comes from the fact that only the high
chiefs were allowed to use this spring; it was kapu to others. A chief would often test the courage and fidelity of
a retainer by dispatching him at night to fill a gourd at this spring. The trickle was so slow that water could be
obtained only by using a footstalk of banana as trough. The fear of spirits abroad at night would daunt all but
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the bravest. The water when drawn was full of fine bubbles; if the messenger filled the gourd from another
source, he was always detected-'Where are the bubbles?'"
Regarding the trickling stream, see Puku'i 'Olelo No'eau, No. 2917: "Wai pe'epe'e palai o Waiakekua," "The
water of Waiakekua that plays hide-and-seek among the ferns." Some of the notes that follow are found in the
original text by editor Beckwith and are followed by her initials "MWB."
(a) Kane and Kanaloa, two of the four major gods of ancient Hawai'i, are paired in water-finding activities.
They also "'caused plants for the food of man to grow.'" (Beckwith Hawaiian Mythology 63). The god Kane is
said to have come from Kahiki:
Holo mai Kane mai Kahiki Holo a i'a iloko o ke kai Ke kekele 'au i ka moana O Haumea ke kaikuahine O
Kanaloa ia me Kane.
Here comes Kane from Kahiki Coming like a fish in the sea, Gliding through the ocean currents Haumea the
sister And Kanaloa are with Kane.
(Kamakau Ka Po'e Kahiko 68)
The genealogy of Kane is variously given in Hawaiian traditions. Kamakau says Kane, along with Lono and
Ku, was the god of human creation; Papa and Wakea appear twenty-eight generations later. According to Pakui,
"a lineal descendant of historians from the the very darkest ages," Wakea lived with Papa and gave birth to
Kane and Kanaloa (Buck 252). "The Kumulipo states that Kane and Kanaloa were born together as the children
of Kumuhonua (Foundation-of-the-earth) and Haloiho (Peer-beneath). Nineteen pairs later, in the same list,
Wakea appears" (Buck 252).
Beckwith says Kane was an ancestor of both chiefs and commoners, and worshiped by all social classes
(Hawaiian Mythology 42), suggesting there was a classless society before the society became stratified into
social classes. The different classes of Hawaiians are said to have come into existence in the generation of Papa
and Wakea: the ali'i traced their ancestry to Wakea; the kahuna came from Lihau'ula; and the maka'ainana from
Maku'u. These three brothers were sons of Kahiko Luamea and Kupulanakehau (Kamakau Tales 35; in the
Hawai'i Loa tradition, the chiefs and priests are said to be descended from Kunuiakea, a son of Hawai'i Loa;
commoners from Makali'i, one of Hawai'iloa's navigators.)
That Kane, Ku, and Lono were replacing the earth mother Papa and the sky father Wakea as the source of life
and creation suggests a male-dominated pantheon was evolving to supplant an older balance between the male
and the female gods. Kane, whose name means "male" and "man," came to be paired with other male gods
(Kane and Ku, or Kane and Kanaloa) or joined by Kamakau and Kepelino in a trinity with Ku and Lono, rather
than with a female deity (cf. the male Ku and female Hina; the female Papa and male Wakea).
Kane worship was simple, "without human sacrifice or laborious ritual. As such, it was unlike Ku worship,
which was "highly ritualistic and involved human sacrifice" (Beckwith 46), or Lono worship, which was
ritualized in the Makahiki festival. Although Kane was sometimes named in prayers to Ku and Lono during
rituals at the heiau, offerings and prayers to him were also made in a less formal setting, at a family altar called
Pohaku-o-Kane ("Stone of Kane"):
a conical stone from a foot to eight feet in height, plain or with slight carving, and planted about with ti plant,
where members of a family went to pray to their 'aumakua and ask forgiveness for the broken tapu to which
they ascribed any trouble that had come upon them. Here they sought protection from their family god with
offerings and prayer. They came early in the morning, chewed 'awa while a pig was baking, and, when all was
ready, ate under tapu, leaving no remnants and clearing away all rubbish. (Beckwith 46-47)
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Kane is said to have brought kalo, the main food crop, and other cultivated plants (coconuts, breadfruit, 'awa,
and wauke) to Hawai'i (Beckwith 62). A prayer to accompany an offering to Kane of kalo and 'awa leaves goes
as follows (Kamakau 35):
E kulia, e ikumaumaua e ke akua, E Kane, e Kaneikawaiola; Eia ka lu'au, ka lau'awa mua o ka 'ai a kakou; E
ho'i e 'ai ke akua; E 'ai ho'i ko'u 'ohana, E 'ai ka pua'a, E 'ai ka 'ilio. E ola ho'i a'u i ko pulapula, I mahi'ai, i
lawai'a, i kukulu hale, A kaniko'o, haumaka'iole, a palalauhala, A kau i ka puaaneane; O kau ola ka ho'i
ia. 'Amama, ua noa; lele wale aku la ho'i.
[Pause and receive thanks, O god. O Kane, O Kane-of-the-water-of-life; Here is the taro leaf, our first 'awa
leaf; Turn back and eat, O god; May my family also eat, The pigs eat, The dogs eat. Grant success to me, your
offspring, In farming, in fishing, in house-building, Until I am bent with age, blear-eyed as a rat, yellow as a
hala leaf, And reach advanced old age; This is the life that is yours to grant. 'Amama, the kapu is freed; the
prayer has gone on its way.]
Kane was the god of life, associated with fertility, good health, longevity-and life-giving water. "'Life is sacred
to Kane (ua kapu ke ola na Kane)', was the saying'" (Beckwith 46)
Kamakau says that the two gods first arrived in Hawai'i from Kahiki at the island of Kaho'olawe, then went to
Kahikinui, Maui, where they built a fishpond; "from them came the water of Kou at Kaupo." Later, they "broke
open rocks so that water would gush forth--sweet, flowing water--at Waihe'e and Kahakuloa on Maui, on
Lana'i, at Waiakane in Punakou on Moloka'i and at Kawaihoa on O'ahu" (Tales 112).
Kawaihoa, "the friendly water," is just to the west of Hanauma where the present story begins and continues
with the water-finding activities of the two gods in the Kona district of O'ahu.
(b) "One of the twelve mythical islands in the clouds controlled by the god Kane and inhabited by his
followers" (MWB). Kane often took the form of a cloud, bringing the water of life (ka waiola) to the islands.
(c) 'Awa is a mildly intoxicating drink made from the root of a pepper plant; a favorite drink of the gods and
chiefs.
(d) "Lae'ahi (now called Diamond Head) is erroneously spelled Leiahi [or Leahi]." [Lae is a promontory or
headland; 'ahi is the yellow-fin tuna.] "Great schools of 'ahi were formerly found about this cape. Another
explanation is that the promontory resembles the head of an 'ahi fish" (MWB).
(e) Papa'akea Stream may be the name of a section of Manoa stream, which used to flow into the ocean at
'Apuakehau, before the Ala Wai Canal channeled the water from Manoa and Makiki streams into the ocean
between the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor and Ala Moana Park. (Kapa'akea is the area makai of Manoa valley,
including Mo'ilili; see map of old Honolulu in John Papa Ii's Fragments of Hawaiian History, 93).
(f) See "Punahou" by Emma M. Nakuina for a different version of the creation of this spring.
(g) Pu'ahu'ula ("Feather Cloak Spring"), in upper Manoa Valley, is identified as the place where the mo'o
goddess Kihanuilulumoku ("Great island-shaking lizard) lived; "she had eel, lizard (mo'o) and female forms"
and is said to nourish the plants of Wa'aloa, "Long Canoe," the stream to the west of Waiakeakua in Manoa
valley. Queen Ka'ahumanu, wife of Kamehameha, the conqueror of the islands, had a home at this site and died
here in 1832. "Pu" is short for "Puna" or spring, and "'ahu'ula", a feather cloak, was a symbol of the ali'i (Pukui
et al Place Names).
(h) "A kupua is a descendant of a family of gods and has the power of transformation into certain inherited
forms" (MWB).
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(i) Kameha'ikana ("A multitude of descendants") was one of the names of the goddess of childbirth, Haumea.
Haumea took human form as Walinu'u (See Beckwith 281-283). According to Kamakau, Walinu'u was a mo'o
goddess (Ka Po'e Kahiko 85).
Water of Kane
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pac/ulh/ulh45.htm
If one were asked what, to the English-speaking mind, constitutes the most representative romantico-mystical
aspiration that has been embodied in song and story, doubtless he would be compelled to answer the legend and
myth of the Holy Grail. To the Hawaiian mind the aspiration and conception that most nearly approximates to
this is that embodied in the words placed at the head of this chapter, The Water of Kane. One finds suggestions
and hints of this conception in many passages of Hawaiian song and story, sometimes a phosphorescent flash,
answering to the dip of the poet's blade, sometimes crystallized into a set form; but nowhere else than in the
following mele have I found this jewel deliberately wrought into shape, faceted, and fixed in a distinct form of
speech.
This mele comes from Kauai, the island which more than any other of the Hawaiian group retains a tight hold
on the mystical and imaginative features that mark the mythology of Polynesia; the island also which less than
any other of the group was dazzled by the glamour of royalty and enslaved by the theory of the divine birth of
kings.
He Mele no Kane
He ú-i, he ninau:
E ú-i aku ana au ia oe,
Ala i-he’a ka wai a Kane?
Aia i ka hikina a ka La,
5 Puka i Hae-hae; a
Aia i-laila ka Wai a Kane.
E ú-i aku ana au ia oe, Aia i-hea ka Wai a Kane? Aia i Kau-lana-ka-la, b 10 I ka pae opua i ke kai, c Ea mai ana
ma Nihoa, d
p. 258
Ma ka mole mai o Lehua;
Aia i-laila ka Wai a Kane.
E ú-i aku ana au ia oe, 15 Aia i-hea ka Wai a Kane? Aia i ke kua-hiwi, i ke kua-lono, I ke awáwa, i ke kahawai; Aia i-laila ka Wai a Kane.
E ú-i aku ana au ia oe, 20 Aia i-hea ka Wai a Kane? Aia i-kai, i ka moana, I ke Kua-lau, i ke anuenue, I ka
punohu, a i ka ua-koko, b I ka alewa-lewa: 25 Aia i-laila ka Wai a Kane.
E ú-i aku ana au ia oe, Aia i-hea ka Wai a Kane? Aia i-luna ka Wai a Kane, I ke ouli, i ke ao eleele, 30 I ke ao
pano-pano, I ke ao popolo-hua mea a Kane la, e! Aia i-laila ka Wai a Kane.
E ú-i aku ana au ia oe. Aia i-hea ka Wai a Kane? 35 Aia i-lalo, i ka honua, i ka Wai hu, I ka wai kau a Kane me
Kanaloa-- c He wai-puna, he wai e inu, He wai e mana, he wai e ola. E ola no, e-a!
[Translation]
The Water of Kane
A query, a question,
I put to you:
Where is the water of Kane?
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At the Eastern Gate
5 Where the Sun comes in at Haehae;
There is the water of Kane.
A question I ask of you: Where is the water of Kane? Out there with the floating Sun,
p. 259
10 Where cloud-forms rest on Ocean's breast.
Uplifting their forms at Nihoa,
This side the base of Lehua;
There is the water of Kane.
One question I put to you: 15 Where is the water of Kane? Yonder on mountain peak, On the ridges steep, In
the valleys deep, Where the rivers sweep; 20 There is the water of Kane.
This question I ask of you: Where, pray, is the water of Kane? Yonder, at sea, on the ocean, In the driving
rain, 25 In the heavenly bow, In the piled-up mist-wraith, In the blood-red rainfall, In the ghost-pale cloudform; There is the water of Kane.
30 One question I put to you: Where, where is the water of Kane? Up on high is the water of Kane, In the
heavenly blue, In the black piled cloud, 35 In the black-black cloud. In the black-mottled sacred cloud of the
gods; There is the water of Kane.
One question I ask of you: Where flows the water of Kane? 40 Deep in the ground. in the gushing spring, In the
ducts of Kane and Loa, A well-spring of water, to quaff, A water of magic power-- The water of life! 45 Life! O
give us this life!
Water of Life
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pac/hhl/hhl07.htm
"THE SELF-RELIANT DRAGON" is frequently mentioned in the oldest Hawaiian legends. This dragon was
probably a very old crocodile worshipped as the ancestor goddess of the Hawaiian chief families.
She dwelt in one of the mysterious islands mentioned in the Hawaiian chants as Kua-i-Helani, "the Far-away
Helani," lying in the ancient far western home of the Polynesians.
Iku was the chief. He had several sons. The youngest was Aukele-nui-a-Iku, Aukele the Great Son of Iku.
Aukele was a favorite of the Self-reliant Dragon. She gave him a large bamboo stick. Inside she placed an
image of the god Lono, and also a magic leaf which could provide plenty of food for any one who touched the
leaf to his lips. She put in a part of her own skin.
She said, "This skin is a cloak for you. If you lift it up against any enemies, they will fall to pieces as dust and
ashes."
p. 25
They put all these treasures in the bamboo stick. Then the dragon taught the boy all kinds of magic power.
The brothers, who were great warriors, determined to sail away, find a new land and conquer it by fighting.
Aukele persuaded them to take him. Then he sent one to get the stick he had brought from the dragon pit which
was near the sea.
After a long time on the sea all their food was gone and they were starving and lying in the bottom of the boat.
Aukele fed them from the leaf which he touched to their lips.
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Some days passed and Aukele said, "To-morrow we will come to a land where a woman is the ruler. Let me tell
why we journey."
They said, "Did you build this boat, and have you its chant?"
He said: "We must not call this a boat for war, but of discovery, to find new land."
p. 26
The chiefess of that land looked out and saw a boat in the ocean, and sent some birds to see what the boat was
doing and learn whether it was a war canoe, or a travelling boat. The birds went out, and Aukele wanted his
brothers to say it was a travelling boat. The birds asked and the brothers said: "This is a war canoe." The birds
went away. Aukele took up the bamboo stick and threw it in the sea, and leaped in after it. The brothers threw
the cloak of Aukele on the beach.
The chiefess found the cloak and shook it toward the boat, then threw it away. The brothers broke into small
dust and were destroyed. The boat and the brothers sank to the bottom of the sea.
Aukele swam to the beach, pulled up his stick, found his cloak and lay down under a tree and slept. A watchdog
came out, and smelled the man, and barked.
The chiefess called two women, and told them to see who it was, and if they found any one, kill him. They
came down and the god of Aukele awakened him, and told him the names of the women.
The women came and he greeted them. They were ashamed because he had found their names, and one said to
the other, "What can we give him for naming us?" The other said, "We will let him be the husband of our ruler."
So they came and sat down by him, and they talked lovingly together and he won their hearts.
The women told him that they had been sent to kill him, but that they would say they did not find him; then
other messengers would be sent. They went home and told the chiefess: "We went to the precipice; there was no
one there. Then to the forest and the sea. There was no one there. Perhaps the dog made a mistake."
The chiefess turned the dog out again; at once there was more barking. She told her bird brothers to go and look
over the land. Lono saw them
p. 27
and said; "Here is another death day for us. I will tell you who these birds are. When they come you say their
names quickly and welcome them." So he did. They wondered how he knew their names. This knowledge gave
him power over them and they could not harm him. The birds also thought they would have to offer their ruler
as a wife to this wonderful stranger. They went back to their sister and told her they had found a husband for
her. This pleased her. She sent them after Aukele. He told them he would go by and by.
Lono said to Aukele, "Death has partly passed, but more trouble lies before us. When you go up do not sit down
or enter the house. Stand at the door. First these two women will come. If they say 'Aloha' it is all right. The dog
will come and will try to kill you. When he has passed by, the brothers will come. The food they make and put
in old calabashes, do not eat. See if the calabash has anything growing in its cracks. You will find new
calabashes scattered over the ground. Food and fish and water are inside. Eat from these."
He made ready to go, and went up to the house, and stood by the door. The two women said "Aloha" and called
to him to come in, but he would not enter. The dog ran out, opened her mouth and tried to bite Aukele through
the magic cloak. The dog became ashes. The chiefess saw the dog was
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p. 28
dead and was very sorry because he was the watchman for her land.
The brothers came to him with food which they had put in moss-covered calabashes. He never touched it. It was
the death food. He went to a place where green calabash vines were growing, took a calabash, shook it, broke it,
opened it and found good food inside.
Then they lived as man and wife. The chiefess had been a cannibal but at this time stopped eating men. Soon a
son was born.
After a time the bird brothers taught Aukele how to leap into the air and fly as a bird.
The chiefess told her brothers to go away into the heavens and find her father, Ku-waha-ilo, a cannibal god. He
was also the father of Pele, the goddess of volcanic fire. They must tell him that she had given all her treasures
to her husband
stars, lands, and seas. She told them to take her husband to see the father.
They flew away, Aukele flying faster than the others. The father saw him and thought his daughter was dead.
He said, "She is the watch-man for my land, and no man could come here if she were alive," and he was angry.
Lono told Aukele to put on his magic cloak that now covered him from head to foot. Then he understood there
must be a battle. The cannibal father made fire, called Kuku-ena (the lightning); then Ikuwa, a stone crashing
like thunder.
p. 29
[paragraph continues] The lightning and the crashing stone were struck by the cloak and rattled into ashes,
cracking and breaking, reverberating, sounding like a drum.
The bird brothers saw the fire and heard the thunder. They were far behind Aukele. They saw the lightning and
the thunder defeated. After the battle, they all came before their father and told him that the daughter was well
and this was her husband.
After this flight to a cannibal land and this victory over the cannibal god, Aukele returned to his wife.
After a time the ghosts of his brothers appeared to him and reminded him of their grave in the sea.
Aukele was very sorry and ate nothing for days. His wife, with great sympathy, told him if he had strength
enough to find the living water of Kane he could still restore his brothers. He was encouraged and ate. He asked
what path he should take to find the land of the water of life. She made a straight line toward the East, the
sunrise, and told him to fly straight, not swerving to either side.
He took his bamboo stick with all his aid inside and put it under his arm, put on his magic cloak, and said
"Aloha." A long time passed.
He thought he was flying in a straight line, but one arm became tired because the stick was under it. He changed
the stick, and this moved his direction. His god saw this and told him he was
p. 30
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leaving the straight line and was flying to some other place. There was fire far below. All the people had fled
except one. The god said, "Let us go straight till we come to that one; then you catch him and hold him fast. We
shall have life." This was the moon, who was an ancestress of his wife. The moon had been cooking food. She
arose to take up her food and get ready to go. But Aukele caught her, held her and ate her food. She thus
became thin--a new moon--and the traveller gained strength to return to his home.
Aukele thought he would try again, according to his wife's line. She made a line from the door of the house
toward the sunrise, and warned him. He flew straight a long time until he found a strange land with a deep pit
lined with trees and wonderful plants. At the bottom was the spring of the water of life. He leaped down upon
the back of a watchman on the edge of the pit, who had been put there by the guardian to kill any one coming
after the water. He tried to shake Aukele off, saying: "Who are you? What do you mean, O proud man? My
grandchild, the brother of Pele, never got on my back. Who are you?" He gave his name and ancestors, and told
the watchman he had come for the water of life for his brothers. The watchman said: "Go straight out from
where I stand. Do not turn to the side or you will strike bamboo which will make a great noise, and my
grandchild, Pele's brother, will hear
p. 31
and will cover the water tight, and you cannot get it."
So Aukele flew and leaped straight on the second watchman, who told him not to go to the left or he would
strike the lama trees (very hard wood, used for building houses for the gods). These trees would make a great
noise and the guardian would cover the water tight and he could not get it.
He flew to another watchman, who told him to go straight to the bottom of the pit. "There a blind woman will
be sitting. Look at the place where she is cooking bananas. She will take them one by one. You eat all her
bananas. Then she will become angry and throw ashes. If she throws on the right side, you must fly to the left.
Watch if she strikes with a stick, then run quickly, sit in her lap, and tell her who you are."
When he had done all these things and all attempts to kill him had failed, Aukele made the old blind woman lie
down under a cocoanut tree. He got two young cocoanuts and told her to turn her eyes toward the sky. He
dropped the cocoanuts in her eyes. She wept sorely because of the pain. He told her to rub the water out of her
eyes and not cry. She did so, and said: "I can see you." He came down from the tree and she told him what he
must do to get the water of life: "Go and break the stem of a water plant, and near it a bush with white flowers.
Bring them to me." This he did and laid the plants before her. She squeezed the
p. 32
water from the plants into a cup, took charcoal and other things and mixed them together until black; then she
painted Aukele's hands very black, like the hands of the brother of Pele. His hands were black, and those
watching the water of life would look at the hands reaching for water and make no mistake. They would tightly
cover up the water if a white hand came down. "Wait until the guardian god is asleep and the servants are
preparing drink for him when he should awake. Then go to the door and one will give you some water. The first
will be dirty water; throw it away. Put your hand down again. They will give you another calabash of water.
This will be the living water of Kane; take it."
He went down and put his hand in for the water. The watchman handed out a calabash of dirty water. He threw
it away and again thrust his black hand down the pit.
The watchman gave him a calabash of the pure water of life.
He flew rapidly along the path to the outside world. In his haste he struck the leaves of the groves of trees and
the noise was that of strong winds thrashing the branches and leaves back and forth, up and down. The sound
swept through the land of the water of life like rolling thunder.
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The brother of Pele and his servants awoke and followed, but he fled through the heavens to the place where the
ghosts of his brothers lay in the
p. 33
sunken ship by the home of the goddess of the sea.
They all went down to the sea. The chiefess told her husband to pour the water of life in his hand. She put her
fingers in the water and sprinkled drops over the sea.
Out in the ocean under the moving surface was a boat, its mast coming up through the waves. In a little while
they saw men standing in the boat. These were the brothers of Aukele. After the welcome, he gave them lands
and homes.
In that strange far-off land of the ancestors--the mysterious "Floating Island"--the "Hidden Island of Kane," it is
said they still live under the rule of their younger brother.
Aukele thought he would like to see his parents once more, so he went to the far-away Helani--but the land was
desolate. The parents were gone, the people had disappeared, the houses had all decayed, and the land was
covered with a forest.
Only a dragon was left--one of the family of the "Self-reliant Dragon." He discovered her body fast in the coral
reef near the shore. He thought she was dead, but he stood up and stamped with full strength and broke the coral
so that the dragon was free. He saw the body moving, but the dragon was very weak and near death.
He was sorry for her, remembering that it was by the aid of dragon powers he had gone into the heavens and
from the deep pit of the skies secured the water of life. Therefore he provided food
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and gave new life to the dragon. He asked about his parents and their gods, and the desolation of the land.
The dragon told him how the entire household of gods, dragons and men had found a new home, in the Islands
of Oahu and Hawaii. She told how "the child adopted or brought up by the gods," and the Maiden of the Golden
Clouds, had been taken by the Self-reliant Dragon to Oahu, and how all the rest had gone, leaving her as a guard
in the old land of his birth and childhood.
Aukele went back to the legendary land, the "Hidden Island of Kane," and there lived among the ghost gods
who welcome the dead as they escape from wandering over the islands and fly by the path of the sunset back to
the home of the most distant ancestors--the mysterious lands in the skies of the western seas.
Here he and his brothers are high chiefs of the au-makuas, the ghost gods of Hawaii, who wait to welcome and
give peace to the spirits of the dead.
Legend of taro
http://www.coffeetimes.com/taro2.htm
The roots of taro run deeper in the Hawaiian culture than they sink into the muddy patches of Waipi'o Valley or
even into the ruins of ancient dry land lo'i (terraces) at Greenbank in North Kohala, once part of the great King
Kamehameha's ahupua'a. In Hawaiian legend, the taro, or kalo plant originated when the son of Wakea (Sky
Father) and his daughter Ho'ohoukalani was born lifeless and deformed like the gnarled root of a plant. The
grieving parents buried the baby, but the next day a taro plant sprouted from the grave, which Wakea named
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Haloa. When the second son of Wakea and Ho'ohoukalani was born, they named him Haloa, also, because he
was the younger brother of taro, from whom all Hawaiians descended.
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