Hawaiian Legends Of Old Honolulu. William Drake Westervelt
Hawaiian Legends Of Old Honolulu
WILLIAM DRAKE WESTERVELT
Hawaiian Legends of Old Honolulu, W. D. Westervelt
Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck
86450 Altenmünster, Loschberg 9
Deutschland
ISBN: 9783849659349
www.jazzybee-verlag.de
CONTENTS:
I. THE MIGRATION OF THE HAWAIIANS. 5
II. LEGENDARY PLACES IN HONOLULU.. 11
III. THE GOD OF PAKAKA TEMPLE.. 15
IV, LEGEND OF THE BREAD-FRUIT TREE.. 18
V. THE GODS WHO FOUND WATER.. 22
VI. THE WATER OF LIFE OF KA-NE.. 25
VII. MAMALA THE SURF-RIDER.. 29
VIII. A SHARK PUNISHED AT WAIKIKI 31
IX. THE LEGENDARY ORIGIN OF KAPA.. 33
XI. THE CHIEF WITH THE WONDERFUL SERVANTS[1] 41
XIII. THE CANNIBAL DOG-MAN.. 48
XIV. THE CANOE OF THE DRAGON.. 52
XVI. THE GHOST DANCE ON PUNCHBOWL. 59
XVII. THE BIRD-MAN OF NUUANU VALLEY.. 63
XVIII. THE OWLS OF HONOLULU.. 66
XIX. THE TWO FISH FROM TAHITI 71
XX. IWA, THE NOTABLE THIEF OF OAHU.. 76
FOREWORD
The legends of a people are of interest to the scholar, the thinker, and the poet.
The legends tell us of the struggles, the triumphs, and the wanderings of the people, of their thoughts, their aspirations; in short, they give us a twilight history of the race.
As the geologist finds in the rocks the dim records of the beginnings of life on our planet, the first foreshadowings of the mighty forests that have since covered the lands, and of the countless forms of animal life that have at last culminated in Man, so does the historian discover in the legends of a people the dim traces of its origin and development till it comes out in the stronger light of the later day.
So it is with the legends of the Hawaiians, or of the Polynesian race. We see them, very indistinctly, starting from some distant home in Asia, finally reaching the Pacific Ocean, and then gradually spreading abroad over its islands till they dominate a large portion of its extent.
In bringing together this collection of Hawaiian legends, the author of this little book has conferred a great favor upon all those residents of Hawaii and of those visitors to its shores who may take an interest in its original inhabitants, once an exceedingly numerous people, but now a scattering remnant only. To that native race this little book will be at once a joy and a sorrow; to the heart of the haole, who has lived among them, known them intimately for thirty years or more (as has the writer of this Foreword), and learned to love them, this collection of the legends of old Honolulu brings a warm "Aloha!
GEO. H. BARTON,
Director, Teachers' School
of Science, Boston, Mass.
JUNE 4, 1915.
INTRODUCTION
The ancient Hawaiians were not inventive. They did not study new methods of house-building or farming. They did not seek new tools or new weapons. They could live comfortably as their ancestors lived. But they were imaginative and therefore told many a wonderful tale of gods and goblins and men. Some of these stories were centuries old, and were closely akin to legends told in Tahiti, Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand and many other islands of the Pacific Ocean. Most of them were of course limited to the locality from which they came. The Honolulu legends belong to this class almost entirely, although a student of Polynesian mythology will find many traces of connecting links with the mythology of far distant islands.
The legends of Old Honolulu have been compiled from stories told by the old Hawaiians. Some of them came from those still living, but many have been found in the files of papers published from 1850 to 1870.
The first alphabet for Hawaiians was prepared in 1821. The Hawaiians were taught to read and write their histories and ancient stories as rapidly as possible. This was the result of the labors of the American missionaries. Some of the missionaries, notably Mr. Dibble, sent their pupils out to write down and preserve the old legends and traditions. Between thirty and forty years after the first lesson in the alphabet the Hawaiians were writing articles for papers published regularly in their own language--such as Ka Hae Hawaii (The Hawaiian Flag), Ke Kuokoa (The Independent), Ka Hoku Pakipika (The Star of the Pacific). These were followed by many papers down to the present time edited solely by Hawaiians.
Careful research through these