The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai. S. N. Haleole
in surfing over all the islands, lays a bet to win the beauty of Paliuli. He, too, returns crestfallen, the guards having proved too watchful. But Aiwohikupua is so delighted to hear of his sisters' position that he readily cancels the debt and hurries off to Puna. His sisters, however, mindful of his former cruelty, deny him access, and he returns to Kauai burning with rage, to collect a war party to lead against the obdurate girls. Only after band after band has been swallowed up in the jaws of the great lizard who guards Paliuli, and his supernatural fighting dog has returned with ears bitten off and tail between its legs, does he give over the attempt and return home disconsolate to Kauai.
Now, on his first voyage to Puna, as the chief came to land at Hana, Maui, a high chiefess named Hina fell in love with him. The two staking their love at a game of konane, she won him for her lover. He excused himself under pretext of a vow to first tour about Hawaii, but pledged himself to return. On the return trip he encountered and fell in love with the woman of the mountain, Poliahu or Snow-bosom, but she, knowing through her supernatural power of his affair with Hina, refused his advances. Now, however, he determines to console himself with this lady. His bird ambassadors go first astray and notify Hina, but finally the tryst is arranged, the bridal cortege arrives in state, and the bridal takes place. On their return to Kauai during certain games celebrated by the chiefs, the neglected Hina suddenly appears and demands her pledge. The jealous Poliahu disturbs the new nuptials by plaguing their couch first with freezing cold, then with burning heat, until she has driven away her rival. She then herself takes her final departure.
Kauakahialii, the high chief of Kauai, now about to die, cedes the succession to his favorite chief, Kekalukaluokewa, and bids him seek out the beauty of Paliuli for a bride. He is acceptable to both the girl and her grandmother—to the first for his good looks, to the second for his rank and power. But before the marriage can be consummated a wily rascal of Puna, through the arts of his wise sister Malio, abducts Laieikawai while she and her lover are out surfing, by his superior dexterity wins her affection, and makes off with her to Paliuli. When the grandmother discovers her grandchild's disgrace, she throws the girl over and seeks out her twin sister on Oahu to offer as bride to the great chief of Kauai. So beautiful is Laielohelohe that now the Puna rascal abandons his wife and almost tricks the new beauty out of the hands of the noble bridegroom; but this time the marriage is successfully managed, the mists clear, and bride and bridegroom appear mounted upon birds, while all the people shout, "The marriage of the chiefs!" The spectacle is witnessed by the abandoned beauty and her guardians, who have come thither riding upon the great lizard; and on this occasion Waka denounces and disgraces her disowned grandchild.
Left alone by her grandmother, lordly lover, and rascally husband, Laieikawai turns to the five virgin sisters and the great lizard to raise her fortunes. The youngest sister proposes to make a journey to Kealohilani, or the Shining-heavens, and fetch thence her oldest brother, who dwells in the "taboo house on the borders of Tahiti." As a youth of the highest divine rank, he will be a fit mate to wed her mistress. The chiefess consents, and during the absence of the ambassadress, goes journeying with her four remaining guardians. During this journey she is seen and recognized by the prophet of Kauai, who has for many years been on the lookout for the sign of the rainbow. Under his guardianship she and the four sisters travel to Kauai, to which place the scene now shifts. Here they once more face Aiwohikupua, and the prophet predicts the coming of the avenger. Meanwhile the lizard bears the youngest sister over sea. She ascends to various regions of the heavens, placating in turn her maternal uncles, father, and mother, until finally she reaches the god himself, where he lies basking in the white radiance of the noonday sun. Hearing her story, this divine one agrees to lay aside his nature as a god and descend to earth to wed his sister's benefactress and avenge the injuries done by his brother and Waka. Signs in the heavens herald his approach; he appears within the sun at the back of the mountain and finally stands before his bride, whom he takes up with him on a rainbow to the moon. At his return, as he stands upon the rainbow, a great sound of shouting is heard over the land in praise of his beauty. Thus he deals out judgment upon Laieikawai's enemies: Waka falls dead, and Aiwohikupua is dispossessed of his landed rights. Next, he rewards her friends with positions of influence, and leaving the ruling power to his wife's twin sister and her husband, returns with Laieikawai to his old home in the heavens.
In the final chapters the Sun-god himself, who is called "The eyeball-of-the-sun," proves unfaithful. He falls captive to the charms of the twin sister, sends his clever youngest sister, whose foresight he fears, to rule in the heavens, and himself goes down to earth on some pretext in pursuit of the unwilling Laielohelohe. Meanwhile his wife sees through the "gourd of knowledge" all that is passing on earth and informs his parents of his infidelity. They judge and disgrace him; the divine Sun-god becomes the first lapu, or ghost, doomed to be shunned by all, to live in darkness and feed upon butterflies. The beauty of Paliuli, on the other hand, returns to earth to live with her sister, where she is worshiped and later deified in the heavens as the "Woman-of-the-Twilight."
BACKGROUND OF THE STORY.
Whatever the original home of the Laieikawai story, the action as here pictured, with the exception of two chapters, is localized on the Hawaiian group. This consists of eight volcanic islands lying in the North Pacific, where torrid and tropical zones meet, about half again nearer to America than Asia, and strung along like a cluster of beads for almost 360 miles from Kauai on the northwest to the large island of Hawaii on the southeast. Here volcanic activity, extinct from prehistoric times on the other islands, still persists. Here the land attains its greatest elevation—13,825 feet to the summit of the highest peak—and of the 6,405 square miles of land area which constitute the group 4,015 belong to Hawaii. Except in temperature, which varies only about 11 degrees mean for a year, diversity marks the physical features of these mid-sea islands. Lofty mountains where snow lies perpetually, huge valleys washed by torrential freshets, smooth sand dunes, or fluted ridges, arid plains and rain-soaked forests, fringes of white beach, or abrupt bluffs that drop sheer into the deep sea, days of liquid sunshine or fierce storms from the south that whip across the island for half a week, a rainfall varying from 287 to 19 inches in a year in different localities—these are some of the contrasts which come to pass in spite of the equable climate. A similar diversity marks the plant and sea life—only in animal, bird, and especially insect life, are varieties sparsely represented.
Most of the action of the story takes place on the four largest islands—on Oahu, where the twins are born; on Maui, the home of Hina, where the prophet builds the temple to his god; on Hawaii, where lies the fabled land of Paliuli and where the surf rolls in at Keaau; and on Kauai, whence the chiefs set forth to woo and where the last action of the story takes place. These, with Molokai and Lanai, which lie off Maui "like one long island," virtually constitute the group.
Laie, where the twins are born, is a small fishing village on the northern or Koolau side of Oahu, adjoining that region made famous by the birth and exploits of the pig god, Kamapuaa. North from Laie village, in a cane field above the Government road, is still pointed out the water hole called Waiopuka—a long oval hole like a bathtub dropping to the pool below, said by the natives to be brackish in taste and to rise and fall with the tide because of subterranean connection with the sea. On one side an outjutting rock marks the entrance to a cave said to open out beyond the pool and be reached by diving. Daggett furnishes a full description of the place in the introduction to his published synopsis of the story. The appropriateness of Laie as the birthplace of the rainbow girl is evident to anyone who has spent a week along this coast. It is one of the most picturesque on the islands, with the open sea on one side fringed with white beach, and the Koolau range rising sheer from the narrow strip of the foothills, green to the summit and fluted into fantastic shapes by the sharp edge of the showers that drive constantly down with the trade winds, gleaming with rainbow colors.
Kukaniloko, in the uplands of Wahiawa, where Laielohelohe is concealed by her foster father, is one of the most sacred places on Oahu. Its fame is coupled with that of Holoholoku in Wailua, Kauai, as one of the places set apart for the birthplace of chiefs. Tradition says that since a certain Kapawa, grandson of a chief from "Tahiti" in the far past,