Fornander collection of Hawaiian antiquities and folk-lore, Volume 1 (of 3) : $b The Hawaiians' account of the formation of their islands and origin of their race, with the traditions of their migrations, etc., as gathered from original sources
History
Fornander collection of Hawaiian antiquities and folk-lore, Volume 1 (of 3) : $b The Hawaiians' account of the formation of their islands and origin of their race, with the traditions of their migrations, etc., as gathered from original sources
Folklore -- Hawaii; Hawaii -- Social life and customs; Hawaiian language -- Texts; Legends -- Hawaii
According to this chant of Kamahualele, Wakea and his wife were not the
original progenitors of Hawaii nei, and here is this also: it seems
from this account that the people came from Tahiti to people these
islands as stated in the mele chanted by Kamahualele from the
cross-board of the canoe recited above.
CHAPTER V.
THE STORY OF OPUUKAHONUA.
It is told in the genealogy of Opuukahonua that they were the royal
parents or ancestors of these islands, and that there were ninety-five
generations from him to Kamehameha the Great. And they were found or
obtained by the fishing of Kapuheeuanui, and thus runs the tale: When
Kapuheeuanui let down his fishing line into the sea from Kapaahu his
line caught something that he thought was a fish and drew the line onto
the canoe when, behold, it was a piece of coral. The priest
Laulialamakua came along as Kapuheeuanui was disentangling his line
from the coral and preparing to throw it away. Then the priest spoke to
him, “Eh! Don’t throw away that piece of coral, for that is a chief, a
foreteller of events. Go thou and look for a pig and appease the god,
and after prayer call its name Hawaiiloa, then throw it back into the
sea, and it will grow up into an island.” Kapuheeuanui obeyed the
instructions of the priest. The next day Kapuheeuanui went fishing
again and his line was again caught by a coral. This time he bethought
himself of what the priest had said and took the coral to him, and the
priest said to him, “That is a man, a chief; call his name Mauiloa.” He
did so and then threw the coral back into the sea. On the third day of
Kapuheeuanui’s fishing his line was again entangled on a coral, making
the third piece of coral brought to the surface by his line, and, as he
had done before after freeing it from his line, took it to the priest.
The latter on beholding this coral exclaimed, “That is a man, a wohi, a
chief from the sacred air; call his name Oahunuialaa.” [48]
Kapuheeuanui continued fishing and always took to the priest the corals
he caught on his line, who named them and ordered him to go through the
same process of deifying them, or rather offering sacrifices to them,
until all the islands now comprising the group were successively raised
as corals. And thus, according to this tale, the islands of this group
grew up from pieces of coral. But then, this is only a tale, and this
is how one can ascertain the truth that these islands of Hawaii nei
really did grow from corals.
This is how the song runs that Makuakaumana [49] chanted at Tahiti,
when he and Paao went to get a new chief for Hawaii nei, because all
the old chiefs of Hawaii had sinned, Kapawa [50] being the king of
Hawaii at that time, he being of the fortieth generation from the time
of Opuukahonua. When Makuakaumana and company were nearing the beach in
the harbor of Moaulanuiakea [51] then Makuakaumana chanted to
Lonokaeho, the priest of that place:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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