Note 1 — XXV KAMAPUAA LEGENDS

One morning while the sunlight of May looked into the hidden recesses and crevices of these valleys, bringing into sharp relief of shadow and light the outcropping ledges, a little band of Hawaiians and their white friends lay in the shade of a great kamani1 tree and talked about the legends which were told of the rugged rock masses of each valley, and the quiet pools of each rivulet. Where the little party lay was one of the sporting-places of Kamapuaa the “hog-child treated in the legends as a demi-god.” Not far away one of the mountain streams had broadened into a quiet bush-shaded lakelet with deep fringes of grass around its borders. Here the legendary hog-man with marvellous powers had bathed from time to time. A narrow gorge deep shadowed by the morning sun was the place which Kamapuaa had miraculously bridged for his followers when an enemy was closely pursuing them. Several large stones on the edges of the valleys were pointed out as the monuments of various adventures. An exquisitely formed little valley ran deep into the mountain almost in front of the legend-tellers. Far away in the upper end where the dark-green foliage blended with still darker shadows the sides of the valley narrowed until they were only from sixty to seventy feet apart, and unscalable precipices bent toward each other, leaving only a narrow strip of sky above. On the right of this valley is a branch-gorge down which fierce storms have hurled torrents of waters and mist. The upper end has been hollowed and polished in the shape of a finely rounded canoe of immense proportions. It was from this that the valley took its name Ka-liu-waa, possibly having the meaning, “the leaky canoe.” Some of the legends say that this was Kamapuaa’s canoe leaning against the precipice and always leaking out the waters which fell in it. Lying toward the west was a very fertile and open tract of land, Kaluanui, where Kamapuaa was said to have been born of Hina. After his birth he was thrown away by Kahiki-houna-kele, an older brother, and left to die. After a time Hina, the mother, went to a stream of clear, sweet water near her home to bathe. After bathing she went to the place where she had left her pa-u, or tapa skirt, and found a fine little hog lying on it. She picked it up and found that it was a baby. She was greatly alarmed, and gave the hog-child to another son, Kekelaiaika, that he might care for it, but the older brother stole the hog-child and carried it away to a cave in which Hina’s mother lived. Her name was Kamaunuaniho. The grandmother knew the hog-child at once as her grandson endowed with marvellous powers, and since the gods had given him the form of a hog he should be called kama (child), puaa (hog). Then she gave to the older brother kapa quilts in which to place Kamapuaa. These were made in layers; six sheets of kapa cloth formed the under quilt for a bed and six sheets the upper quilt for a cover. In these Kamapuaa slept while his brother prepared taro2 and breadfruit for his food. Thus the wonderful hog ate and slept usually in the form of a hog until size and strength came to him. Then he became mischievous and began to commit depredations at night. He would root up the taro in the fields of his neighbors, and especially in the field of the high chief Olopana. Then he would carry the taro home, root up ferns and grass until he had good land and then plant the stolen taro. Thus his grandmother and her retainers were provided with growing taro, the source of which they did not understand.