XXXIII.—THE HULA PUA’A
Reading edition
The hula pua’a rounds out the number of animal-dances that have survived the wreck of time, or the memory of which has come down to us. It was a dance in which only the olapa took part without the aid of instrumental accompaniment. Women as well as men were eligible as actors in its performance. The actors put much spirit into the action, beating the chest, flinging their arms in a strenuous fashion, throwing the body into strained attitudes, at times bending so far back as almost to touch the floor. This energy seems to have invaded the song, and the cantillation of the mele is said to have been done in that energetic manner called ai-ha’a.
The hula pua’a seems to have been native to Kauai. The author has not been able to learn of its performance within historic times on any other island.
The student of Hawaiian mythology naturally asks whether the hula pua’a concerned itself with the doings of the mythological hog-deity Kama-pua’a whose amour with Pele was the scandal of Hawaiian mythology. It takes but a superficial reading of the mele to answer this question in the affirmative.
The following mele, or oli more properly, which was used in connection with the hula pua’a, is said to have been the joint production of two women, the daughters of a famous bard named Kana, who was the reputed brother of Limaloa (long-armed), a wonder-working hero who piled up the clouds in imitation of houses and mountains and who produced the mirage:
Oli
Ike ia na pae moku,
Ka noho a Ka-maulu-a-niho,
5
Kupuna o Kama-pua’a.
Ku ka paóa i na mokupuni.
Ua puni au ia Pele,
Ka u’i noho mau i Kilauea,
10
Anau hewa i ke a o Puna.
Hina ka opua, kau i ke olewa,
15
Kela kuahiwi a mau a ke ahi.
He manao no ko’u e noho pu;
Pale ’a mai e ka hilahila,
20
I ka hakukole ia mai e ke Akua wahine
Pale oe, pale au, iloko o ka hilahila;
A hilahila wale ia iho no e oe;
Ka hana ia a ke Ko’i maka nui,
25
Ike ia na pae moku.
He hi’i-alo na Ku-ula,
Ka mea nana na haka moa;
30
Ku’u wa’a ia ho’i i Kahiki.
Pau ia ike ana ia Hawaii,
Ka aina a ke Akua i hiki mai ai,
I noho malihini ai i na moku o Hawaii.
Malihini oe, malihini au,
35
Ko’i maka nui, ike ia na-pae opuaa.
A pepelu, a pepelu, a pepelu
Ko ia la huelo! pili i ka lemu!
Hu! hu! hu! hu!
40
A e o mai oe, e Kane-hoa-lani.
Ua noa.
[Translation.]
Song
Ax of broadest edge I’m hight; The island groups I’ve visited, Islands of Mala-la-walu, Seat of Ka-maulu-a-niho, 5Grandam of Kama, the swine-god. I have seen Pi’i-lani’s glory, Whose fame spreads over the islands. Enamored was I of Pele; Her beauty holds court at the fire-pit, 10Given to ravage the plains of Puna. Mischievous son of Ku, and of Hina, Whose cloud-bloom hangs in ether, The pig-shaped cloud that shadows Haupu. An impulse comes to return to Kahiki— 15The chains of the pit still gall me, The tabu cliff of Ka-moho-alii, The mount that is ever ablaze. I thought to have domiciled with her; Was driven away by mere shame— 20The shameful abuse of the goddess! Go thou, go I—a truce to the shame. It was your manners that shamed me. Free to you was the house we lived in. These were the deeds of Broad-edged-Ax, 25Who has seen the whole group of islands. Olopana’s firstborn am I, Nursed in the arms of Ku-ula; Hers were the roosts for the gamecocks. The wilds of Ka-liu-wa’a my home, 30That too my craft back to Kahiki; This my farewell to Hawaii, Land of the God’s immigration. Strangers we came to Hawaii; A stranger thou, a stranger I, 35Called Broad-edged-Ax: I’ve read the cloud-omens in heaven. It curls, it curls! his tail—it curls! Look, it clings to his buttocks! Faugh, faugh, faugh, faugh, uff! 40What! Ka-haku-ma’a-lani your name! Answer from heaven, oh Kane! My song it is done!
If one can trust, the statement of the Hawaiian who communicated the above mele, it represents only a portion of the whole composition, the first canto—if we may so term it—having dropped into the limbo of forgetfulness. The author’s study of the mele lends no countenance to such a view. Like all Hawaiian poetry, this mele wastes no time with introductory flourishes; it plunges at once in medias res.
Hawaiian mythology figured Pele, the goddess of the volcano, as a creature of passion, capable of many metamorphoses; now a wrinkled hag, asleep in a cave on a rough lava bed, with banked fires and only an occasional blue flame playing about her as symbols of her power; now a creature of terror, riding on a chariot of flame and carrying destruction; and now as a young woman of seductive beauty, as when she sought passionate relations with the handsome prince, Lohiau; but in disposition always jealous, fickle, vengeful.
Kama-pua’a was a demigod of anomalous birth, character, and make-up, sharing the nature and form of a man and of a hog, and assuming either form as suited the occasion. He was said to be the nephew of Olopana, a king of Oahu, whose kindness in acting as his foster father he repaid by the robbery of his henroosts and other unfilial conduct. He lived the lawless life of a marauder and freebooter, not confining his operations to one island, but swimming from one to another as the fit took him. On one occasion, when the farmers of Waipi’o, whom he had robbed, assembled with arms to bar his retreat and to deal vengeance upon him, he charged upon the multitude, overthrew them with great slaughter, and escaped with his plunder.
Toward Pele Kama-pua’a assumed the attitude of a lover, whose approaches she at one time permitted to her peril. The incident took place in one of the water caves—volcanic bubbles—in Puna, and at the level of the ocean; but when he had the audacity to invade her privacy and call to her as she reposed in her home at Kilauea she repelled his advances and answered his persistence with a fiery onset, from which he fled in terror and discomfiture, not halting until he had put the width of many islands and ocean channels between himself and her.
The likeness to be found between the amphibious Kama-pua’a and the hog appeals picturesquely to one’s imagination in many ways. The very grossness of the hog enables him becomingly to fill the role of the Beast as a foil to Pele, the Beauty. The hog’s rooting snout, that ravages the cultivated fields; his panicky retreat when suddenly disturbed; his valiant charge and stout resistance if cornered; his lowered snout in charge or retreat; his curling tail—how graphically all these features appeal to the imagination in support of the comparison which likens him to a tidal wave.