Hawaiian Folk Tales | Page 5

and fled to a country over which
reigned a king whose name was Kamohoalii. There he was thrown into
a dark place, a pit under ground, in which many persons were confined
for various crimes. Whilst confined in this dark place he told his
companions to dream dreams and tell them to him. The night following
four of the prisoners had dreams. The first dreamed that he saw a ripe
ohia (native apple), and his spirit ate it; the second dreamed that he saw
a ripe banana, and his spirit ate it; the third dreamed that he saw a hog,
and his spirit ate it; and the fourth dreamed that he saw awa, pressed
out the juice, and his spirit drank it. The first three dreams, pertaining
to food, Waikelenuiaiku interpreted unfavorably, and told the dreamers
they must prepare to die. The fourth dream, pertaining to drink, he
interpreted to signify deliverance and life. The first three dreamers were
slain according to the interpretation, and the fourth was delivered and
saved. Afterward this last dreamer told Kamohoalii, the king of the
land, how wonderful was the skill of Waikelenuiaiku in interpreting
dreams, and the king sent and delivered him from prison and made him
a principal chief in his kingdom."
Judge Fornander alludes to this legend, giving the name, however,
Aukelenui-a-Iku, and adding to it the account of the hero's journey to
the place where the water of life was kept (ka-wai-ola-loa-a-Kane), his
obtaining it and therewith resuscitating his brothers, who had been
killed by drowning some years before. Another striking similarity is
that furnished to Judge Fornander in the legend of Ke-alii-waha-nui:
"He was king of the country called Honua-i-lalo. He oppressed the
Menehune people. Their god Kane sent Kane-apua and Kaneloa, his
elder brother, to bring the people away, and take them to the land which
Kane had given them, and which was called Ka aina momona a Kane,

or Ka one lauena a Kane, and also Ka aina i ka haupo a Kane. The
people were then told to observe the four Ku days in the beginning of
the month as Kapu-hoano (sacred or holy days), in remembrance of this
event, because they thus arose (Ku) to depart from that land. Their
offerings on the occasion were swine and goats." The narrator of the
legend explains that formerly there were goats without horns, called
malailua, on the slopes of Mauna Loa on Hawaii, and that they were
found there up to the time of Kamehameha I. The legend further relates
that after leaving the land of Honualalo, the people came to the
Kai-ula-a-Kane (the Red Sea of Kane); that they were pursued by
Ke-alii-waha-nui; that Kane-apua and Kanaloa prayed to Lono, and
finally reached the Aina lauena a Kane.
"In the famous Hawaiian legend of Hiiaka-i-ka-poli-o-Pele, it is said
that when Hiiaka went to the island of Kauai to recover and restore to
life the body of Lohiau, the lover of her sister, Pele, she arrived at the
foot of the Kalalau Mountain shortly before sunset. Being told by her
friends at Haena that there would not be daylight sufficient to climb the
pali (precipice) and get the body out of the cave in which it was hidden,
she prayed to her gods to keep the sun stationary (i ka muli o Hea) over
the brook Hea, until she had accomplished her object. The prayer was
heard, the mountain was climbed, the guardians of the cave vanquished,
and the body recovered."
A story of retarding the sun and making the day longer to accomplish
his purpose is told of Maui-a-kalana, according to Dibble's history.
Judge Fornander alludes to one other legend with incidents similar to
the Old Testament history wherein "Na-ula-a-Mainea, an Oahu prophet,
left Oahu for Kauai, was upset in his canoe, was swallowed by a whale,
and thrown up alive on the beach at Wailua, Kauai."
Judge Fornander says that, when he first heard the legend of the two
brother prophets delivering the Menehune people, "he was inclined to
doubt its genuineness and to consider it as a paraphrase or adaptation of
the Biblical account by some semi-civilized or semi-Christianized
Hawaiian, after the discovery of the group by Captain Cook. But a
larger and better acquaintance with Hawaiian folk-lore has shown that

though the details of the legend, as interpreted by the Christian
Hawaiian from whom it was received, may possibly in some degree,
and unconsciously to him, perhaps, have received a Biblical coloring,
yet the main facts of the legend, with the identical names of persons
and places, are referred to more or less distinctly in other legends of
undoubted antiquity." And the Rev. Mr. Dibble, in his history, says of
these Hawaiian legends, that "they were told to the missionaries before
the Bible was translated