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compact and worried my father into sending me to England. I took
old Howard along, and he perked up and confuted the doctors, so
that it was three years before I buried him restored to the bosom
of my family. Sometimes I think he was the most brilliant man I
have ever known. Not until my return from England did Ahuna die,
the last custodian of our alii secrets. And at his death-bed he
pledged me again never to reveal the location in that nameless
valley, and never to go back myself.
"Much else I have forgotten to mention did I see there in the cave
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that one time. There were the bones of Kumi, the near demigod, son
of Tui Manua of Samoa, who, in the long before, married into my
line and heaven-boosted my genealogy. And the bones of my great-
grandmother who had slept in the four-poster presented her by Lord
Byron. And Ahuna hinted tradition that there was reason for that
presentation, as well as for the historically known lingering of
the Blonde in Olokona for so long. And I held her poor bones in my
hands--bones once fleshed with sensate beauty, informed with
sparkle and spirit, instinct with love and love-warmness of arms
around and eyes and lips together, that had begat me in the end of
the generations unborn. It was a good experience. I am modern,
'tis true. I believe in no mystery stuff of old time nor of the
kahunas. And yet, I saw in that cave things which I dare not name
to you, and which I, since old Ahuna died, alone of the living
know. I have no children. With me my long line ceases. This is
the twentieth century, and we stink of gasolene. Nevertheless
these other and nameless things shall die with me. I shall never
revisit the burial-place. Nor in all time to come will any man
gaze upon it through living eyes unless the quakes of earth rend
On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales
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71
the mountains asunder and spew forth the secrets contained in the
hearts of the mountains."
Prince Akuli ceased from speech. With welcome relief on his face,
he removed the lei hala from his neck, and, with a sniff and a
sigh, tossed it into concealment in the thick lantana by the side
of the road.
"But the shin-bone of Laulani?" I queried softly.
He remained silent while a mile of pasture land fled by us and
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yielded to caneland.
"I have it now," he at last said. "And beside it is Keola, slain
ere his time and made into a spear-head for love of the woman whose
shin-bone abides near to him. To them, those poor pathetic bones,
I owe more than to aught else. I became possessed of them in the
period of my culminating adolescence. I know they changed the
entire course of my life and trend of my mind. They gave to me a
modesty and a humility in the world, from which my father's fortune
has ever failed to seduce me.
"And often, when woman was nigh to winning to the empery of my mind
over me, I sought Laulani's shin-bone. And often, when lusty
manhood stung me into feeling over-proud and lusty, I consulted the
spearhead remnant of Keola, one-time swift runner, and mighty
wrestler and lover, and thief of the wife of a king. The
contemplation of them has ever been of profound aid to me, and you
might well say that I have founded my religion or practice of
living upon them."
WAIKIKI, HONOLULU, HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.
July 16, 1916.
THE WATER BABY
I lent a weary ear to old Kohokumu's interminable chanting of the
deeds and adventures of Maui, the Promethean demi-god of Polynesia
who fished up dry land from ocean depths with hooks made fast to
heaven, who lifted up the sky whereunder previously men had gone on
all-fours, not having space to stand erect, and who made the sun
with its sixteen snared legs stand still and agree thereafter to
traverse the sky more slowly--the sun being evidently a trade
unionist and believing in the six-hour day, while Maui stood for
the open shop and the twelve-hour day.
"Now this," said Kohokumu, "is from Queen Lililuokalani's own
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family mele:
On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales
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72
"Maui became restless and fought the sun
With a noose that he laid.
And winter won the sun,
And summer was won by Maui . . . "
Born in the Islands myself, I knew the Hawaiian myths better than
this old fisherman, although I possessed not his memorization that
enabled him to recite them endless hours.
"And you believe all this?" I demanded in the sweet Hawaiian
tongue.
"It was a long time ago," he pondered. "I never saw Maui with my
own eyes. But all our old men from all the way back tell us these
things, as I, an old man, tell them to my sons and grandsons, who
will tell them to their sons and grandsons all the way ahead to
come."
"You believe," I persisted, "that whopper of Maui roping the sun [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]