[Contents]The Me-ne-hu-ne.Ka-u-ki-u-ki—that was the name of the Me-ne-hu-ne who boasted to the rest of his folk that he could catch the Moon by holding on to her legs; Ka-u-ki-u-ki, the Angry One.The Me-ne-hu-ne folk worked only at night; and if one could catch and hold on to the legs of the Moon, the night would not go so quickly, and more work could be done by them. They were all very great workers. But when the Angry One made his boast about catching the legs of the Moon, the rest of the Me-ne-hu-ne made mock of him. That made Ka-u-ki-u-ki more angry still. Straightway he went up to the top of the highest hill. He sat down to rest himself after his climb; then, they say, the Owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him. Ka-u-ki-u-ki might well have been frightened, for the big, round-eyed bird could easily have flown away with him, or flown away with any of the Me-ne-hu-ne folk. For they were all little men, and none of them was higher than the legs of one of us—no, not even their Kings and Chiefs. Little men, broad-shouldered and sturdy and very active—such were the Me-ne-hu-ne in the old days, and such are the Me-ne-hu-ne to-day.“The owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him.”“The owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him.”But Ka-u-ki-u-ki was brave: the Me-ne-hu-ne stared back at the Owl, and the Owl of Ka-ne stared[150]back at the little man, and at last the bird flew away. Then it was too late for him to try to lay hold on the legs of the Moon that night.That was a long time ago, when the Me-ne-hu-ne were very many in our land. They lived then in the Valley of Lani-hula. There they planted taro in plants that still grow there—plants that they brought back with them from Kahiki-mo-e after they had been there. It was they who planted the bread-fruit tree first in that valley.Our fathers say that when the men-folk of the Me-ne-hu-ne stood together in those days they could form two rows reaching all the way from Maka-weli to Wai-lua. And with their women and children there were so many of them that the only fish of which each of the Me-ne-hu-ne could have one was the shrimp, the littlest and the most plentiful fish in our waters.For the rest of their food they hadhau-pia, a pudding made of arrow-root sweetened with the milk of coco-nut; they had squash and they had sweet potato pudding. They ate fern fronds and the cooked young leaves of the taro. They had carved wooden dishes for their food. For their games they had spinning-tops which they made out of ku-kui nuts, and they played at casting the arrow, a game which they calledKea-pua. They had boxing and wrestling, too, and they had tug-of-war: when one team was about to be beaten all the others jumped[151]in and helped them. They had sled races; they would race their sleds down the steep sides of hills; if the course were not slippery already, they would cover it with rushes so that the sleds could go more easily and more swiftly.But their great sport was to jump off the cliffs into the sea. They would throw a stone off the cliff and dive after it and touch the bottom as it touched the bottom. Once, when some of them were bathing, a shark nearly caught one of the Me-ne-hu-ne. A-a-ka was his name. Then they all swam ashore, and they made plans for punishing the shark that had treated them so. Their wise men told them what to do. They were to gather the morning-glory vine and make a great basket with it. Then they were to fill the basket with bait and lower it into the sea. Always the Me-ne-hu-ne worked together; they worked together very heartily when they went to punish the shark.They made the basket; they filled it with bait, and they lowered it into the sea. The shark got into the basket, and the Me-ne-hu-ne caught him. They pulled him within the reef, and they left him there in the shallow water until the birds came and ate him up.One of them caught a large fish there. The fish tried to escape, but the little man held bravely to him. The fish bit him and lashed him with its tail and drew blood from the Me-ne-hu-ne. The place[152]where his blood poured out is called Ka-a-le-le to this day—for that was the name of the Me-ne-hu-ne who struggled with the fish.Once they hollowed out a great stone and they gave it to their head fisherman for a house. He would sit in his hollow stone all day and fish for his people.No cliff was too steep for them to climb; indeed, it was they who planted the wild taro on the cliffs; they planted it in the swamps too, and on cliff and in swamp it grows wild to this day. When they were on the march they would go in divisions. The work of the first division would be to clear the road of logs. The work of the second division would be to lower the hills. The work of the third division would be to sweep the path. Another division had to carry the sleds and the sleeping mats for the King. One division had charge of the food, and another division had charge of the planting of the crop. One division was composed of wizards and soothsayers and astrologers, and another division was made up of story-tellers, fun-makers, and musicians who made entertainment for the King. Some played on the nose-flute, and others blew trumpets that were made by ripping a ti-leaf away from the middle ridge and rolling over the torn piece. Through this they blew, varying the sound by fingering. They played stringed instruments that they held in their mouths, and they twanged the strings with their fingers.[153]Others beat on drums that were hollow logs with shark-skin drawn across them.It would have been wonderful to look on the Me-ne-hu-ne when they were on the march. That would be on the nights of the full moon. Then they would all come together, and their King would speak to them.And that reminds me of Ka-u-ki-u-ki, the Angry One. Perhaps he wanted to hold the legs of the Moon so that they might be able to listen a long time to their King, or march far in a night. I told you that he kept staring at the Owl of Ka-ne until the bird flew away in the night. But then it was too late to catch hold of the legs of the Moon. The next night he tried to do it. But although he stood on the top of the highest hill, and although he reached up to his fullest height, he could not lay hold on the legs of the Moon. And because he boasted of doing a thing that he could not do, the rest of the Me-ne-hu-ne punished him; they turned him into a stone. And a stone the Angry One is to this day—a stone on the top of the hill from which he tried to reach up and lay hold upon the legs of the Moon.Perhaps it was on the very night which Ka-u-ki-u-ki tried to lengthen that their King told the Me-ne-hu-ne that they were to leave these Islands. Some of the Me-ne-hu-ne had married Hawaiian women, and children that were half Me-ne-hu-ne and half Hawaiian were born. The King of the Me-ne-hu-ne[154]folk did not like this: he wanted his people to remain pure Me-ne-hu-ne. So on a bright moonlit night he had them all come together, men, women, and children, and he spoke to them. “All of you,” he said, “who have married wives from amongst the Hawaiian people must leave them, and all of the Me-ne-hu-ne race must go away from these Islands. The food that we planted in the valley is ripe; that food we will leave for the wives and children that we do not take with us—the Hawaiian women and the half-Hawaiian children.”When their King said this, no word was spoken for a long time from the ranks of the Me-ne-hu-ne. Then one whose name was Mo-hi-ki-a spoke up and said: “Must all of us go, O King, and may none of us stay with the Hawaiian wives that we have married? I have married an Hawaiian woman, and I have a son who is now grown to manhood. May he not go with you while I remain with my wife? He is stronger than I am. I have taught him all the skill that I possessed in the making of canoes. He can use the adze and make a canoe out of a tree trunk more quickly than any other of the Me-ne-hu-ne. And none of the Me-ne-hu-ne is so swift in the race as he is. Take my son in my place, and if it ever happens that the Me-ne-hu-ne need me, my son can run quickly for me and bring me back.”The King would not have Mo-hi-ki-a stay behind. “We start on our journey to-morrow night,”[155]he said. “All the Me-ne-hu-ne will leave the Islands, and the crop that is now grown will be left for the women and children.”And so the Me-ne-hu-ne in their great force left our Islands, and where they went there is none of us who know. Perhaps they went back to Kahiki-mo-e, for in Kahiki-mo-e they had been for a time before they came back to Hawaii. But not all of the Me-ne-hu-ne left the Islands. Some stole away from their divisions and hid in hollow logs, and their descendants we have with us to this day. There are still many Me-ne-hu-ne away up in the mountains, living in caves and in hollow logs.But the great force of them left the Islands then. Before they went they made a monument. Upon the top of the highest hill they built it, carrying up the stones the night after the King had commanded them to leave. The monument was for the King and the Chiefs of the Me-ne-hu-ne—the monument of stones that we see. And for the Me-ne-hu-ne of common birth they made another monument. This they did by hollowing out a great cave in the mountain. The monument of stones on the top of the mountain and the cave in the side of the mountain you can see to this day.On the next moonlit night the Me-ne-hu-ne in their thousands looked and saw the monuments they had raised. They were ready for the march as they looked, men and women, half-grown men and half-grown[156]women, and little children. They looked and they saw the monument that they had raised on the mountain. Thereupon all the little men raised such a shout that the fish in the pond of No-mi-lu, at the other side of the Island, jumped in fright, and the moi, the wary fish, left the beaches. And then, with trumpets sounding, flutes playing, and drums beating, the Me-ne-hu-ne started off.O my younger brothers, I wish there were some amongst us, the Hawaiians of to-day, who knew the Me-ne-hu-ne of the mountains and who could go to them. All the work that it takes us so long to do, they could do in a night. Here we go every day to cut sandalwood for our King. We go away from our homes and our villages, leaving our crops unplanted and untended. We are up in the mountains by the first light of the morning, working, working with our axes to cut the sandalwood. And we go back at the fall of night carrying the loads of sandalwood upon our shoulders the whole way down the mountain-side. Ah, if there were any amongst us who knew the Me-ne-hu-ne or who knew how to come to them! In one night the Me-ne-hu-ne would cut all the sandalwood for us! And the night after they would carry it down on their shoulders to the beach, where it would be put on the ships that would take it away to the land of the Pa-ke. But only those[157]who are descendants of the Me-ne-hu-ne can come to them.A long time ago a King ruled in Kau-ai whose name was Ola. His people were poor, for the river ran into the stony places and left their fields without water. “How can I bring water to my people?” said Ola the King to Pi, his wizard. “I will tell you how you can do it,” Pi said. And then he told the King what to do so as to get the help of the Me-ne-hu-ne.Pi, the wise man, went into the mountains. He was known to the Me-ne-hu-ne who had remained in the land, and he went before their Chief, and he asked him to have his people make a water-course for Ola’s people: they would have to dam the river with great stones and then make a trench that would carry the water down to the people’s fields—a trench that would have stones fitted into its bed and fitted into its sides.All the work that takes us days to do can be done by the Me-ne-hu-ne in the space of a night. And what they do not finish in a night is left unfinished. “Ho po hookahi, a ao ua pau,” “In one night and it is finished,” say the Me-ne-hu-ne.Well, in one night all the stones for the dam and the water-course were made ready: one division went and gathered them, and another cut and shaped them. The stones were all left together, and the Me-ne-hu-ne called them “the Pack of Pi.”[158]Now King Ola had been told what he was to have done on the night that followed. There was to be no sound and there was to be no stir amongst his people. The dogs were to be muzzled so that they could not bark, and the cocks and the hens were to be put into calabashes so that there should be no crowing from them. Also a feast was to be ready for the Me-ne-hu-ne.Down from the mountain in the night came the troops of the Me-ne-hu-ne, each carrying a stone in his hand. Their trampling and the hum of their voices were heard by Pi as he stayed by the river; they were heard while they were still a long way off. They came down, and they made a trench with their digging tools of wood. Then they began to lay the stones at the bottom and along the sides of the trench; each stone fitted perfectly into its place. While one division was doing this the other division was building the dam across the river. The dam was built, the water was turned into the course, and Pi, standing there in the moonlight, saw the water come over the stones that the Me-ne-hu-ne had laid down.Pi, and no one else, saw the Me-ne-hu-ne that night: half the size of our men they were, but broad across the chest and very strong. Pi admired the way they all worked together; they never got into each other’s way, and they never waited for some one else to do something or to help them out. They finished their work just at daybreak; and then Pi[159]gave them their feast. He gave a shrimp to each; they were well satisfied, and while it was still dark they departed. They crossed the water-course that was now bringing water down to the people’s taro patches.And as they went the hum of their voices was so loud that it was heard in the distant island of Oahu. “Wawa ka Menehune i Puukapele, ma Kauai, puoho ka manu o ka loko o Kawainui ma Koolaupoko, Oahu,” our people said afterwards. “The hum of the voices of the Me-ne-hu-ne at Pu-u-ka-pe-le, Kau-ai, startled the birds of the pond of Ka-wai-nui, at Ko’o-lau-po-ko, Oahu.”Look now! The others from our village are going down the mountain-side, with the loads of sandalwood upon their backs. It is time we put our loads upon our shoulders and went likewise. As we go I will tell you the only other story I know about the Me-ne-hu-ne.There was once a boy of your age, O my younger brother, and his name was Laka. As he grew up he was petted very much by his father and his mother. And while he was still a young boy his father took a canoe and went across the sea to get a toy for him. Never afterwards did Laka see his father.He grew up, and he would often ask about his father. His mother could tell him nothing except that his father had gone across the sea in a canoe[160]and that it was told afterwards that he had been killed in a cave by a bad man. The more he grew up the more he asked about his father. He told his mother he would go across the sea in search of him. But the boy could not go until he had a canoe. “How am I to get a canoe?” he said to his mother one day.“You must go to your grandmother,” said she, “and she will tell you what to do to get a canoe.”So to his grandmother Laka went. He lived in her house for a while, and then he asked her how he might get a canoe.“Go to the mountains and look for a tree that has leaves shaped like the new moon,” said his grandmother. “Take your axe with you. When you find such a tree, cut it down, for it is the tree to make a canoe out of.”So Laka went to the mountains. He brought his axe with him. All day he searched in the woods, and at last he found a tree that had leaves shaped like the new moon. He commenced to cut through its trunk with his little axe of stone. At nightfall the trunk was cut through, and the tree fell down on the ground.Then, well content with his day’s work, Laka went back to his grandmother’s. The next day he would cut off the branches and drag the trunk down to the beach and begin to make his canoe. He went back to the mountains. He searched and searched[161]through all the woods, but he could find no trace of the tree that he had cut down with so much labor.He went to the mountains again the day after. He found another tree growing with leaves shaped like the new moon. With his little stone axe he cut through the trunk, and the tree fell down. Then he went back to his grandmother’s, thinking that he would go the next day and cut off the branches and bring the trunk down to the beach.But the next day when he went to the mountains there was no trace of the tree that he had cut down with so much labor. He searched for it all day, but could not find it. The next day he had to begin his labor all over again: he had to search for a tree that had leaves like the new moon, he had to cut through the trunk and let it lie on the ground. After he had cut down the third tree he spoke to his grandmother about the trees that he had cut and had lost sight of. His wise grandmother told him that, if the third tree disappeared, he was to dig a trench beside where the next tree would fall. And when that tree came down he was to hide in the trench beside it and watch what would happen.When Laka went up to the mountain the next day he found that the tree he had cut was lost to his sight like the others. He found another tree with leaves shaped like the new moon. He began to cut this one down. Near where it would fall he dug a trench.[162]It was very late in the evening when he cut through this tree. The trunk fell, and it covered the trench he had made. Then Laka went under and hid himself. He waited while the night came on.Then, while he was waiting, he heard the hum of voices, and he knew that a band of people were drawing near. They were singing as they came on. Laka heard what they sang.“O the four thousand gods,O the forty thousand gods,O the four hundred thousand gods,O the file of gods,O the assembly of gods!O gods of these woods,Of the mountain, the knoll,Of the dam of the water-course, O descend!”Then there was more noise, and Laka, looking up from the trench, saw that the clearing around him was all filled with a crowd of little men. They came where the tree lay, and they tried to move it. Then Laka jumped out of the trench, and he laid hands upon one of the little people. He threatened to kill him for having moved away the trees he had cut.As he jumped up all the little people disappeared. Laka was left with the one he held.“Do not kill me,” said the little man. “I am of the Me-ne-hu-ne, and we intend no harm to you. I[163]will say this to you: if you kill me, there will be no one to make the canoe for you, no one to drag it down to the beach, making it ready for you to sail in. If you do not kill me, my friends will make the canoe for you. And if you build a shed for it, we will bring the canoe finished to you and place it in the shed.”Then Laka said he would gladly spare the little man if he and his friends would make the canoe for him and bring it down to the shed that he would make. He let the little man go then. The next day he built a shed for the canoe.When he told his grandmother about the crowd of little men he had seen and about the little man he had caught, she told him that they were the Me-ne-hu-ne, who lived in hollow logs and in caves in the mountains. No one knew how many of them there were.He went back, and he found that where the trunk of the tree had lain there was now a canoe perfectly finished; all was there that should be there, even to the light, well-shaped paddle, and all had been finished in the night. He went back, and that night he waited beside the shed which he had built out on the beach. At the dead of the night he heard the hum of voices. That was when the canoe was being lifted up. Then he heard a second hum of voices. That was when the canoe was being carried on the hands of the Me-ne-hu-ne—for they did not drag the canoe,[164]they carried it. He heard a trampling of feet. Then he heard a third hum of voices; that was when the canoe was being left down in the shed he had built.Laka’s grandmother, knowing who they were, had left a feast for the Me-ne-hu-ne—a shrimp for each, and some cooked taro leaves. They ate, and before it was daylight they returned to the mountain where their caves were. The boy Laka saw the Me-ne-hu-ne as they went up the side of the mountain—hundreds of little men tramping away in the waning darkness.His canoe was ready, paddle and all. He took it down to the sea, and he went across in search of his father. When he landed on the other side he found a wise man who was able to tell him about his father, and that he was dead indeed, having been killed by a very wicked man on his landing. The boy never went back to his grandmother’s. He stayed, and with the canoe that the Me-ne-hu-ne had made for him he became a famous fisherman. From him have come my fathers and your fathers, too, O my younger brothers.And you who are the youngest and littlest of all—gather you the ku-kui nuts as we go down; to-night we will make strings of them and burn them, lighting the house. And if we have many ku-kui nuts and a light that is long-lasting, it may be that I will tell more stories.[165]
[Contents]The Me-ne-hu-ne.Ka-u-ki-u-ki—that was the name of the Me-ne-hu-ne who boasted to the rest of his folk that he could catch the Moon by holding on to her legs; Ka-u-ki-u-ki, the Angry One.The Me-ne-hu-ne folk worked only at night; and if one could catch and hold on to the legs of the Moon, the night would not go so quickly, and more work could be done by them. They were all very great workers. But when the Angry One made his boast about catching the legs of the Moon, the rest of the Me-ne-hu-ne made mock of him. That made Ka-u-ki-u-ki more angry still. Straightway he went up to the top of the highest hill. He sat down to rest himself after his climb; then, they say, the Owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him. Ka-u-ki-u-ki might well have been frightened, for the big, round-eyed bird could easily have flown away with him, or flown away with any of the Me-ne-hu-ne folk. For they were all little men, and none of them was higher than the legs of one of us—no, not even their Kings and Chiefs. Little men, broad-shouldered and sturdy and very active—such were the Me-ne-hu-ne in the old days, and such are the Me-ne-hu-ne to-day.“The owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him.”“The owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him.”But Ka-u-ki-u-ki was brave: the Me-ne-hu-ne stared back at the Owl, and the Owl of Ka-ne stared[150]back at the little man, and at last the bird flew away. Then it was too late for him to try to lay hold on the legs of the Moon that night.That was a long time ago, when the Me-ne-hu-ne were very many in our land. They lived then in the Valley of Lani-hula. There they planted taro in plants that still grow there—plants that they brought back with them from Kahiki-mo-e after they had been there. It was they who planted the bread-fruit tree first in that valley.Our fathers say that when the men-folk of the Me-ne-hu-ne stood together in those days they could form two rows reaching all the way from Maka-weli to Wai-lua. And with their women and children there were so many of them that the only fish of which each of the Me-ne-hu-ne could have one was the shrimp, the littlest and the most plentiful fish in our waters.For the rest of their food they hadhau-pia, a pudding made of arrow-root sweetened with the milk of coco-nut; they had squash and they had sweet potato pudding. They ate fern fronds and the cooked young leaves of the taro. They had carved wooden dishes for their food. For their games they had spinning-tops which they made out of ku-kui nuts, and they played at casting the arrow, a game which they calledKea-pua. They had boxing and wrestling, too, and they had tug-of-war: when one team was about to be beaten all the others jumped[151]in and helped them. They had sled races; they would race their sleds down the steep sides of hills; if the course were not slippery already, they would cover it with rushes so that the sleds could go more easily and more swiftly.But their great sport was to jump off the cliffs into the sea. They would throw a stone off the cliff and dive after it and touch the bottom as it touched the bottom. Once, when some of them were bathing, a shark nearly caught one of the Me-ne-hu-ne. A-a-ka was his name. Then they all swam ashore, and they made plans for punishing the shark that had treated them so. Their wise men told them what to do. They were to gather the morning-glory vine and make a great basket with it. Then they were to fill the basket with bait and lower it into the sea. Always the Me-ne-hu-ne worked together; they worked together very heartily when they went to punish the shark.They made the basket; they filled it with bait, and they lowered it into the sea. The shark got into the basket, and the Me-ne-hu-ne caught him. They pulled him within the reef, and they left him there in the shallow water until the birds came and ate him up.One of them caught a large fish there. The fish tried to escape, but the little man held bravely to him. The fish bit him and lashed him with its tail and drew blood from the Me-ne-hu-ne. The place[152]where his blood poured out is called Ka-a-le-le to this day—for that was the name of the Me-ne-hu-ne who struggled with the fish.Once they hollowed out a great stone and they gave it to their head fisherman for a house. He would sit in his hollow stone all day and fish for his people.No cliff was too steep for them to climb; indeed, it was they who planted the wild taro on the cliffs; they planted it in the swamps too, and on cliff and in swamp it grows wild to this day. When they were on the march they would go in divisions. The work of the first division would be to clear the road of logs. The work of the second division would be to lower the hills. The work of the third division would be to sweep the path. Another division had to carry the sleds and the sleeping mats for the King. One division had charge of the food, and another division had charge of the planting of the crop. One division was composed of wizards and soothsayers and astrologers, and another division was made up of story-tellers, fun-makers, and musicians who made entertainment for the King. Some played on the nose-flute, and others blew trumpets that were made by ripping a ti-leaf away from the middle ridge and rolling over the torn piece. Through this they blew, varying the sound by fingering. They played stringed instruments that they held in their mouths, and they twanged the strings with their fingers.[153]Others beat on drums that were hollow logs with shark-skin drawn across them.It would have been wonderful to look on the Me-ne-hu-ne when they were on the march. That would be on the nights of the full moon. Then they would all come together, and their King would speak to them.And that reminds me of Ka-u-ki-u-ki, the Angry One. Perhaps he wanted to hold the legs of the Moon so that they might be able to listen a long time to their King, or march far in a night. I told you that he kept staring at the Owl of Ka-ne until the bird flew away in the night. But then it was too late to catch hold of the legs of the Moon. The next night he tried to do it. But although he stood on the top of the highest hill, and although he reached up to his fullest height, he could not lay hold on the legs of the Moon. And because he boasted of doing a thing that he could not do, the rest of the Me-ne-hu-ne punished him; they turned him into a stone. And a stone the Angry One is to this day—a stone on the top of the hill from which he tried to reach up and lay hold upon the legs of the Moon.Perhaps it was on the very night which Ka-u-ki-u-ki tried to lengthen that their King told the Me-ne-hu-ne that they were to leave these Islands. Some of the Me-ne-hu-ne had married Hawaiian women, and children that were half Me-ne-hu-ne and half Hawaiian were born. The King of the Me-ne-hu-ne[154]folk did not like this: he wanted his people to remain pure Me-ne-hu-ne. So on a bright moonlit night he had them all come together, men, women, and children, and he spoke to them. “All of you,” he said, “who have married wives from amongst the Hawaiian people must leave them, and all of the Me-ne-hu-ne race must go away from these Islands. The food that we planted in the valley is ripe; that food we will leave for the wives and children that we do not take with us—the Hawaiian women and the half-Hawaiian children.”When their King said this, no word was spoken for a long time from the ranks of the Me-ne-hu-ne. Then one whose name was Mo-hi-ki-a spoke up and said: “Must all of us go, O King, and may none of us stay with the Hawaiian wives that we have married? I have married an Hawaiian woman, and I have a son who is now grown to manhood. May he not go with you while I remain with my wife? He is stronger than I am. I have taught him all the skill that I possessed in the making of canoes. He can use the adze and make a canoe out of a tree trunk more quickly than any other of the Me-ne-hu-ne. And none of the Me-ne-hu-ne is so swift in the race as he is. Take my son in my place, and if it ever happens that the Me-ne-hu-ne need me, my son can run quickly for me and bring me back.”The King would not have Mo-hi-ki-a stay behind. “We start on our journey to-morrow night,”[155]he said. “All the Me-ne-hu-ne will leave the Islands, and the crop that is now grown will be left for the women and children.”And so the Me-ne-hu-ne in their great force left our Islands, and where they went there is none of us who know. Perhaps they went back to Kahiki-mo-e, for in Kahiki-mo-e they had been for a time before they came back to Hawaii. But not all of the Me-ne-hu-ne left the Islands. Some stole away from their divisions and hid in hollow logs, and their descendants we have with us to this day. There are still many Me-ne-hu-ne away up in the mountains, living in caves and in hollow logs.But the great force of them left the Islands then. Before they went they made a monument. Upon the top of the highest hill they built it, carrying up the stones the night after the King had commanded them to leave. The monument was for the King and the Chiefs of the Me-ne-hu-ne—the monument of stones that we see. And for the Me-ne-hu-ne of common birth they made another monument. This they did by hollowing out a great cave in the mountain. The monument of stones on the top of the mountain and the cave in the side of the mountain you can see to this day.On the next moonlit night the Me-ne-hu-ne in their thousands looked and saw the monuments they had raised. They were ready for the march as they looked, men and women, half-grown men and half-grown[156]women, and little children. They looked and they saw the monument that they had raised on the mountain. Thereupon all the little men raised such a shout that the fish in the pond of No-mi-lu, at the other side of the Island, jumped in fright, and the moi, the wary fish, left the beaches. And then, with trumpets sounding, flutes playing, and drums beating, the Me-ne-hu-ne started off.O my younger brothers, I wish there were some amongst us, the Hawaiians of to-day, who knew the Me-ne-hu-ne of the mountains and who could go to them. All the work that it takes us so long to do, they could do in a night. Here we go every day to cut sandalwood for our King. We go away from our homes and our villages, leaving our crops unplanted and untended. We are up in the mountains by the first light of the morning, working, working with our axes to cut the sandalwood. And we go back at the fall of night carrying the loads of sandalwood upon our shoulders the whole way down the mountain-side. Ah, if there were any amongst us who knew the Me-ne-hu-ne or who knew how to come to them! In one night the Me-ne-hu-ne would cut all the sandalwood for us! And the night after they would carry it down on their shoulders to the beach, where it would be put on the ships that would take it away to the land of the Pa-ke. But only those[157]who are descendants of the Me-ne-hu-ne can come to them.A long time ago a King ruled in Kau-ai whose name was Ola. His people were poor, for the river ran into the stony places and left their fields without water. “How can I bring water to my people?” said Ola the King to Pi, his wizard. “I will tell you how you can do it,” Pi said. And then he told the King what to do so as to get the help of the Me-ne-hu-ne.Pi, the wise man, went into the mountains. He was known to the Me-ne-hu-ne who had remained in the land, and he went before their Chief, and he asked him to have his people make a water-course for Ola’s people: they would have to dam the river with great stones and then make a trench that would carry the water down to the people’s fields—a trench that would have stones fitted into its bed and fitted into its sides.All the work that takes us days to do can be done by the Me-ne-hu-ne in the space of a night. And what they do not finish in a night is left unfinished. “Ho po hookahi, a ao ua pau,” “In one night and it is finished,” say the Me-ne-hu-ne.Well, in one night all the stones for the dam and the water-course were made ready: one division went and gathered them, and another cut and shaped them. The stones were all left together, and the Me-ne-hu-ne called them “the Pack of Pi.”[158]Now King Ola had been told what he was to have done on the night that followed. There was to be no sound and there was to be no stir amongst his people. The dogs were to be muzzled so that they could not bark, and the cocks and the hens were to be put into calabashes so that there should be no crowing from them. Also a feast was to be ready for the Me-ne-hu-ne.Down from the mountain in the night came the troops of the Me-ne-hu-ne, each carrying a stone in his hand. Their trampling and the hum of their voices were heard by Pi as he stayed by the river; they were heard while they were still a long way off. They came down, and they made a trench with their digging tools of wood. Then they began to lay the stones at the bottom and along the sides of the trench; each stone fitted perfectly into its place. While one division was doing this the other division was building the dam across the river. The dam was built, the water was turned into the course, and Pi, standing there in the moonlight, saw the water come over the stones that the Me-ne-hu-ne had laid down.Pi, and no one else, saw the Me-ne-hu-ne that night: half the size of our men they were, but broad across the chest and very strong. Pi admired the way they all worked together; they never got into each other’s way, and they never waited for some one else to do something or to help them out. They finished their work just at daybreak; and then Pi[159]gave them their feast. He gave a shrimp to each; they were well satisfied, and while it was still dark they departed. They crossed the water-course that was now bringing water down to the people’s taro patches.And as they went the hum of their voices was so loud that it was heard in the distant island of Oahu. “Wawa ka Menehune i Puukapele, ma Kauai, puoho ka manu o ka loko o Kawainui ma Koolaupoko, Oahu,” our people said afterwards. “The hum of the voices of the Me-ne-hu-ne at Pu-u-ka-pe-le, Kau-ai, startled the birds of the pond of Ka-wai-nui, at Ko’o-lau-po-ko, Oahu.”Look now! The others from our village are going down the mountain-side, with the loads of sandalwood upon their backs. It is time we put our loads upon our shoulders and went likewise. As we go I will tell you the only other story I know about the Me-ne-hu-ne.There was once a boy of your age, O my younger brother, and his name was Laka. As he grew up he was petted very much by his father and his mother. And while he was still a young boy his father took a canoe and went across the sea to get a toy for him. Never afterwards did Laka see his father.He grew up, and he would often ask about his father. His mother could tell him nothing except that his father had gone across the sea in a canoe[160]and that it was told afterwards that he had been killed in a cave by a bad man. The more he grew up the more he asked about his father. He told his mother he would go across the sea in search of him. But the boy could not go until he had a canoe. “How am I to get a canoe?” he said to his mother one day.“You must go to your grandmother,” said she, “and she will tell you what to do to get a canoe.”So to his grandmother Laka went. He lived in her house for a while, and then he asked her how he might get a canoe.“Go to the mountains and look for a tree that has leaves shaped like the new moon,” said his grandmother. “Take your axe with you. When you find such a tree, cut it down, for it is the tree to make a canoe out of.”So Laka went to the mountains. He brought his axe with him. All day he searched in the woods, and at last he found a tree that had leaves shaped like the new moon. He commenced to cut through its trunk with his little axe of stone. At nightfall the trunk was cut through, and the tree fell down on the ground.Then, well content with his day’s work, Laka went back to his grandmother’s. The next day he would cut off the branches and drag the trunk down to the beach and begin to make his canoe. He went back to the mountains. He searched and searched[161]through all the woods, but he could find no trace of the tree that he had cut down with so much labor.He went to the mountains again the day after. He found another tree growing with leaves shaped like the new moon. With his little stone axe he cut through the trunk, and the tree fell down. Then he went back to his grandmother’s, thinking that he would go the next day and cut off the branches and bring the trunk down to the beach.But the next day when he went to the mountains there was no trace of the tree that he had cut down with so much labor. He searched for it all day, but could not find it. The next day he had to begin his labor all over again: he had to search for a tree that had leaves like the new moon, he had to cut through the trunk and let it lie on the ground. After he had cut down the third tree he spoke to his grandmother about the trees that he had cut and had lost sight of. His wise grandmother told him that, if the third tree disappeared, he was to dig a trench beside where the next tree would fall. And when that tree came down he was to hide in the trench beside it and watch what would happen.When Laka went up to the mountain the next day he found that the tree he had cut was lost to his sight like the others. He found another tree with leaves shaped like the new moon. He began to cut this one down. Near where it would fall he dug a trench.[162]It was very late in the evening when he cut through this tree. The trunk fell, and it covered the trench he had made. Then Laka went under and hid himself. He waited while the night came on.Then, while he was waiting, he heard the hum of voices, and he knew that a band of people were drawing near. They were singing as they came on. Laka heard what they sang.“O the four thousand gods,O the forty thousand gods,O the four hundred thousand gods,O the file of gods,O the assembly of gods!O gods of these woods,Of the mountain, the knoll,Of the dam of the water-course, O descend!”Then there was more noise, and Laka, looking up from the trench, saw that the clearing around him was all filled with a crowd of little men. They came where the tree lay, and they tried to move it. Then Laka jumped out of the trench, and he laid hands upon one of the little people. He threatened to kill him for having moved away the trees he had cut.As he jumped up all the little people disappeared. Laka was left with the one he held.“Do not kill me,” said the little man. “I am of the Me-ne-hu-ne, and we intend no harm to you. I[163]will say this to you: if you kill me, there will be no one to make the canoe for you, no one to drag it down to the beach, making it ready for you to sail in. If you do not kill me, my friends will make the canoe for you. And if you build a shed for it, we will bring the canoe finished to you and place it in the shed.”Then Laka said he would gladly spare the little man if he and his friends would make the canoe for him and bring it down to the shed that he would make. He let the little man go then. The next day he built a shed for the canoe.When he told his grandmother about the crowd of little men he had seen and about the little man he had caught, she told him that they were the Me-ne-hu-ne, who lived in hollow logs and in caves in the mountains. No one knew how many of them there were.He went back, and he found that where the trunk of the tree had lain there was now a canoe perfectly finished; all was there that should be there, even to the light, well-shaped paddle, and all had been finished in the night. He went back, and that night he waited beside the shed which he had built out on the beach. At the dead of the night he heard the hum of voices. That was when the canoe was being lifted up. Then he heard a second hum of voices. That was when the canoe was being carried on the hands of the Me-ne-hu-ne—for they did not drag the canoe,[164]they carried it. He heard a trampling of feet. Then he heard a third hum of voices; that was when the canoe was being left down in the shed he had built.Laka’s grandmother, knowing who they were, had left a feast for the Me-ne-hu-ne—a shrimp for each, and some cooked taro leaves. They ate, and before it was daylight they returned to the mountain where their caves were. The boy Laka saw the Me-ne-hu-ne as they went up the side of the mountain—hundreds of little men tramping away in the waning darkness.His canoe was ready, paddle and all. He took it down to the sea, and he went across in search of his father. When he landed on the other side he found a wise man who was able to tell him about his father, and that he was dead indeed, having been killed by a very wicked man on his landing. The boy never went back to his grandmother’s. He stayed, and with the canoe that the Me-ne-hu-ne had made for him he became a famous fisherman. From him have come my fathers and your fathers, too, O my younger brothers.And you who are the youngest and littlest of all—gather you the ku-kui nuts as we go down; to-night we will make strings of them and burn them, lighting the house. And if we have many ku-kui nuts and a light that is long-lasting, it may be that I will tell more stories.[165]
The Me-ne-hu-ne.
Ka-u-ki-u-ki—that was the name of the Me-ne-hu-ne who boasted to the rest of his folk that he could catch the Moon by holding on to her legs; Ka-u-ki-u-ki, the Angry One.The Me-ne-hu-ne folk worked only at night; and if one could catch and hold on to the legs of the Moon, the night would not go so quickly, and more work could be done by them. They were all very great workers. But when the Angry One made his boast about catching the legs of the Moon, the rest of the Me-ne-hu-ne made mock of him. That made Ka-u-ki-u-ki more angry still. Straightway he went up to the top of the highest hill. He sat down to rest himself after his climb; then, they say, the Owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him. Ka-u-ki-u-ki might well have been frightened, for the big, round-eyed bird could easily have flown away with him, or flown away with any of the Me-ne-hu-ne folk. For they were all little men, and none of them was higher than the legs of one of us—no, not even their Kings and Chiefs. Little men, broad-shouldered and sturdy and very active—such were the Me-ne-hu-ne in the old days, and such are the Me-ne-hu-ne to-day.“The owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him.”“The owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him.”But Ka-u-ki-u-ki was brave: the Me-ne-hu-ne stared back at the Owl, and the Owl of Ka-ne stared[150]back at the little man, and at last the bird flew away. Then it was too late for him to try to lay hold on the legs of the Moon that night.That was a long time ago, when the Me-ne-hu-ne were very many in our land. They lived then in the Valley of Lani-hula. There they planted taro in plants that still grow there—plants that they brought back with them from Kahiki-mo-e after they had been there. It was they who planted the bread-fruit tree first in that valley.Our fathers say that when the men-folk of the Me-ne-hu-ne stood together in those days they could form two rows reaching all the way from Maka-weli to Wai-lua. And with their women and children there were so many of them that the only fish of which each of the Me-ne-hu-ne could have one was the shrimp, the littlest and the most plentiful fish in our waters.For the rest of their food they hadhau-pia, a pudding made of arrow-root sweetened with the milk of coco-nut; they had squash and they had sweet potato pudding. They ate fern fronds and the cooked young leaves of the taro. They had carved wooden dishes for their food. For their games they had spinning-tops which they made out of ku-kui nuts, and they played at casting the arrow, a game which they calledKea-pua. They had boxing and wrestling, too, and they had tug-of-war: when one team was about to be beaten all the others jumped[151]in and helped them. They had sled races; they would race their sleds down the steep sides of hills; if the course were not slippery already, they would cover it with rushes so that the sleds could go more easily and more swiftly.But their great sport was to jump off the cliffs into the sea. They would throw a stone off the cliff and dive after it and touch the bottom as it touched the bottom. Once, when some of them were bathing, a shark nearly caught one of the Me-ne-hu-ne. A-a-ka was his name. Then they all swam ashore, and they made plans for punishing the shark that had treated them so. Their wise men told them what to do. They were to gather the morning-glory vine and make a great basket with it. Then they were to fill the basket with bait and lower it into the sea. Always the Me-ne-hu-ne worked together; they worked together very heartily when they went to punish the shark.They made the basket; they filled it with bait, and they lowered it into the sea. The shark got into the basket, and the Me-ne-hu-ne caught him. They pulled him within the reef, and they left him there in the shallow water until the birds came and ate him up.One of them caught a large fish there. The fish tried to escape, but the little man held bravely to him. The fish bit him and lashed him with its tail and drew blood from the Me-ne-hu-ne. The place[152]where his blood poured out is called Ka-a-le-le to this day—for that was the name of the Me-ne-hu-ne who struggled with the fish.Once they hollowed out a great stone and they gave it to their head fisherman for a house. He would sit in his hollow stone all day and fish for his people.No cliff was too steep for them to climb; indeed, it was they who planted the wild taro on the cliffs; they planted it in the swamps too, and on cliff and in swamp it grows wild to this day. When they were on the march they would go in divisions. The work of the first division would be to clear the road of logs. The work of the second division would be to lower the hills. The work of the third division would be to sweep the path. Another division had to carry the sleds and the sleeping mats for the King. One division had charge of the food, and another division had charge of the planting of the crop. One division was composed of wizards and soothsayers and astrologers, and another division was made up of story-tellers, fun-makers, and musicians who made entertainment for the King. Some played on the nose-flute, and others blew trumpets that were made by ripping a ti-leaf away from the middle ridge and rolling over the torn piece. Through this they blew, varying the sound by fingering. They played stringed instruments that they held in their mouths, and they twanged the strings with their fingers.[153]Others beat on drums that were hollow logs with shark-skin drawn across them.It would have been wonderful to look on the Me-ne-hu-ne when they were on the march. That would be on the nights of the full moon. Then they would all come together, and their King would speak to them.And that reminds me of Ka-u-ki-u-ki, the Angry One. Perhaps he wanted to hold the legs of the Moon so that they might be able to listen a long time to their King, or march far in a night. I told you that he kept staring at the Owl of Ka-ne until the bird flew away in the night. But then it was too late to catch hold of the legs of the Moon. The next night he tried to do it. But although he stood on the top of the highest hill, and although he reached up to his fullest height, he could not lay hold on the legs of the Moon. And because he boasted of doing a thing that he could not do, the rest of the Me-ne-hu-ne punished him; they turned him into a stone. And a stone the Angry One is to this day—a stone on the top of the hill from which he tried to reach up and lay hold upon the legs of the Moon.Perhaps it was on the very night which Ka-u-ki-u-ki tried to lengthen that their King told the Me-ne-hu-ne that they were to leave these Islands. Some of the Me-ne-hu-ne had married Hawaiian women, and children that were half Me-ne-hu-ne and half Hawaiian were born. The King of the Me-ne-hu-ne[154]folk did not like this: he wanted his people to remain pure Me-ne-hu-ne. So on a bright moonlit night he had them all come together, men, women, and children, and he spoke to them. “All of you,” he said, “who have married wives from amongst the Hawaiian people must leave them, and all of the Me-ne-hu-ne race must go away from these Islands. The food that we planted in the valley is ripe; that food we will leave for the wives and children that we do not take with us—the Hawaiian women and the half-Hawaiian children.”When their King said this, no word was spoken for a long time from the ranks of the Me-ne-hu-ne. Then one whose name was Mo-hi-ki-a spoke up and said: “Must all of us go, O King, and may none of us stay with the Hawaiian wives that we have married? I have married an Hawaiian woman, and I have a son who is now grown to manhood. May he not go with you while I remain with my wife? He is stronger than I am. I have taught him all the skill that I possessed in the making of canoes. He can use the adze and make a canoe out of a tree trunk more quickly than any other of the Me-ne-hu-ne. And none of the Me-ne-hu-ne is so swift in the race as he is. Take my son in my place, and if it ever happens that the Me-ne-hu-ne need me, my son can run quickly for me and bring me back.”The King would not have Mo-hi-ki-a stay behind. “We start on our journey to-morrow night,”[155]he said. “All the Me-ne-hu-ne will leave the Islands, and the crop that is now grown will be left for the women and children.”And so the Me-ne-hu-ne in their great force left our Islands, and where they went there is none of us who know. Perhaps they went back to Kahiki-mo-e, for in Kahiki-mo-e they had been for a time before they came back to Hawaii. But not all of the Me-ne-hu-ne left the Islands. Some stole away from their divisions and hid in hollow logs, and their descendants we have with us to this day. There are still many Me-ne-hu-ne away up in the mountains, living in caves and in hollow logs.But the great force of them left the Islands then. Before they went they made a monument. Upon the top of the highest hill they built it, carrying up the stones the night after the King had commanded them to leave. The monument was for the King and the Chiefs of the Me-ne-hu-ne—the monument of stones that we see. And for the Me-ne-hu-ne of common birth they made another monument. This they did by hollowing out a great cave in the mountain. The monument of stones on the top of the mountain and the cave in the side of the mountain you can see to this day.On the next moonlit night the Me-ne-hu-ne in their thousands looked and saw the monuments they had raised. They were ready for the march as they looked, men and women, half-grown men and half-grown[156]women, and little children. They looked and they saw the monument that they had raised on the mountain. Thereupon all the little men raised such a shout that the fish in the pond of No-mi-lu, at the other side of the Island, jumped in fright, and the moi, the wary fish, left the beaches. And then, with trumpets sounding, flutes playing, and drums beating, the Me-ne-hu-ne started off.O my younger brothers, I wish there were some amongst us, the Hawaiians of to-day, who knew the Me-ne-hu-ne of the mountains and who could go to them. All the work that it takes us so long to do, they could do in a night. Here we go every day to cut sandalwood for our King. We go away from our homes and our villages, leaving our crops unplanted and untended. We are up in the mountains by the first light of the morning, working, working with our axes to cut the sandalwood. And we go back at the fall of night carrying the loads of sandalwood upon our shoulders the whole way down the mountain-side. Ah, if there were any amongst us who knew the Me-ne-hu-ne or who knew how to come to them! In one night the Me-ne-hu-ne would cut all the sandalwood for us! And the night after they would carry it down on their shoulders to the beach, where it would be put on the ships that would take it away to the land of the Pa-ke. But only those[157]who are descendants of the Me-ne-hu-ne can come to them.A long time ago a King ruled in Kau-ai whose name was Ola. His people were poor, for the river ran into the stony places and left their fields without water. “How can I bring water to my people?” said Ola the King to Pi, his wizard. “I will tell you how you can do it,” Pi said. And then he told the King what to do so as to get the help of the Me-ne-hu-ne.Pi, the wise man, went into the mountains. He was known to the Me-ne-hu-ne who had remained in the land, and he went before their Chief, and he asked him to have his people make a water-course for Ola’s people: they would have to dam the river with great stones and then make a trench that would carry the water down to the people’s fields—a trench that would have stones fitted into its bed and fitted into its sides.All the work that takes us days to do can be done by the Me-ne-hu-ne in the space of a night. And what they do not finish in a night is left unfinished. “Ho po hookahi, a ao ua pau,” “In one night and it is finished,” say the Me-ne-hu-ne.Well, in one night all the stones for the dam and the water-course were made ready: one division went and gathered them, and another cut and shaped them. The stones were all left together, and the Me-ne-hu-ne called them “the Pack of Pi.”[158]Now King Ola had been told what he was to have done on the night that followed. There was to be no sound and there was to be no stir amongst his people. The dogs were to be muzzled so that they could not bark, and the cocks and the hens were to be put into calabashes so that there should be no crowing from them. Also a feast was to be ready for the Me-ne-hu-ne.Down from the mountain in the night came the troops of the Me-ne-hu-ne, each carrying a stone in his hand. Their trampling and the hum of their voices were heard by Pi as he stayed by the river; they were heard while they were still a long way off. They came down, and they made a trench with their digging tools of wood. Then they began to lay the stones at the bottom and along the sides of the trench; each stone fitted perfectly into its place. While one division was doing this the other division was building the dam across the river. The dam was built, the water was turned into the course, and Pi, standing there in the moonlight, saw the water come over the stones that the Me-ne-hu-ne had laid down.Pi, and no one else, saw the Me-ne-hu-ne that night: half the size of our men they were, but broad across the chest and very strong. Pi admired the way they all worked together; they never got into each other’s way, and they never waited for some one else to do something or to help them out. They finished their work just at daybreak; and then Pi[159]gave them their feast. He gave a shrimp to each; they were well satisfied, and while it was still dark they departed. They crossed the water-course that was now bringing water down to the people’s taro patches.And as they went the hum of their voices was so loud that it was heard in the distant island of Oahu. “Wawa ka Menehune i Puukapele, ma Kauai, puoho ka manu o ka loko o Kawainui ma Koolaupoko, Oahu,” our people said afterwards. “The hum of the voices of the Me-ne-hu-ne at Pu-u-ka-pe-le, Kau-ai, startled the birds of the pond of Ka-wai-nui, at Ko’o-lau-po-ko, Oahu.”Look now! The others from our village are going down the mountain-side, with the loads of sandalwood upon their backs. It is time we put our loads upon our shoulders and went likewise. As we go I will tell you the only other story I know about the Me-ne-hu-ne.There was once a boy of your age, O my younger brother, and his name was Laka. As he grew up he was petted very much by his father and his mother. And while he was still a young boy his father took a canoe and went across the sea to get a toy for him. Never afterwards did Laka see his father.He grew up, and he would often ask about his father. His mother could tell him nothing except that his father had gone across the sea in a canoe[160]and that it was told afterwards that he had been killed in a cave by a bad man. The more he grew up the more he asked about his father. He told his mother he would go across the sea in search of him. But the boy could not go until he had a canoe. “How am I to get a canoe?” he said to his mother one day.“You must go to your grandmother,” said she, “and she will tell you what to do to get a canoe.”So to his grandmother Laka went. He lived in her house for a while, and then he asked her how he might get a canoe.“Go to the mountains and look for a tree that has leaves shaped like the new moon,” said his grandmother. “Take your axe with you. When you find such a tree, cut it down, for it is the tree to make a canoe out of.”So Laka went to the mountains. He brought his axe with him. All day he searched in the woods, and at last he found a tree that had leaves shaped like the new moon. He commenced to cut through its trunk with his little axe of stone. At nightfall the trunk was cut through, and the tree fell down on the ground.Then, well content with his day’s work, Laka went back to his grandmother’s. The next day he would cut off the branches and drag the trunk down to the beach and begin to make his canoe. He went back to the mountains. He searched and searched[161]through all the woods, but he could find no trace of the tree that he had cut down with so much labor.He went to the mountains again the day after. He found another tree growing with leaves shaped like the new moon. With his little stone axe he cut through the trunk, and the tree fell down. Then he went back to his grandmother’s, thinking that he would go the next day and cut off the branches and bring the trunk down to the beach.But the next day when he went to the mountains there was no trace of the tree that he had cut down with so much labor. He searched for it all day, but could not find it. The next day he had to begin his labor all over again: he had to search for a tree that had leaves like the new moon, he had to cut through the trunk and let it lie on the ground. After he had cut down the third tree he spoke to his grandmother about the trees that he had cut and had lost sight of. His wise grandmother told him that, if the third tree disappeared, he was to dig a trench beside where the next tree would fall. And when that tree came down he was to hide in the trench beside it and watch what would happen.When Laka went up to the mountain the next day he found that the tree he had cut was lost to his sight like the others. He found another tree with leaves shaped like the new moon. He began to cut this one down. Near where it would fall he dug a trench.[162]It was very late in the evening when he cut through this tree. The trunk fell, and it covered the trench he had made. Then Laka went under and hid himself. He waited while the night came on.Then, while he was waiting, he heard the hum of voices, and he knew that a band of people were drawing near. They were singing as they came on. Laka heard what they sang.“O the four thousand gods,O the forty thousand gods,O the four hundred thousand gods,O the file of gods,O the assembly of gods!O gods of these woods,Of the mountain, the knoll,Of the dam of the water-course, O descend!”Then there was more noise, and Laka, looking up from the trench, saw that the clearing around him was all filled with a crowd of little men. They came where the tree lay, and they tried to move it. Then Laka jumped out of the trench, and he laid hands upon one of the little people. He threatened to kill him for having moved away the trees he had cut.As he jumped up all the little people disappeared. Laka was left with the one he held.“Do not kill me,” said the little man. “I am of the Me-ne-hu-ne, and we intend no harm to you. I[163]will say this to you: if you kill me, there will be no one to make the canoe for you, no one to drag it down to the beach, making it ready for you to sail in. If you do not kill me, my friends will make the canoe for you. And if you build a shed for it, we will bring the canoe finished to you and place it in the shed.”Then Laka said he would gladly spare the little man if he and his friends would make the canoe for him and bring it down to the shed that he would make. He let the little man go then. The next day he built a shed for the canoe.When he told his grandmother about the crowd of little men he had seen and about the little man he had caught, she told him that they were the Me-ne-hu-ne, who lived in hollow logs and in caves in the mountains. No one knew how many of them there were.He went back, and he found that where the trunk of the tree had lain there was now a canoe perfectly finished; all was there that should be there, even to the light, well-shaped paddle, and all had been finished in the night. He went back, and that night he waited beside the shed which he had built out on the beach. At the dead of the night he heard the hum of voices. That was when the canoe was being lifted up. Then he heard a second hum of voices. That was when the canoe was being carried on the hands of the Me-ne-hu-ne—for they did not drag the canoe,[164]they carried it. He heard a trampling of feet. Then he heard a third hum of voices; that was when the canoe was being left down in the shed he had built.Laka’s grandmother, knowing who they were, had left a feast for the Me-ne-hu-ne—a shrimp for each, and some cooked taro leaves. They ate, and before it was daylight they returned to the mountain where their caves were. The boy Laka saw the Me-ne-hu-ne as they went up the side of the mountain—hundreds of little men tramping away in the waning darkness.His canoe was ready, paddle and all. He took it down to the sea, and he went across in search of his father. When he landed on the other side he found a wise man who was able to tell him about his father, and that he was dead indeed, having been killed by a very wicked man on his landing. The boy never went back to his grandmother’s. He stayed, and with the canoe that the Me-ne-hu-ne had made for him he became a famous fisherman. From him have come my fathers and your fathers, too, O my younger brothers.And you who are the youngest and littlest of all—gather you the ku-kui nuts as we go down; to-night we will make strings of them and burn them, lighting the house. And if we have many ku-kui nuts and a light that is long-lasting, it may be that I will tell more stories.[165]
Ka-u-ki-u-ki—that was the name of the Me-ne-hu-ne who boasted to the rest of his folk that he could catch the Moon by holding on to her legs; Ka-u-ki-u-ki, the Angry One.
The Me-ne-hu-ne folk worked only at night; and if one could catch and hold on to the legs of the Moon, the night would not go so quickly, and more work could be done by them. They were all very great workers. But when the Angry One made his boast about catching the legs of the Moon, the rest of the Me-ne-hu-ne made mock of him. That made Ka-u-ki-u-ki more angry still. Straightway he went up to the top of the highest hill. He sat down to rest himself after his climb; then, they say, the Owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him. Ka-u-ki-u-ki might well have been frightened, for the big, round-eyed bird could easily have flown away with him, or flown away with any of the Me-ne-hu-ne folk. For they were all little men, and none of them was higher than the legs of one of us—no, not even their Kings and Chiefs. Little men, broad-shouldered and sturdy and very active—such were the Me-ne-hu-ne in the old days, and such are the Me-ne-hu-ne to-day.
“The owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him.”“The owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him.”
“The owl of Ka-ne came and sat on the stones and stared at him.”
But Ka-u-ki-u-ki was brave: the Me-ne-hu-ne stared back at the Owl, and the Owl of Ka-ne stared[150]back at the little man, and at last the bird flew away. Then it was too late for him to try to lay hold on the legs of the Moon that night.
That was a long time ago, when the Me-ne-hu-ne were very many in our land. They lived then in the Valley of Lani-hula. There they planted taro in plants that still grow there—plants that they brought back with them from Kahiki-mo-e after they had been there. It was they who planted the bread-fruit tree first in that valley.
Our fathers say that when the men-folk of the Me-ne-hu-ne stood together in those days they could form two rows reaching all the way from Maka-weli to Wai-lua. And with their women and children there were so many of them that the only fish of which each of the Me-ne-hu-ne could have one was the shrimp, the littlest and the most plentiful fish in our waters.
For the rest of their food they hadhau-pia, a pudding made of arrow-root sweetened with the milk of coco-nut; they had squash and they had sweet potato pudding. They ate fern fronds and the cooked young leaves of the taro. They had carved wooden dishes for their food. For their games they had spinning-tops which they made out of ku-kui nuts, and they played at casting the arrow, a game which they calledKea-pua. They had boxing and wrestling, too, and they had tug-of-war: when one team was about to be beaten all the others jumped[151]in and helped them. They had sled races; they would race their sleds down the steep sides of hills; if the course were not slippery already, they would cover it with rushes so that the sleds could go more easily and more swiftly.
But their great sport was to jump off the cliffs into the sea. They would throw a stone off the cliff and dive after it and touch the bottom as it touched the bottom. Once, when some of them were bathing, a shark nearly caught one of the Me-ne-hu-ne. A-a-ka was his name. Then they all swam ashore, and they made plans for punishing the shark that had treated them so. Their wise men told them what to do. They were to gather the morning-glory vine and make a great basket with it. Then they were to fill the basket with bait and lower it into the sea. Always the Me-ne-hu-ne worked together; they worked together very heartily when they went to punish the shark.
They made the basket; they filled it with bait, and they lowered it into the sea. The shark got into the basket, and the Me-ne-hu-ne caught him. They pulled him within the reef, and they left him there in the shallow water until the birds came and ate him up.
One of them caught a large fish there. The fish tried to escape, but the little man held bravely to him. The fish bit him and lashed him with its tail and drew blood from the Me-ne-hu-ne. The place[152]where his blood poured out is called Ka-a-le-le to this day—for that was the name of the Me-ne-hu-ne who struggled with the fish.
Once they hollowed out a great stone and they gave it to their head fisherman for a house. He would sit in his hollow stone all day and fish for his people.
No cliff was too steep for them to climb; indeed, it was they who planted the wild taro on the cliffs; they planted it in the swamps too, and on cliff and in swamp it grows wild to this day. When they were on the march they would go in divisions. The work of the first division would be to clear the road of logs. The work of the second division would be to lower the hills. The work of the third division would be to sweep the path. Another division had to carry the sleds and the sleeping mats for the King. One division had charge of the food, and another division had charge of the planting of the crop. One division was composed of wizards and soothsayers and astrologers, and another division was made up of story-tellers, fun-makers, and musicians who made entertainment for the King. Some played on the nose-flute, and others blew trumpets that were made by ripping a ti-leaf away from the middle ridge and rolling over the torn piece. Through this they blew, varying the sound by fingering. They played stringed instruments that they held in their mouths, and they twanged the strings with their fingers.[153]Others beat on drums that were hollow logs with shark-skin drawn across them.
It would have been wonderful to look on the Me-ne-hu-ne when they were on the march. That would be on the nights of the full moon. Then they would all come together, and their King would speak to them.
And that reminds me of Ka-u-ki-u-ki, the Angry One. Perhaps he wanted to hold the legs of the Moon so that they might be able to listen a long time to their King, or march far in a night. I told you that he kept staring at the Owl of Ka-ne until the bird flew away in the night. But then it was too late to catch hold of the legs of the Moon. The next night he tried to do it. But although he stood on the top of the highest hill, and although he reached up to his fullest height, he could not lay hold on the legs of the Moon. And because he boasted of doing a thing that he could not do, the rest of the Me-ne-hu-ne punished him; they turned him into a stone. And a stone the Angry One is to this day—a stone on the top of the hill from which he tried to reach up and lay hold upon the legs of the Moon.
Perhaps it was on the very night which Ka-u-ki-u-ki tried to lengthen that their King told the Me-ne-hu-ne that they were to leave these Islands. Some of the Me-ne-hu-ne had married Hawaiian women, and children that were half Me-ne-hu-ne and half Hawaiian were born. The King of the Me-ne-hu-ne[154]folk did not like this: he wanted his people to remain pure Me-ne-hu-ne. So on a bright moonlit night he had them all come together, men, women, and children, and he spoke to them. “All of you,” he said, “who have married wives from amongst the Hawaiian people must leave them, and all of the Me-ne-hu-ne race must go away from these Islands. The food that we planted in the valley is ripe; that food we will leave for the wives and children that we do not take with us—the Hawaiian women and the half-Hawaiian children.”
When their King said this, no word was spoken for a long time from the ranks of the Me-ne-hu-ne. Then one whose name was Mo-hi-ki-a spoke up and said: “Must all of us go, O King, and may none of us stay with the Hawaiian wives that we have married? I have married an Hawaiian woman, and I have a son who is now grown to manhood. May he not go with you while I remain with my wife? He is stronger than I am. I have taught him all the skill that I possessed in the making of canoes. He can use the adze and make a canoe out of a tree trunk more quickly than any other of the Me-ne-hu-ne. And none of the Me-ne-hu-ne is so swift in the race as he is. Take my son in my place, and if it ever happens that the Me-ne-hu-ne need me, my son can run quickly for me and bring me back.”
The King would not have Mo-hi-ki-a stay behind. “We start on our journey to-morrow night,”[155]he said. “All the Me-ne-hu-ne will leave the Islands, and the crop that is now grown will be left for the women and children.”
And so the Me-ne-hu-ne in their great force left our Islands, and where they went there is none of us who know. Perhaps they went back to Kahiki-mo-e, for in Kahiki-mo-e they had been for a time before they came back to Hawaii. But not all of the Me-ne-hu-ne left the Islands. Some stole away from their divisions and hid in hollow logs, and their descendants we have with us to this day. There are still many Me-ne-hu-ne away up in the mountains, living in caves and in hollow logs.
But the great force of them left the Islands then. Before they went they made a monument. Upon the top of the highest hill they built it, carrying up the stones the night after the King had commanded them to leave. The monument was for the King and the Chiefs of the Me-ne-hu-ne—the monument of stones that we see. And for the Me-ne-hu-ne of common birth they made another monument. This they did by hollowing out a great cave in the mountain. The monument of stones on the top of the mountain and the cave in the side of the mountain you can see to this day.
On the next moonlit night the Me-ne-hu-ne in their thousands looked and saw the monuments they had raised. They were ready for the march as they looked, men and women, half-grown men and half-grown[156]women, and little children. They looked and they saw the monument that they had raised on the mountain. Thereupon all the little men raised such a shout that the fish in the pond of No-mi-lu, at the other side of the Island, jumped in fright, and the moi, the wary fish, left the beaches. And then, with trumpets sounding, flutes playing, and drums beating, the Me-ne-hu-ne started off.
O my younger brothers, I wish there were some amongst us, the Hawaiians of to-day, who knew the Me-ne-hu-ne of the mountains and who could go to them. All the work that it takes us so long to do, they could do in a night. Here we go every day to cut sandalwood for our King. We go away from our homes and our villages, leaving our crops unplanted and untended. We are up in the mountains by the first light of the morning, working, working with our axes to cut the sandalwood. And we go back at the fall of night carrying the loads of sandalwood upon our shoulders the whole way down the mountain-side. Ah, if there were any amongst us who knew the Me-ne-hu-ne or who knew how to come to them! In one night the Me-ne-hu-ne would cut all the sandalwood for us! And the night after they would carry it down on their shoulders to the beach, where it would be put on the ships that would take it away to the land of the Pa-ke. But only those[157]who are descendants of the Me-ne-hu-ne can come to them.
A long time ago a King ruled in Kau-ai whose name was Ola. His people were poor, for the river ran into the stony places and left their fields without water. “How can I bring water to my people?” said Ola the King to Pi, his wizard. “I will tell you how you can do it,” Pi said. And then he told the King what to do so as to get the help of the Me-ne-hu-ne.
Pi, the wise man, went into the mountains. He was known to the Me-ne-hu-ne who had remained in the land, and he went before their Chief, and he asked him to have his people make a water-course for Ola’s people: they would have to dam the river with great stones and then make a trench that would carry the water down to the people’s fields—a trench that would have stones fitted into its bed and fitted into its sides.
All the work that takes us days to do can be done by the Me-ne-hu-ne in the space of a night. And what they do not finish in a night is left unfinished. “Ho po hookahi, a ao ua pau,” “In one night and it is finished,” say the Me-ne-hu-ne.
Well, in one night all the stones for the dam and the water-course were made ready: one division went and gathered them, and another cut and shaped them. The stones were all left together, and the Me-ne-hu-ne called them “the Pack of Pi.”[158]
Now King Ola had been told what he was to have done on the night that followed. There was to be no sound and there was to be no stir amongst his people. The dogs were to be muzzled so that they could not bark, and the cocks and the hens were to be put into calabashes so that there should be no crowing from them. Also a feast was to be ready for the Me-ne-hu-ne.
Down from the mountain in the night came the troops of the Me-ne-hu-ne, each carrying a stone in his hand. Their trampling and the hum of their voices were heard by Pi as he stayed by the river; they were heard while they were still a long way off. They came down, and they made a trench with their digging tools of wood. Then they began to lay the stones at the bottom and along the sides of the trench; each stone fitted perfectly into its place. While one division was doing this the other division was building the dam across the river. The dam was built, the water was turned into the course, and Pi, standing there in the moonlight, saw the water come over the stones that the Me-ne-hu-ne had laid down.
Pi, and no one else, saw the Me-ne-hu-ne that night: half the size of our men they were, but broad across the chest and very strong. Pi admired the way they all worked together; they never got into each other’s way, and they never waited for some one else to do something or to help them out. They finished their work just at daybreak; and then Pi[159]gave them their feast. He gave a shrimp to each; they were well satisfied, and while it was still dark they departed. They crossed the water-course that was now bringing water down to the people’s taro patches.
And as they went the hum of their voices was so loud that it was heard in the distant island of Oahu. “Wawa ka Menehune i Puukapele, ma Kauai, puoho ka manu o ka loko o Kawainui ma Koolaupoko, Oahu,” our people said afterwards. “The hum of the voices of the Me-ne-hu-ne at Pu-u-ka-pe-le, Kau-ai, startled the birds of the pond of Ka-wai-nui, at Ko’o-lau-po-ko, Oahu.”
Look now! The others from our village are going down the mountain-side, with the loads of sandalwood upon their backs. It is time we put our loads upon our shoulders and went likewise. As we go I will tell you the only other story I know about the Me-ne-hu-ne.
There was once a boy of your age, O my younger brother, and his name was Laka. As he grew up he was petted very much by his father and his mother. And while he was still a young boy his father took a canoe and went across the sea to get a toy for him. Never afterwards did Laka see his father.
He grew up, and he would often ask about his father. His mother could tell him nothing except that his father had gone across the sea in a canoe[160]and that it was told afterwards that he had been killed in a cave by a bad man. The more he grew up the more he asked about his father. He told his mother he would go across the sea in search of him. But the boy could not go until he had a canoe. “How am I to get a canoe?” he said to his mother one day.
“You must go to your grandmother,” said she, “and she will tell you what to do to get a canoe.”
So to his grandmother Laka went. He lived in her house for a while, and then he asked her how he might get a canoe.
“Go to the mountains and look for a tree that has leaves shaped like the new moon,” said his grandmother. “Take your axe with you. When you find such a tree, cut it down, for it is the tree to make a canoe out of.”
So Laka went to the mountains. He brought his axe with him. All day he searched in the woods, and at last he found a tree that had leaves shaped like the new moon. He commenced to cut through its trunk with his little axe of stone. At nightfall the trunk was cut through, and the tree fell down on the ground.
Then, well content with his day’s work, Laka went back to his grandmother’s. The next day he would cut off the branches and drag the trunk down to the beach and begin to make his canoe. He went back to the mountains. He searched and searched[161]through all the woods, but he could find no trace of the tree that he had cut down with so much labor.
He went to the mountains again the day after. He found another tree growing with leaves shaped like the new moon. With his little stone axe he cut through the trunk, and the tree fell down. Then he went back to his grandmother’s, thinking that he would go the next day and cut off the branches and bring the trunk down to the beach.
But the next day when he went to the mountains there was no trace of the tree that he had cut down with so much labor. He searched for it all day, but could not find it. The next day he had to begin his labor all over again: he had to search for a tree that had leaves like the new moon, he had to cut through the trunk and let it lie on the ground. After he had cut down the third tree he spoke to his grandmother about the trees that he had cut and had lost sight of. His wise grandmother told him that, if the third tree disappeared, he was to dig a trench beside where the next tree would fall. And when that tree came down he was to hide in the trench beside it and watch what would happen.
When Laka went up to the mountain the next day he found that the tree he had cut was lost to his sight like the others. He found another tree with leaves shaped like the new moon. He began to cut this one down. Near where it would fall he dug a trench.[162]
It was very late in the evening when he cut through this tree. The trunk fell, and it covered the trench he had made. Then Laka went under and hid himself. He waited while the night came on.
Then, while he was waiting, he heard the hum of voices, and he knew that a band of people were drawing near. They were singing as they came on. Laka heard what they sang.
“O the four thousand gods,O the forty thousand gods,O the four hundred thousand gods,O the file of gods,O the assembly of gods!O gods of these woods,Of the mountain, the knoll,Of the dam of the water-course, O descend!”
“O the four thousand gods,
O the forty thousand gods,
O the four hundred thousand gods,
O the file of gods,
O the assembly of gods!
O gods of these woods,
Of the mountain, the knoll,
Of the dam of the water-course, O descend!”
Then there was more noise, and Laka, looking up from the trench, saw that the clearing around him was all filled with a crowd of little men. They came where the tree lay, and they tried to move it. Then Laka jumped out of the trench, and he laid hands upon one of the little people. He threatened to kill him for having moved away the trees he had cut.
As he jumped up all the little people disappeared. Laka was left with the one he held.
“Do not kill me,” said the little man. “I am of the Me-ne-hu-ne, and we intend no harm to you. I[163]will say this to you: if you kill me, there will be no one to make the canoe for you, no one to drag it down to the beach, making it ready for you to sail in. If you do not kill me, my friends will make the canoe for you. And if you build a shed for it, we will bring the canoe finished to you and place it in the shed.”
Then Laka said he would gladly spare the little man if he and his friends would make the canoe for him and bring it down to the shed that he would make. He let the little man go then. The next day he built a shed for the canoe.
When he told his grandmother about the crowd of little men he had seen and about the little man he had caught, she told him that they were the Me-ne-hu-ne, who lived in hollow logs and in caves in the mountains. No one knew how many of them there were.
He went back, and he found that where the trunk of the tree had lain there was now a canoe perfectly finished; all was there that should be there, even to the light, well-shaped paddle, and all had been finished in the night. He went back, and that night he waited beside the shed which he had built out on the beach. At the dead of the night he heard the hum of voices. That was when the canoe was being lifted up. Then he heard a second hum of voices. That was when the canoe was being carried on the hands of the Me-ne-hu-ne—for they did not drag the canoe,[164]they carried it. He heard a trampling of feet. Then he heard a third hum of voices; that was when the canoe was being left down in the shed he had built.
Laka’s grandmother, knowing who they were, had left a feast for the Me-ne-hu-ne—a shrimp for each, and some cooked taro leaves. They ate, and before it was daylight they returned to the mountain where their caves were. The boy Laka saw the Me-ne-hu-ne as they went up the side of the mountain—hundreds of little men tramping away in the waning darkness.
His canoe was ready, paddle and all. He took it down to the sea, and he went across in search of his father. When he landed on the other side he found a wise man who was able to tell him about his father, and that he was dead indeed, having been killed by a very wicked man on his landing. The boy never went back to his grandmother’s. He stayed, and with the canoe that the Me-ne-hu-ne had made for him he became a famous fisherman. From him have come my fathers and your fathers, too, O my younger brothers.
And you who are the youngest and littlest of all—gather you the ku-kui nuts as we go down; to-night we will make strings of them and burn them, lighting the house. And if we have many ku-kui nuts and a light that is long-lasting, it may be that I will tell more stories.[165]