Hawaiian Historical Legends. William D. Westervelt

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ degrading and an insult to the dignity of man. Man ought to die like the moon which dips in the life-giving waters of Kane and is renewed again, or like the sun, which daily sinks into the pit of night and with renewed strength rises in the morning."

      The Hawaiian legends say that Maui was slain in a conflict with some of the gods. The New Zealand legends give a more detailed account of his death.

      Maui sought the home of Hine-nui-te-po—the guardian of life. He heard her order her attendants, the brightest flashes of lightning, to watch for any one approaching and capture all who came walking upright as a man. He crept past the attendants on hands and feet, found the place of life, stole some of the food of the goddess and returned home. He showed the food to his brothers and friends and persuaded them to go with him into the darkness of the night of death. On the way he changed them into the form of birds. In the evening they came to the house of the goddess on an island long before fished up from the seas.

      Maui warned the birds to refrain from making any noise while he made the supreme effort of his life. He was about to enter upon his struggle for immortality. He said to the birds: "If I go into the stomach of this woman do not laugh until I have gone through her, and come out again at her mouth; then you can laugh at me."

      His friends said: "You will be killed." Maui replied: "If you laugh at me when I have only entered her stomach I shall be killed, but if I have passed through her and come out of her mouth I shall escape and Hine-nui-te-po will die."

      His friends called out to him: "Go then. The decision is with you."

      Hine was sleeping soundly. The sunlight had almost passed away and the house lay in quiet gloom. Maui came near to the sleeping goddess. Her large fishlike mouth was open wide. He put off his clothing and prepared to pass through the ordeal of going to the hidden source of life, tear it out of the body of its guardian and carry it back with him to mankind. He stood in all the glory of savage manhood. His body was splendidly marked by the tattoo-bones, and now well oiled shone and sparkled in the last rays of the setting sun.

      He leaped through the mouth of the enchanted one and entered her stomach, weapon in hand, to take out her heart, the vital principle which he knew had its home somewhere within her being. He found immortality on the other side of death. He turned to come back again into life when suddenly a little bird laughed in a clear, shrill tone and Great Hine, through whose mouth Maui was passing, awoke. Her sharp, obsidian teeth closed with a snap upon Maui, cutting his body in the centre. Thus Maui entered the gates of death, but was unable to return, and death has ever since been victor over rebellious men. The natives have the saying:

      "If Maui had not died he could have restored to life all who had gone before him, and thus succeeded in destroying death."

      Maui's brothers took the dismembered body and buried it in a cave called Te-ana-i-hana. "The cave dug out," possibly a prepared burial place.

      Maui's wife made war upon the gods, and killed as many as she could to avenge her husband's death. One of the old native poets of New Zealand in chanting the story to Mr. White said: "But though Maui was killed his offspring survived. Some of these are at Hawa-i-ki (Hawaii) and some at Ao-tea-roa (New Zealand) but the greater part of them remained at Hawaiki. This history was handed down by the generations of our ancestors of ancient times, and we continue to rehearse it to our children, with our incantations and genealogies, and all other matters relating to our race."

      "But death is nothing new

      Death is, and has been ever since old Maui died

      Then Pata-tai laughed loud

      And woke the goblin-god

      Who severed him in two, and shut him in,

      So dusk of eve came on."

      —Maori Death Chant

      III

THE WATER OF LIFE*

      "THE SELF-RELIANT DRAGON" is frequently mentioned in the oldest Hawaiian legends. This dragon was probably a very old crocodile worshipped as the ancestor goddess of the Hawaiian chief families.

      She dwelt in one of the mysterious islands mentioned in the Hawaiian chants as Kua-i-Helani, "the Far-away Helani," lying in the ancient far western home of the Polynesians.

      Iku was the chief. He had several sons. The youngest was Aukele-nui-a-Iku, Aukele the Great Son of Iku.

      Aukele was a favorite of the Self-reliant Dragon. She gave him a large bamboo stick. Inside she placed an image of the god Lono, and also a magic leaf which could provide plenty of food for any one who touched the leaf to his lips. She put in a part of her own skin.

      She said, "This skin is a cloak for you. If you lift it up against any enemies, they will fall to pieces as dust and ashes."

      They put all these treasures in the bamboo stick. Then the dragon taught the boy all kinds of magic power.

      The brothers, who were great warriors, determined to sail away, find a new land and conquer it by fighting. Aukele persuaded them to take him. Then he sent one to get the stick he had brought from the dragon pit which was near the sea.

      After a long time on the sea all their food was gone and they were starving and lying in the bottom of the boat. Aukele fed them from the leaf which he touched to their lips.

      Some days passed and Aukele said, "To-morrow we will come to a land where a woman is the ruler. Let me tell why we journey."

      They said, "Did you build this boat, and have you its chant?"

      He said: "We must not call this a boat for war, but of discovery, to find new land."

      The chiefess of that land looked out and saw a boat in the ocean, and sent some birds to see what the boat was doing and learn whether it was a war canoe, or a travelling boat. The birds went out, and Aukele wanted his brothers to say it was a travelling boat. The birds asked and the brothers said: "This is a war canoe." The birds went away. Aukele took up the bamboo stick and threw it in the sea, and leaped in after it. The brothers threw the cloak of Aukele on the beach. The chiefess found the cloak and shook it toward the boat, then threw it away. The brothers broke into small dust and were destroyed. The boat and the brothers sank to the bottom of the sea.

      Aukele swam to the beach, pulled up his stick, found his cloak and lay down under a tree and slept. A watchdog came out, and smelled the man, and barked.

      The chiefess called two women, and told them to see who it was, and if they found any one, kill him. They came down and the god of Aukele awakened him, and told him the names of the women.

      The women came and he greeted them. They were ashamed because he had found their names, and one said to the other, "What can we give him for naming us?" The other said, "We will let him be the husband of our ruler." So they came and sat down by him, and they talked lovingly together and he won their hearts.

      The women told him that they had been sent to kill him, but that they would say they did not find him; then other messengers would be sent. They went home and told the chiefess: "We went to the precipice; there was no one there. Then to the forest and the sea. There was no one there. Perhaps the dog made a mistake."

      The chiefess turned the dog out again; at once there was more barking. She told her bird brothers to go and look over the СКАЧАТЬ