Hawaiian Mythology · 31 of 55
Tradition of La‘A-Mai-Kahiki and the Hula Drum
(a) It is La‘a-mai-kahiki who introduces image worship in the shape of the figure Lono-i-ka-ouali‘i and the coconut fiber rope called Lanalana-wa‘a. He is most famous as the bringer of the kaeke drum and the hula dance to Hawaii. When the people hear the noise of the drum and the nose-flute as his canoe passes the coast of Hawaii they say, “It is the canoe of the god Kupulupulu (Laka)” and bring offerings. 8
(b) La‘a sails with a company consisting of his kahuna Kukaikupolo, his astronomer Kukeao-ho‘omihamiha, his diviner (Luhau-kapawa), his seer Maula, his drummer Kupa, and forty men to handle the canoes. They pass to the left of Hawaii and sail north past Maui and Molokai sounding the drum over the sea. A certain man named Haikamalama hears the strange sound from the Oahu coast at Hanauma bay and follows the canoe along the shore, beating out the notes on his breast to get the rhythm, and repeating the drummer’s chant. When the canoe beaches at Ka-waha-o-ka-mano in Waihaukalua, he pretends, in order to get a good look at it, that the drum is well known on Oahu, and then makes an exact copy of his own. 9
The names of Olopana and Lu‘ukia in the Moikeha-Kila legend for relatives of Moikeha left behind in Kahiki make it probable that the Moikeha family migrated from the north-western of the three land divisions into which old Tahiti was divided; that is, from the Oropa‘a (Olopana) division dominated by the powerful Oropa‘a family. Puna-au-ia is the chief district, through which runs the great valley of Punaru‘u, a name found also on Hawaii. Mou‘a-ula-nui-akea as the former name for the land division on the north now called Tahara‘a suggests the Moa-ula-nui-akea of the Kila story. Taputapuatea is a great marae (temple) at Opoa on Ra‘iatea. 10
The Oropa‘a were a rugged family of warriors whose name appears far up oh the line of descent of the Pomare family. Later they retreated into the mountains before invading peoples. Lizards (mo‘o) were their family gods and lowering clouds lying with fringed edges on the horizon are called after the fork-tailed lizard. 11 Tipa, whose “shadow” on earth was a species of lizard, was the healing god of sickness and disease of the Oropa‘a chiefs. 12 In myth there is an Oropa‘a, god of ocean, son of Tumu-nui and Papa-raharaha. The man-of-war bird is his shadow, the whale his messenger. 13 In chant it is said that “he lies with head upwards when the breezes come. The white-foaming breakers are his jaws. He swallows whole persons and fleets of people; he does not spare princes.” 14
Lu‘ukia is not mentioned in Tahitian genealogies, but in Maori tradition Tu-te-koropanga and Rukutia his wife (Olopana and Lu‘ukia in Hawaiian) appear on the royal genealogy “relating to the period of occupation of the Society islands.” The names of Koropanga and Rukutia occur in Tongareva as “two adjacent islands on the north side of the lagoon.” Rukutia introduces culture elements. “Be ye girded with the mat of Rukutia,” says a Maori chant, and again, “Be ye tattooed after the manner of Rukutia.” 15 Irapanga is said by the Maori to have migrated with his children and sub-tribes to Ahu (Oahu) and hence originated the people of Hawaiki, Maui, and other islands. To reach it they sail north-east from Tawhiti-nui. They name the big island Hawaikirangi, and this is the old name for the Hawaiian group. From here they migrate to Rangiatea (Ra‘iatea) and Rarotonga. The Maori call Lanai, Maui-pae; Molokai, Maui-taka.
In Hawaii the introduction of the bark-cloth skirt of five thicknesses commonly worn by women is ascribed to Lu‘ukia, as well as the network cover used for water gourds and for the lashings of the outrigger of a canoe, supposed to be wrought after the pattern of the protection with which her thighs were bound against the approach of lovers after her quarrel with Moikeha. So sacred is such a form of canoe lashing that death is the penalty for intruding while the work is being done. 16 According to one story, the house of separation set up between Kawaihee and Waimea while she and Olopana were living at Waipio, to which she retired during her monthly periods, was a novelty in Hawaii. Waiauwia, a man of prominence in Waimea who followed her there, had never heard of the tapu for women at this time. 17 A cave is pointed out in Hana district on Maui where Lu‘ukia is said to have taught tapa beating to the women of Hana. The cave goes by the name of Hana-o-Lu‘ukia (Work of Lu‘ukia), the long a representing a profession carried on, rather than incidental labor.
Hawaiian legend links Lu‘ukia with the Hikapoloa family of Kohala on Hawaii, but some say she belongs to Tahiti and not to the Hawaiian group. In the Hainakolo romance she is a relative of Hainakolo belonging to Waipio or to Hamakua district, who adopts Hainakolo’s child, brings him up as a waif, and later makes him her husband. In the Uweuwelekehau romance she is daughter of Olopana at Wailua on Kauai and takes as husband her cousin, who comes to her from Hawaii in the form of a fish but with the marks of a chief. An incomplete story from a school composition makes her the daughter of Hamau and Hooleia of Puako, South Kohala, and wife of Kama-o-ahu on Oahu. When her young brother Makahi comes to visit her and wins a betting contest in spear throwing with Kaaiai of Oahu, Lu‘ukia’s husband takes him for a former lover of his wife and insults him. 18 All these stories agree in making Lu‘ukia the heroine of a love affair with a young husband, which makes trouble with her first husband or an older relative.
About the name of Olopana also certain traditions persist in Hawaii. He is said to have been afflicted with dropsy. After Moikeha’s departure one version has it that as ruler of Moaula-nui-akea he makes himself so beloved that Moikeha’s uncle sends him away and he emigrates to the Hawaiian group. He is said to have brought there the style of tattooing and to have enforced the tapu system. Some say there are three different Olopana chiefs mixed up in Hawaiian story, one belonging to Tahiti, another to the legend of Moikeha, a third to the Kamapua‘a legend. In one romance, that of Uweuwelekekau, Olopana is the older brother of Ku and Hina at Wailua, Kauai. Olopana and Ku quarrel and Ku, followed by his sister Hina, settles at Pi‘i-honua, Hilo, Hawaii. 19 In the romance of Ke-ao-melemele, when Ku has an affair with in “one of the large islands of the heavens,” his wife Hina is taken by Olopana and their child is adopted by Ku and Hi‘ilei. 20 Here again the woman seems to be the wife of two brothers.
Footnotes 352:1 For. Pol. Race 1: 166, 197-198; 2: 47-49; Col. 6: 239-257; p. 353 Stokes, HHS Reports 42: 41-48; Kalakaua, 118; Kamakau, Kuokoa, January 5, 1867; Cartwright, 8-9, tables 2, 4.
355:2 For. Col. 4: 18-21; Emerson, HHS Papers 5: 16-17.
356:3 For. Col. 4: 132-139; Thrum, More Tales, 23-30.
357:4 For. Col. 4: 160-173.
357:5 Kamakau, Kuokoa, January 12, 1867.
358:6 For. Col. 4: 128-153; Thrum, More Tales, 30-45.
358:7 Kamakau, Kuokoa, January 12, 1867.
359:8 For. Col. 4: 152-155.
359:9 Kuokoa, January 12, 1867. See also For. Pol. Race 2: 49-56; Col. 4: 112-173; Kamakau, Kuokoa, January 5, 1867; Thrum, More Tales, 20-45 (abridged from Fornander); Kalakaua, 115-135; Westervelt, Hist. Leg., 79-92; Malo, 26; Emerson, HHS Papers 5: 14-24; Dickey, HHS Reports 25: 24-25; Stokes, JPS 29: 29-33; Cartwright, 8-9 and tables 2, 4.
360:10 Henry, 566-569; Handy, Bul. 79: 71-73; Buck, Bul. 92: 19.
360:11 Henry, 383.
360:12 Ibid., 376, 383.
360:13 Ibid., 387-388.
360:14 Ibid., 358.
360:15 Henry, quoting Smith, 569.
361:16 Malo, 174; For. Col. 4: 112-115, 172.
361:17 Ibid. 156-159.
361:18 Ibid. 5: 564-569.
362:19 For. Col. 4: 192-199.
362:20 Westervelt, Gods and Ghosts, 132.