her poking the fire with a stick (hoelo kapuahi). With a fine show of confidence, they at once went and seated themselves in Pele's lap, one on her right thigh and one on her left. Pele's looks softened as she contemplated them, tears gathered in her eyes and she said, "What is the thought in the heart? Speak." (Heaha ka hua i ka umauma? Ha'i'na.)
"Your commands." (O ka leo,[1] literally, the voice.)
At this Pele stood up and, leaving her own home-hearth, went over and took her station in the fire-pit of Hale-ma'u-ma'u. Then, pointing to the east, she said:
Mailoko mai o ka leo o ka manu.[2]
O huli kai-nu'u[3] a Kane;
E wehe ka lani, hamama ka honua;
O wela Kahiki-ku me Kahiki-moe;
Ala mai o Ka-moho-alii
E moe ana iloko o ke ao polohiwa.
E Ku e, e ho'i ka amama[4] i ka lani;
E Ku e, e ho'i ke ola ia Hiiaka-i-ka-poli-o-Pele,
A ola loa no, a-a!
- ↑ Leo, the voice; articulate speech. Leo o ka kanaka hookahi. This one supreme man was Kane. The poet evidently had in mind the myth which is embodied in a certain Kumu-lipo, or song of creation: Kane, the supreme one, looking from heaven, saw Chaos, or the god of Chaos, Kumu-lipo, spread out below and he called to him to send his voice—leo—to the east, to the west, to the north and to the south. Kumu-lipo, thus roused from inaction, despatched the bird Halulu, who flew and carried the message to the east, to the west, to the north and to the south.
It was such a voice of utterance as this (leo) that the two boys who went in before Pele desired. These two messenger-boys, by the way, are, in another account, spoken of as birds.
The purpose of Kane in sending out this leo seems to have been to rouse into activity the earth-strata, na papa honua.
- ↑ Ka manu, the bird Halulu, above mentioned.
- ↑ Kai-nu'u a Kane. This expression is an allusion to god Kane's surf-riding, which is often mentioned in Hawaiian mythology. Huli refers to the curling or bending over of the breaker’s crest; Nu'u to the blanket of white and yeasty water that follows as the wake of the tumbling wave. The Hawaiians who are best informed in these matters have only vague ideas on the whole subject.
- ↑ Amama, a word frequently used at the end of a prayer in connection with the word noa (free), as in the expression amama, ua noa. The evident meaning is it (the tabu) is lifted, it is free. I conjecture that the word amama is derived from, or related to, the word mama, light, in the sense of levitation.
