🧚 The Water of Life [1] · page 2

He took his bamboo stick with all his aid inside and put it under his arm, put on his magic cloak, and said “Aloha.”106 A long time passed.107

He thought he was flying in a straight line, but one arm became tired because the stick was under it.108 He changed the stick, and this moved his direction.109 His god saw this and told him he was leaving the straight line and was flying to some other place.110 There was fire far below.111 All the people had fled except one.112 The god said, “Let us go straight till we come to that one; then you catch him and hold him fast.113 We shall have life.”114 This was the moon, who was an ancestress of his wife.115 The moon had been cooking food.116 She arose to take up her food and get ready to go.117 But Aukele caught her, held her and ate her food.118 She thus became thin—a new moon—and the traveller gained strength to return to his home.119

Aukele thought he would try again, according to his wife’s line.120 She made a line from the door of the house toward the sunrise, and warned him.121 He flew straight a long time until he found a strange land with a deep pit lined with trees and wonderful plants.122 At the bottom was the spring of the water of life.123 He leaped down upon the back of a watchman on the edge of the pit, who had been put there by the guardian to kill any one coming after the water.124 He tried to shake Aukele off, saying: “Who are you?125 What do you mean, O proud man?126 My grandchild, the brother of Pele, never got on my back.127 Who are you?”128 He gave his name and ancestors, and told the watchman he had come for the water of life for his brothers.129 The watchman said: “Go straight out from where I stand.130 Do not turn to the side or you will strike bamboo which will make a great noise, and my grandchild, Pele’s brother, will hear and will cover the water tight, and you cannot get it.”131

So Aukele flew and leaped straight on the second watchman, who told him not to go to the left or he would strike the lama trees (very hard wood, used for building houses for the gods).132 These trees would make a great noise and the guardian would cover the water tight and he could not get it.133

He flew to another watchman, who told him to go straight to the bottom of the pit.134 “There a blind woman will be sitting.135 Look at the place where she is cooking bananas.136 She will take them one by one.137 You eat all her bananas.138 Then she will become angry and throw ashes.139 If she throws on the right side, you must fly to the left.140 Watch if she strikes with a stick, then run quickly, sit in her lap, and tell her who you are.”141

When he had done all these things and all attempts to kill him had failed, Aukele made the old blind woman lie down under a cocoanut tree.142 He got two young cocoanuts and told her to turn her eyes toward the sky.143 He dropped the cocoanuts in her eyes.144 She wept sorely because of the pain.145 He told her to rub the water out of her eyes and not cry.146 She did so, and said: “I can see you.”147 He came down from the tree and she told him what he must do to get the water of life: “Go and break the stem of a water plant, and near it a bush with white flowers.148 Bring them to me.”149 This he did and laid the plants before her.150 She squeezed the water from the plants into a cup, took charcoal and other things and mixed them together until black; then she painted Aukele’s hands very black, like the hands of the brother of Pele.151 His hands were black, and those watching the water of life would look at the hands reaching for water and make no mistake.152 They would tightly cover up the water if a white hand came down.153 “Wait until the guardian god is asleep and the servants are preparing drink for him when he should awake.154 Then go to the door and one will give you some water.155 The first will be dirty water; throw it away.156 Put your hand down again.157 They will give you another calabash of water.158 This will be the living water of Kane; take it.”159

He went down and put his hand in for the water.160 The watchman handed out a calabash of dirty water.161 He threw it away and again thrust his black hand down the pit.162

The watchman gave him a calabash of the pure water of life.163

He flew rapidly along the path to the outside world.164 In his haste he struck the leaves of the groves of trees and the noise was that of strong winds thrashing the branches and leaves back and forth, up and down.165 The sound swept through the land of the water of life like rolling thunder.166

The brother of Pele and his servants awoke and followed, but he fled through the heavens to the place where the ghosts of his brothers lay in the sunken ship by the home of the goddess of the sea.167

They all went down to the sea.168 The chiefess told her husband to pour the water of life in his hand.169 She put her fingers in the water and sprinkled drops over the sea.170

Out in the ocean under the moving surface was a boat, its mast coming up through the waves.171 In a little while they saw men standing in the boat.172 These were the brothers of Aukele.173 After the welcome, he gave them lands and homes.174

In that strange far-off land of the ancestors—the mysterious “Floating Island”—the “Hidden Island of Kane,” it is said they still live under the rule of their younger brother.175

Aukele thought he would like to see his parents once more, so he went to the far-away Helani—but the land was desolate.176 The parents were gone, the people had disappeared, the houses had all decayed, and the land was covered with a forest.177

Only a dragon was left—one of the family of the “Self-reliant Dragon.”178 He discovered her body fast in the coral reef near the shore.179 He thought she was dead, but he stood up and stamped with full strength and broke the coral so that the dragon was free.180 He saw the body moving, but the dragon was very weak and near death.181

He was sorry for her, remembering that it was by the aid of dragon powers he had gone into the heavens and from the deep pit of the skies secured the water of life.182 Therefore he provided food and gave new life to the dragon.183 He asked about his parents and their gods, and the desolation of the land.184

The dragon told him how the entire household of gods, dragons and men had found a new home, in the Islands of Oahu and Hawaii.185 She told how “the child adopted or brought up by the gods,” and the Maiden of the Golden Clouds, had been taken by the Self-reliant Dragon to Oahu, and how all the rest had gone, leaving her as a guard in the old land of his birth and childhood.186

Aukele went back to the legendary land, the “Hidden Island of Kane,” and there lived among the ghost gods who welcome the dead as they escape from wandering over the islands and fly by the path of the sunset back to the home of the most distant ancestors—the mysterious lands in the skies of the western seas.187

Here he and his brothers are high chiefs of the au-makuas, the ghost gods of Hawaii, who wait to welcome and give peace to the spirits of the dead.188

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