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Hawaiian - Legend Of Maluae


Maluae raises bananas for his gods in the uplands of Manoa at a place called Kanaloa-ho‘okau. For his family he raises other food. His son Kaali‘i eats one of the tapu bananas and the gods cause the boy to choke to death over it. His spirit goes to the underworld while his body lies lifeless. The father thereupon ceases to feed the gods and refuses all food himself, wishing only to die with his son. The gods miss their daily offering and repent having punished the boy so severely. After forty days they promise to aid Maluae in bringing back his son's soul from Manua. They restore his strength and give him the canoe Maku‘uko‘o which contains food, weapons, fire, and fresh water. He enters the roadway at Leilono in Moanalua and breaks through the cleft below the foundations of the earth where his son is being punished for his sin, but not in the place set apart for the worst sinners, and he restores the spirit to its lifeless body. 8

Hawaiian Mythology, by Martha Beckwith, Yale University Press [1940, copyright not renewed] and is now in the public domain.