|
Hawaiian - Legends Of Kane And Kanaloa As Water Finders
Kane and Kanaloa go into the precipitous mountains back of Keanae on Maui and lack water. They discuss whether it can be obtained at this height. "Oi-ana (Let it be seen)!" says Kanaloa; so Kane thrusts in his staff made of heavy, close-grained kauila wood (Alphitonia excelsa) and water gushes forth. They open the fishpond of Kanaloa at Luala‘ilua and possess the water of Kou at Kaupo. They kill the kahuna Koino at Kiko‘o in Kipahulu because he is guilty of defilement at mealtime. They cause sweet waters to flow at Waihee, Kahakuloa, and at Waikane on Lanai, Punakou on Molokai, Kawaihoa on Oahu. 24 On Kauai they leave few springs because they are not recognized as gods. The impress of their forms as they slept is left on the rock above the pool of Mauhili in the Waikomo stream in Koloa district where, on the cliff below, are two pointed rocks named Waihanau and Ka-elelo-o-kahawau. 25 Two holes are pointed out just below the road across Ohia gulch beyond Keanae on Maui where Kane dug his spear first into one hole and then into the other with the words, "This is for you, that for me." The water gushing from these apertures is called "the water of Kane and Kanaloa." 26 The gods land at Hanauma on Oahu and springs flow at various places where the two mix awa on their way to Waolani in Nu‘uanu valley. In Manoa valley they see a pretty girl and both gods try to seize her. The attendant changes into a great rock in their path, a spring of water trickles where the girl stood, and over it lean two ohia trees, symbols of the gods. This is the spring called "Water of the gods," which was sacred to Kamehameha. 27
It was at the time of the migration of Kane and Kanaloa from Kahiki that the "stones of Kane" were set up and the "waters of Kane" were "brought forth from hills, cliffs, and rocks." Emerson quotes from Kauai a hula song composed in the popular question-and-answer repetitive form, beginning,
"A query, a question
I put to you,
Where is the water of Kane?"
"At the Eastern Gate
'Where the sun comes in at Ha‘eha‘e (easternmost point of Hawaii),
There is the water of Kane."
The stories of the spring-finding activities of the gods are not to be interpreted as alluding to the skill with which irrigation was applied to taro plantings in upland or in wet taro cultivation. The legends make no mention of such uses for the water springs which the gods caused to gush out of rocks. They simply express the mystery which even to an old Hawaiian today belongs to such a phenomenon. The native who accompanied us to the outlet of a tunnel just put through in the back country of Ka-u district on Hawaii to bring water from the upper valleys showed an excitement which scarcely a Niagara or a Boulder Dam could arouse in our own country. Such places are celebrated as sacred spots (wahi pana). It is said that the heiau of Kau-maka-ula (Thy red eyes) built by the chief Kamehaikaua after the flood of Ka-hina-li‘i was repaired by the kahuna Kahonu for the young chief Kekua-o-ka-lani and a house erected for him at Maliko where he was reared at the "waters of Kane and of Kanaloa" in the Puna-lu‘u division of the Koolauloa district on Oahu. The strange thing about the heiau was that the eyes of all the pigs in the district turned red as the tapu nights approached, and during the tapu nights of Kane and of Kanaloa the sound of piping and whistling and drumming could be heard at the heiau.
“The man-fishing net of Lono,
The braided net of Kamehaikaua,”
runs the chant, with reference, Thrum says, to the "fish" sacrificed at the Makahiki, and the division of the heiau area called the "net" (upena) where the victim was snared. 28 Kane as the spear thruster and god of gushing waters has phallic symbolism. The thruster is the male, the spring of water, which Hawaiians think of as the source of life, is the female in the generative process. Hence Kane's aspect as "Kane of the water of life."
Hawaiian Mythology, by Martha Beckwith, Yale University Press [1940, copyright not renewed] and is now in the public domain.
|
