Wisdom of Our Kūpuna: Mo'olelo - Oral Traditions Ahu kupaianaha iā
Hawai‘i ‘imi loa. Extraordinarily
bountiful is the deepness of Hawaiian knowledge.
– Kepelino Kahoali‘i Keauokalani, College of Ahuimanu. There are many references
to Pālolo Valley in ancient
mo‘olelo, the oral tradition that tells of the deeds and renown of those who
walked this land in earlier times. Stories of the menehune, burial caves, and places visited by the gods all take
place within Pālolo Valley. These
mo‘olelo speak of Kaimukī as an
untamed territory blanketed with boulders, and of menehune who once stoked the fires of their earthen ovens here for
roasting ti roots. Westervelt mentions a great
cave that extended from Mānoa Valley
to Pālolo Valley. This was said to
be the great cave that Kamehameha I inhabited
with his warriors during the invasion of O’ahu. The path to the entrance was
said to be marked by coconut trees. This cave is said to have connected to a
subterranean network running from Mānoa
to Pālolo Valley" (McAllister
1933). There is a reference to
burial caves in the Fish Net Legend
which states: "Near Honolulu, on the side of Pālolo Valley that feels the sun most when the day is older, are
many palis
(sic). Some are sheer and of one piece. Others are serried or broken.
At the bases of many are burial caves" (Sterling and Summers 1978). Pālolo is associated with the
fabulous rooster, Ka‘auhelemoa, also
the name of a mountain ridge and pond in the mountains at the head of PāIolo Valley near Ka'au Crater. One of the earlier accounts is as follows: Ka‘auhelemoa was a supernatural rooster.
He was raised by his grandmother Kanihomauole in Pālolo. The demigod Kamapua'a one day came to Kanihomauole claiming: "I have
come to kill Ka‘auhelemoa and eat
him." Kanihomauole replied,
"Whatever you kill you must eat, Kamapua'a."
Kamapua'a lunged to bite into Ka‘auhelemoa. The agile bird flew to
the right side of the boar's back and began to peck and kick. The boar felt the
pain and rolled in the dust. Undeterred, he pursued the rooster, chasing him to
a spring where he fell into the water and died. That spring became known as Ka‘auhelemoa, and its water appears
tinted as though reddened with blood, allegedly from the wounds of Ka‘auhelemoa. However, once the spring
water is placed into a container for removal from the spring, it will change to
the colorless, ordinary water. In another version of the
story, the rooster of the king of Maui,
named Ke-au-hele-moa, was killed and
his name was given to a place far up PāIolo
Valley (Westervelt). In another creation tale, Ka‘au Crater is the site of the impact
where the fabulous fishhook Manai‘akalani
fell to earth as follows: Maui attempted to rearrange the
islands and assemble them into one solid mass. Standing at Ka‘ena Point, he cast his wonderful hook, Manai‘akalani, far out into the ocean that it might engage itself
in the foundations of the island of Kaua‘i.
When he felt that it had taken good hold, he gave a mighty tug at the line. A
huge boulder, the Pohaku-o-Kaua‘i fell
at his feet. The magical hook, having freed itself from the huge landmass, dropped into PāIolo Valley and hollowed out the
crater, where it is said to be at the bottom of the marsh-filled crater
(Emerson 1915). Nakuina (1904) relates that
Ka‘au crater "was once the site
of a natural lake, said by the Hawaiians to be unfathomable." Elliot and
Hall (1977) relate that "fish were raised in the lake for the ancient
valley chiefess." Kawachi (1994) tells us that “the crater mud had healing
powers”. Another story about Kamapua‘a includes a brief mention of Pālolo Valley: "They had been up Pālolo Valley to visit friends who had
fine taro patches and gardens, and were hurrying home with their calabashes
heavy with gifts of taro and sweet potatoes” (Armitage and Judd 1944). Remnants of Pālolo’s mo‘o can be traced to the
tale of two mo‘o wahine, Awapuhi-melemele
(Yellow Ginger) and Awapuhi-ke‘oke‘o
(White Ginger) who quarreled over the affections of a man, and one turned the
other into a stone that rests in the Pālolo
Stream to this day. The stone is near the middle of the stream and
resembles the seated torso of a woman, including the legs almost as far as the
knees. When the water rises in the stream, two streamlets flow over the “lap”
of the seated figure, and continue on their downstream journey to the sea. Interviews
with earlier residents cite the location of this rock formation as
"perhaps a half-mile" below the "first bridge" (Mrs. Elizabeth Kekuaho‘oulu Davis 1954).
Although the white and yellow ginger are introduced plants and not native to
Hawai‘i, the story still carries authenticity as an account of mo‘o being
turned to stone. The location is believed to still be visible in the stone formations
of the stream bed along the Saint Louis campus. Significance of the Kalaepōhaku mo‘o Mānoa down to Mo‘ili‘ili
was known for its mo'o, reptilian-like water spirits, usually female, in the form
of large lizards. Mo‘o are ‘aumakua,
or ancestral gods, who protect their descendants from danger or sorcery, heal
sickness or wounds, and forgive transgressions; they can restore a person to
life or guide the spirit of the dead to join the spirits of its ancestors in
the afterworld. The ‘aumakua can also be an avenger against one's enemies or
against worshipers who break vows sworn in the name of the ‘aumakua or who dare to eat
offerings consecrated to them, or which are the forms of their ‘aumakua,
or who eat defiled things; who break laws, commit adultery, and disregard the
laws of God, of the land, of parents, husbands, wives, children, and
relatives" (Kamakau People). These
spiritual beings take the visible bodies of natural elements (thunder,
lightning, lava or volcanic fire), or animals, such as the pueo (owl), mano
(shark), honu (turtle), puhi (eel), or mo‘o. “The
mo‘o is black, between twelve and thirty
feet long” (Kamakau People). As no
such large water lizards ever existed in Hawai‘i, it may be an ancestral memory
of the saltwater crocodiles of the southwest Pacific or even Komodo dragons of
Indonesia. Small skinks and geckos are considered by some to be kinolau,
or embodiment, of the mo‘o (Handy and Pukui). Kamakau
denies this, though he says "one can imagine the shape [of a mo‘o]
from these little creatures" (People). The ‘o‘opu, a lizard-looking
fish that lives in streams and tide pools, is also considered by some to be a kinolau
of the mo'o. According
to Martha Beckwith, mo‘o worship was brought to Hawai'i from Tahiti, where the mo‘o was worshiped by the royal Oropa'a
family (Hawaiian Mythology). The mo‘o
migration came under the ali‘i mo‘o-i-nanea ("lizard-that- enjoys-itself")
and landed first at Waialua, O'ahu
(Handy and Pukui). The ancestral mo‘o
goddesses were named Walinu'u, Walimanoanoa, Kalamainu'u, and Kihawahine
(Kamakau People). The
rainy cliffs and mountain peaks, waterfalls, springs, streams, and pools of Mānoa were dwelling places for mo‘o.
A mo‘o
lived on Konahuanui, the highest
peak in the Ko'olau mountains, above
the back of the valley (Summers and Sterling); the area around her home is the
second rainiest on O'ahu, averaging 150 inches per year. At Pu'ahu'ula ("Spring of the Red
Feather Cape"), in upper Mānoa,
the mo‘o
goddess Kihanuilulumoku lived; her
water nourishes the plants of Wa‘aloa
("Long Canoe"), the second stream from the east. Pali Luahine ("Luahine's Cliff"), on the west side of Wa‘ahila ridge, was the home of Luahine, a mo‘o who came from Maunalua fishpond (Summers and
Sterling). Mo‘ili‘ili
("Lizard-pebbles," or "Lizard Piled-up"), on the kula plain
below the valley, is named for a giant mo‘o
slain by Pele's sister Hi‘iaka-i-ka-poli-o-Pele and turned
into a long rocky hill. (Pukui et al, Place
Names; Sterling and Summers); the hill now bisected by the H-1 Freeway at
the present Hawaii Humane Society, figures in numerous ghost stories of the
neighborhood. The
original place name was Kamō'ili'ili,
or pebble lizard, named after the mo'o that attacked the goddess Hi‘iaka, while she was returning to the
Big Island with her friend Wahineōma‘o
and Lohiau, the handsome young chief
of Kauai. Hi'iaka vanquished the
fierce reptile with lightning concealed under her magical skirt. His body was
then cut into pieces, where they turned into a low hill of stones or
‘ili‘ili in the neighborhood of the old Kamo‘ili‘ili church where a high-rise condominium stands today. The Bell Stone or phonolyte known
as pohaku
kīkēkē (“rapping stone”), formerly located on the ma kai side of Wai'alae Avenue near the ‘ewa
end of Sacred Hearts Academy campus
at 5th Avenue was another wahi
pana or storied place
particularly associated with mo‘o. During Hi‘iaka’s trek across O‘ahu bringing Lohiau to her sister on Hawai‘i, she became irritated by a love
affair between mo‘o siblings, Pāhoa and
Līlīlehua. Pāhoa, a male mo‘o would gaze longingly at his
sister as she bathed in the Pālolo
Stream pool known as Huewa—thought
to be under the entryway bridge to the Saint Louis – Chaminade campus. Disgusted
at this affair, Hi‘iaka trapped the
voice of the sister Līlīlehua in a
huge stone—the famed Kaimukī Bell Stone—parts
of which are said to be embedded in the lava rock walls encircling Sacred Hearts Academy, and possibly
buried under the Kaimuki Shopping Center.
This great stone was said to resonate when rapped, and the sound carried as far
out as ships at anchor off Waikīkī. In
a related story, the heart-broken Līlīlehua
became one of the rains that come down
Pālolo Valley to the arid
Kalaepōhaku slopes, but she never crosses an invisible boundary formed by Wai‘alae Avenue, separating her from her brother Pāhoa, killed by Hi‘iaka,
and whose corpse forms the massive
west slope of the Kaimukī
residential area, including an avenue named for him. The legendary Bell Stone was reported as destroyed
or removed sometime prior to 1908 (Sterling and Summers 1978). An earlier
report indicated it had been broken into pieces and used for roadway
construction during the monarchy period. Mo‘o were also guardians and caretakers of
fishponds. On O'ahu, Kanekua‘ana was
the guardian of ‘Ewa and the fishponds of Pu‘uloa ("Long Hill," Pearl
Harbor); she brought an abundance of pipi (oysters), ‘opae
(shrimp), and nehu (anchovy). Laniwahine
was the guardian of 'Uko'a fishpond
in Waialua; Hauwahine guarded the ponds at Kawainui
and Ka‘elepulu in Kailua, Ko‘oluapoko; and Laukupu the pond at Maunalua,
on the east end of Honolulu. "They were the guardians who brought the
blessing of abundance of fish, and of health to the body, and who warded off
illness and preserved the welfare of the family and their friends"
(Kamakau People). When the chiefs or
their agents abused the poor and the fatherless, the mo‘o guardians took the fish away until the wrongdoers showed penitence
and made restitution to their victims (Kamakau People). In the vicinity of the Bell
Stone, a group of four significant pōhaku were transferred in
ancient times to Waikīkī and can be visited today at a fenced area just diamond
head-side of the Honolulu Police Department substation on Kalākaua Avenue.
These are the famed “Wizard Stones”,
sometimes referred to as Nā Pōhaku Ola Kapaemāhū a Kapuni. Tradition
speaks of four tall strangers who arrived on O‘ahu long ago, each possessing
magic powers, especially for healing. Believed to have come from Tahiti where they were respected by the
chief, these gentle yet powerful beings were neither purely male nor purely
female. They became revered and honored by the Hawaiian people, and settled for
some time in nearby sections of Waikīkī. When the time came for them to return
to their homeland, they instructed the people to bring four large stones from
Kaimukī, in the area where Wai‘alae and Fifth Avenues intersect today. When
these carefully selected stones were brought to Waikīkī, the four magic-workers
each imbued their powers in the stones that became named for them: Kapaemāhū, Kinohi, Kahaloa, and Kapuni. (under construction) Piliamo'o Kūmauna/Kaumana and our relationship to Maunalua-Kuapa Kahalaopuna |
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