Hawaii Legends: Introduction from the Legends and Myths of Hawaii

Hawaii Legends: Introduction from The Legends and Myths of Hawaii By King Kalakaua, 1888

Paao – one of the first Kahunas

In ancient Hawaii the birds pueo and alae were sacred and sometimes worshipped. Among the sacred fish were the aku and opelu. How they first became so is told in a legend relating to the high-priest Paao, who migrated to the islands in the eleventh century and induced Pili to follow him. Before visiting Hawaii, Paao lived near his brother, probably on the island of Samoa. Both were priests and well skilled in sorcery and divination. The name of the brother was Lonopele. Both were affluent and greatly respected. Lonopele’s lands were near the sea and produced the choicest varieties of fruits. One season, when the fruits were ripening, Lonopele discovered that some one was surreptitiously gathering them in the night-time, and accused one of the sons of Paao of stealing them. Indignant at the charge, and discerning no better way of disproving it, Paao killed and opened his son, and showed his brother that there was no fruit in the stomach of the boy.

Grieved at the death of his son, and holding his brother accountable for it, Paao concluded to immigrate to some other land, and built strong canoes for that purpose. About the time they were complete a son of Lonopele chanced to be in the neighborhood, and Paao, remembering the death of his own son, ordered the boy to be killed. He was missed, and search was made for him, and his body was finally found near Paao’s canoes. Lonopele charged his brother with the murder. Paao did not deny it, and Lonopele ordered him to leave the island. To avoid further trouble Paao set sail at once with a party consisting of thirty-eight persons.

As the canoes were moving from the shore several prophets standing on the cliffs above, expressed a desire to join the party. “Very well,” was the answer of Paao; ‘if you are prophets, as you say, leap from the cliffs and I will take you aboard.” Several leaped into the sea and were dashed against the rocks and drowned. Finally Makuakaumana, a prophet of genuine inspiration, who was to have accompanied the expedition, reached the shore and discovered the canoes of Paao far out on the ocean. Raising his voice, he hailed Paao and asked that a canoe might be sent back for him. “Not so,” returned the priest in a loud voice, which the favoring winds bore to the belated prophet. “To return would be an omen of evil. There is room for you but if you would go with us you must fly to our canoes. And flying, the prophet reached the canoes in safety.

Observing the canoes of Paao as they were disappearing in the distance, Lonopele sent a violent storm to destroy them, but the strong fish Aku assisted in propelling the canoes against the storm, and the might fish Opelu swam around them and broke the waves with his body. The malignant brother then sent the great bird Kihahakaiwainapali to vomit over the canoes and sink them; but they were hastily covered with mats, and thus escaped destruction. After a long voyage Paao landed in Puna, on the coast of Hawaii. Thenceforth the aku and opelu were held sacred by Paao and his descendents.

When the high-priest Paao returned to Hawaii with the leader Pili, he introduced some new gods while recognizing the old, strengthened and enlarged scope of the tabu, and established a hereditary priesthood independent of, and second only in authority to, the supreme political head. Different grades of priests also came into existence, such as seers, prophets and kahunas of various functions, including the power of healing and destroying. In fact, the priesthood embraced ten distinct grades or college, each possessing and exercising powers peculiar to it, and the mastery of all of them was one of the qualifications of the high priesthood. The tutelary deity of the entire body was Uli.