Kane and his Shadow Art by Dan Mcpharlin

The great gods sometimes came to earth. They surfed in rolling waves and wandered over plain and mountain. They drank form bubbling springs and picked Hala fruit or Ohelo berries.

Once the four great gods Kane, Ku, Lono and Kanaloa – came to Oahu. They walked through forests and fertile valleys and along the beaches. “This is good land,” Kane said. “There is fish for food and roots and berries. In the forest are great trees for canoes. There is rock and shell for tools. Let us make man to use these things and to rule them as their chief. Let us make him in our image.”

The other gods agreed. Then Kane took his staff and drew a man in the red earth of the mountainside. He made a handsome god-like figure while the other gods stood watching.

“I too shall make a man, “said Kanaloa. With his staff he drew a figure beside his brother’s.

“Make your man live,” challenged Kane, but Kanaloa could not.
“Make yours live!” he said at last, looking at his brother.

Then Kane turned to Ku and Lono who watched him silently. “Will you repeat the words I say?” he asked them. “We will”
Then Kane spoke to his rock drawing. “Live!” he commanded in a ringing voice.
“Live! Live!” the words of Ku and Lono rang like an echo.

The Rock figure stirred as if in sleep then woke to life. Slowly the man rose. looked about in wonder and knelt before his gods.

The gods built for him a house of strong timber thatched with grass. “The man has all things that he needs,” said Kane and the gods returned to their islands deep in the blue sky.

Now and then one or another visited the earth and watched their man. He drank form springs, he ate roots and shellfish. He prepared ‘awa ‘ drink and thanked the gods for their good gifts. He learned to swim and surf. He fashioned tools and made for himself bowls and garments.

The gods saw that he had one companion. When he surfed, dug for food or chipped stone tools his shadow played or worked beside him. The gods heard him talking to his shadow but the shadow did not answer. It surfed or dug beside him, it lay beside him on the sunny beach to sleep,but it never laughed and talking with him. “He is lonely,” Kane said. “Let us give him a companion.”

The man woke from a deep seep, beside him he saw a woman, perfectly formed. He greeted her and the woman smiled and answered “You have grown from my shadow!” the man cried joyfully. “I shall call you Shadow-made-of-heaven.”

As for the figure drawn by Kanaloa, it turned to rock and remained for many years on the mountain slope above Mokapu.

Translated by Mary Kawena Puku’i from a Hawaiian newspaper.

It was Kanui, a native woman of Wai’anae who told him why this place was so named. In the olden days, this place was sparsely inhabited because of the scarcity of water. The fishing was good but planting very poor. When it rained, some sweet potatoes would be put into the ground, but the crops were always poor and miserable.

There were a few brackish pools from which they obtained their drinking water and it is only when they went to the upland of Wai’anae that they were able to get fresh water. They carried the water home in large calabashes hung on mamaka or carrying sticks and used their water very carefully after they got it home. They spent most of their time fishing and most of the fish they caught were dried as gifts for friends and relatives in the upland. Sometimes they carried dried and fresh fish to these people in the upland in exchange received poi and other vegetable foods. And as often as not it was the people of the upland who came with their products and went home with fish.

Because of the great scarcity of water and vegetable food, they were ashamed to greet passing strangers. They remained out of sight as much as possible. Sometimes they met people before they were able to hide, so they just looked at strangers with expressionless faces and acted as though they were stone deaf and did not hear the greeting. This was so that the strangers would not ask for water which they did not have in the locality.

The strangers would go on to other places and mention the peculiar, deaf people who just stared and they would be told that the people were not deaf but ashamed of their inability to be hospitable. So the place they lived was called Nana, or look, and Kuli, dead. Deaf mutes who just look.

Ku – Stand
Nana – looking
Kuli – Deafening

Mary Pukui, as told to her by Simeona Nwaa
March 6 1945
HEN, p 2740

When I went to visit the Pearl City Mormon Church, I met a native there who told some interesting stories. One of these was the Eel boy of Pilimoo, a pool in Pearl City. This pool had an underground tunnel that led to the sea. For a long time there was no danger to the children that came to swim in the pool until a man-eating shark discovered the tunnel and slipped in and out at will.

One day, a boy went to the pool and disappeared, no trace was of him was found. His father was so worried that he went to consult a Makuala or prophet. The makaula asked his gods, who told him that it was the will of the gods to change him into a small eel, so that he could live in the depth of the pool and warn the children of danger.

The father of the boy went to the pool to see if it were so. He sat there a long time and neither saw nor heard anything. Then the children gathered at the opposite side of the pool from him and began to dive and play.

Suddenly he heard a whistle which sounded so like the whistling of his son when he went home every day after playing. “That sounds very much like my son’s whistling.” he said to himself. He looked around and saw nothing. The whistling was repeated. Then looking toward a ledge under some hau trees, he noticed the head of an eel. Every now and then it whistled. He drew closer to it and spoke to it, “Can it be that you are my son? How did your human body change to an eel?” The boy replied, “Yes, I was once a boy, now I am an eel because the gods have willed it, so that I may save human lives from the wicked sharks of the deep that come here. Go and tell those children to go home. Tell them to listen and if they hear whistling that is a warned that they are in danger.

The man went as he was told to do so. He told them to listen for a shrill whistle every now and then. That was a signal to go away at once.

The eel whistled again so loudly that the children heard him and went away. The father remained to see if a shark would appear. A little while later he saw the dark form of a big shark swim about in the pool.

So it was that ever after, a whistle was a signal that danger was near.

— Makahonu Naumau (informant)
May 22, 1940
HEN: VOL I, P 1595

Lapalapa: Phosphorescence on the beach at night, believed by the Hawaiians to be the souls of the dead. Also believed to be a portal or rift into the next world.

“The Word for breath, Ha, also means life, and is found again and again in chants of old Hawaii. Prayer and communication with the gods are associated with the breath of life. In Breath was the life force and the individual spirit, considered so elemental that the greeting in old Hawaii was a close face-to-face sharing of the breath of life( Honi). When a kahuna was dying, he passed on the power and knowledge that he had acquired in a lifetime by literally breathing into his protege. Other Hawaiians passed on their gifts in their professions-talents and mana to a family member through their breath. Mana vital life force could also be imparted to objects by breathing on them”

Fundamentals Of Hawaiian Mysticism.

Charlotte Berney