The Touching Story of Haʻinakolo

Hina saw the man’s head was adorned with lei lehua, and that he was fine-looking, like the vision she’d seen in the water. However, his appearance was even more striking now, as she beheld his actual features. He gazed at her in the water and she at him. She beckoned him to come down and to bathe together with her in the exhilarating waters of the pool of Hiʻilawe. And, as she was so excited at having waved toward the man, she dove down into the water.

When she dove and came back up, she was startled by something gently touching her head, and she asked herself with great bewilderment, “What in the world is on my head?”

At the same time, she quickly lifted her hands and felt the mysterious thing. As she did this, her fingers met with lehua petals, which fluttered down and floated upon the surface of the rippling water, and she realized that a lei lehua was resting on her head.

“This is so crazy!” she exclaimed to herself. “Is this really a lei lehua adorning me? Who, I wonder, garlanded me with this lei?”

Then, she turned and looked toward the man she had seen standing on the top of the cliff and saw him smiling down at her. She motioned to him. Her eyes widened as something else touched her head and a cluster of lehua flowers fell in front of her. She seized the bouquet and inhaled. As she continued to breathe in the scent of the lehua, the end of a wondrous rainbow, starting from the cliff face where she saw the handsome man, touched down and covered the pool where she was bathing. She then saw the spectacle of the wondrous stranger descending inside the rainbow.

Hina’s attendants gasped excitedly, saying, “What an amazing rainbow. It’s enveloping our ward’s sacred pool. Such a rainbow is certainly a wondrous sight to see!”

It was, in fact, a rainbow that Hina’s attendants were seeing, but they did not see the form of a man, as Hina did when the rainbow descended from the cliff.

The incredibly handsome man came down with the rainbow and stood at the edge of the pool, saying to Hina, “What a pleasure to meet you for the first time! Greetings to you!”

“Well! I didn’t think you’d actually come down to see me, since I was just waving at you for fun. What are we to do? Well, you’ve seen me, from head to toe, so I greet you with affection, stranger. Would you like to jump in the water to swim together? Wait! Say, was it you who tossed down this garland sitting on my head, as well as the bouquet of lehua I’m holding?”

“Yes. I was the one who gave you the pretty flowers, O stunning beauty of the cliffs. Now, concerning your invitation to swim together in your pool, I cannot agree to do so at this time. I have just met you. I will return to my home until the right time—which is soon to come—for us to meet again. But, let me add, I will come to see you at dawn. When you sleep tonight, you will hear the sound of the shearwater, but it will not be me. Though when you hear the sound of the hinihini kuamauna and the kāhuli snail as dawn approaches, know to yourself that it’s me.

“And, where do you live?” asked Hina of the wondrous stranger. The man replied, “My abode is up on the mountain, Maunakea. I came down from there and saw you from the top of the cliff.”

“And, what is your name?” Hina asked the young man.

“Certainly, you ask an appropriate question, O beauty of Hiʻilawe, and I’ll tell you my name. It is Kūʻaikauaakama, though you may shorten it to Kū. And, if I’m not mistaken, might your name be Hinaʻaiulunui?”

“My goodness!” exclaimed an extremely puzzled Hina. “How in the world do you know my name, as you are a stranger to me and I to you?”

"I have known your name for some time now. When a person is born, their name is too. And, where I come from, the name of a chief is never unknown to us. Heed my words, Hina! I will not bathe in this pool, as I have a different pool in which to bathe with you when the right time comes. So, I bid you farewell, as I now return to the cold of Maunakea. Remember the sound of the pololei kuamauna and the kāhuli, the singing snail.

At that moment, the base of the rainbow lifted abruptly and the young man of the astonishing lei lehua vanished. As for Hina, a burning desire quickly welled up within her for the young man. She left the pool in a hurry and speedily returned to the valley floor.

When the invocation by the beauty of the cascading waterfall of Hiʻilawe was complete, Kūʻaikauaakama came down from the bird wings, upon which he was sitting. He went to where his sister was lying in fragrant kapa and said calmly, “I have arrived as I said to you I would yesterday. My journey and appearance at the break of dawn is my way of showing that our familial bond cannot be severed. I am the elder and you the younger. When I was born, I was taken by our grandfather, Kūwahailo. I was transported by him to Kuaihelani and was raised there until I left those lands and returned here to Hawaiʻi.

“Listen, dearest sister. Yes, you are my sister, as Nanailaniakama is our biological father, and ʻOakailunaikeaouli is our biological mother. I was born as Kū and you as Hina. Yet, it is also true that Kūwahailo is the reason for my existence, as his power is what caused my birth from the womb of our biological mother. And, because of that, I was given a particular name, as a child of Kūwahailo, a strong and powerful being of Kuaihelani.

“I am a Hawaiian mortal via birth by my mother, but I am a being of Kuaihelani via my creation and being raised there to adulthood. Kūwahailo is grandfather to both of us by one genealogical line. As they are godly restrictions, the limits placed on me are quite rigid. And only when those strictures have been ceremoniously removed will my body be free to be with you. However, that is not difficult to accomplish.

“Here is what I’m thinking, dear sister,
you and I should set ourselves upon the wings of the birds and continue our discussion in the sky. And, before the first light pierces the morning, I’ll return you to your sacred space as you are the beloved feather lei of our mother, ʻOakailunaikeaouli.”

In this manner, the brother enticed the sister to get on the wings of the birds. This was an appealing idea to Hina, as she had never before rested upon the velvety wings of birds.

As they sat on the birds, Kū called upon these same birds to take flight and deliver them to the summit of Maunakea. In the blink of Hina’s eye, they were within a house made of a rainbow, atop a mountain whose dome was covered in snow, a cold snow that pinches the skin.

“This place where we have just arrived,” said Kū to his sister, Hina, “is the summit of Maunakea, and this is where I dwell. I brought you here so that I could explain to you the story of my coming from Kuaihelani and arriving here.”

Then, the animated one from the summit of Maunakea began to reveal the entire story of his journey from Kuaihelani on a double hull canoe. He shared about landing first at Niʻihau and then moving on to Kauaʻi. He told his sister about climbing the mountain of Waiʻaleʻale with the hope of finding residence there, but when he searched, he realized there was no snow there, the clear white snow of the place he came from, the place that had, indeed, become a second home for him. He then left “fair Kauaʻi, perfect in the calm,” continued his journey and landed ashore on Oʻahu.

Like his unproductive search for a place to live at the summit of Waiʻaleʻale, so too did he ascend to the mountaintop Kaʻala, called the “rooftop”. But, it too lacked a place for him to settle. Thus, he went to Maui, to the top of the mountain Haleakalā, and finally saw snow like that of his second home. However, he was not enticed by the beauty of that mountain.

Then, he shared with his sister, Hina, how he saw from atop Haleakalā, the gleaming of the snow on Maunakea, the mountain where they sat together murmuring. And Maunakea, to his eyes, was like a “white chicken” strutting proudly on a calm day.

“When I saw the snow here on Maunakea” said the the beautiful native of the mountain, as he continued speaking to his sister, “I also observed a rainbow touching down directly on a community along the eastern portion of Hāmākua, and I was excited because that was a sign of a sacred personage from the realm of the gods.

“Yet, when I saw it, it knew it wasn’t the sign of a male, rather a female whose standing red rainbow sign I could see. So, I left Haleakalā and descended to the shore, got aboard my double hull canoe, and sailed here to verdant Hawaiʻi.

“I arrived here and saw this beautiful peak and decided to myself that this would be where I'd live. From here, I saw a standing rainbow at the same place I saw it from Haleakalā, and from this height I came down and saw you bathing alone in the sacred pool.

“And when I saw you, your outstanding, youthful beauty was unlike any other my eyes had ever seen before, as are your name and your connection to me by birth. Our ancestors in obscurity, and in Kuaihelani, revealed that you were my younger female sibling and also revealed the names of our parents.

“Therefore, as you can see, my beloved younger sister, I am your brother. And when I take you for my woman, we will be royally matched together. What do you think about that? I take you, my sister, as a woman for myself, and you take me, your brother, as a man for yourself.

“Here is what I propose. Hold off on your desire for me. I will first return you, and you will stay where I brought you from. Within ten days hence, I will leave Maunakea and go to get you at Waipiʻo.

“What I have revealed to you, our joining together, is not something you should share with our parents, nor anyone else. Refrain from letting our parents know about me until the day we are betrothed, and so too with any people of this land.

“I will take you back to stay until I return. Then, I’ll await the arrival of your kahuna, Aniani. As I understand, when the sun appears and is seen on the horizon, he will go up from Waipiʻo to Waimea and from there, come all the way up here to the summit of Maunakea. The reason for his journey is to betroth us together.