The Sacred Spear-Point

Kaululaau was one of the sons of Kakaalaneo, brother of, and joint ruler with, Kakae in the government of Maui. Kakae was the rightful heir to the kingship, but as he was weak-minded, Kakaalaneo ruled jointly with him and was the true sovereign of the little kingdom. The court of the brothers was at Lele (now Lahaina), and was one of the most distinguished in the islands.

Kaululaau's mother was Kanikaniaula, of the family of Kamauaua, king of Molokai, through his son Haili, who was the brother or half-brother of Keoloewa and Kaupeepee. The latter, it will be remembered, was the abductor of the famous Hina of Hawaii, and the family was of the old line of Maweke.

Kaululaau was probably born between the years 1390 and 1400. He had a half-sister named Wao, and a half-brother, Kaihiwalua, who was the father of Luaia, who became the husband of a daughter of Piliwale, king of Oahu, and brother of Lo-Lale. He likely had other brothers and sisters, since his father had two or more wives, but the legends do not mention them.

Kahekili, son of Kakae, who became his successor as king, was about the same age as his cousin Kaululaau, and the two princes grew to manhood together. They were taught by the same teachers, schooled in the same arts and chiefly accomplishments, and chanted the same genealogical chants. Yet in disposition and personal appearance they were very different.

From his youth Kahekili was serious, sober, and thoughtful. Raised with the knowledge that he would succeed his father as king of the island, he began early in life to prepare himself for the proper exercise of supreme authority, and by age twenty was noted for his intelligence, dignity, and royal bearing. A prophet had told him that one of his name would be the last independent king of Maui, and this made him anxious about his future and drove many smiles from his lips. Yet, with all his seriousness and caution, he was kind-hearted and affectionate, and his pastimes were suited to his dignity. In height he was somewhat below the chiefly average, and his features were rugged and of a Papuan cast; but all knew he was royal in heart and thought, and the respect due to him was not withheld.

Kaululaau was unlike his royal cousin in almost every way. He was noted for his intelligence, his manly beauty, and his mischievous, merry spirit. He did not desire the scepter. He thought more of a wild party, with music, dancing, and a bowl of awa, than the right to command "downward" or "upward the face"; and since Kahekili was the chosen successor of his father, he claimed the right, as a favored and sacred subject of the realm, to enjoy himself as he pleased. Since he could not make laws, he found pleasure in breaking them. He was not wantonly cruel or evil, but recklessly wild and mischievous, and neither his father's reproofs nor his cousin's mild persuasion could restrain him. His joking reply to his cousin was: "When you become king I will act more properly. Two kings can afford one wild prince."

He had a like-minded group of companions and retainers who helped him in his mischief. With feasting and hula dancing he would keep the village in an uproar for a dozen nights in a row. He would set canoes adrift, open the gates of fishponds, remove the supports of houses, and paint pigs black to trick the sacrificial priests. He made an instrument to imitate the death-warning call of the alae bird, and frightened people by sounding it near their doors; and to others he sent word that they were being prayed to death.

Despite these wrongdoings, Kaululaau was popular with the people, since the chiefs or members of the royal household were usually the victims of his pranks. He was encouraged in his desire to become a priest, under the instruction of the eminent high priest and prophet Waolani, and had made good progress in that calling when he was banished to the island of Lanai by his royal father for an offense that could neither be overlooked nor forgiven.

At that time Lanai was infested with a number of gnomes, monsters, and evil spirits, among them the gigantic lizard Mooaleo. They ravaged fields, uprooted coconut trees, destroyed the walls of fishponds, and otherwise frightened and troubled the inhabitants of the island. To make his stay bearable, Kaululaau was taught by the priests and sorcerers of the court many charms, spells, prayers, and incantations to resist the supernatural monsters. When Kaululaau told his friend, the venerable high priest Waolani, about these exorcising methods, the priest told him they would be useless against the more powerful and evil demons of Lanai.

Discouraged by this, Kaululaau was about to leave the temple to sail for Lanai when Waolani, after some hesitation, stopped him. He went into the inner temple and soon returned with a small roll of bark cloth in his hand. Slowly untying and removing many folds of cloth, an ivory spear-point, a span in length, was finally brought to view. Holding it before the prince, he said:

"Take this. It will serve you in any way you need. Its powers are greater than those of any god living on earth. It has been dipped in the waters of Po, and many generations ago it was left by Lono on one of his altars to protect a temple threatened by a mighty fish-god who lived beneath it in a great cavern connected to the sea. Draw a line with it and nothing can cross that mark. Fix it to a spear and throw it, and it will reach its target, no matter how far away. Much more it can do, but let what I have said be enough."

The prince eagerly reached out to take the treasure, but the priest pulled it back and continued:

"I give it to you on condition that it passes from you to no other hands but mine, and that if I am no longer alive when you return to Maui—as you one day will—you will secretly place it with my bones. Swear this in the name of Lono."

Kaululaau solemnly swore the required oath. The priest then handed him the talisman, wrapped in the bark cloth it had been in, and he left the temple. He immediately sailed with several of his attendants for Lanai.

Arriving on Lanai, he set up his household on the south side of the island. Learning his name and rank, the people treated him with great respect—for Lanai was then a dependency of Maui—helped build the houses he needed, and gave him fish, poi, fruits, and potatoes in great abundance. In return for their devotion, he set about ridding the island of the supernatural pests that had troubled it for years.

In the legend of "Kelea, the Surf-rider of Maui" there is some mention of Kaululaau's battles with the evil spirits and monsters of Lanai. His hardest fight was with the gnome god Mooaleo. He trapped the demon inside the earth by drawing a line around him with the sacred spear-point, and later released and drove him into the sea.

Kaululaau spent more than a year quieting and driving out the evil monsters that troubled the island, and he succeeded in completely freeing the people from their vexing visits. This added greatly to his popularity, and the best products of land and sea were laid at his feet.

His victory over the demons of Lanai soon became known on the other islands of the group, and when it reached Kakaalaneo, he sent a messenger to his son, offering his forgiveness and calling him back from exile. The service he had done was important, and his royal father was eager to recognize it by restoring him to favor.

But Kaululaau showed no hurry to accept his father's generosity. Far from the restraints of court, he had grown fond of the independent life he had found in exile, and could think of no comforts or pleasures he could not have on Lanai. The women there were as beautiful as elsewhere, the bananas as sweet, the coconuts as large, the awa as strong, and the fisheries as varied and plentiful. He had pleasant company, and bands of musicians and dancers at his call. The best of the land and the love of the people were his, and the apapani bird sang in the grove that shaded his door. What more could he ask, what more could he expect if he returned to Maui? His exile had ceased to be a punishment, and his father's message of recall was hardly a favor.

However, Kaululaau sent a respectful reply by his father's messenger, thanking Kakaalaneo for his mercy and saying he would return to Maui sometime in the near future, after visiting some of the other islands. Three months later he began to prepare for a trip to Hawaii. He got a large double canoe, which he painted royal yellow, and had made several cloaks and capes from the feathers of the oo and mamo birds. At the prow of his canoe he mounted a carved image of Lono, and at the top of one of the masts a place was reserved for the proud sacred standard of a royal council. This done, with a proper retinue he set sail for Hawaii.

On his visit to Hawaii, Kaululaau was accompanied by a number of companions of his own disposition and temperament. Among them was Kamakaua, a young Maui chief who had followed him into exile and was thoroughly devoted to his interests. He was brave, courtly, and intelligent, and in personal appearance somewhat resembled the prince. The crew and most of the prince's attendants had been chosen by Kamakaua, including the chief navigator and astrologer; and however competent they may have been in their respective roles, it was discovered during the voyage that they were no less skilled as musicians and dancers. So there was plenty of amusement as the huge double canoe cut through the waves of the Alenuihaha Channel, and on the morning of the third day it stood off the village of Waipio, in the district of Hamakua, Hawaii.

At that time Kauholanui-mahu, father of the famous Kiha, was king of Hawaii. His wife was Neula, a chiefess of Maui who had inherited large possessions near Honuaula on that island. Since the climate there was healthy and the nearby waters teemed with fish, the royal couple often made long visits there. These visits were usually made without Kakaalaneo's knowledge, and the unexplained attachment of the Hawaiian king to his wife's relatively small inheritance on a neighboring island began to be viewed with suspicion and became a topic for speculation and inquiry at the court of Lahaina.

When Kaululaau visited Waipio, Kauholanui had been away for several months on Maui, leaving Neula in charge of the government of Hawaii. Believing the king's absence was deliberate neglect, Neula had become very dissatisfied, and whispers of coming trouble were widespread across the island. All this was surely known to Kaululaau, and since the royal residence was at Waipio, he landed with his party on the beach below it and drew up his double canoe.

The presence and rank of the strangers were soon reported to the queen, and she quickly sent messengers, courteously inviting the prince and his personal attendants to be her guests at the royal house, at the same time ordering lodging for his lower-ranking attendants and followers, as was the hospitable custom of the time.

Accepting the invitation, Kaululaau and four of his chief companions were given quarters within the palace grounds, and their food was served from the royal table. In the afternoon Kaululaau was granted an audience with the queen, during which he presented his friends, including Kamakaua.

The prince spent nearly a month at Waipio, and many formal entertainments were given in his honor. Neula was unusually pleasant, and soon became on friendly terms with both the prince and Kamakaua. This was exactly what Kaululaau wanted, since it allowed him to devise and help carry out a plan to bring the king back from Maui and keep him thereafter within his own kingdom.

Following Kaululaau's instructions, Kamakaua pretended to be greatly smitten with the queen's charms. Since she was a comely woman, somewhat vain of her appearance, the handsome chief's attention pleased her; but his advances revealed that he had a rival in Noakua, a chief of Kohala. This discovery simplified the prince's plans and eventually relieved Kamakaua of a dangerous duty. In pressing his suit, Kamakaua found a pretext to tell the queen that the king's long absence was because he had taken another wife, with whom he was living at Honuaula, and that he no longer cared for his kingdom or his family.

While Kamakaua was pouring this poison into Neula's ears, Kaululaau, who had made the acquaintance of Noakua, was planting seeds of rebellion in that chief's mind. He flattered Noakua by saying he was born to rule, and gradually revealed a plan by which, with the queen's favor, he could seize the government, unite the leading chiefs in his support, and prevent Kauholanui from returning to Hawaii.

Noakua's ambition and the queen's anger at her husband's presumed neglect and unfaithfulness soon brought them together in a plot against the absent king. Preparations for the revolt began to appear, and Kaululaau, not wanting to be openly involved in the dangerous movement, quietly sailed with his party for Hilo, where he stayed to watch the progress of the struggle he had helped start.

The prince had been in Hilo only a few days when a swift messenger arrived from Waipio, summoning the district chief to go there with eight hundred warriors and announcing that Neula had taken over the sovereignty of the island. Similar notices were sent to the chiefs of other districts, and soon everyone from Kau to Kohala was excited.

Hearing of the revolt, Kauholanui, who had been building a fishpond at Keoneoio near Honuaula, left Maui at once with fewer than a hundred spears, and landing in Kona, whose chief could be trusted, he started overland for Waipio. The revolution was unpopular, and the chiefs and people rallied almost unanimously to the king's banner. The struggle was brief. A battle was fought near Waimea, resulting in the defeat of the rebel army and the death of Noakua.

This ended the revolt. As punishment for Neula, the king took another wife. But Kaululaau's goal was achieved, for Kauholanui never again visited Maui, though the queen thereafter spent much of her time at Honuaula, where her favorite guest and friend was Kamakaua.

Leaving Hilo, Kaululaau and his party drifted leisurely along the coasts of Puna until they reached the borders of Kau, where they landed at Keauhou to spend a few days fishing and surfing.

Tired of the sport, one afternoon Kaululaau left the bathers in the surf and threw himself under the shade of a pandanus tree near the shore. Watching the clouds and the seabirds circling above him, he fell asleep, and when he awoke his eyes fell upon a beautiful woman sitting on a rock not more than a hundred paces away, silently watching the swimmers as they rode in on the crests of the waves. Her skirt was a sarong spangled with crystals, and over her shoulders hung a short cape of rainbow colors. Her long hair was held back by a flower lei, and her wrists and ankles were adorned with circlets of tiny pink and white shells.

The woman's appearance dazzled him, and after gazing for a while, rubbing his eyes to be sure he wasn't dreaming, he rose and approached the radiant being. Advancing within four or five paces of the woman, apparently unnoticed, he stopped and coughed to attract her attention. She turned her face toward him, and he greeted her politely and asked permission to come closer and talk with her. Her appearance suggested she was of high rank, and he didn't want to intrude uninvited on her privacy. She did not deign to answer his request, but after looking him up and down, she turned her face back to the sea with a contemptuous toss of her head.

He hesitated for a moment, then turned and strode quickly down to the beach, where his double canoe had been safely pulled up on the sand. "In the guise of a bather," thought the prince, "she probably mistakes me for a servant. I will approach her in the clothing my rank deserves, and see what effect that has."