Some came aboard for other reasons, including women eager to mate with these unusual and perhaps godly beings, as at Kaua‘i the previous year, and also men seeking relief from heretofore unknown ailments in their nether parts—bloody urine and painful urination, yellow discharges, and swelling in their groins. The Hawai‘ians had no idea that the one was related to the other. Unbeknownst to them, they were suffering from the gift Cook’s sailors had uncaringly proffered on the women of Kaua‘i the year before, and which by now had spread throughout the archipelago.
Throughout his circumnavigation of the Big Island, Cook took the Hawai‘ians’ white banners for, as he wrote in his journals, “a signal of peace and friendship.” But for our people, of course, they meant much more than that. For by circling the island as he had, Cook had fulfilled the other part of the prophecy: that Lono would not only return during the Makahiki season, but that he would circle the entirety of the Big Island, commencing in Kohala and traveling from the island’s wet side to Kealakekua Bay on its dry side—just as Cook in fact did. Kealakekua was revered as the ancestral home of the god, Lono, to which he would one day return. There was little question that Cook was Lono, indeed.
It was at Kealakekua that Koa, the priest of Lono, officially proclaimed the British sea captain’s divinity.
Cook first sighted Kealakekua Bay at daybreak on January 16, 1779, as the haoles marked the date. At this time, Cook’s ship, the Resolution, and its sister ship, the Discovery, were by his reckoning still some three leagues, or nine miles, distant from the bay itself. Cook dispatched a party commanded by Bligh in two small boats to reconnoiter it. While Bligh and his men were away, the two ships continued to sail in the bay’s direction, making slow progress as they tacked northward against the prevailing winds. Upon seeing these large vessels with their majestic sails, villagers the length of the South Kona Coast rushed to the beaches, leaped into their canoes and paddled out to the ships in great numbers, intent on trading pigs and whatever else they had for iron.
Bligh spent the night at Kealakekua. Upon his return to the Resolution late the next day, he reported that the bay afforded an excellent anchorage with an ample supply of fresh water. At eleven in the morning, the Resolution and the Discovery dropped their anchors at Kealakekua. The bay’s pali, which rises abruptly from a narrow, pebbled beach, towered above them. It is this cliff, in fact, that gives the bay its name. Kealakekua means “path of the gods.” If any of our ancient gods had been looking down upon the bay this day, they would have comprehended that after generations, everything was about to change for our people.
According to Cook’s own account, the greeting he received at Kealakekua was unlike any he had heretofore witnessed. “I have no where in this Sea seen such a number of people assembled at one place,” he wrote in his journal. “Besides those in the Canoes all the Shore of the bay was covered with people and hundreds were swimming about the Ships like shoals of fish. We should have found it difficult to have kept them in order had not a Chief or Servant of Terrioboo’s named Parea now and then exerted his authority by turning or rather driving them all out of the Ships.” For a time, at least, order had been restored.
Palea, for that was his name, was followed to the ships by Koa. Koa arrived at Cook’s ship in his own canoe, paddled by acolytes, after Palea and another chief had expelled the common people from the decks of the Resolution and the Discovery. Koa and Palea were conducted into Cook’s cabin on the Resolution. Speaking to Cook through Burney, Palea explained that his mō‘ī was still at Maui but would soon return. He then introduced Koa to Cook. A scene ensued that would propel much of the subsequent events. As neither my father nor Kamehameha were there to vouch for it, perhaps it is best to describe it as the haoles witnessed it. Wrote Cook: “Among our numerous Visitors was a man named Tou-ah-ah, who we soon found belonged to the Church, he introduced himself with much ceremony, in the Course of which he presented me with a small pig, two Cocoanuts and a piece of red cloth which he wrapped around me.” “Tou-ah-ah,”—Koa—presented Cook with other gifts as well: “He brought with him a large hog and a quant’y of fruits and roots all of which he included in the present.”
Koa was the keeper of the Hikiau Heiau, Lono’s temple at Nāpo‘opo‘o on the south side of the bay, opposite Ka‘awaloa. Little remains of the heiau today, save for its enduring platform of layered lava stones, meticulously selected many generations ago by craftsmen who knew nothing of mortar. The temple’s ruins are but a few steps from the edge of the bay. The lava-stone foundation stands more than twice the height of a full-grown man at its highest. Its top is level and commodious. When Koa presided, the heiau platform was the site of a number of structures, including fencing, scaffolding, and two small hales, constructed with wooden poles, woven grass walls, and thatched roofs held together with coconut-fiber cordage. These have long since vanished, as have so many of our people’s old ways.
No sooner had Cook come ashore at Kealakekua for the first time than Koa conducted him to the heiau, where he officiated a lengthy and elaborate ceremony, no doubt incomprehensible to Cook, in which he paid obeisance to the Englishman as a deity. Some Hawai‘ians and haoles looking back upon these distant events have lately debated whether Cook understood that our people regarded him as an actual god, and if so, whether he actively encouraged and exploited this perception. I suspect that Cook might well have deduced the import of this event from the sight of people prostrating themselves before him on his way to the heiau. Moreover, whenever Cook came ashore thereafter, he was greeted with gifts of hogs, coconuts, breadfruit, and vegetables, and was at all times accompanied by a wand-waving kahuna who commanded all to prostrate themselves as he went by. How Cook might have taken these demonstrations for anything other than idolatry, I do not know. Certainly, Cook came to understand that he and his people could gain advantage from our own people’s rituals and beliefs, and was happy to do so.
Cook was not happy, however, about our people’s propensity to filch anything made of iron from his ships. While most people who came aboard his ships that first day at Kealakekua had come to trade Hawaiian goods and produce for the precious haole metal, those with nothing to trade did not hesitate to take whatever items struck their fancies.
Some came away with lids from the ships’ copper kettles; others dove into the water to pry nails out of the vessels’ copper hull sheathing. One man took a rudder from one of the Resolution’s small boats. This passed unnoticed by Cook and the ship’s crew until the man was well away in his own canoe, whereupon, determined to put an end to such activities, Cook ordered his people to demonstrate to the Hawai‘ians the fearsome power of their weaponry. He ordered a volley of warning shots from the ship’s smaller cannons and the marines’ muskets. The spectacle failed to elicit the desired response, however, and islanders of what Cook called “thievish disposition” continued to steal from the haoles.
“Ido not truly know if this Kāpena Kuke is Lono come back to us,” Kalani‘ōpu‘u acknowledged to Holo‘ae, upon their return to Hawai‘i some days later. “But Koa has thus proclaimed it and many of our people seem to believe it, so let us leave it at that for now.”
Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s first act upon his return to Kealakekua some seven days after Cook’s arrival there was to impose a kapu on the bay. The kapu discomfited the haoles. Accustomed to daily consignments of fresh fruits and vegetables, the men of the Resolution and Discovery were dismayed when no victual-ladened canoes ventured out into the bay all the next day after Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s return. The following morning, some of our people—as hungry for the haoles’ iron as the haoles were for their produce—endeavored to reach the ships despite the kapu, and one of the minor chieftains, I know not who, tried to drive them off. Cook’s people would not have it. They fired their muskets over the chief’s head and drove him away instead. Trading resumed, albeit limited.
Kalani‘ōpu‘u could not permit this to stand. Yet, he could not undo it. He resolved to make a show of meeting wit
h “Lono” that same afternoon. “The people defy the kapu, so great is their desire for ailon‘e, and Lono’s people aid them in this,” he told Holo‘ae. “I must myself go to the great canoe at once, to demonstrate that the kapu is only lifted by my will.”
Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s first visit to the Resolution at Kealakekua Bay was without fanfare. After dispatching his subordinates to clear the bay of all other vessels and assert the kapu once again on pain of death, the mō‘ī of the Big Island ventured forth in his double-hulled canoe, accompanied by Kaneikapolei, Keōua Red Cloak, and Keōuape’e’ale. Kalola, now refusing to reside on the same island as Kalani‘ōpu‘u, had fled to Maui and Kiwala‘ō had remained there with her. Kalani‘ōpu‘u and his small party stayed on board Cook’s ship well into the evening.
That same night, Keōua Red Cloak and his brother related the events aboard the great canoe to Kamehameha and my father. “Lono,” Red Cloak said, had greeted them on the main deck. After presenting Kaneikapolei with a mirror, and her sons with iron daggers, he had invited Kalani‘ōpu‘u into his own “hale”—his large private cabin at the rear of the ship. At this point in his story, Keōua paused and noted with some self-importance that Kalani‘ōpu‘u had insisted that his sons accompany him to Lono’s cabin. Burney was also there to interpret. Keōua said that his father had beseeched “Lono” to respect the customs of his own people, and especially their kapus.
“Oh hear me please, Lono,” Kalani‘ōpu‘u had said, “I know that these kapus are beneath you and your people, who have come here from Kahiki, but they are laws of my own people and I beg you, please do not encourage them to transgress these laws. Without our kapus, we have no order.” When all this had been translated by Burney, Cook nodded gravely and said, simply, “I understand. We not want weaken your tapus. We not do so from now on.”
After their parley in Cook’s cabin, Cook and Burney conducted Kalani‘ōpu‘u, Kaneikapolei, and his sons on a tour of the ship, which took some time, as the boys paused frequently to ask questions regarding the nature of the various objects they observed. Like Kamehameha, they were especially interested in the ship’s cannons. Cook indulged them in a detailed explanation, but Burney, perhaps remembering Kameha’s keen and somewhat unsettling interest in the workings of these armaments, offered a much-abridged translation. “Lono spoke at great length about these kano‘ono,” Keōua reported, “but One-Who-Speaks explained them to us very quickly. He said that the kano‘ono eat fire and defecate ailon‘e on their enemies. I cannot imagine why Lono would take so long to say such a simple thing. In any case, I see no advantage in it. Any Hawai‘ian warrior could easily dodge such a weapon. It seems like a waste of ailon‘e.”
Kamehameha listened and said nothing in response.
“Look at the fine ailon‘e daggers that Lono gave us,” Keōua Red Cloak exulted, brandishing his weapon inches in front of Kamehameha’s face. The blade gleamed in the light of the kukui-oil lamps. “Do you yet have a dagger as fine as this?”
“No,” Kameha replied, “but I will.”
“Do you have any food?” asked Red Cloak’s brother, Keōuape‘e‘ale. “Lono’s people shared theirs with us, but we ate no more than courtesy required. It was terrible.”
Kalani‘ōpu‘u returned to the bay the next day, this time with all the trappings of his high station, saying to Holo‘ae, “This day, Lono shall come to me.”
The mō‘ī of the Big Island and his retinue embarked in three double-hulled canoes. Kalani‘ōpu‘u and his most important chieftains rode in one; Holo‘ae and his fellow kāhuna traveled in another, bedecked with idols. A third canoe heavily ladened with hogs and vegetables followed them. Save for the two ships and Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s three canoes, the bay was empty.
Kalani‘ōpu‘u did not board Cook’s ship. Instead, his small flotilla circled once around the Resolution and the Discovery and then made directly for the place onshore where King and his people had established an astronomical observatory. Holo‘ae, who took the haoles’ astronomical instruments to be holy objects, believed the haoles had established Cook’s own heiau at this place.
Cook, realizing that Kalani‘ōpu‘u had no intention of calling on him on his own ship this day, followed Kalani‘ōpu‘u to shore in the Resolution’s pinnace. He gained the beach at about the same time as the mō‘ī.
Though Ki‘ine—Lieutenant King—had earlier encountered Kalani‘ōpu‘u at Maui, he had not understood then that the latter was the Big Island’s ruler. King recorded later in his own journal that he was “surprised to see, in the person of this king, the same infirm and emaciated old man that came on board the Resolution when we were off the north-east side of the island of Mowee.” King also noted the presence of Kamehameha, whom he called “Maiha-Maiha,” saying that at first he did not recognize him, “his hair being plastered over with a dirty brown paste and powder, which was no mean heightening to the most savage face I ever beheld.” Kameha had merely adorned himself in a manner reflective of his status as Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s nephew and a warrior chieftain of high station.
Of course, the haoles—with their pale skin, strange eyes, narrow noses and mouths, and oddly variant hair coloration—looked equally strange to our people. All the same, these differences did not induce mockery among us.
Kameha described the proceedings at the haoles’ observatory to my father. “We were invited into a strange hale made entirely of some kind of heavy cloth that the haoles had thrown over wooden poles and lashed to the ground,” he said. Burney later told Kameha that this material was called canvas, which Kamehameha called ka‘anwa. Burney said that his people called the structure itself a tent. Kamehameha called it a hale o ka‘anwa. “This hale o ka‘anwa provided surprisingly good shelter from both the sun and the rain,” Kamehameha said.
At the makeshift hale that day, Kalani‘ōpu‘u presented Cook with many gifts. “He gave Kāpena Kuke pigs, yams, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, fruits, and vegetables,” Kamehameha recounted. “He gave him his own feather cloak and helmet and several more feather cloaks besides. Kalani‘ōpu‘u gave the haole his finest red kapa cloth.” This, the mō‘ī had ceremoniously draped over the Englishman’s shoulders. “Kuke seemed very pleased with these gifts,” Kamehameha said.
Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s attendants spread mats on the sand and the mō‘ī invited Cook to join him in sitting on the ground. Holo‘ae seated himself at Kalani‘ōpu‘u’s other hand and then led Koa and the other priests in a lengthy chant. At the conclusion of this ritual, Cook invited Kalani‘ōpu‘u and his entire party to visit the Resolution. “He insisted that we travel with him in his own canoe,” said Kameha. “It was a good-size canoe, but it could not accommodate everyone. Holo‘ae and the other priests stayed behind.”
Aboard the Resolution, in exchange for the brilliant feather cloaks Kalani‘ōpu‘u had given him, Cook presented the mō‘ī with the two goats he had labored so mightily to recover from the people of Eimeo, a white haole shirt, and, most impressively to Kameha, his own exceptionally long, iron dagger with a gleaming handle. He unstrapped this weapon from his waist and girded Kalani‘ōpu‘u with it with a flourish. When Kamehameha asked what this weapon was, Burney told him that it was a “sword.” Try as he might, Kameha could not pronounce this word. Instead, he called it a pahoa nui—a big dagger. “This pahoa nui would be very useful in battle at close quarters,” Kamehameha told my father. “I will obtain one for myself.” Meanwhile, Cook had obtained what he wanted from Kalani‘ōpu‘u: permission for the Hawai‘ians to resume trade with his people.
The resumption of trade meant continued depletion of our peoples’ food stores—of hogs, vegetables, and fruit. Fish, the haoles could obtain themselves. Iron continued to be the haoles’ currency of exchange; most often nails, but occasionally tools or daggers. As the days passed, iron became more plentiful and food became scarcer, and Kalani‘ōpu‘u began to worry. “Makahiki time is nearly over,” he said to Holo‘ae one day. “When will Lono leave?”
&nb
sp; “Who knows the mind of a god?” Holo‘ae replied.
“His name is Kuke, not ‘Lono,’ and he is no god,” Kamehameha declared anew to Holo‘ae. “He and his people are men, as we are, but they are foreigners—haoles. We are being too generous with them.” Kameha insisted that the people of the Big Island should demand more iron—and most especially iron daggers—in exchange for their hogs and produce.
While our people exchanged their goods for the haoles’ iron, my father and Burney conducted a brisk trade in words. “I was determined to learn more of the strange haole talk and I spent as much time as I could with Pu‘unē so that I could learn something of their language,” my father said.
“Me,” Burney said, touching his forefinger to his chest. “Me,” he said, touching his chest again.
“Mi,” said my father, tentatively pointing his own forefinger at Burney. “Mi?”
“No, Talani,” Burney said, laughing. “A‘u; me.” He jabbed at his own chest once again.
Now my father understood. “Mi,” he said, and he pointed to himself.
“Yes, yes, very good,” said Burney. He pointed at my father. “You,” he said.
My father was once again confused. He tapped his own chest again “Yu? Mi? Yu?”
Burney laughed again. “No,” he said. “A‘u; Me,” he said, pointing to himself. “’Oe. You.” Now he pointed at my father.
Now it was my father’s turn to smile and laugh. He understood. “Mi!” he said, tapping his chest. “Yu!” he declared, pointing at Burney.
Once There Was Fire Page 22