The Stingy Girl

The Stingy Girl

(A Legend from Hawaii)

Pe-le, the fire goddess, lives in a palace under a great volcano on the Island of Hawaii. That is what some of the people of Hawaii still believe. They say that she sleeps most of the time. But when she wakes up, she becomes restless. Then she likes to leave her home and wander about the Islands.

Pe-le is very tricky. When she leaves the fire pit of the volcano, she changes herself so that no one will recognize her. Sometimes she looks like a beautiful young girl. At other times she seems to be an ugly old woman.

Besides being tricky, Pe-le has a bad temper. She gets angry very easily and very quickly. The Hawaiians fear her and want to keep her happy. They are careful to speak softly when they say her name, and they leave little offerings for her along the volcano trails. Sometimes they put her favourite flower, a red le-hu-a blossom, on a stone for her, or they leave an orange or other bits of food.

The people are right to be careful. For when Pe-le gets angry, the sky grows dark. The rain falls. There is thunder and lightning. The earth trembles and the fire pit sends up columns of grey smoke. The lava in the pit boils and bubbles like thick, black tar. Then cracks open up in the earth, and fiery rivers of lava flow down the mountain.

The rivers of lava burn everything in their way. They burn the sugarcane. They burn the leaves off the trees. They burn the farms and the houses. They burn the churches and the stores. - No wonder the Hawaiians fear Pe-le!

Once, a long time ago, two young girls named Ko-lo-mu-o and Pa-hi-na-hi-na were left alone in a village at the foot of a certain mountain on Hawaii. Their parents had gone with the rest of the villagers to clear land for the chief. While Ko-lo-mu-o and Pa-hi-na-hi-na were taking a walk, they found two ripe breadfruit lying under a breadfruit tree.

Pa-hi-na-hi-na said to her friend, “The oven is still hot. Let’s take the breadfruit back to the village and roast them.”

So that is what they did. Soon the breadfruit was baking on the hot stones in the i-mu. White smoke filled the air. Sweet, sticky juices bubbled on the hot stones and made the girls hungry.

But suddenly the dogs in the village began to bark fiercely. Pa-hi-na-hi-na looked up and saw a strange old woman climbing slowly up the path.

The old woman was using a staff made from a le-hu-a branch to help her climb. She was not a pretty sight. Her white hair was long and matted. On her head was an old lau-ha-la hat, with the leaves all split and torn. Her clothes were dirty and ragged. Worst of all, she smelled of smoke and ashes and burned wood. Beneath her shaggy eyebrows, her eyes peered out, like bits of hard, shiny black lava.

The old woman spoke to Ko-lo-mu-o first. “I see that you are roasting breadfruit. I have come a long way since morning and I am very hungry. Are you cooking your breadfruit for anyone in particular?”

Ko-lo-mu-o did not like the looks of the old woman and said rudely, “Yes, I am. I am offering it to our family god. Then I plan to eat it myself.”

The old woman tapped her le-hu-a staff nervously. “And who, may I ask, is your family god?” she said.

“It is La-i,” said Ko-lo-mu-o. “Now get out of my way, old woman!”

But the old woman moved closer to Ko-lo-mu-o. “Is your god La-i powerful?” she asked. Her breath was very hot in Ko-lo-mu-o’s face. Ko-lo-mu-o stamped her foot angrily. “Of course he is powerful! Now, will you get out of my way?”

The old woman went over to Pa-hi-na-hi-na. She pointed a crooked finger at her. “And you, my girl, are you, too, making an offering?”

Pa-hi-na-hi-na was afraid of this fierce old woman. “Yes, yes!” her voice trembled. “I offer my breadfruit to Pe-le.”

The old woman seemed pleased. She cackled with laughter. “I’d like some of your breadfruit,” she said. “I am hungry.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, the breadfruit is not done,” said Pa-hi-na-hi-na. “It hasn’t been cooking long enough.”

“Nonsense!” cried the old woman. “Of course it is done!” With these words, she poked Pa-hi-na-hi-na’s breadfruit with her le-hu-a staff. The large fruit broke open, and out came a burst of steam.

So while Ko-lo-mu-o waited for her breadfruit to toast, the old woman and Pa-hi-na-hi-na sat on a lava rock and shared the cooked breadfruit. As she sat there, the old woman asked the girl many questions.

“Where do you live?” she began.

“In a house in the village,” replied Pa-hi-na-hi-na. “Ko-lo-mu-o’s family lives in one half of the house, and my family lives in the other half.”

The old woman’s eyes squinted at Pa-hi-na-hi-na. “Come closer to me,” she said. “I have something important to tell you.”

Pa-hi-na-hi-na moved nearer, and the old woman whispered to her, “When you go home this evening, tell your family to build a le-pa-a good fence made of tapa-cloth flags-around their end of the house!"

With this strange advice, the old woman gobbled up the rest of her breadfruit. Then she picked up her staff and, without even saying “Thank you,” took the trail up the mountain and disappeared.

That evening Pa-hi-na-hi-na told her parents about the old woman and the breadfruit. They looked at each other in terror.

“The old woman must have been Pe-le!” said Pa-hi-na-hi-na’s father.

“Yes! Yes! It was Pe-le!” agreed her mother.

Quickly Pa-hi-na-hi-na’s parents began to tear up big squares of tapa and to tie them like flags to poles stuck in the ground around their end of the house. When they had finished, Pa-hi-na-hi-na’s father gathered his family behind the fence of grey tapa flags.

That night when it grew dark, the villagers noticed a blood-red glow on the mountain. They were uneasy.

One fisherman laughed at their fears. “Why it is only a fire that the bird-catchers have built to warm themselves,” he said.

In a little while, the fire died down, and the villagers stopped worrying. But some time later when they looked up at the mountain again, they saw another fire. This one was farther down the slope.

“How strange to see another fire,” they murmured to each other. “What do you think it means?"

“You worry over nothing,” laughed the same fisherman again. “Don’t you know that it grows cold at night on the mountain? No doubt the canoe builders have built a fire to warm themselves.”

The villagers believed the fisherman. It was growing late. They returned to their homes and fell asleep peacefully on their soft mats. They did not know that Pe-le was on her way to visit their mountain.

The tricky Pe-le did not stamp her feet, this time and cause the earth to shake, or the rain to fall, or the lightning to flash. Instead, she worked very quietly. She let the lava bubble and seep out of the cracks in the earth. She sent little fiery streams down the mountain without a sound. She let the streams grow bigger and bigger and wider and wider until they covered all the countryside. Then she sent the lava toward the village

When the lava reached the village, it burned up all the houses It burned the chief’s house. It. burned the house of the laughing fisherman. It burned the half of Pa-hi-na-hi-na’s house in which Ko-lu-mu-o and her family lived.

But the fiery lava could not get through the le-pa that Pe-le had told Pa-hi-na-hi-na’s family to build. The magic tapa fence had kept them safe.

Source:

Hawaiian tales

Helen Lamar Berkey

1968

Pages: 39-45