Maluae and the Underworld

 Maluae and the Underworld

(A Legend from Hawaii)

This is a story from Manoa Valley, back of Honolulu. In the upper end of the valley, at the foot of the highest mountains on the island of Oahu, lived Maluae. He was a farmer, and had chosen this land because rain fell abundantly on the mountains, and the streams brought down fine soil from the decaying forests and disintegrating rocks, fertilizing his plants.

Rainbow above Taro Patch in Manoa Valley' by D. Howard Hitchcock, 1910

Here he cultivated bananas, taro, and sweet potatoes. His bananas grew rapidly by the sides of the brooks, and yielded large bunches of fruit from their tree-like stems. His taro filled small walled-in pools, growing in the water like water lilies, until the roots were matured, when the plants were pulled up and the roots boiled and prepared for food. His sweet potatoes were planted on the drier uplands.

Thus he had plenty of food continually growing, and ripening from time to time. Whenever he gathered any of his food products, he brought a part to his family temple and placed it on an altar before the gods Kane and Kanaloa. Then he took the rest to his home for his family to eat.

He had a boy whom he dearly loved, whose name was Kaa-lii (Rolling Chief). This boy was a careless, rollicking child.

One day the boy was tired and hungry. He passed by the temple of the gods and saw bananas, ripe and sweet, on the little platform before the gods. He took these bananas and ate them all.

The gods looked down on the altar expecting to find food, but it was all gone and there was nothing for them. They were very angry, and ran out after the boy. They caught him eating the bananas, and killed him. The body they left lying under the trees, and taking out his ghost threw it into the Underworld.

The father toiled hour after hour cultivating his food plants, and when wearied returned to his home. On the way he met the two gods. They told him how his boy had robbed them of their sacrifices and how they had punished him. They said, “We have sent his ghost body to the lowest regions of the Underworld.”

The father was very sorrowful and heavy-hearted as he went on his way to his desolate home. He searched for the body of his boy, and at last he found it. He saw too that the story of the gods was true, for partly eaten bananas filled the mouth, which was set in death.

He wrapped the body very carefully in kapa cloth made from the bark of trees. He carried it into his rest house and laid it on the sleeping mat. After a time he lay down beside the body, refusing all food, and planning to die with his boy. He thought if he could escape from his own body he would be able to go down where the ghost of his boy had been sent. If he could find that ghost, he hoped to take it to the other part of the Underworld, where they could be happy together.

He placed no offerings on the altar of the gods. No prayers were chanted. The afternoon and evening passed slowly. The gods waited for their worshipper, but he came not. They looked down on the altar of sacrifice, but there was nothing for them.

The night passed and the following day. The father lay by the side of his son, neither eating nor drinking, and longing only for death. The house was tightly closed.

Then the gods talked together, and Kane said: “Maluae eats no food, he prepares no awa to drink, and there is no water by him. He is near the door of the Underworld. If he should die, we would be to blame.”

Kanaloa said: “He has been a good man, but now we do not hear any prayers. We are losing our worshipper. We in quick anger killed his son. Was this the right reward? He has called us morning and evening in his worship. He has provided fish and fruits and vegetables for our altars. He has always prepared awa from the juice of the yellow awa root for us to drink. We have not paid him well for his care.”

Then they decided to go and give life to the father, and permit him to take his ghost body and go down into Po, the dark land, to bring back the ghost of the boy. They went to Maluae and told him they were sorry for what they had done.

The father was very weak from hunger and longing for death, and could scarcely listen to them.

When Kane said, “Have you love for your child?” the father whispered: “Yes. My love is without end.”

“Can you go down into the dark land and get that spirit and put it back in the body which lies here?”

“No,” the father said, “no, I can only die and go to live with him and make him happier by taking him to a better place.”

Then the gods said, “We will give you the power to go after your boy and we will help you to escape the dangers of the land of ghosts.”

Then the father, stirred by hope, rose up and took food and drink. Soon he was strong enough to go on his journey.

The gods gave him a ghost body and also prepared a hollow stick like bamboo, in which they put food, battle weapons, and a piece of burning lava for fire.

Not far from Honolulu is a beautiful modern estate with fine roads, lakes, running brooks, and interesting valleys extending back into the mountain range. This is called by the very ancient name of Moanalua (two lakes). Near the seacoast of this estate was one of the most noted ghost localities of the islands. The ghosts after wandering over the island of Oahu would come to this place to find a way into their real home, the Underworld or Po.

Here was a ghostly breadfruit tree named Lei-walo, possibly meaning the “eight wreaths” or “the eighth wreath” — the last wreath of leaves from the land of the living which would meet the eyes of the dying.

The ghosts would leap or fly or climb into the branches of this tree, trying to find a rotten branch upon which they could sit until it broke and threw them into the dark sea below.

Maluae climbed up the breadfruit tree. He found a branch where ghosts were sitting waiting for it to fall. His weight was so much greater than theirs that the branch broke at once, and down they all fell into the land of Po.

He needed merely to taste the food in his hollow cane to have new life and strength. This he had done when he climbed the tree; thus he had been able to push past the fabled guardians of the pathway of the ghosts in the Upperworld. As he entered the Underworld, he again tasted the food of the gods and he felt himself growing stronger and stronger.

He took a magic war club and a spear out of the cane given by the gods. Ghostly warriors tried to hinder his entrance into the different districts of the dark land. The spirits of dead chiefs challenged him when he passed their homes. Battle after battle was fought. His magic club struck the warriors down, and his spear tossed them aside.

Sometimes he was warmly greeted and aided by ghosts of kindly spirits. Thus he went from place to place, searching for his boy. He found him at last, as the Hawaiians quaintly expressed it, “down in the papa-ku” (the established foundation of Po), choking and suffocating from the bananas of ghost-land which he was compelled to continually force into his mouth.

The father caught the spirit of the boy and started back toward the Upperworld, but the ghosts surrounded him. They tried to catch him and take the spirit away from him. Again the father partook of the food of the gods. Once more he wielded his war club, but the hosts of enemies were too great. Multitudes arose on all sides, crushing him by their overwhelming numbers.

At last he raised his magic hollow cane and took the last portion of food. Then he poured out the portion of burning lava which the gods had placed inside. It fell upon the dry floor of the Underworld. The flames dashed into the trees and the shrubs of ghost-land. Fire holes opened and streams of lava burst out.

Backward fled the multitude of spirits. The father thrust the spirit of the boy quickly into the empty magic cane and rushed swiftly up to his homeland. He brought the spirit to the body lying in the rest house and forced it to find again its living home.

Afterward the father and the boy took food to the altars of the gods, and chanted the accustomed prayers heartily and loyally all the rest of their lives.

Source:

Myths and Legends of Hawaii

W.D. Westervelt

1987

Pages: 95-99