If one were asked what, to the English-speaking mind, constitutes the most representative romantico-mystical aspiration that has been embodied in song and story, doubtless he would be compelled to answer the legend and myth of the Holy Grail. To the Hawaiian mind the aspiration and conception that most nearly approximates to this is that embodied in the words placed at the head of this chapter, The Water of Kane. One finds suggestions and hints of this conception in many passages of Hawaiian song and story, sometimes a phosphorescent flash, answering to the dip of the poet's blade, sometimes crystallized into a set form; but nowhere else than in the following mele have I found this jewel deliberately wrought into shape, faceted, and fixed in a distinct form of speech.
This mele comes from Kauai, the island which more than any other of the Hawaiian group retains a tight hold on the mystical and imaginative features that mark the mythology of Polynesia; the island also which less than any other of the group was dazzled by the glamour of royalty and enslaved by the theory of the divine birth of kings.
He Mele no Kane
E ú-i aku ana au ia oe,
Aia i-hea ka Wai a Kane?
Aia i Kau-lana-ka-la, b
10 I ka pae opua i ke kai, c
Ea mai ana ma Nihoa, d
E ú-i aku ana au ia oe,
15 Aia i-hea ka Wai a Kane?
Aia i ke kua-hiwi, i ke kua-lono,
I ke awáwa, i ke kaha-wai;
Aia i-laila ka Wai a Kane.
E ú-i aku ana au ia oe,
20 Aia i-hea ka Wai a Kane?
Aia i-kai, i ka moana,
I ke Kua-lau, i ke anuenue,
I ka punohu, a i ka ua-koko, b
I ka alewa-lewa:
25 Aia i-laila ka Wai a Kane.
E ú-i aku ana au ia oe,
Aia i-hea ka Wai a Kane?
Aia i-luna ka Wai a Kane,
I ke ouli, i ke ao eleele,
30 I ke ao pano-pano,
I ke ao popolo-hua mea a Kane la, e!
Aia i-laila ka Wai a Kane.
E ú-i aku ana au ia oe.
Aia i-hea ka Wai a Kane?
35 Aia i-lalo, i ka honua, i ka Wai hu,
I ka wai kau a Kane me Kanaloa-- c
He wai-puna, he wai e inu,
He wai e mana, he wai e ola.
E ola no, e-a!
[Translation]
The Water of Kane
A question I ask of you:
Where is the water of Kane?
Out there with the floating Sun,
One question I put to you:
15 Where is the water of Kane?
Yonder on mountain peak,
On the ridges steep,
In the valleys deep,
Where the rivers sweep;
20 There is the water of Kane.
This question I ask of you:
Where, pray, is the water of Kane?
Yonder, at sea, on the ocean,
In the driving rain,
25 In the heavenly bow,
In the piled-up mist-wraith,
In the blood-red rainfall,
In the ghost-pale cloud-form;
There is the water of Kane.
30 One question I put to you:
Where, where is the water of Kane?
Up on high is the water of Kane,
In the heavenly blue,
In the black piled cloud,
35 In the black-black cloud.
In the black-mottled sacred cloud of the gods;
There is the water of Kane.
One question I ask of you:
Where flows the water of Kane?
40 Deep in the ground. in the gushing spring,
In the ducts of Kane and Loa,
A well-spring of water, to quaff,
A water of magic power--
The water of life!
45 Life! O give us this life!
257:a Hae-hae. Heaven's eastern gate; the portal in the solid walls that supported the heavenly dome, through which the sun entered in the morning.
257:b Kau-Lana-ka-la. When the setting sun, perhaps by an optical illusion drawn out into a boatlike form, appeared to be floating on the surface of the ocean, the Hawaiians named the phenomenon Kau-lana-ka-la--the floating of the sun. Their fondness for personification showed itself in the final conversion of this phrase into something like a proper name, which they applied to the locality of the phenomenon.
257:c Pae opua i ke kai. Another instance of name-giving, applied to the bright clouds that seem to rest on the horizon, especially to the west.
257:d Nihoa (Bird Island). This small rock to the northwest of Kauai, though far below the horizon, is here spoken of as if it were in sight.
258:a Punohu. A red luminous cloud, or a halo, regarded as an omen portending some sacred and important event.
258:b Ua-koko. Literally bloody rain, a term applied to a rainbow when lying near the ground, or to a freshet-stream swollen with the red muddy water from the wash of the hillsides. These were important omens, claimed as marking the birth of tabu chiefs.
258:c Wai kau a Kane me Kanaloa. Once when Kane and Kanaloa were journeying together Kanaloa complained of thirst. Kane thrust his staff into the pali near at hand, and out flowed a stream of pure water that has continued to the present day. The place is at Keanae, Maui.