Our Little Hawaiian Cousin

Auwae suddenly forgets the long and tiresome ride, as she jumps from her horse's back in front of the hotel. This hotel is built on the edge of a crater! Think of the family who live here year after year! Night after night they look from the windows upon the raging fire below, yet are not afraid. Many a time the earth shakes beneath them, and the house rocks to and fro. The shelf of lava on which it stands may break at any moment, and the people within may suddenly be flung over the precipice. Yet they live on, and work and play as others do who have nothing to fear.

In many places around the house are cracks in the earth from which sulphur fumes are rising. As the children look out in front they see the crater itself, more than nine miles round, and nearly a quarter of a mile deep.

As they creep out and look over the edge, what is before them? The crater is filled with steam, while over in a distant corner of the pit they look for the first time upon the "house of everlasting fire," as the old legends call it, – the home of the goddess Pele.

The flames rise and fall, now high enough to light up the evening sky, now low as though dying out, and with it can be heard the breathing of this great furnace of nature. It sounds like the restless ocean many miles away.

Auwae and Upa hold each other's hands tightly and do not speak. Surely this is a wonderful sight. They will not forget it as long as they live.

They are so tired, however, that they are soon fast asleep in "white people's beds," as they call them. They do not awake till the sun has driven away the clouds which hang about the place in the early hours of morning. Upa's father has already eaten breakfast and attended to his business with the landlord.

He tells the children that horses are at the door to carry them down into the crater; for they have begged him to let them see everything possible.

What a ride this is down the rough, jagged side of the pit! The horses pick their way step by step over the sharp broken lava. But even here beautiful things are growing. There are delicate ferns, silvery grasses, pink, white, and brilliant blue berries. It seems as though Mother Nature wished to hide the frightful masses of black and gray lava.

Now the air gets very hot; steam and sulphur pour through great cracks in the floor of the crater; the lava itself will burn if Auwae dares to touch it with her fingers.

The floor of the crater, looking quite even from above, is broken up into hills and valleys, immense ridges and rivers of lava which have poured forth, one above the other, at different times.

After two hours of hard riding and walking, Auwae and Upa reach the lake of living fire and look down, down, into its depths. But they cannot see the bottom. Each throws in a garland of flowers as an offering to the goddess Pele. They know she does not exist, but it is an old, old custom of the people, and they have not quite grown out of the idea that it is safest to do so.

For, look at the flames leaping up at this very moment! "People may be mistaken," thinks Auwae, "and the goddess may get angry if we are not polite, and suddenly drown us in fire!"

It is dinner-time before the party get back to the hotel. They are willing to rest all the afternoon under the tree-ferns near the house. They lazily pick the ohele berries growing about them, as they tell the village news to the landlord's family.

On the evening of the third day our little brown maiden finds herself safe at home once more. She is very well, but quite lame and sore from her long ride. Her mother says she shall have a lomi-lomi, and she will feel all right again.

Auwae stretches herself out on a mat while an old woman of the village pinches and pounds and kneads every part of her dear little body. Do you suppose it hurts? Just try it yourself the first time you have a chance, and when it is over see if you do not feel as limber and care-free as Auwae does.

She dances about under the trees, and exclaims: "Oh, how nice it is to be alive! What a lovely home I have! But I'm glad I've been to Kilauea, though I would not like to live there."

At this moment she sees her father coming down the path to the house. He was away when she got home, and she runs to welcome him.

"But, dear papa, what are you hiding behind you?" she cries.

"I have a present for my little daughter," he answers. "It has cost a large sum, but my only child deserves it, I well know. It is something for you to treasure all your life."

He hands her a bamboo cylinder, telling her to see what is inside. The excited girl opens one end, and out falls a band of tiny yellow feathers to be worn as a wreath. It is more precious to this Hawaiian child than a diamond ring or gold necklace could possibly be.

Why, do you ask? Because of the time and labour in getting the feathers, which are found on only one kind of bird in the islands, or any other place, for that matter. This little creature is called the oo. It lives among the mountains. Under each of its wings are a few bright yellow feathers no more than an inch long. Hunters spend their lives in snaring this bird. They place long sticks smeared with a sticky substance where the oo is apt to alight. After it is caught, the precious feathers are plucked and the bird set free.

While Auwae crowns herself with her new wreath, her father tells her that next month she shall go away with him on a steamboat. She shall visit Honolulu, the capital of the islands. There she shall see the wonderful war-cloak of Kamehameha the Great. It is made entirely of oo feathers. Nine kings lived and died, one after the other, before this priceless cloak was finished. And now it is guarded as one of the greatest treasures of the country.

Yes, Auwae shall see, not only this, but many wonders beside. She shall ride through the streets with neither man nor animal to carry her. She shall talk with people miles away by placing her mouth to a tube. She shall see how her white cousins live and dress.

But her father does not doubt that she will be glad to come home again to this little grass house with the quiet and the peace of the village life.

notes

1

This volcano is not constantly, but intermittently, in eruption.