Kauai Trails. Kathy Morey

Waioli, he meets women whose appearance and demeanor illustrate that place’s characteristics. For example, at Maha-moku, near the mouth of Waioli’s valley, the story says the stream forms a pond over which a hau tree hangs, its fallen yellow blossoms drifting on the glassy water as they turn a deep red-yellow. The woman there wears a lei of hau flowers. She is resting as the stream rests at Maha-moku after its long journey down mountain and valley.

      Each time the young man thinks perhaps he has found the hidden singer, then realizes the woman is not she, and continues to search along Waioli. As he leaves, each woman gives him a sheet of kapa, the bark cloth of Polynesia, of a different color, a color characteristic of that place, for his wife-to-be. For example, the tapa of Maha-moku is the red-yellow of the drifting hau blossoms.