Down the terrace swept the victorious horde in the gray dawn of the morning. Niheu vainly tried to hold his warriors in check, for he knew the main body of the fortress force was still before him, and would have advanced with prudence; but the voices of the leaders were drowned in the battle-shouts of the surging throng, which in a few minutes struck Kaupeepee’s wall of spears and battle-axes, and rolled back like a storm-wave broken against the front of Haupu. But the check was only momentary, for immediately behind the shattered column was a forest of advancing spears, and with a wild tumult of shouts and clashing weapons the entire force was precipitated upon Kaupeepee’s thin but resolute lines of defence.
The slaughter was frightful; but the unequal conflict could have but one result. Kaupeepee and the fifty or less of his followers left standing were crowded, fighting step by step, into the lower terrace, and thence to the heiau, and finally to the temple as a last place of defence. There the struggle was brief. The roof of the temple was fired, and as Kaupeepee and the last of his devoted band sprang from the blazing building to die at the throats of their enemies they were struck down with their javelins in the air. A spear penetrated the breast of Kaupeepee. As a last act he poised his ihe to hurl at a helmeted chief who had just struggled to the front. The chief was Niheu. By his dress or face, which bore a resemblance to the features of Hina, Kaupeepee must have recognized him. He looked, but his arm did not move. “Not for your sake, but for hers!” exclaimed the dying warrior, dropping his weapon to the earth and falling lifeless beside it.
Not one of the defenders of Haupu escaped, but more than one-half of Niheu’s army perished in the various assaults upon the fortress. Hina was found uninjured, and, while there was great joy to her in the embrace of her sons and aged mother, she wept over the death of Kaupeepee, who with his love had made light her long imprisonment.
The body of Kaupeepee was given to Keoloewa for interment, as were also the remains of Moi, who was among the last to fall. The walls of Haupu were levelled, never to be raised again, and Hina returned to her husband in Hilo, after a separation of nearly eighteen years, thus bringing to a close one of the most romantic legends of early Hawaiian chivalry.
The Royal Hunchback.
CHARACTERS.
Kanipahu, king of Hawaii.
Kalapana, son of Kanipahu.
Kamaiole, a usurper of the throne, chief of Kau.
Iola, sister of Kamaiole.
Makea, daughter of Iola.
Waikuku, a military chief, abductor of Iola.
Nanoa, a chief in the royal household.
THE ROYAL HUNCHBACK.
THE LEGEND OF KANIPAHU, THE GRANDSON OF PILI.
I.
About the period of A.D. 1160 Kanipahu was the nominal sovereign of the island of Hawaii. He was the grandson of Pili, who near the close of the previous century came from Samoa, at the solicitation of the high-priest Paao, to assume the moiship left vacant by the death of Kapawa, whose grandfather was probably the first of the southern chiefs who came to the Hawaiian group during the important migratory movements of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
Although the sovereignty of the entire island was claimed by the Pili family, disturbances were frequent in the time of Kanipahu, and a few of the native chiefs of the old stock of Nanaula, which held sway in the group for nearly six centuries, refused to yield allegiance to the new dynasty. To strengthen his power and placate the native chiefs and people, Kanipahu took to wife Hualani, the fifth in descent from Maweke, of the Nanaula line, and subsequently Alaikaua, who was probably of the same native strain.
The makaainana, or common people, however, seem to have been better satisfied with their new rulers than were their former chiefs who had been supplanted in authority, and it was therefore with difficulty that they could be aroused to a resistance to political conditions which imposed upon them no hardships which they had not borne under their old rulers, and no responsibilities with which they were not already familiar. And, besides, the new-comers from the south had introduced new laws, new customs and new products of the soil, as well as new gods and new forms of worship. They had brought with them the kaeke, or sacred drum, and puloulou, or inviolable tabu staff, crowned with balls of white or black kapa. They had also instituted the title of moi, or supreme sovereign, whereas the several islands before had been ruled by scores of independent chiefs, each claiming and holding as large a district as he was able to defend. They had established the Aha-alii, or college of chiefs, through which the rank of every noble might find recognition, and be perpetuated in his family. They had constructed grander heiaus, or temples, and shut the populace from the observance of many of their religious ceremonies. The tabus of the chiefs and priests had been enlarged and rendered more strict, and the priesthood had become more powerful and independent. The persons of the mois and high chiefs had become more sacred, and they exercised their functions with increased display and ostentation.
These additional exactions on the part of the new rulers, however, were partially if not wholly compensated for to the laboring masses by the protection brought to them through the political change against the oppressions of their petty chiefs and land-owners; and it is therefore probable that, on the whole, their social and industrial condition was quite as tolerable under the new as under the old or native régime.
Kanipahu resided principally in Kohala, where his grandfather had taken up his abode, and constructed mansions consistent with his sovereign state. And it was there that the high-priest Paao, who brought Pili to the group, established himself and family, after first landing in Puna and erecting to his god the temple of Wahaula, the ruins of which are still seen near the village of Kahawalea. After the arrival of Pili it is probable that Paao removed with him to the more populous district of Kohala, and there remained as his high-priest and adviser. At Puuepa he erected the large heiau of Mookini, the stones for which were passed from hand-to-hand from Niulii, a distance of nine miles—a circumstance indicating the presence of a large population on Hawaii at that time. As it was one of the largest temples in the group—its walls, enclosing an irregular parallelogram, having an aggregate length of 817 feet, with a height of 20 feet, and a breadth of 8 feet at the top—a vast amount of labor must have been required to transport the material over so long and rough a road, with no appliance more effective than human muscle. But the walls are so well built that they are standing to-day, and from a secret crypt in the wall of the south side of the heiau were taken but a few years ago, and are still preserved, two finely-polished stone disks of a diameter of eight or ten inches, which it is not improbable were the two strange idols which tradition says Paao brought with him over the great waters from Upolu, and which were hidden by some faithful kahu or servant of the heiau when the ancient worship of the people was abolished by the second Kamehameha in 1819.
Kanipahu was a just and considerate sovereign, and sought by every peaceful means to harmonize the conflicting interests of the chiefs and strengthen and consolidate his power. To this end, as already stated,