Volcano – Where Gods Walk – 6
by author Marie Alohalani Brown, Ph.D.
Not long after that, Kalamainuʻu arrived to Kīlauea, and stood at the edge of Halemaʻumaʻu. She shouted, “I am here for my husband, Punaʻaikoaʻe. Give him to me.”
The Pele clan’s laughter echoed throughout the pit.
“What husband? You have no husband. This man is our sister’s husband. If you wanted a husband, you should have searched for one when you were still young and beautiful,” Pele said, mocking Kalamainuʻu.
Fury filled Kalamainuʻu. “Give him to me now or I will call upon all the moʻo of these islands, and we will extinguish every one of your lava pits with our walewale.”
Pele replied, “You can try.”
Kalamainuʻu called out for all the moʻo to join her, and they all heeded her call, rushing to help their beloved relative against their enemy, the Pele clan. Countless moʻo swarmed Hawaiʻi Island, seeking out Pele’s lava pits to destroy them. The horde of moʻo with their huge bodies caused the earth to tremble and crack. The moʻo used their walewale to extinguish the lava pits one by one. When the largest moʻo descended into Halemaʻumaʻu to attack the heart of Pele’s volcanic power, the Pele clan fought back, but the moʻo still managed to put them all out—except for the pit belonging to Kamohoaliʻi, her powerful shark deity brother.
From fires from this lava pit reignited all the rest that had been extinguished. The lava, more powerful than before, erupted everywhere, taking the moʻo by surprise. They fled the area, many falling into cracks—those they had made and those caused by the violent eruptions—and died. As for Kalamainuʻu, she barely escaped. Using her incredibly power, she leapt in her moʻo form from Kīlauea and landed in a large brackish pond named after her moʻo relative, Waka (also known as Aka). This pond still exists today, and is found in Keaukaha in Hilo. Kalamainuʻu experienced a humiliating defeat and lost Punaʻaikoaʻe as well.
As for Hinale, when he heard that Kalamainuʻu was coming to kill him for helping Punaʻaikoaʻe, he changed into his other form, which was a hinalea fish. Kalamaninuʻu got her revenge on him by creating the first hinalea fishtrap, and managed to lure Hinalea in it, where she killed him.
Punaʻaikoaʻe was united with his wife, Walinuʻu, and they returned to Oʻahu to live. He gave up his rule and lived with her in a somewhat secluded area in upland Kalihi. Alas, he was executed when he was mistaken for a banana thief. A ruling chief had him drowned and his body hung on the branches of a breadfruit tree near the banana patch. When Walinuʻu heard the news, she ran to the tree. She wailed in grief, and then took his body over her shoulder. She slapped the trunk of the breadfruit tree, which open up by virtue of her power. She stepped in it with her husband’s body, and the trunk then closed up behind her.
In another tradition, published by Mose Manu in a Hawaiian-language newspaper in 1899, which has never been published in English, Punaʻaikoaʻe is Pele’s husband, and Waka seduces him away from her. The legend of the terrible war between Pele and Waka begins with the next installment of “Volcano—Where Gods Walk.”
Marie Alohalani Brown, Ph.D. is the Author of Facing the Spears of Change: The Life and Legacy of John Papa Ii (University of Hawaii Press); winner of the Palapala Poʻokela Award 2017 for the Best Book on Hawaiian Language, Culture, and History.