CHAPTER I.

Namakaokapaoo Rifles Pualii’s Potato Field.—He Threatens to Behead the Boy but Is Killed Instead.—Amau the King Sends a Force to Kill Him.—He Slays Them and the King.

Namakaokapaoo was a very brave little boy, and very strong for his young years. He had no compeer in these Islands from Hawaii to Niihau, according to his size for bravery. His father was Kauluakahai of Kahikipapaialewa, [322] a land in great Kahiki. Pokai was his mother. His father was a great chief and had a godly relationship. Hoaeae, in Ewa, was the place where they met as man and wife and begat Namakaokapaoo. When Pokai was enceinte of Namakaokapaoo, Kauluakahai went back to his own land, leaving Pokai in that condition until childbirth.

When the child was born Pokai and her child Namakaokapaoo were quite destitute, and while they were in that condition of life a good man named Pualii came from Lihue [323] to fish at Honouliuli. He turned in at the home of Pokai. He looked at her and had a yearning for her. He said: “I desire you to be my wife.” Pokai returned: “How could you have a desire for me, seeing that I have already given birth to a child, and my body is defiled?” Pualii answered: “There’s nothing in those things if you desire our union.” Pokai then assented and went with her husband Pualii, and resided at the plans of Keahumoa. [324] (Kula-o-Keahumoa.)

They lived there tilling the soil. Pualii had two large potato patches which remain to this day; they are called Namakaokapaoo. [325] When the potatoes were ripe Pualii made a vow that when the head [326] of an ulua [327] fish and the potatoes were roasted, and Pualii had first eaten thereof, then the potatoes would be free, and that his wife and others could eat thereof. Therefore Pualii went down to Honouliuli to catch the fish to be eaten together with the potato.

When Pualii was gone Namakaokapaoo, with seventeen other youngsters, went to Pualii’s potato patches. Namakaokapaoo was only a very small child then, standing two and a half feet high, had not eaten adult food. He had not worn a girdle (malo), and was yet in a state of nudity.

When they arrived at the potato patches he told the boys to dig up the potatoes and pull up all the vines, and allow nothing to stand in the patches. But the boys were afraid and only dug up the potatoes without pulling up the vines. Namakaokapaoo then started to pull up everything from both patches until the vines were piled up high in stacks. There were forty such stacks from the two fields. He thereafter started a fire and roasted thereon four clusters of potatoes.

While he was cooking his potatoes his stepfather came home and asked his mother Pokai: “Did you send your child to pull up my potatoes?” Pokai said: “No.” Pualii then said: “Well, this day his head and eyes [328] will be meat for my potato meal. This day he shall die at my hands.” He seized an axe and went out to the field where he found Namakaokapaoo roasting his four clusters of potatoes in the fire. All the other boys ran off and stood at a distance for fear of Pualii.

Pualii then said to Namakaokapaoo: “Say, I have in my hand an axe with which to cut off your head this day, and when your head is off it will be roasted with potatoes so that I may eat first and then it (the potato) will be free.” Namakaokapaoo paid no attention to these words of Pualii, who repeated them after an interval. And while Pualii was about to cut Namakaokapaoo with the axe, the latter just then delivered his death prayer against Pualii. The prayer follows:

O how I long for the eyes of my little fishes (paoo’s), For which I am undecided, wavering, Whether to eat, or whether to leave, To leave for Kukuiaimakaokalani. [329] That is Kukuiaimakaokalani, This is my little friend Namakaokaia, the great chief of Hawaii. Vanquished, yes, vanquished is the coward; The man with the spear, The spear and the drum, Shall be vanquished by Namakaokapaoo.

(Let us here make a few remarks relating to Namakaokalani and Namakaokaia. They were great chiefs of Hawaii. The former was the father, the latter the son, but they were mentioned in the prayer of Namakaokapaoo.)

At the time that Namakaokapaoo ended his prayer, Pualii struck at Namakaokapaoo with the axe, but the sharp edge of the axe turned on himself cutting off and throwing his head some distance, from whence it said: “Farewell to thee, Namakaokapaoo.”

Namakaokapaoo picked up Pualii’s head and threw it towards Waipouli, a cave situated on the beach at Honouliuli (a distance of about five miles). [330] After Pualii’s death Namakaokapaoo went back to his mother. He did not eat any food.

At that time Amau, a king of Oahu, was residing at Waikiki. A certain man of Honouliuli came to Waikiki, to where the king was stopping, and said to him: “Your majesty, there is a very strong little boy, who killed his stepfather and threw his (father’s) head a very long distance, about five miles.”

When Amau heard this he said: “He is indeed strong if he kills me; but if he does not kill me he is not strong.” While he was talking at Waikiki, Namakaokapaoo heard all of this talk about himself. He then took and hid his mother in the cave at Waipouli, after which he came back to their house at Keahumoa. He went up on the roof of the house and parted the front and rear thatchings on the ridge and slept there.

Amau the king sent four companies of men, each company consisting of forty-eight men. When they arrived at Keahumoa they entered the house and found no person in it. And when they were preparing to leave Namakaokapaoo called to them from the ridge. When they heard the voice without seeing anybody, they asked: “Where are you talking from?” Namakaokapaoo answered: “I am up here.” Eight men climbed up on the roof, four from the rear and four from the front, and found Namakaokapaoo. He asked them: “What do you want here?” And they said: “We have come to fight Namakaokapaoo, a small boy just like you, who is very strong and brave, and who killed his father Pualii.” He answered and said: “I know; Namakaokapaoo is quite a big man. He has gone to Koolau. I am his namesake.” And they said to him: “No, no, you are the one, so we heard; therefore we will kill you; you shall not live.”

Namakaokapaoo then said: “Let us go down and fight it out then.” As soon as they were on the ground Namakaokapaoo made a clean sweep, killing them all excepting one man, who ran and met Amau at Waikiki, and reported their total annihilation with the exception of himself.

THE DEATH OF AMAU.

When Amau heard this he prepared eighteen war canoes, and set sail for Ewa to fight Namakaokapaoo. When Amau and his men arrived at Ewa, they were suddenly exterminated by Namakaokapaoo, not a single man escaping. And thus Amau died. Oahu being completely conquered, Namakaokapaoo went and brought his mother and placed her as ruler over the land of Oahu.