
Read this article in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi
By Keaukulukele
In last year’s ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi issue we told the story of Hinakeahi in Hilo. This year we will learn about what happened to her sister, Hinakuluʻīua.
After Hinakeahi saved her people, she left to stay at Kukuilauania near Pēpēkeō (also called Pepeʻekeō). While she was gone, her sister Hinakuluʻīua heard about how she had saved the people of Hālaʻi. Growing jealous of her sister and her gifts, Hinakuluʻīua declared to the people of Puʻuhonu that she would save them as well. She ordered her people to dig and light an imu in the same way that Hinaikeahi had. When it was done, she commanded her people to wait three days. On the third day, a woman would appear to tell them to open the imu.
No woman appeared on the third day. Instead, a heavy, ominous cloud formed above Puʻuhonu and the people grew nervous.
On the fourth day they opened the imu anyway. To their shock all that they found within were the ashen remains of Hinakuluʻīua. Sorrowfully, they reburied the imu. Puʻuhonu is said to have been named for the failure of Hinakuluʻīua to save her people. Like a honu trapped on land, she was unable to move about through the earth as her sister had.
By this time Hinakeahi had journeyed to Keanaohina, the cave behind Waiānuenue in the Wailuku River. There, she made kapa on the stone anvil once found in that cave. When she saw the cloud over Puʻuhonu she chanted a mele kūmākena for her sister in mourning. Little did she know, the spirit of Hinakuluʻīua lived on in the cloud, malignant with jealousy and frustration toward Hinakeahi and her people. Hinakuluʻīua sent a massive flood of endless rain down upon them. Her ally, Lonokaʻeho, threw huge boulders and mud into the Wailuku River below Keanaohina, so that the trapped waters would drown Hinakeahi. As the waters rose, Hinakeahi cried out in fear to her son Māui, who was then atop Kanakaleonui on Maunakea. Māui rushed down and fought Lonokaʻeho. He killed Lonokaʻeho and threw him all the way to a stream by the same name in Pēpēkeō, where he turned to stone.
This stream is mislabeled on maps today as “Waimaauou,” which is actually a smaller stream that flows into Lonokaʻeho from the south and should also be correctly spelled Waimāʻauʻau. Māui then took his koʻokoʻo named Wāwahilani and cut a new path for the Wailuku, through which it flows until this very day. The old path of the river remains cut off by boulders and is called Piʻikea.
Hinakuluʻīua saw all of this and fled to Hāleuʻole in Kukuau. Māui heard the pitter patter of her rain drops fleeing and chased her. He transformed himself into a white rooster, flew up, and caught the spirit of Hinakuluʻīua, in the form of two drops of rain, in his beak before she could escape. He flew south toward the cliff of Hōlei at Pānaunui, intending to imprison her.
As Māui flew over the Panaʻewa forest one of the raindrops escaped and rushed back to Hāleuʻole. This became the Hāleuʻole Rain of Hilo, which comes in quickly from over the sea in the east. It is named hāleuʻole because a person cannot react before it arrives, though they can hear it coming.
Māui successfully brought the last rain drop to the top of Hōlei, where he baked it in a great imu. This imu is said to be covered in pili grass and surrounded by a grove of kukui trees. They say that people ma kai of there at Kekaha knew that when they saw mists rising on Hōlei, rain was coming, as Hinakuluʻīua stirred to life once again.
Pīpī holo kaʻao.