Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/241

 Corresp ondence. 217

Liloa's first wife was Pinea, a Maui chiefess. with whom he had a son, Hakau, and a daughter Kaputini. Later in life while travelling near the borders of the Hamakua and Hilo districts he spied a young woman named Akahiakuleana, with whom he fell in love and seduced. The offspring of this liaison was a son whom the mother named Umi. On parting from Akahiakuleana Liloa gave her the ivory clasp of his necklace, his feather wreath, and his malo or waistcloth,^ and told her that when the child grew up, if it was a boy, to send him with the tokens to Waipio, and he would acknowledge him. The boy grew up with his mother and her husband, a fine, hearty, well-developed lad, foremost in all sports and athletic games of the time, but too idle and lazy in works of husbandry to suit his plodding stepfather.

When Umi was nearly a full-grown young man his stepfather once threatened to strike him as punishment for his continued idleness. The mother, however, averted the blow, and said to her husband, " Do not strike him ; he is not your son ; he is your chief." She then revealed the secret of his birth, and produced from their hiding place the keepsakes which Liloa had left with her. The astonished stepfather stepped back in dismay, and the mother furnished Umi with means and instructions for the journey to Waipio. When he arrived there he proceeded to the royal mansion In accordance with his mother's instructions, but contrary to the rules of etiquette observed by strangers or in- ferior visitors, instead of entering the courtyard by the gate he leaped over the stockade, and instead of entering the mansion by the (front) door he entered by the back door, and went straight up to where Liloa was reclining and sat himself down in his lap Surprised at this sudden action Liloa threw the young man to the ground, and, as he fell, discovered his ifialo and his ivory clasp on the body of Umi. Explanations followed, and Liloa publicly acknowledged his son.

The resemblance of this Hawaiian story to the New Zealand ones is very striking. The hostile encounter results from the breaking of the taboo, only in this particular tale there is even more of an actual struggle. While there is little more than an altercation of words in the Maori variants, in this case the father throws his son to the ground, and the sight of the tokens alone

' In another version he gives her his dagger instead of the feather wreath.