Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/597

 Laieikawai. 249

care, and when he makes inquiry you must tell him that the birth was deformed, and that you had it put away."

This communication over, she returned to her home, and shortly afterwards the first pains of childbirth came upon her. So soon as she felt them increasing, she called for the chief, and said to him : " Oh, my husband ! I see before my eyes the fish called ohua, there- fore go you with all speed to fish, for it seems to me if I had one, the child desired would soon be born. Never before have I had a difficult delivery, never before have I so longed for an ohua. There- fore go you the fishing with all speed along with your men." This fish the chief was skilled in catching ; it is taken in numbers, and requires the combined efforts of many hands to make sure of it.

On the instant the chief left the house, and set out with his men. While they were absent a child was born ; it was a girl and was given in charge to Waka, the grandmother, who gave to her the name of Laieikawai ; but while they were attending to her another child was born, also a girl, and the latter passed to the priest, who named her Laielohelohe. When these two had departed with the infants the chief returned, and asked his wife how she now felt. She answered : " I have been delivered of a helpless, deformed thing which they have put away." But the chief already knew that this had happened, for while he was at sea it had twice thundered.

Waka and the priest had now proceeded some distance from the house, when she said to him : " What shall we do with the infants that have fallen to us, in order to conceal them from the chief ? "

By the advice of the priest, Waka, who has supernatural power, makes choice of a place of concealment for her charge. This hiding- place belonged to a class of which there are many instances in the Hawaiian islands, which have arisen from the peculiar structure of the volcanic rocks of which these are composed. The ancient flows of lava, piled one on another to a height of many thousand feet, which make the mass, have been very extensive and regular, stretch- ing out in smooth sheets for miles, and sloping very gradually and usually seaward at an angle of about seven degrees. These strata differ greatly in composition ; for example, the uppermost may be of a firm basaltic rock having a thickness of but a few feet ; the one next below may be composed of partially rounded stones, held to- gether by a claylike mass, and much thicker than that above it. The frequent rains of the upper regions form themselves into a stream, which gradually works out a channel in the upper rock, however firm. Still excavating downward, it penetrates to some chink, down which a portion of its waters sinks, and aided by the great pressure slowly forces an underground way to the sea in the form of a tiny rill. Time, the great agent in all such changes, enlarges its volume,

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