Page:Pele and Hiiaka; a myth from Hawaii (IA pelehiiakamythfr00emeriala).pdf/97



Wahine-oma'o could not repress her admiration for the girl and her desire to have her as an aikane (an intimate friend); and she was full of regret that their presence on the cliff had driven away the fish and interfered with the girl’s occupation.

"The figure you see dancing down there is not a human body; it is only a spirit," said Hiiaka.

"What!"

"Yes, only a spirit, and I’ll prove it in this way," she plucked a hala drupe from a wreath about her neck;—"I'll throw this down to her; and if she flies away, it will prove she is a spirit; but, if she does not disappear, it will prove her to be a human body."

Hiiaka threw the hala, and the moment the poor soul saw it fall in front of her she vanished out of sight. But in a short time she reappeared and, seizing the hala with her fingerless hand-stumps, she pressed it to her nose with an extravagant display of fondness and, looking up to Hiiaka, she chanted:

The loss of her fish still weighed upon the mind of Mana