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foniotidcr Collection of Haivaiian Folk-lore. 



wanders about, and then comes and enters a living person. Such a soul is called 

 "wind," or "utuJupili" — the spirit of a deceased person. That is what people in the 



olden time thought. 



S. Kamaka. 



STORY OF THE OHELO. 



I DO not know what the ohclo is used for, but 1 tlo know that it is good to eat. 

 I have seen only one kind of ohelo: the creeping ohelo; the ohelo bush plant' I have 

 not seen. It is thought the ohelo originated in two places: i, in Kahiki; 2, here in 

 Hawaii. 



Therefore let us now consider its being received from Kahiki.- Kaohelo was 

 a fine-formed woman ; her face was good lo look upon. Her older sisters were Pele, 

 Hiiaka and Malulani.'' Their birthplace and where they lived for a long time was 

 Nuumealani,' a place at the border of Kahiki. While they were living there in har- 

 mony, and with love each had for the other, there arrived from Hawaii a man named 

 Aukelenuiaiku.'^' Upon his arrival there he waged war and conquered the land, and 

 that was why Kaohelo and the others left their birthplace and came here to Hawaii. 



When they arrived here Malulani dwelt on Lanai, while Pele and the younger 

 sisters went on to Hawaii. Pele and Hiiaka lived at the volcano of Kilauea, but no- 

 body knew exactly where Kaohelo settled on Hawaii. Yet while so living she bore a 

 son named Kiha. When Kaohelo was nearing death she said to her son. "Should I die, 

 do not bury me at any other place, but take my body to the very navel of your grand- 

 mother, right on top of Kilauea; then bury me there." When Kaohelo died her son 

 took her dead body: that is the creeping part as well as the bush-plant part. The 

 flesh became the creeping vine and the bones became the bush-plant. Pele retained 

 Kaohelo's head, which became the smouldering fire in the volcano; the rest of the body 

 was thrown over" to Haleakala, Maui, and to salty Kealia, Oahu; some of it was thrown 

 on Kauai, and some of it was left on Hawaii. 



When Malulani, living on Lanai, heard of the death of their youngest sister, 

 she came over to get her, thinking that Pele hadn't kept her; when she arrived she did 

 not find her whole body. It was scattered and lost over the ground, and it was 

 sprouting and growing from the soil. She commenced to gather and bundle it, think- 

 ing- that that was all, as she wanted to care for it. But some time after, as she went 

 back to Lanai, she saw Kaohelo's body strung and worn as leis by the people; and 

 because she loved her youngest sister very much she hung herself. 



Kaohelo is one of the gods^ of Pele even unto this day. Malulani and Kao- 



'The ohelo (Vaccinium reticutatum) grows at high 

 elevations, and is familiar to volcano visitors ; it pro- 

 duces a fleshy berry, which in ancient time was held by 

 llawaiians to be sacred to the fire-goddess Pele as a 

 propitiatory ofi^ering. Queen Kapiolani, in her memo- 

 rable visit to the volcano of Kilauea in 1824 to defy Pele 

 anu break down the superstition and dread of her race, 

 among other things eat of these ohelo berries, hitherto 

 held sacred. 



'Kahiki, abroad ; foreign. 



'This introduces a new sister in the Pele family. 



'A familiar mythical cloud land supposed to exist to 

 the west, some three days sail from this group. 



"This is a familiar traditionary character from one of 

 the earliest of Hawaiian legends. See Fornander Col- 

 lection, Vol. 1, pp. 32 et seq. 



'This distribution was to localities on the different 

 islands once under volcanic fire. 



'Kaohelo, the ohelo, was not a deity of Pele so much 

 as a supposed specially efficacious propitiatory sacred of- 

 fering to her, hence, kapued from any other use. 



