NATIVE TRADITIONS. 
247 
of their volcanic deities. The conical craters, 
they said, were their houses, where they frequently 
amused themselves by playing at Konane ;* the 
roaring of the furnaces, and the crackling of the 
flames, were the kani of their hura , (music of their 
dance ,) and the red flaming surge was tlr surf 
wherein they played, sportively swimming on the 
rolling wave.f 
As eight of the natives with us belonged to 
the adjoining district, we asked them to tell us 
what they knew of the history of this volcano, and 
what their opinions were respecting it. From 
their account, and that of others with whom we 
conversed, we learned, that it had been burning 
from time immemorial, or, to use their own words, 
“ mai ka po max from chaos till now,! and had 
overflowed some part of the country during the 
reign of every king that had governed in Hawaii: 
that in earlier ages it used to boil up, overflow its 
banks, and inundate the adjacent country; but 
that, for many kings’ reigns past, it had kept below 
the level of the surrounding plain, continually ex¬ 
tending its surface and increasing its depth, and 
occasionally throwing up, with violent explosion, 
huge rocks, or red-hot stones. These eruptions, 
* The game resembling drafts, described page 213. 
t Swimming in, the sea, when the weather is tempes¬ 
tuous, and the surf high, is a favourite amusement 
throughout the Sandwich and ether islands in the Pacific. 
t The Hawaiian traditions, like those of the ancients, 
refer to night, or a chaotic state, the origin of the world, 
and almost all things therein, the greater part of their gods 
not excepted. The present state they call the Ao mamma , 
Day, or state of light. They speak of creation as a transition 
from darkness to light: and, when they wish to express 
the existence of any thing from the beginning, they say 
it has been so mai ka po mai , from the night, or state of 
darkness or confusion, till now. 
