Hawaii - James Michener [195]
"I know," Abner mumbled.
"I am the last one who knows the family history," Kelolo said. "When Keoki should have been learning it, he was learning about God. Now he is too old to memorize the way I did when I was studying to be a kahuna."
Abner, a learned man, instantly saw the value of preserving old fables, and asked, "How does a family history sound, Kelolo?"
"I want you to write it as if Keoki were saying it. I am doing this for him, so that he will know who he is."
"How does it begin?" Abner pressed.
It was dark in the grass house, with only one feeble whale-oil lamp swaying with its retinue of shadows, when Kelolo, seated cross-legged on the floor, began: "I am Keoki, the son of Kelolo who came to Maui with Kamehameha the Great; who was the son of Kanakoa, the King of Kona; who was the son of Kanakoa, the King of Kona who sailed to Kauai; who was the son of Kelolo, the King of Kona who died in the volcano; who was the son of Kelolo, the King of Kona who stole Kekelaalii from Oahu; who was the son of . . ."
After Abner had listened for a while, his curiosity as a scholar overcame his initial boredom at this tedious and probably imaginary ritual. "How did you memorize this genealogy?" he asked.
"An alii who doesn't know his ancestry has no hope of position in Hawaii," Kelolo explained. "I spent three years memorizing every branch of my family. The kings of Kona are descended, you know, from the . . ."
"Are these genealogies real, or made up?" Abner asked bluntly.
Kelolo was amazed at the question. "Made up, Makua Hale? It is by these that we live. Why do you suppose Malama is the Alii Nui? Because she can trace her ancestry far back to the second canoe that brought our family to Hawaii. Her ancestor was the High Priestess Malama who came in that second canoe. My name goes back to the first canoe from Bora Bora, for my ancestor was the High Priest of that canoe, Kelolo."
Abner suppressed a smile as the illiterate chief before him tried to establish relations with some mythical event that must have occurred ten centuries before, if at all. He thought of his own family, in Marlboro. His mother knew when her ancestors reached Boston, but no one could recall when the Hales had got there, and here was a man who could not even write, claiming . . .
"You say you can remember the canoes in which your people came?"
"Of course! It was the same canoe on each trip."
"How can you remember that?" Abner demanded sharply.
"Our family has always known its name. It was the canoe Wait-for-the-West-Wind. It had Kelolo as navigator, Kanakoa as king, Pa at one paddle and Malo at the other. Kupuna was the astronomer and Kelolo's wife Kelani was aboard. The canoe was eighty feet long by your measures and the voyage took thirty days. We have always known these things about the canoe."
"You mean a little canoe like that one at the pier? How many people did you mention. Seven, eight? In a canoe like that?" Abner was contemptuous of the man.
"It was a double canoe, Makua Hale, and it carried not eight people but fifty-eight."
Abner was dumfounded, but once more his historical sense was excited, and he wished to know more about the myths of these strange people. "Where did the canoe come from?" he asked.
"From Bora Bora," Kelolo said.
"Oh, yes, you mentioned that name before. Where is it?"
"Near Tahiti," Kelolo said simply.
"Your people came in a canoe from Tahiti . . ." Abner dropped the question and said, "I suppose the family history ends there?"
"Oh, no!" Kelolo said proudly. "That is not even the halfway mark."
This was too much for Abner, and he stopped abruptly calling it a family history. He realized that he had got hold of one of the classic myths of the Hawaiian islands, and he said bluntly, "I'll copy it down for you, Kelolo. I would like to hear the story." He adjusted the swinging lamp, took fresh sheets of paper, and laid aside for some nights his Bible translation. "Now tell me very slowly," he said, "and don't leave out anything."
In the darkness Kelolo began to chant:
"The time of the birth of the tabu chief,