United States or Zimbabwe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He had lived a lonely though adventurous life, and his kingly origin was shown in the fact that he could never be induced to work or do anything useful, unless it might be hunting and fishing. Impulses were his guides. He was in nowise disturbed when he learned that Liloa was his father.
The two brothers lived at court on an equal footing. They took part in the same amusements, wrestling, drawing the bow, plunged with eagerness into all the noble exercises of the country and the time. Liloa, perceiving that his last hour was drawing near, called his two children to him, and said to them, "You, Hakau, will be chief, and you, Umi, will be his man."
In the same way, Umi, unless you render your sovereign the homage you owe him, if you rebel against him, it will be for you two to decide your lot." Soon after, having made known his last wishes, Liloa gave up the ghost.
It was a sacred duty to furnish food to the dead for several weeks. Sometimes the remains were thrown into the boiling lava of the volcanoes, and this mode of sepulture was regarded as homage paid to the goddess Pele, who fed principally on human flesh. Liloa reigned over the island of Hawaii.
The spot where she hid them is known to this day as Huna na niho, the hiding place of the teeth. Liloa then held his court at Waipio in all the splendor of the time. The palace was made merry night and day by the licentious motions of the dancers, and by the music of the resounding calabashes.
Umi advanced boldly and crossed the threshold. Exclamations and cries of death sounded in his ears from all sides. Without troubling himself, he passed on and entered the end door. Liloa was asleep, wrapped in his royal mantle of red and yellow feathers. Umi stooped, and, without ceremony, uncovered his head. Liloa, awakening, said, "Owai la keia? Who is this?"
When King Liloa died he left his younger son, Hakau, to rule Hawaii in his place, but an older and natural son, Umi, whose mother had been a farm-worker among the hills, he appointed as guardian of the temples and their sacred statues. Umi had not learned of his royal parentage until he had grown to be a fine stout fellow.
Tell him you are his child, and show him, in proof of your words, these tokens which he left with me." Umi, proud enough of the revelation of his mother, at once departs, accompanied by Koi and Omakamau. The palace of Liloa was surrounded by guards, priests, diviners, and sorcerers. The kapu extended to the edge of the outer inclosure, and no one might pass on penalty of death.
Hakau replied with foul and insulting terms: "Go tell the two old men that they shall have neither food, fish, nor awa!" The two chiefs, on hearing this cruel reply, commenced to deplore their lot, and regret more bitterly than ever the time they lived under Liloa.
Do not imagine that he is the son of us two: he is the child of Liloa, your king." Umi was then about fifteen or sixteen years old. His mother, after this declaration, startling as a thunder-bolt, went and uncovered the tokens Liloa had left as proof, and placed them before her husband, who was motionless with fear at the thought of the high treason he had been on the point of committing.
Word Of The Day