The Woman in the Moon and Rainbow Falls

The Goddess Hina was very upset. Her husband was so lazy! Not only did he expect her to make him fine kapa to wear, but he expected her to fish, and keep the garden, and even do all the cooking! She loved making kapa, and was very good at it, but cooking was a man’s prerogative, and fishing and gardening were normally shared. Yet her husband demanded she do it all while he napped.

She decided to run away, but how?

One day, she spotted one of the many rainbows the falls by the cave she made her home in were named for. It looked solid, and she was goddess enough to go up to it and start to climb. However, as she climbed, it got hotter and hotter, for she was getting closer to the hot sun. It got so hot, she had to turn around and go back.

Back to her husband, who was as lazy as ever. He still demanded he do his work as well as her own. Running away looked better and better, but she had to make sure she escaped this time.

One night she spotted a moonbow by the falls. With no sun out, it shouldn’t get as hot, she mused. She went over to it, and started to climb.

Her husband came out of the cave, and ran towards her, demanding she come back. He leap ed towards her, and caught her foot before she’d climbed out of reach. She struggled to get away. With a great kick, she pulled free, making him fall back to earth… but wrenched her ankle in the process. She wasted no time, hobbling high out of reach before he could recover and try again.

She climbed right to the moon, and there she stayed. You can see her when you look up at the moon, sitting with her wrenched ankle in front of her as she pounds her kapa. When she spreads it out to dry, it forms white clouds, complete with the original emphasis on her husband’s laziness. (No, that wasn’t my idea. J )

 

 

I don’t know many legends by heart, but I know this one well enough to tell it from memory. It’s stuck with me ever since I heard it at a storytelling at Kea’au library when I was a kid. This was one of the stories, illustrated on a felt board.

The Goddess Hina was known as the mother Maui. The Hilo area said she lived in a cave behind Waianuenue, or Rainbow Falls.

 

So here’s Rainbow Falls courtesy of Google Street view: https://goo.gl/maps/pqvnSmU2CiR2

And here’s another view from them: https://goo.gl/maps/ZL9WP3RGZy62

 

Do you see what I see?

Or rather… do you not see what I don’t see?

I don’t see any cave. Well, unless you count the backwash beach behind the actual falls, but that’s subject to continual spray from the falls. Besides, that kapa she made was a paper-cloth; the fibers were literally pounded together with beaters until it formed a flat, somewhat stiff sheet that people would wrap around themselves. If you got it wet, it went to mush that couldn’t be worn. So a backwash beach home is one you can’t get dressed in, or even keep your clothes in.

Now this is a spot on the Wailuku River. There are enough caves with underwater entrances, a known way to drown is to get caught in one, and not be able to surface for air. Having one with an air pocket would be unusual, but far from impossible… but you’d still have to store your clothes outside to keep them from going to mush.

No, the cave needs a dry entrance for Hina’s kapa.

 It’s a very well hidden entrance indeed, isn’t it? ;)

A legend of Kahuna Falls

Kahuna Falls is the other large falls in Akaka Falls State Park; the one you also see if you take the entire loop, and don’t just go down to Akaka Falls and back. One of the reasons it was called Kahuna Falls (The Priest’s Falls) is that there’s a pool right at the top of the falls that’s supposed to heal ills if you bathe in it. People were supposed to take their sick family members to it in stretchers and everything so they could bathe in the pool and be healed.

Sounds a lot like a lot of healing springs and pools around the globe, right? There’s just one little difference. They won’t let me embed from Google Maps, so here’s a link to the best picture Google Maps' street view seems to have of it.

https://goo.gl/maps/idoMmmvNako

 

If you’re have trouble figuring out the picture, the falls comes from about 5/6ths the way up that cliff, where slightly gentler cliffs up to the top of the ridge from there. I think most healing pools and springs are a little more accessible, especially since you really were supposed to climb up from the bottom of the falls. {pause}

My first impression is that anyone who can climb up there didn’t need much healing, but it’s not that simple. Especially not with stretchers and lots of relatives with good, strong backs to make that climb, and help pull their sick relative up it. Because in Lilo and Stitch, Disney understated the importance of family in Hawaiian culture. If Auntie is sick, they’ll get her there. It may take a lot of amicable bickering while arranging the ropes and the stretcher and all, but they’ll do it for Auntie.

P.S. I’m sorry this one doesn’t have more of a story, but this is what I had time for after making the last chair cover and fighting a suddenly difficult mouse (unsuccessfully so far). {half-smile}

Lili'uokalani Park and Gardens

I just discovered that Google Earth has many of the walking paths of my favorite park in their street view. A friend just taught me how to link there, so here’s a link.

    https://goo.gl/maps/YUuTd7U8Pyw

That should take you to the street in front of the park. You can go around the streets of course, but I hope this is pointed at a torii, a sort of doorless gate arch. (If I’d linked to the sidewalk, you’d be too close to admire the torii. {wink, Smile}) If not, turn around you find it. Then head straight towards the torii, then thru it into the park itself. I think you’ll pretty much be stuck to the handicapped accessible walkways, like I am in real life, but do it anyway. This is supposed to be the biggest Japanese-style garden outside of Japan. So you can only see the tide pools, bridges and many of the stone lanterns from a distance. There’s still a lot to see here. {Smile, BIG SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

A Pleasant Encounter

Something nice happened while Dad was picking up dinner at Maui Taco's the other night. (He was alone because my balance was too unsteady for me to go in with him.)

Dad was struggling with trying to carry dinner while walking with the crutch these days, when a boy about ten came up to him, and said he'd like to carry the bag for Dad. Then a woman came up as the boy's grandmother, and repeated that they'd like to help by carrying his bag.

Dad thanked them, and accepted their help. They walked with him out to the car. The boy carried our dinners, and put them in the trunk of our car when Dad opened it up.

As they left, the grandmother said "God bless you."

Dad replied in kind.

Dad says where else would that happen besides Hilo? I don’t know, but it happened here, and it lightened a difficult day when it did. J

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Visiting Dad's Cousin, Part 2

The next morning after dealing with the skunks at Dad's cousin's place, I went down to have breakfast in the main house. Getting there, I walked in on an interesting conversation. Dad’s cousin was beginning to lecture her husband’s granddaughter. Apparently she was here for the summer in part to work for her Grandpa and Dad’s cousin. {pause} You see, Dad’s cousin was such a great animal lover, she not only fed skunks, she raised animals for a living. Specifically, she and her husband raised epileptic mice in a home laboratory they ran. They ran their own experiments on them, and also sold them to other researchers. Apparently their mice were somewhat prized because their epilepsy was closer to human epilepsy in several key measures than most epileptic lab mice at that time (mid-1980’s).

The lab was actually pretty interesting, as I learned later, when the granddaughter gave me a tour later. The mice were kept in drawer-like cages on one wall. To get in, you simply pulled out the cage and reached in from above. There was also a large table in the middle, where they could work with the mice, and a counter off to one side with a fish tank set up as an observation tank complete with a video camera, so you could put a mouse in, start the video camera, and get about two hours of observation on tape.

Anyway, the granddaughter was staying with them so she could work as a lab assistant for them for her summer job. There had been a problem in the lab the previous day. The granddaughter had put a mouse in the observation tank and set the video camera to record. You could see her leave thru the door at the beginning of the tape. A short while later, the door opened again, and one of Dad’s cousin’s four Siamese cats jumped up on the counter. It was “Ghirry,” which was short for Ghiradelli, one of my cousin’s favorite chocolate companies. Ghirry wasted no time at all on the wall full of cat-proof cages. He went straight to the fish tank with it’s open top. He checked inside, found the mouse, picked it up in his mouth, and left. That mouse, of course, was never seen again. {Smile, wink}

“Well, if you’re upset as Ghirry,” the granddaughter started to say.

“No. We are not upset at Ghirry,” Dad’s cousin corrected, “Ghirry was just behaving like a cat. He was just following his instincts. He didn’t do anything wrong. You left the door open,” and Dad’s cousin began describing the extra chores the granddaughter needed to do because of this oversight.  

I was really impressed with her attitude. So was Dad. It’s nice to see that someone understands that are some things you just don’t train some animals not to do; you don’t train a cat not to hunt mice. {REALLY BIG GRIN}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin