--- title: The Water of Life [1] — Hawaiian Historical Legends · full text with trees · page 2 description: The Water of Life [1], «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: “The Self-reliant Dragon” is frequently mentioned in the oldest Hawaiian legends. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/4/page/2/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Hawaiian Historical Legends](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/) / The Water of Life \[1\] # The Water of Life \[1\] · page 2 [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/4/) **2** He took his bamboo stick with all his aid inside and put it under his arm, put on his magic cloak, and said “Aloha.”[106](../../106/ "tree and pragmatics") A long time passed.[107](../../107/ "tree and pragmatics") He thought he was flying in a straight line, but one arm became tired because the stick was under it.[108](../../108/ "tree and pragmatics") He changed the stick, and this moved his direction.[109](../../109/ "tree and pragmatics") His god saw this and told him he was leaving the straight line and was flying to some other place.[110](../../110/ "tree and pragmatics") There was fire far below.[111](../../111/ "tree and pragmatics") All the people had fled except one.[112](../../112/ "tree and pragmatics") The god said, “Let us go straight till we come to that one; then you catch him and hold him fast.[113](../../113/ "tree and pragmatics") We shall have life.”[114](../../114/ "tree and pragmatics") This was the moon, who was an ancestress of his wife.[115](../../115/ "tree and pragmatics") The moon had been cooking food.[116](../../116/ "tree and pragmatics") She arose to take up her food and get ready to go.[117](../../117/ "tree and pragmatics") But Aukele caught her, held her and ate her food.[118](../../118/ "tree and pragmatics") She thus became thin—a new moon—and the traveller gained strength to return to his home.[119](../../119/ "tree and pragmatics") Aukele thought he would try again, according to his wife’s line.[120](../../120/ "tree and pragmatics") She made a line from the door of the house toward the sunrise, and warned him.[121](../../121/ "tree and pragmatics") He flew straight a long time until he found a strange land with a deep pit lined with trees and wonderful plants.[122](../../122/ "tree and pragmatics") At the bottom was the spring of the water of life.[123](../../123/ "tree and pragmatics") He leaped down upon the back of a watchman on the edge of the pit, who had been put there by the guardian to kill any one coming after the water.[124](../../124/ "tree and pragmatics") He tried to shake Aukele off, saying: “Who are you?[125](../../125/ "tree and pragmatics") What do you mean, O proud man?[126](../../126/ "tree and pragmatics") My grandchild, the brother of Pele, never got on my back.[127](../../127/ "tree and pragmatics") Who are you?”[128](../../128/ "tree and pragmatics") He gave his name and ancestors, and told the watchman he had come for the water of life for his brothers.[129](../../129/ "tree and pragmatics") The watchman said: “Go straight out from where I stand.[130](../../130/ "tree and pragmatics") Do not turn to the side or you will strike bamboo which will make a great noise, and my grandchild, Pele’s brother, will hear and will cover the water tight, and you cannot get it.”[131](../../131/ "tree and pragmatics") So Aukele flew and leaped straight on the second watchman, who told him not to go to the left or he would strike the lama trees (very hard wood, used for building houses for the gods).[132](../../132/ "tree and pragmatics") These trees would make a great noise and the guardian would cover the water tight and he could not get it.[133](../../133/ "tree and pragmatics") He flew to another watchman, who told him to go straight to the bottom of the pit.[134](../../134/ "tree and pragmatics") “There a blind woman will be sitting.[135](../../135/ "tree and pragmatics") Look at the place where she is cooking bananas.[136](../../136/ "tree and pragmatics") She will take them one by one.[137](../../137/ "tree and pragmatics") You eat all her bananas.[138](../../138/ "tree and pragmatics") Then she will become angry and throw ashes.[139](../../139/ "tree and pragmatics") If she throws on the right side, you must fly to the left.[140](../../140/ "tree and pragmatics") Watch if she strikes with a stick, then run quickly, sit in her lap, and tell her who you are.”[141](../../141/ "tree and pragmatics") When he had done all these things and all attempts to kill him had failed, Aukele made the old blind woman lie down under a cocoanut tree.[142](../../142/ "tree and pragmatics") He got two young cocoanuts and told her to turn her eyes toward the sky.[143](../../143/ "tree and pragmatics") He dropped the cocoanuts in her eyes.[144](../../144/ "tree and pragmatics") She wept sorely because of the pain.[145](../../145/ "tree and pragmatics") He told her to rub the water out of her eyes and not cry.[146](../../146/ "tree and pragmatics") She did so, and said: “I can see you.”[147](../../147/ "tree and pragmatics") He came down from the tree and she told him what he must do to get the water of life: “Go and break the stem of a water plant, and near it a bush with white flowers.[148](../../148/ "tree and pragmatics") Bring them to me.”[149](../../149/ "tree and pragmatics") This he did and laid the plants before her.[150](../../150/ "tree and pragmatics") She squeezed the water from the plants into a cup, took charcoal and other things and mixed them together until black; then she painted Aukele’s hands very black, like the hands of the brother of Pele.[151](../../151/ "tree and pragmatics") His hands were black, and those watching the water of life would look at the hands reaching for water and make no mistake.[152](../../152/ "tree and pragmatics") They would tightly cover up the water if a white hand came down.[153](../../153/ "tree and pragmatics") “Wait until the guardian god is asleep and the servants are preparing drink for him when he should awake.[154](../../154/ "tree and pragmatics") Then go to the door and one will give you some water.[155](../../155/ "tree and pragmatics") The first will be dirty water; throw it away.[156](../../156/ "tree and pragmatics") Put your hand down again.[157](../../157/ "tree and pragmatics") They will give you another calabash of water.[158](../../158/ "tree and pragmatics") This will be the living water of Kane; take it.”[159](../../159/ "tree and pragmatics") He went down and put his hand in for the water.[160](../../160/ "tree and pragmatics") The watchman handed out a calabash of dirty water.[161](../../161/ "tree and pragmatics") He threw it away and again thrust his black hand down the pit.[162](../../162/ "tree and pragmatics") The watchman gave him a calabash of the pure water of life.[163](../../163/ "tree and pragmatics") He flew rapidly along the path to the outside world.[164](../../164/ "tree and pragmatics") In his haste he struck the leaves of the groves of trees and the noise was that of strong winds thrashing the branches and leaves back and forth, up and down.[165](../../165/ "tree and pragmatics") The sound swept through the land of the water of life like rolling thunder.[166](../../166/ "tree and pragmatics") The brother of Pele and his servants awoke and followed, but he fled through the heavens to the place where the ghosts of his brothers lay in the sunken ship by the home of the goddess of the sea.[167](../../167/ "tree and pragmatics") They all went down to the sea.[168](../../168/ "tree and pragmatics") The chiefess told her husband to pour the water of life in his hand.[169](../../169/ "tree and pragmatics") She put her fingers in the water and sprinkled drops over the sea.[170](../../170/ "tree and pragmatics") Out in the ocean under the moving surface was a boat, its mast coming up through the waves.[171](../../171/ "tree and pragmatics") In a little while they saw men standing in the boat.[172](../../172/ "tree and pragmatics") These were the brothers of Aukele.[173](../../173/ "tree and pragmatics") After the welcome, he gave them lands and homes.[174](../../174/ "tree and pragmatics") In that strange far-off land of the ancestors—the mysterious “Floating Island”—the “Hidden Island of Kane,” it is said they still live under the rule of their younger brother.[175](../../175/ "tree and pragmatics") Aukele thought he would like to see his parents once more, so he went to the far-away Helani—but the land was desolate.[176](../../176/ "tree and pragmatics") The parents were gone, the people had disappeared, the houses had all decayed, and the land was covered with a forest.[177](../../177/ "tree and pragmatics") Only a dragon was left—one of the family of the “Self-reliant Dragon.”[178](../../178/ "tree and pragmatics") He discovered her body fast in the coral reef near the shore.[179](../../179/ "tree and pragmatics") He thought she was dead, but he stood up and stamped with full strength and broke the coral so that the dragon was free.[180](../../180/ "tree and pragmatics") He saw the body moving, but the dragon was very weak and near death.[181](../../181/ "tree and pragmatics") He was sorry for her, remembering that it was by the aid of dragon powers he had gone into the heavens and from the deep pit of the skies secured the water of life.[182](../../182/ "tree and pragmatics") Therefore he provided food and gave new life to the dragon.[183](../../183/ "tree and pragmatics") He asked about his parents and their gods, and the desolation of the land.[184](../../184/ "tree and pragmatics") The dragon told him how the entire household of gods, dragons and men had found a new home, in the Islands of Oahu and Hawaii.[185](../../185/ "tree and pragmatics") She told how “the child adopted or brought up by the gods,” and the Maiden of the Golden Clouds, had been taken by the Self-reliant Dragon to Oahu, and how all the rest had gone, leaving her as a guard in the old land of his birth and childhood.[186](../../186/ "tree and pragmatics") Aukele went back to the legendary land, the “Hidden Island of Kane,” and there lived among the ghost gods who welcome the dead as they escape from wandering over the islands and fly by the path of the sunset back to the home of the most distant ancestors—the mysterious lands in the skies of the western seas.[187](../../187/ "tree and pragmatics") Here he and his brothers are high chiefs of the au-makuas, the ghost gods of Hawaii, who wait to welcome and give peace to the spirits of the dead.[188](../../188/ "tree and pragmatics") IV[189](../../189/ "tree and pragmatics") [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/4/) **2** - ← previous: [page 1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/4/) - next →: [A Viking of the Pacific](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/5/) - ↑ back to 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