--- title: A Viking of the Pacific — Hawaiian Historical Legends · full text with trees description: A Viking of the Pacific, «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: History is frequently legendary. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/5/) [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/) / A Viking of the Pacific # A Viking of the Pacific A Viking of the Pacific of «Hawaiian Historical Legends» by W. D. Westervelt: the whole text, 67 sentences and 1222 words. The small number after every sentence leads to its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself. History is frequently legendary.[1](1/ "tree and pragmatics") That historian is incompetent who deliberately ignores tradition and fable.[2](2/ "tree and pragmatics") A nation founded in the sunlight of civilisation cannot have a legendary past, but it must depend many times upon the cloudy memory of individuals.[3](3/ "tree and pragmatics") Legends are the indistinct memories of nations, and are of real value when there is any opportunity for comparison.[4](4/ "tree and pragmatics") Early Norse history was told in song legends.[5](5/ "tree and pragmatics") The sagas of the Vikings are rivalled in some measure by the meles of the Hawaiians.[6](6/ "tree and pragmatics") The Hawaiians have both the chant—the mele, and the tradition—the olelo.[7](7/ "tree and pragmatics") From these come Hawaiian ancient history.[8](8/ "tree and pragmatics") The Vikings, “sea kings,” as they are often named, the “wickel-ings,” as Froude calls them, the men who sailed out from the “vicks,” the fjords of the Scandinavian coast, were brave mariners.[9](9/ "tree and pragmatics") They swept the European coast; they infested Mediterranean waters; they found the North Atlantic islands.[10](10/ "tree and pragmatics") They made themselves at home in Sneeland (Snowland), now Iceland and Greenland.[11](11/ "tree and pragmatics") They named the countries newly discovered after their own fancies, as Flatland, Woodland, and Vinland, for Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Massachusetts, respectively.[12](12/ "tree and pragmatics") The Polynesian folklore abounds in stories of remarkable men, bold expeditions, stirring adventures and voyages to far-off lands.[13](13/ "tree and pragmatics") The Vikings of the Pacific gave to their foreign lands the names by which these lands were then known, and by which they are known to-day.[14](14/ "tree and pragmatics") In the long Hawaiian chant of Kumu Honua, “the first created,” there is a part devoted to Hawaii-loa, the first sea-king of the Polynesians.[15](15/ "tree and pragmatics") He is reported as making long journeys and discovering the Hawaiian Islands.[16](16/ "tree and pragmatics") Besides this chant there are many legends and references which make him an important ancestor among Hawaiians, an ancestor of islands rather than of families.[17](17/ "tree and pragmatics") He lived in the “land of the handsome or golden god, Kane.”[18](18/ "tree and pragmatics") To the north lay the land Ulu-nui or “the Great Ulu,” possibly Ur of Chaldea.[19](19/ "tree and pragmatics") His home was near the “green precipiced paradise” of Hawaiian legend, the place where the water of life gave forth healing even for the dead.[20](20/ "tree and pragmatics") Hawaii-loa was a noted fisherman.[21](21/ "tree and pragmatics") He launched out into deep waters.[22](22/ "tree and pragmatics") He fished for new worlds and found them.[23](23/ "tree and pragmatics") From the Great Ulu to Java, from Java to Jilolo, and from Jilolo far out into the eastern Pacific, Hawaii-loa sailed.[24](24/ "tree and pragmatics") His relative, Ti-i, also launched out into the deep seas.[25](25/ "tree and pragmatics") Ti-i went almost directly east from the old home, and found the Society Islands.[26](26/ "tree and pragmatics") These he made his home, according to the Society Island legends, becoming the creator of the islands.[27](27/ "tree and pragmatics") Hawaii-loa sailed to the northeast, following “Iao,” Jupiter, as the morning star.[28](28/ "tree and pragmatics") Iao was a favorite guiding star among the Hawaiians.[29](29/ "tree and pragmatics") Five of the planets were known by the sea-rovers.[30](30/ "tree and pragmatics") The planets were called “Na Hoku hele”—“the going stars.”[31](31/ "tree and pragmatics") Mars was known as “Hoku ula,” “the red star.”[32](32/ "tree and pragmatics") “Na hoku paa” were “the fastened stars, immovable in the heavens.”[33](33/ "tree and pragmatics") The name “Iao” is given to one of the mountains of the Island of Maui.[34](34/ "tree and pragmatics") Hawaii-loa found the fire islands—the islands somewhat like the old Java home, luxuriant and volcanic.[35](35/ "tree and pragmatics") He named the large island Hawa-i-i—“the little or the burning Java.”[36](36/ "tree and pragmatics") The large island was full of delight to the bold navigator, and he determined to bring his family to this new land for their permanent home.[37](37/ "tree and pragmatics") He took them from “the land where his forefathers dwelt before him.”[38](38/ "tree and pragmatics") He sailed through the “dotted sea,” the sea with many islands lying near his old ancestral home, “the rainy Zaba”—the modern Zaba or Saba of the Arabian seacoast—from which his own name, “Hawa,” is easily derived.[39](39/ "tree and pragmatics") On his journey back and forth he passed through a sea which delighted his heart as a fisherman—“a sea where the fishes run.”[40](40/ "tree and pragmatics") He must have found excellent deep-sea fishing.[41](41/ "tree and pragmatics") He crossed the “many-coloured ocean” and the “sky-blue sea.”[42](42/ "tree and pragmatics") He revelled in the beauty of the sun rising and setting in glorious colours on the restless waves.[43](43/ "tree and pragmatics") On he sailed with his family until he came to Hawaii—“the burning Java,” the land of volcanoes and earthquakes and of luxuriant valleys and fertile seacoasts.[44](44/ "tree and pragmatics") Fornander suggests that Hawaii is derived from Java and Java from the Arabian Saba.[45](45/ "tree and pragmatics") Evidently a Polynesian chief of high rank gathered a number of adherents or members of his tribe, and sailed eastward over the Pacific, about the beginning of the Christian era.[46](46/ "tree and pragmatics") His descendants, or at least such portion of his family as did not follow him on his voyage, seem to have moved from Java to the Molucca Islands and settled in Jilolo.[47](47/ "tree and pragmatics") It is said that after he brought his family to Hawaii, new islands sprang out of the sea, well wooded and well watered.[48](48/ "tree and pragmatics") These he divided among his children.[49](49/ "tree and pragmatics") When the later sea-rovers came to Hawaii, possibly in the fifth or sixth century, they found the islands already inhabited by people of their own race, and yet apparently without a chief—probably a servant class.[50](50/ "tree and pragmatics") If we sift the legends and then assume that in the course of three or four hundred years the family of the chief, Hawaii-loa, became extinct in Hawaii, leaving only the servants on the islands, we have at least a probable explanation of the coming of the so-called little people, or fairies, from the Southern Pacific to Hawaii.[51](51/ "tree and pragmatics") The South Pacific islanders called their servants, or laborers, the Manahune people.[52](52/ "tree and pragmatics") The fairies were known in the Hawaiian legends as the Menehunes.[53](53/ "tree and pragmatics") Sometimes they were credited with powers like the gnomes of old England.[54](54/ "tree and pragmatics") They were supposed to work only at night.[55](55/ "tree and pragmatics") A very ancient stone water-wall along the side of one of the swift-flowing Hawaiian rivers has no tradition or history save that the Menehune people built it in one night.[56](56/ "tree and pragmatics") Another very ancient stone wall around a large fish pond is referred to the Menehunes, who did not finish their work in one night, therefore the wall has always been incomplete.[57](57/ "tree and pragmatics") So also some of the most ancient temples were referred to the mysterious midnight labors of this people.[58](58/ "tree and pragmatics") One of the legends states that a priest desired to carry the Menehune people across the long stretch of ocean between the foreign lands and the Island of Oahu, therefore “he stretched out his hands to the farthest bounds of Tahiti and over him the Menehunes—the servants—crossed to Oahu.”[59](59/ "tree and pragmatics") It was this same sorcerer-priest who saw the sun die and the earth become dark.[60](60/ "tree and pragmatics") He leaped across to the foreign land, caught the sun before it was buried, brought it back to Hawaii and placed it in the heavens, where it has been ever since.[61](61/ "tree and pragmatics") These are simply graphic descriptions of an eclipse, and also of a chief who carried his common people—his servants—with him across the waters.[62](62/ "tree and pragmatics") The presence of this servant class in the very ancient times is unquestioned.[63](63/ "tree and pragmatics") Chiefs coming later found this servant class which readily accepted new rulers.[64](64/ "tree and pragmatics") Hawaii-loa—“the Great Hawaii”—may well be considered both a founder of the Polynesian race and the first settler of the Hawaiian Islands.[65](65/ "tree and pragmatics") Brave lover of the sea and founder of nations, Hawaii-loa deserves first place among the Vikings of the Pacific.[66](66/ "tree and pragmatics") V[67](67/ "tree and pragmatics") - ← previous: [The Water of Life \[1\]](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/4/) - next →: [Legendary Home of the Polynesians](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/6/) - ↑ back to [Hawaiian Historical Legends](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66357/)