Two legends of old Hawaii, read whole and as printed. In "Kalo-eke-eke, the Timid Taro," two taro plants of South Kona, ordered pulled up for a chief's feast, take wings and flee from pond to pond and from district to district until they settle at last under a kindly chief in Kau, with a large family growing up around them. In "Lau-ka-ieie," the leaf-child given by the god Ku and Hina to the childless Pokahi and Kaukini grows up in the Waipio valley among the birds, the flowers and the singing shells, dreams of Kawelona of Kauai, and is wed when her brother Makani-kau, chief of the winds, brings the young chief to her over the sea in a boat of cloud.
Disclosure: this performance is narrated by AI-generated voices.
From "Legends of Gods and Ghosts" (1915) — legends of Hawaii collected and translated from the Hawaiian by W. D. Westervelt. Read as printed in the 1915 text.
Notes on the reading, at the weight the tales themselves give them: in "Lau-ka-ieie," the newborn Hiilawe is cast into the sea wrapped in moss and is taken up unharmed and cared for in the same passage; birds are cooked for a feast in one sentence of ordinary food preparation; Makani-kau rides a pursuing shark to shore and makes it fast among the rocks, where it becomes a shark stone — the shark is subdued, not killed; and Hiilawe, after sickness and burial, is changed by Hina into an aumakua of the waterfalls.
Other chapters of the book are not read here. Excluded by name: "The Ghost of Wahaula Temple," "Maluae and the Under-World," "A Giant's Rock-Throwing" and "Legendary Canoe-Making" — each turns on killing or on human sacrifice, which this programme does not carry. No completeness claim is made for the collection.
Narrated by Violetta. Music: opening and closing theme, "Cello Makam Pulse".
Chapters:
00:00 Opening theme — "Cello Makam Pulse"
01:07 Kalo-eke-eke, the Timid Taro
04:38 Lau-ka-ieie
🎧 Podcast: https://rss.com/podcasts/kachelitv/
