Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 6, Number 3, 1 March 1989 — Ka MoʻolePo O Koʻolau: A Hawaiian View [ARTICLE]

Ka MoʻolePo O Koʻolau: A Hawaiian View

The moving story of the famous Ko'olau "the leper," as to!d by his wife Pi'ilani was the keynote speech of La Ho'oulu 'Olelo Hawai'i. Mrs. Frances Hali'a Frazier, researcher and translator, presented in Hawaiian a lecture/slide show on "Ka Pi'ilani Mo'olelo No Kaluaiko'olau." Frazier's talk was based on her translation of Pi'ilani's first-person accour.t, published by Hawaiian newspaperman John Kahikina Sheldon, in Hawaiian, in book form in 1906 (see excerpt, "A Lamentation by Pi'ilani," this issue). She illustrated her talk with photographs from the Hawai'i State Archives and other collections. Hailing Pi'ilani's story as the only recorded firstperson account from a Hawaiian perspective, Frazier said it is a deeply personal portrait of a family refusing to accept separation by the quarantine of lepers. It also presents the underlying political situation in the years immediately following the 1893 overthrow of the monarchy. For a story filled with grief and suffering, Frazier nevertheless addressed her listeners with a greeting of love, "To the native people of Hawai'i, from the rising of the sun at Kumukahi to the setting at the sun-snatching island of Lehua." This poetic reference to the Hawaiian archipelago was

one of a scattering of beautiful, yet archaic phrases she researched as part of her talk. The drama of Kaluaiko'olau began in 1893, a year of upheaval in the Hawaiian kingdom. His leprosy apparent for several years by then, Ko'olau was prepared to go to the leper colony at Kalawao, Moloka'i if his wife could accompany him as a kokua. However, the Provisional Government no longer permitted a patient to be accompanied by a kokua. Ko'olau vowed, "God joined us. Only death shall sever this marriage." Thus began his years of flight and hiding. Ko'olau and Pi'ilani were most likely in their late 20s or early 30s, estimates Frazier. At the time, he was a foreman for the Robinson family, head of the paniolo, and known for his marksmanship and athletic ability. Ko'olau, his wife, his mother and their young son Kaleimanu, also a leper, left their home in Kekaha, went up to Koke'e, then down a trail (no longer there) into Kalalau valley. Ko'olau's mother then returned to Kekaha. In Kalalau, Ko'olau hoped to evade the authority of a govemment he disdained, said Frazier, and the fate of Kalawao, whieh Hawaiians compared to being buried alive. The family stayed at a friend's house at the foot

of the trail. In time deputy sheriff Louis Stolz eame to the house, accompanied by another man. Ko'olau was away, but the s'neriff told Pi'ilani to have Ko'olau follow him to the beach. There, Stolz gathered other lepers who had a!so fled to the valley, to take them to Kalawao. Ko'olau went down to the beach and asked if his wife could go with him. The sheriff answered "No." The eouple then left and went inland, but Stolz did not try to take Ko'olau then. Instead, he boasted he would capture Ko'olau, dead or alive. Ko'olau leamed of this and advised the other lepers and his wife to leave him, though he himself was determined to resist. When at night the sheriff eame silently to the house under a full moon, Pi'ilani heard the sound of a gun being cocked. Ko'olau shot the sheriff several times before he died. Pi'il^ni gave the date of the shooting as June 27, 1893. The eouple and their son left for the uplands immediately, to await the consequences. Within a fe w days after news of the shooting had reached Honolulu, the steamship 'Iwalani anchored off Kalalau and landed soldiers and a howitzer on the beach. While in the valley, they burned several houses belonging to friends of continued page 22

Ka Pi'ilani Mo'olelo No Kaluaiko'olau fromPa3en

Ko'olau, in an attempt to intimidate, though these had done no wrong. Ko'olau and his family had climbed up and taken refuge in a nook in a difficult to approach high cliff and could see down below them. The plaee was named Wai Makemake, but today its location is not known. When the s'oldiers climbed the ridge toward their hiding spot, Ko'olau shot one, who fell off the pali. The soldiers retreated. With his rifle, "Death Afar in a Wink," he shot another one the next day when the soldiers returned. Unknown to Ko'olau, a third soldier later killed himself in an accident with his gun. Ko'olau and his family remained holed up for four days and nights, without food or water. Their son began to cry of hunger and thirst. Under cover of night, they crept down and passed the soldiers' eamp unseen and unheard. They crossed the valley and took refuge above a waterfall, where they had water, opae, hihiwai and o'opu to catch, and bananas to eat. The next morning the soldiers began to shell their old hiding plaee, but as Pi'ilani notes, "the birds had flown elsewhere. They had sprouted wings." Upon searching the silent spot, the soldiers found it empty, so they gave up and left the valley. This prompted Pi'ilani to slyly describe the Provisional Govemment (Pi Ki) soldiers as "blown away by the blustery winds of Kaho'inele," meaning they left empty-handed and unable to catch Ko'olau. After that time for the next three years or more, the family saw only five people, whom they met and talked with. Three were men, Keoki, Wilikina and Kelau. Kelau eame back with clothing,

matches, dried fish and fresh food, "needful things," said Frazier, then they saw him no more. Though the soldiers never eame back, Ko'olau insisted on staying hidden all the time. The boy later died and was buried on a hillside overlooking the sea. Ko'olau and Pi'ilani wandered, and toward the end he grew increasingly weaker. He lapsed into a eoma for a day and night, and then, Pi'ilani writes, "Late, when the tail of the Great Fish (Milky Way) had turned, he died." She dug a hole with only her hands, a knife and a small adze and buried him alone. She never revealed the site of his grave nor that of their son. Now alone, Pi'ilani went down to the shore of the valley, but was too proud to reveal herself, in rags and destitute. She stayed hidden and listened outside the houses of friends for clues to her fate. Never did she hear a word about herself or Ko'olau, they seemed to have been completely forgotten. She decided to go home over the pali, and back in Kekaha she was reunited with Ko'olau's mother, Kukui. Sheriff Coney visited her in Kekaha and absolved her of any blame for the incidences. She told her story to the newspaperman John Sheldon, whieh he published in 1906 in the book "Ka Mo'olelo O Ko'olau." In the book, Pi'ilani recounts in prose and poetry her story, recalling the events and praising with love the places whieh sheltered them and the plaee whieh hides her husband's bones. Pi'ilani died in 1914. Frazier says, "To Hawaiians Ko'olau was 'ke ka'e'a'e'a o na pali Ko'olau,' the daring one of the Ko'olau cliffs. Pi'ilani was "the brave-hearted woman."

Frazier first translated the story of Kaluaiko'olau at the request of Aubrey Janion, author of The Olowalu Massacre. He wanted vignettes from the 1906 book, "Ka Mo'olelo O Ko'olau." After reading Frazier's translation, he decided to include an entire chapter. She notes that while the events of the story received wide publicity in the newspapers of that day, other published accounts laek the first-person veracity of Pi'ilani's story. For example, the famous story by Jack London, "Ko'olau the Leper," she said was based on hearsay. London picked up the story from the son of Louis Stolz, the deputy sheriff shot by Ko'olau. Three other accounts also fail to match the specific details of her story. Frazier decided to send her translation to the journal of the Hawaiian Historical Society, and it was published in 1987 during the Year of the Hawaiian. Copies of that edition are now out of print. She said she decided she wanted people who love the Hawaiian language "to be aware this treasure exists." Very few copies of the original Hawaiian book remain. Frazier has given her talk in English on O'ahu and Kaua'i for the Kamehameha Schools Hawaiian culture lecture series, and though she has had to shorten the story for oral presentations, tried to preserve the subtle phrases used by Pi'ilani. The language was very intricate and difficult to understand, said Frazier, who relied constantly on her Pukui dictionary. Though Pi'ilani's style was very ornate and poetic, Frazier notes this is not unique for the time. In her work as a translator of old land court documents and church records, Frazier has found similar language to be eommonplaee.