One of the first books we bought when we came to the lands of Hamakua nearly 30 years ago was Guy Buffet’s book for children, “Puapualenalena and the Magic Kiha-pu.”  Reading aloud was an evening routine for our youngsters, and this book eventually fell apart from repeated use.  Images of Puapualenalena, the sharp-nosed spotted dog who walked around on his hind legs, the shaggy-haired old man who was his “master,” chiefess Lu`ukia of Waipi`o, and the devilish `uhane of Kukuihaele who stole the conch shell called Kiha-pu still dwell in our minds.

The story, simply told and charmingly illustrated, is also still with us: the `uhane, having stolen the magic trumpet shell, create all sorts of mischief with its sound.  Puapualenalena, caught in the act of theft of royal `awa and brought along with his master to the judgment of the Valley’s rulers, is given the possibility of reprieve from a death sentence if he recovers Kiha-pu from the heiau of the `uhane near Kukuihaele.  By diminishing his size, he slips through the enclosures, then entertains the mischievous spirits as they party through the night.  When they fall asleep, he takes Kiha-pu, grows large enough to step over the walls and escapes.  When he trips and falls, Kiha-pu rolls down the trail to the Valley floor noisily enough to awaken everyone and to trigger joyous celebrations that the celebrated trumpet shell is back in rightful hands.

In more recent years, I became aware of the story as recounted by His Hawaiian Majesty, David Kalakaua:  His version, in “The Legends and Myths of Hawai`i,” is, of course much longer and more complex.  In it, the story unfolds over an eight-year span, beginning after the already notable powers of Kiha-pu have been amplified by the actions of Kihanuilulumoku (Kiha) in taking it to a cave on Mauna Kea and successfully arranging intercession from Lono.  With the breath of Kiha, the shell sounded the tormented voices of the conquered chiefs whose teeth adorned its perimeter.  Its sound, it is said, created in Waipi`o, could be heard on the plains of Waimea.  When the demi-demons led by Ika supernaturally absconded with Kiha-pu, Kiha was greatly distressed.  He went to considerable lengths to keep its loss secret, consulting only with kahuna sworn not to reveal the disappearance as he sought information possibly helpful in its recovery.  The information discovered by the kahuna was puzzling and only distantly hopeful: after a coconut tree planted by Kiha at the next full moon had borne fruit for him to eat, a creature without hands or malo would return Kiha-pu. 

Meanwhile, Ika and his band left the boglands above Waipi`o to travel to Kaua`i, making mischief all along the way with the powers of their newly acquired pu.   They went from there to Waolani on O`ahu, where a dissident companion of Ika arranged for a kahuna to remove the mana of Kiha-pu.  It was cut with a small pe`a, or kapu cross-mark, that, with Lono’s aid, rendered its sound ordinary.  Ika’s efforts to discover and solve the problem resulted in the intelligence that Kiha-pu would sound with power again only on the Island of Hawai`i.  Four days later, he and his comrades landed in Kawaihae and traveled to their old haunts above Waipi`o. 

Neatly coinciding with their return, Kiha’s carefully tended young tree gave him three coconuts.  Equally fortuitous was the capture of an `awa thief, a dog, whose kahu or “master” was seen as equally guilty.  Kalakaua’s poetic writing includes this description of Puapualenalena: “The dog was a large, misshapen brute, with human-looking ears and a bluish coat of bristling hair.  It had a long swinish tail, and one of its eyes was white and the other green.”  As the King recounts the story, the appearance and manner of the dog was so extraordinary as to recall the prophecy of the one without hands or malo as the instrument of the retrieval of Kiha-pu.  When Kiha explained his need to the dog’s kahu, Puapualenalena understood as well.  He dashed from the compound and up the Valley with a great rush, penetrated the camp of Ika and snatched Kiha-pu.  Racing away toward the Valley, he plunged down the steep ravine.  He dropped the shell; the pe`a, the mark of kapu, broke off, and in the words of His Hawaiian Majesty, “In an instant the liberated voices of the trumpet poured forth in a blast which echoed through the hills and started the night-birds to screaming.”  Puapualenalena picked up his trophy, raced back to the mouth of Waipi`o, entered the compound, lay Kiha-pu at the feet of the king, and dropped dead beside it.  Kiha immediately put the trumpet shell to his lips and all were heartened to hear its powerful sound emanating from a rightful source.  A second blast rallied warriors who swarmed the camp of Ika and put an end to the misdeeds of his band by slaying them all.

This complex and well-told tale is satisfyingly complete.  Kalakaua acknowledges at the beginning that it is one of several versions, and others are both more fragmentary and different on key points.  Emerson, in his “Unwritten Literature of Hawai`i: the Sacred Songs of the Hula,” speaks to the disturbances of life in Waipi`o wrought by the nightly prolonged sounding of the conch from the pali above.  In his version, backed by a remarkable oli, or chant, the trouble-maker is none other than Kane, “chief god of the Hawaiian pantheon.” Kane’s affinity for `awa and noisy socialization with immortal companions disrupts the conscientious rituals of the king so that everyone in Waipi`o grows uneasy at the incomplete status of obeisance to the gods (an interesting twist: Kane interferes with reverence to himself!).  In this tale, not only is the offender different from the stories above, but the king dealing with the problem is Liloa, son of Kiha and father of `Umi.

The solution remains much the same, though.  Watchers over raided `awa patches capture Puapualenalena, the dog’s powers are apprehended by the king, and when the shell is taken from the mischief-makers and returned to the king, peaceful life can be resumed.  Emerson comments that a shell called Kiha-pu had been placed in the Hawaiian Museum until King Kalakaua took possession of it and it disappeared from public view.  The King himself says of the shell trumpet, with an authority seemingly based on direct experience,  “When vigorously blown it still responds in sonorous voice, suggestive of the roar of breakers around the jutting cliffs of Hamakua….”

Samuel Kamakau, in “Tales and Traditions of the People of Old,” tells a version different again in many ways.  The story he recounts has two supernatural men – akua – from Puna visit Waipi`o where they gain a companion from there, a great leaper named Kapuni.  They all travel to Kaua`i where they hear the sound of the trumpet of the spirits of Waolani in Nu`uanu on O`ahu.  Kapuni steals it, and with his comrades leaps to Maui, then to Hawai`i, where they build a heiau above Hainoa.

Kiha is the Island’s chief in this story, and his `aha rituals are continually ruined by the interference of the noise of the gods blowing the trumpet.  Again in this story, the `awa-thieving dog Puapualenalena is caught and charged with the acquisition of the shell.  As the dog approached the heiau, Kamakau writes, “Under cover of night, at the time when the pololei and the kahuli land shells sounded their soft, sharp voices and all kinds of pu sounded, the voice of Kiha-pu sounded forth above all.”  The theft of the shell was, of course, successful, and again the trumpet sounded when Puapualenalena stumbled as he cleared six fences but hit the seventh.  The gods awoke and pursued, but the dog hid in the waters of Hi`ilawe until they gave up.  The conch was then given its name, and “was cherished by the chiefs of Hawai`i from ancient times to the time of Kamehameha I and Kamehameha III.  It is now perhaps in the Hale Ali`i.”

Ross Cordy, in his recent book, “Exalted Sits the Chief: The Ancient History of Hawai`i Island,” reports with typical scholarly caution, “an artifact reputedly claimed to be this war trumpet is in the Bishop Museum today – a memory of a time and a ruler at the end of the A.D. 1500s.”

One can discern common elements in the various versions outlined above, as well as the variations from different tellers and different times.  Shining through all the stories is the certainty that Waipi`o Valley and the lands above it were places of strange and powerful events in times past.  For those who can find the right places and be still enough, the echoes of Kiha-pu and the wonderful events associated with it may still be sensed:

I kela kupua ino i ka pali,

Olali la, a olali.

The damned conch from the cliff,

Look, how it gleams there.