Hane, Ua Huka--Hokule'a arrived at 11 a.m. this morning in this small bay on the southern coast of the easternmost island of the northern Marquesan group. The bay opens into small valley, filled with a small village and coconuts palms up to steep pali at the back. We were greeted by Leon Lichtle, the mayor of Ua Huka, and given a tour of the southern coast. The island looks like a large crater, half of which has fallen into the ocean,the northern rim still intact. A group of dancers performed a dance of canoe building and a song praising the valleys of the island. We will be departing early this evening, perhaps before sunset, for Tahuata in the southern Marquesan group, 65 miles away.
A voyage is a lei of greetings and farewells. Two nights we left Taiohae. The mayor Ro'o Kimitete and his wife Deborah came to say farefwell. Ro'o did a chant honoring Tanaoa god of the ocean. The crew was presented with tiare leis, then departed to sleep on the canoe. Most the the crew members gave their leis to the canoe, realizing that it is not the individuals that are honored, but Hokule'a. It was a time to reflect on all who have sailed her over the last 25 years, who have made her great and famous throughout Polynesia, particularly the crew of the first voyage, who had ventured out into the unknown with navigator Mau Piailug. It's hard to believe a generation has passed...crew member Mona Shintani is the nephew of the first captain Kawika Kapahulehua. Deborah recalls that she was in France when Hokule'a first arrived in Tahiti, but her father told her about the arrival, and she saw the photographs of the thousands who came out to see the canoe.
We left Taiohae Bay at 4 am so that we would arrive in Hakahau, Ua Pou,at about 10 a.m. for a welcome ceremony. This island is famous for its spires of stone that rise hundreds of feet from the mountain ridges and summits above the town...no other sight like it in the world. The leader of the dance group that greeted the canoe, Petrano Toti, took the crew on a short tour of the island, south of Hakahau...to the valley of the king...a place that was kapu after the first and only king of Ua Pou died. He was considered a god so after he died, no one could live in the valley...the paepae of his house is still intact, a large stone platform in the middle of the bushes off the side of the road. Toti was quite a storyteller: he told of Makaianui, the pig demigod, of the Marquesas, and how once when the islanders were starving, a tuhuna called out to the pig god and he arrived with aku all over his body, having bitten his bristles. He shook his body and the aku fell off, to feed the people. The pig god himself sacrificed his own body to feed the people as well.
Crew member Tava Taupu told me on the sail to Ua Huka,that this story of Makaianui explains the mana of pig bristles on aku lures. The aku somehow are attracted to it. Aku lures in both Hawai'i and the Marquesas have pig bristles on them.