Last updated: October 28, 2020
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Legend of The Gourd
The young couple ran away together and settled on the Kamāoʻa plain in Kaʻū. They were beloved by many in the community who followed them, and who soon regarded the couple as the chief and chiefess of the area. Soon the chiefess was hāpai (pregnant) with her first child. She, her husband, and the people of Kamāʻoa were elated that there was to be an heir.
Just before giving birth, she passed away. Her husband was filled with grief and everyone wailed and cried. The chief lovingly placed her body in a cave with a great stone placed across the entrance. On the day the child was to be born, a sprout emerged from the piko (navel) of the chiefess and grew out through a small opening in the entrance of the cave . The sprout crept through the forest with leaves sprouting from its stem, tendrils grabbing onto roots, moa, and ‘ala ‘ala wai nui plants.
It grew westward across seven ahupua’a, through Pākiniiki, Pākininui, Kahuku, Kī‘ao, Manukā, and into Kapu‘a, toward the Kona district. The growing plant soon arrived at the home of a fisherman who lived close to the boundary between Kaʻū and Kona.
There a gourd began to grow and mature. The fisherman thumped and squeezed the gourd daily. The fisherman was hoping to use the gourd as a ipu holoholona for his fishing gear. The chiefess appeared to her husband in a dream and cried that she was sore and brused. The chief awoke and rushed to the cave and discovered the vine and followed it through the forest and into the Kamāʻoa plain. He continued to follow the vine the next morning that led him behind the fisherman’s house where he saw the gourd.
The two men argued about the ownership of the gourd, the fisherman insisting the gourd was his. The chief led the man back to the cave where the chiefess’ body lay with the vine growing from her navel. This persuaded the fisherman that the gourd which had ripened on his land was not actually his, and the chief was allowed to carry the gourd back to Kamāʻoa wrapped in fine, soft, white kapa cloth.
The next morning it cracked open, two seeds fell out into the palms of the chief and began to grow quickly into twin girls. These girls became the ancestresses of the people of Kamāʻoa and the seven districts over which the gourd vine travelled. The people of these districts regard themselves as having descended from the gourd.
Since burning the bones of an ancestor is an insult, no part of the gourd is ever burned by the people of Kamā’oa but is instead buried in a deep hole.
Having been shared by many Hawaiians over long periods of time, different versions of moʻolelo may vary, in some cases significantly.
Read more about moʻolelo relating to Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park