“...They told me don't go walking slow
The devil's on the loose...”
It’s one thing when tourists are disrespectful to our culture, it’s another thing when locals are out right and purposeful in being disrespectful. A group of anthropology students from UH had stumbled upon a heiau in Maunawili a few months ago, the area had been marked as off limits. Justin Pacheco heard about the find and brought a large group of his friends to the ancient Hawaiian temple to prove a point. First he stood outside the walls of the structure and began to ape a made up chant that was complete gibberish. Second, he trampled into the structure and began to dance a very bad hula. Third, he pulled his pants down and urinated while moving in a slow circle. It wasn’t until he was done that he noticed his friends were gone and that everything was quiet. The feeling was eerie and Justin was covered with chicken skin; in the next instant, he was inundated with the smell of a wet dog but twenty times worse. It made him gag at first and then he threw up his breakfast.
At that point, the sun was directly behind him and he could see his own shadow on the dirt floor of the heiau, suddenly a nine-foot shadow appeared next to his. He only managed to get a glimpse of the massive Hawaiian man who wore a black feathered cape and towered above Justin, his eyes red with rage.
Justin’s feet couldn’t carry him fast enough, he ran straight toward the wall of the heiau and took a giant leap over it. He went crashing through the bush, literally running for his life. Behind him was the thundering sound of the forest coming apart; great trees were being felled with one mighty push from the Hawaiian giant who was in close pursuit. The jungle was so thick that the sun could not penetrate the canopy of trees, time was fractured and Justin couldn’t tell if it was night or day, all he could do was run. Before he knew it, he’d come upon the Maunawili overlook just at the bottom of the Pali lookout. He wasn’t sure how he got there, but behind him, he could see rows of trees falling. The Hawaiian giant was still coming after him and there was no time to waste. Justin took the old path up the Pali road and willed himself to run further even though his legs were burning. Eventually, the foliage fell away and he could see the winding path to the lookout, there was hope after all. Just as he rounded the last turn, he saw the remnants of an old landslide that barred a part of the path from the lookout. He ran faster and put his last ounce of strength into the leap that would carry him to the top of the dirt mound. He made it, he was home free.
However, Justin made the mistake of looking back. When he did, he saw the massive Hawaiian man standing there in his black feathered cloak, except that the feathers were now standing on end. Turns out that it wasn’t a feathered cloak at all, it was hackles that one would find on the back of a pig. By the time Justin Pacheco realized that what stood before him was Kamapua’a, and that the temple he defiled probably belonged to the pig god, the Akua had already thrown a hefty sized stone at Justin with such velocity that it took Justin’s head clean off.
The tourists and hikers who witnessed the incident were either paralyzed with fear or ran screaming for their life.
Kamapua’a on the other hand the pig god had his prize and disappeared with it into the Wao nahele.
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