100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2024. #32. Offerings.

Long ago, an elderly couple lived near this place in the uplands of Waialua.

 Years previous, their only son went fishing in a nearby river and never returned. Now, in their dotage, they tended to their land to grow food and went to the river for fish and shrimp. However, their muscles ached, and their bones creaked. Soon, they'd be too old to stand or walk; how could they sustain themselves? One day, while surveying the river for fish, the couple saw a giant shark swimming around, pushing something with its sizeable square nose. It was a large ti-leaf bundle that the shark nudged to the edge of the river. The old couple didn't know what to make of it, and the shark had already disappeared into the murky waters.

 

Opening the ti-leaf bundle, they saw that it contained pa'i ai, which could be pounded into the consistency of poi. There was enough to feed them for the rest of the month until there was no more. Then, a month later, the massive shark appeared again in the pond, pushing another ti-leaf bundle with its squared snout. There was more pa'i ai. The next time, there was uala, sweet potatoes, and the time after that, limpets or 'opihi from the reefs at the ocean. One day, the old man was struck, curious about how this shark appeared in the river with bundles of food to share. Where did it come from?

 

When the shark next appeared, the old man waited in hiding while his wife received the bundle. Then, he followed the shark downstream, where it led to the ocean and then disappeared near a large reef. Near the large reef, the old man saw a family praying before a handset' ahu or altar made from porous stones. The family left ti-leafed bundles on the altar as part of their prayer and supplications. Approaching the family after, the old man introduced himself and asked them if they'd seen the giant shark he'd been following.

 

The family told the old man that a while ago, the body of a young boy had washed up near their reef. Seeing that he was not alive, they took mercy on him and prayed to their family gods to help them give the boy the ceremony of kū ka'ai, where the mana of his bones would deify him into an 'aumakua of their family. So, the boy became a shark. The family told the old man that when they tossed the offerings in the ti-leaf bundle to the shark, the shark would swim up the river, pushing it with his squared snout. They had no idea where the shark took the bundle. The old man wept, saying that the boy they'd found was his son and that now, in the form of a shark, he brought them the ti-leaf bundles of food so that he and his wife would not go hungry.

 

Thus, the offerings continued until one day, the shark swam upstream and never returned. This told the family living near the large reef that the elderly couple had perhaps passed from old age and that their son, in the form of a shark, did not need to receive offerings anymore.