KA'EHU AND THE MAN-EATER
Ka'ehu, the little yellow shark of Pu'uloa, was traveling with friends. As they swam about Oahu, they came to Waikiki. While they played outside the reef, "Ka'ehu saw a stranger. "Aloha!" he said. "Are you, too, traveling?"
"I am a Maui shark," the stranger answered, "and I'm hunting for fat crabs. I think the famous surf of Waikiki should be a good place for crabbing."
"A man-eater!" thought Ka'ehu. The waves were high that day and many men were surfing. The man-eater would kill someone unless Ka'ehu acted quickly! He swam along beside the stranger saying, "There is no finer place for crabbing. Both chiefs and people surf at Waikiki and even the gods. Have you heard--"
The man-eater listened to a story, not noticing that Ka'ehu had led him over reef. When they stopped Ka'ehu said, "Wait here, hidden in the shallows of this pool. My friends and I will drive the crabs close, where you can get them." He swam back to his friends and told them of the man-eater. "We must not let that Maui shark kill people of Oahu," he said and explained a plan.
Surfers rushed in on a great wave. "Drive them this way!" the man-eater shouted.
"Wait!" Ka'ehu shouted back. "Here come two fat ones. Be ready!"
The two men caught the high surf and came rushing in, standing erect and shouting. They rode the wave, and under it the man-eater saw sharks swimming--to help him catch a man, he thought. He leaped. But as he leaped a shark turned the surfers to one side, out of his way, while others struck him, rolling and pushing him into shallow water. Head first, he went into a hole. "Help me!" he shouted. "I can't get out!" But the good sharks were swimming toward deep ocean. Their work was done.
Men who had been frightened by the sight of sharks, soon saw that one was left and that one a prisoner. From shore they watched his struggles. "He is dead!" they said at last and went to get and burn the body. "A man-eater!" they exclaimed and turned to watch the company of sharks playing outside the reef. "Those are our friends," they said. "They drove this man-eater into the hole to die. Once more our friends have saved us."
Translated by Mary Kawena Pukui from a Hawaiian newspaper