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The god Lono was busy outside our house; the rain poured down in great silver streams, dripping from the leaves and creepers; it soaked the taro, bananas and breadfruit in our garden. Now and again his companion Kane-hekili roared in his thunder voice across the sky.
On such days even mighty shamans and their one-armed warriors stay inside and do nothing brave.
Holamaka Kahuna and I were home after defeating a terrible demon, a cousin of Kaupe the Cannibal Dog Man, who had been hunting and eating the chieftains of Pakavila. Together we two defeated the beast – Holamaka Kahuna calling up sorcery against Pulelehua Kahuna, the shaman named Butterfly who had conjured the creature to set himself as chief of the island, while I spent an entire night battling the monstrous dog with club and spear and dagger, knocking out its sharklike teeth one by one, until my chief had finally summoned a lightning strike to kill Pulelehua Kahuna which made the demon-dog fall down dead too. We had been well-fed and given many gifts by the grateful Pakavila people; when we had rested and recovered from our wounds we returned to the island we called home, our outrigger canoe pushed through the water by two sharks (Nana and Maopopo, I See and I Understand) and laden with food and shells and gourds of fermented banana beer.
We were happy to be home. The food we'd been given meant that we would not have to fish for several weeks. Now the god of rain kindly gave us good days to mend weapons and tell stories.
Holamaka Kahuna did neither; instead, he played his long wooden flute, the music stuttering and hopping like a locust in and around the wind and pattering rain outside as if he conversed with Lono. The shaman had taken fewer physical injuries than I, but his face was still swollen from stings left by a swarm of bees conjured by Pulelehua during their fight, and his fingers were thick and stiff on the flute.
But I needed these days for mending weapons, for my club had been badly damaged in the fight with the dog-demon, and I had broken my spear and lost my dagger. I held my club steady with my feet, cutting away the binding olona fiber that had held the shark's teeth all around the rim; most were broken or missing now. The work was slow, for I only had one working arm and hand, and I had been wounded in the fight; I was proud to see my new scars, for I had thought my battle days were over when I had become a one-armed man.
If I'd still been with Chief Maiwa's men this sort of day would have us laughing and drinking beer and telling the stories about Maui's sexual adventures with goddesses and human girls. But Maui himself had brought us two together, and it did not seem right to tell such stories with a shaman. Holamaka was also wordless for a few days after engaging in powerful sorcery. So I worked in silence while Holamaka played his flute (stiff-fingered though he was from bee-stings).
Drilling holes in the new teeth for my club required a bone awl and using my feet to steady my work. Again, this was slower for a one-armed man. But Maui had snared the rapidly-running sun in his fishnet to slow down our days long ago so we would have time, and Lono made sure we did not need to hurry anywhere today. The thunder god spoke again, and I silently thanked him as I laced the new teeth into place with stout olona cord, tightening it with teeth and feet.
I halted at midday to put together a meal of baked bananas and smoked fish from our Pakavila gifts for both of us; Holamaka slept afterward while I continued to work.
By evening the rain still fell in a steady stream and my club was finished. Holamaka smiled, still without speaking, when I hoisted it aloft. Now it was ringed with five enormous shark-teeth from the demon dog we'd defeated.
"Tomorrow I start work on a new knife," I said to my chief and my friend, "and then I can give back the one you loaned me. It's going to rain all day tomorrow, too."