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During the many voyages of the powerful shaman Holamaka Kahuna, I proudly fought beside him against the demons that plague the islands, gripping my shark-toothed club with my one good hand and shouting a war-cry that joined the spells chanted by my friend. Holamaka's powers and his keen eyes defeated monsters and brought peace to a hundred villages scattered throughout the lands protected by the good Maui; we two were feasted and given many gifts by the grateful people we helped, and after the celebration was done we would return to our island Peke to await another summons from someone in trouble.
Peke was a dull, quiet little island. Yet there was one enemy on it that I had vowed to vanquish.
At the very beginning of my campaign, I had told Holamaka that he was not to help me. I had lost the use of one arm in battle before we two had ever met, but I could still defend my new chief. This opponent seemed impossible to take on without two good arms and hands, yet I was determined. Holamaka, wise and wordless, had only nodded and returned to playing his flute, or mending our fishnets, or pounding bark to make a new waist-wrap as I set out across the shore.
The shaman's work came first. When a parrot or albatross called at our door, that was a summons for the wise man, a message for help, and off we would go again on another voyage to battle another demon on another island. But always my thoughts returned to that implacable opponent that towered over me on our home island.
When we were once more on Peke and had rested from our battle, I would rise in the morning, bind my limp arm across my chest, gather up my knotted cloth and twisted fiber cords, and walk towards the mocking adversary that waited on the beach. At sundown I would stumble back to the hut I shared with Holamaka, exhausted and bleeding, my feet sore, my back and my good hand rubbed raw, my face scraped with a dozen small wounds. I would devour whatever we had from our stores or gifts and fall into deep sleep.
The moon grew round and bright and then thinned and disappeared and fattened again, over and over; the rains came, and the soft winds, and the rains again.
My old life cursed me for a fool, reminded me that I had never seen this done and that I would fail. I frowned to drive away the thought, even when it hurt my scratched face to do so. I would not be frightened away. Holamaka Kahuna, who had swum out into the middle of the ocean at Maui's call straight to the spot where I had found him, had taught me that nothing was impossible.
Then came the day when I found the way to hold myself against my foe, and hoist myself high. I shouted in joy so loudly that Holamaka must have heard me. I reached halfway up my opponent before I slipped and fell into the hot sand, scraped and exhausted. But I laughed, for now I knew the way. I hobbled home, smiling.
The next day I hoisted myself again, my knife in my teeth, my cloth snug around my ankles, the soles of my feet gripping the trunk, and the twisted fiber rope hitched around the trunk and my body that I heaved upward with my good hand one hop at a time. Up. Up. Up.
And there they were.
I sliced hard, and the great green head of the monster fell to the sand just before I skittered down. I shouted and danced on my bleeding feet.
Holamaka Kahuna stood in the doorway of our home, laughing for joy and singing a victory chant as I limped back, carrying in my sling the great fresh green coconut I'd lopped from the top of the tree. Never again would we have to wait for the nuts to dry up and fall.
The shaman drew his own knife and sliced off the top, and held it for me to take the first drink of the sweet pure water.