Hawaiian Legends

Kamehameha the Great became the sovereign monarch during a time of rapid transition for his islands. His rivals were no longer limited to the kings of Hawaii, Maui, Oahu and Kauai. Ambitious men had arrived from America, England, France, Portugal and Spain, either offering their war material and service personnel to the highest bidder or staking a claim of the islands for themselves and their masters.

Spanning several centuries of history in the Pacific, The Legends and Myths of Hawaiʻi: Fables and Folk-Lore of a Strange People is a collection of Hawaiian stories that were preserved through the ages by oral tradition and documented for posterity by King David Kalākaua in 1887. This massive tome recalls the tales of chiefs and kings, explorers and pirates, prophets, sorceresses, and renegades. This is the second in a series of 22 parts.

For the last nine centuries, Hawaiian tradition has used the wickedness of the Maui king Hua to depict the consequences of sacrificing righteousness for superficial political gains. His reign was known for its pointless warfare, waste of resources, and corruption. Condemning his dutiful high priest to death under false pretenses, Hua and his subjects finally earn the wrath of the gods. Drought and famine decimate Maui. The lush countryside of Hana becomes a wasteland. As they flee, the curse follows. Atonement resides with the sons of the murdered priest. If they can be found.

After healing her wounds, our shapeshifting dolphin, Misty, has no feet or a tail. She must rely on her daughter's father, Chris, to help her. Chris is a billionaire who owns a company specializing in prosthetic limbs. While creating new feet and a tail for Misty helps heal Misty physically, it also allows Chris and Misty's estranged relationship to heal.

After saving her best friend and ancestral guardian, Kaipo, from Pele the Fire Goddess's traps, and successfully preventing lava from destroying her Tūtū's house, all Lei wants to do is take a nap. The only problem? Kaipo's ʻaumakua pendant is missing, and without it, he will soon disintegrate...emotionally and physically.

"To boldly go where no man has gone before" was a phrase made popular by Gene Rodenberry in a science fiction setting, but it was certainly the creed of countless explorers during the Age of Discovery and afterwards. In fact, as recently as the mid-18th century, a young sailor named James Cook determined to go "farther than any man has been before me, but as far as I think it is possible for a man to go." And unlike so many others who tried, he did just that.

A chief from a southern province seeks an audience in the palace of Kanipahu, the king of the island of Hawaiʻi. Wronged by one of the kingʻs military advisors, Chief Kamaiole kills the man once he is in the presence of the sovereign. He escapes and begins a campaign of revenge that eventually ousts Kanipahu from the throne. The king is exiled to Molokaʻi and replaced by his challenger. But the cruel reign of Kamaiole extracts a toll from the Hawaiian people.

High Chief Nanaula discovered Hawai'i in the sixth century. As King Kalākaua recounts it, the chief's expedition brought the first settlers to the island chain from either the Samoan or Society Islands. Five hundred years later, Hawaiian chiefs Moikeha, Olopana, and Laa-Mai-Kahiki—deep sea voyagers from the House of Nanaula—would renew ties with Tahiti and Samoa amidst a second migration from the south. Equipped with little more than barges and canoes, the Polynesians of yesteryear carved out their place in history on the planet's largest ocean.

In Hawaii, a cast of women reckon with physical and emotional alienation, and the toll it takes on their psyches. A childhood encounter with a wild pua'a (boar) on the haunted Pali highway portends one woman's increasingly fraught relationship with her body during pregnancy. A woman recalls an uncanny experience, in which Elvis impersonators take center stage, to an acquaintance who doesn't yet know just how intimately they're connected. An elderly widow begins seeing her deceased lover in the giant corpse flower a mourner has gifted her.

When Trash Pandas Attack is a collection of short stories, misadventures, family tales, encounters with the bizarre, unusual, and interesting, and humorous events. 
 The tales in here are not tall. They are short and true.
 From hair-raising encounters with wild animals, meeting extraterrestrials after church, having out-of-body experiences after drinking Kool-Aid, embarrassing but enlightening misunderstandings of language and cuisine, cosmic signs and connections, and general good fun, When Trash Pandas Attack is a book full of the wonder and silliness of life in all its strange ...