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Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends by Various
page 14 of 265 (05%)
"There are these different Hawaiian genealogies, going back with
more or less agreement among themselves to the first created man. The
genealogy of Kumuhonua gives thirteen generations inclusive to Nuu,
or Kahinalii, or the line of Laka, the oldest son of Kumuhonua. (The
line of Seth from Adam to Noah counts ten generations.) The second
genealogy, called that of Kumu-uli, was of greatest authority among
the highest chiefs down to the latest times, and it was taboo to teach
it to the common people. This genealogy counts fourteen generations
from Huli-houna, the first man, to Nuu, or Nana-nuu, but inclusive,
on the line of Laka. The third genealogy, which, properly speaking,
is that of Paao, the high-priest who came with Pili from Tahiti,
about twenty-five generations ago, and was a reformer of the Hawaiian
priesthood, and among whose descendants it has been preserved, counts
only twelve generations from Kumuhonua to Nuu, on the line of Kapili,
youngest son of Kumuhonua."

"In the Hawaiian group there are several legends of the Flood. One
legend relates that in the time of Nuu, or Nana-nuu (also pronounced
_lana_, that is, floating), the flood, _Kaiakahinalii_, came upon
the earth, and destroyed all living beings; that Nuu, by command of
his god, built a large vessel with a house on top of it, which was
called and is referred to in chants as '_He waa halau Alii o ka Moku_,'
the royal vessel, in which he and his family, consisting of his wife,
Lilinoe, his three sons and their wives, were saved. When the flood
subsided, Kane, Ku, and Lono entered the _waa halau_ of Nuu, and told
him to go out. He did so, and found himself on the top of Mauna Kea
(the highest mountain on the island of Hawaii). He called a cave
there after the name of his wife, and the cave remains there to this
day--as the legend says in testimony of the fact. Other versions of the
legend say that Nuu landed and dwelt in Kahiki-honua-kele, a large and
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