A shark kills a fisherman at his lobster hole on the Kohala coast. The fisherman’s son grows up to kill the shark, and the way he does it is to let it swallow him whole.
The legend of Punia and the shark
Leimakani and Hina lived upland of Honoipu, in Kohala. He farmed sweet potato and dived for lobster off the rocks below. They were a long time without a child before Punia was born.
Then Kaiʻaleʻale, a shark, killed Leimakani at the lobster hole while he was diving. Punia told his mother he would not forget it.
When he was old enough he went down to the same hole and looked in. Kaiʻaleʻale was lying there with his pack. Punia called out to them, loudly, so they would know he was there, and then jumped in holding a rolled mat and two sticks he had carved beforehand.
The shark’s mouth opened and Punia went straight down it. As the jaws started to close he braced them apart with the two sticks, and stuffed the mat into the gap so the water could not get in.
The shark washed up on the beach. People found it and started cutting it up, pleased with a free meal. From inside, Punia called out to them to be careful where they cut. Most of them did not hear him over their own noise. One man standing close did, and told the others, and they laughed at him and said his kava had not worn off from the night before. Then Punia called again, everyone heard it, and the laughing stopped.
Guardian sharks, and sharks kept for revenge
Not every shark in these stories is an enemy. Some families kept one as a guardian, and some kept one to settle scores, which is what Kaiʻaleʻale was doing at the lobster hole.
Our other Big Island shark story goes the other way round. Kaʻehuiki is a child born a shark on the Puna coast who spends his story earning a place in the shark family. Honoipu, where Punia’s father farmed, is on the North Kohala coast.
Told in the Hawaiian-language newspaper Ka Hōkū o Hawaiʻi between December 1912 and February 1913, and read here in the 1994 Hale Kuamoʻo edition, free online.