Manu broke off the top of a ti plant and started up the trail. “Where are you going?” called his mother.
“Up the trail,” the boy answered carelessly.
“To slide?” she questioned. “Oh, not on that steep slope! Manu, you may be killed! Don’t slide there!”
“There is no danger, Mother! The slide is glorious! When I slide there I feel that I am truly Manu, the bird.”
“No!” said his mother firmly. “Use the hill below.”
“That is a slide for children!” grumbled Manu, but he turned and took the downward trail. He reached the slide, a long, sandy slope. He sat on his bunch of ti leaves, holding the stalk firmly between his knees, and down he went.
When he reached the bottom he threw away his ti as he said crossly, “That slide was fun while I was a child, but now it is too slow.”
He climbed the trail and passed his home. His mother was busy now and did not see him. The boy broke a fresh stalk of ti and climbed onto the slide he loved. There he paused, looking down. “So that is what she’s done!” he said aloud. “She has asked my father to block my slide with those two rocks. Well,” he stood looking carefully, “I can avoid them.”
He seated himself firmly on the ti, gave a push, and flew down the steep slope of the cliff. With a skillful movement he sent himself around the smaller rock. Then he flew through the air in a mighty leap over the larger one. He landed with a bump and slid to the level place below.
He rubbed his back, for the jar of his leap had hurt. Then he climbed to the rocks. “You hurt me!” he said angrily to the larger rock. “Jumping over you gave me an awful bump. I’ll give you a bump, you great rock!” And with a mighty heave he rolled it into the Waimea Stream below. Then he rolled the smaller rock down also. “I won’t slide here again,” he thought. “I’ll find a place where Mother will not see and worry.”
He started up Waimea Valley to the canyon. “Here,” he said, “here is a slide for Manu.” The boy scrambled to the top of a great cliff, broke off some ti, and made ready for his slide. For a moment he sat poised, looking down, then quickly, before fear should overcome him, pushed himself over the edge.
Oh, the swift and glorious slide! “Now I am indeed a bird!” thought the boy. He reached the bottom and climbed up to slide again and yet again.
Men still point to the rocks that Manu threw out of his way into the Waimea Stream. And the steepest cliff of the canyon wall still bears the name Hōlua Manu, The Slide of the Bird.
Told by W. H. Rice in Hawaiian Legends and used by permission of the Bernice P. Bishop Museum