Long before they began to measure time - says one ancient Hawaiian legend - there was a wonderful fellow who once saved the great god Shark from death.
This god, as a token of gratitude, promised the guy that as long as all Hawaiians live peacefully, not a single shark will touch a single person in the sea around the island.
People fulfilled this condition and maintained peace among themselves and with their neighbors. The islanders prayed to the Shark god and were grateful to him that they no longer needed to be afraid of him while swimming in their lagoons.
Time passed, and the Shark god fell in love with a cute Hawaiian girl who lived on the shores of Wai-Momi Bay, which means "pearl water". He turned his beloved into a shark and made her the queen of modern Pearl Harbor.
She became the goddess Shark and continued to pursue a policy of peace in relation to people. Moreover, she promised to protect people in her waters as long as they keep peace in her domain.
For centuries, the islanders have lived peacefully and happily, in harmony and tranquility.
And in 1909, warships from the United States came and disrupted the serene peace in the waters of Pearl Harbor. The Hawaiians remembered the old treaty and looked at the ships with fear for their future, because if they leave the peaceful path, they will fail: the goddess Shark will immediately appear and take revenge for his insult from foreigners who worshiped the distant gods of war.
The US Navy successfully entered the 20th century and quickly dispelled the doubts of local residents. Of course, it's great to live on an island with your old myths, but you can't stand in the way of progress! The navy was preparing the harbor for the role of the Pacific fortress of the American continent.
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One day, shortly after the Navy arrived at Pearl Harbor, an old fisherman approached the sea with a bucket of freshly caught fish and told the sailors that he was carrying a donation to the goddess Shark.
The old man dived and left the fish in a crevice of a submerged rock near the shore.
After completing the ceremony, the fisherman returned to the shore and decided to talk to the sailors. To his horror, he learned that the Americans were planning to build a dry dock in the harbor. In a panic, he began to beg the workers and engineers to immediately abandon the project.
- Goddess Shark will get angry and bring big trouble! he shouted. The workers took the fisherman's fiery speeches as entertainment and crowded around him. Finally, the commander ordered them to resume work, and no one paid any attention to the old fisherman.
After that, the old man for four lay down every day came to the harbor and always brought gifts to appease the goddess Shark, and every day he asked the representatives of the Navy to leave the sacred place, which had already been desecrated, before the terrible troubles (which the fisherman had no doubt about).
And always, when the old man turned to the sailors, they refused him - each time it was more and more rude. And every day, leaving the harbor, he muttered the same words in a whisper:
- Goddess Shark will bring a lot of trouble!
Construction work on the dry dock was coming to an end, and one day the old man did not appear in the harbor. Someone said he was dead. Then, a few weeks after the fisherman stopped coming to the construction site, it was announced that the dry dock was ready for testing.
On the day of the test, many people gathered at the dock and watched in amazement as the pumps pumped out millions of liters of water. And when the water at the bottom of the dock was only ankle-deep, sailor workers descended there and began to grab the panting fish. As the test turned into sport fishing, there was laughter in the dock and splashes of water in which the sailors fished with their hands - which the islanders considered a great skill.
Suddenly, over the joyful laughter, a sharp and panicked command thundered:
- Everybody out! Immediately all out!
A minute later, as the last sailor hurried up the stairs, the whole of Pearl Harbor screeched with the hideous sound of concrete breaking. In just four minutes, only a pile of stones remained at the site of four years of work and four million investments. Released from the pressure of the water, the bottom of the dock stood upright and the walls collapsed. The huge beams broke easily, like thin twigs.
When someone, in despair, suggested that perhaps the goddess Shark was somehow connected with this catastrophic destruction, the representatives of the Navy replied laconically: "Nonsense!" on the empty place.
Ten years have passed since the start of construction of the first project; the dry dock was finally built and a grand opening date was set.
The Governor of Hawaii was invited to the feast, and he suggested that the Navy invite some of the Kahun - hereditary local priests - to this elaborate ceremony, as this would be courteous on the part of the organizers of the event and would also add confidence to the Hawaiians. The representatives of the Navy agreed and agreed to participate in the celebration of the representative of the Kahuna clan.
However, when it came time to open the festive program, the organizers of the ceremony looked around with concern: Kahuna had not arrived yet. Will people take this as an ominous sign? To prevent unrest, a young lieutenant was sent to the priestess in Waikiki.
While the ceremony participants were waiting for the arrival of Kahun, they witnessed a very unusual phenomenon. Suddenly, a geyser exploded in the rocks - just at the very place where the old fisherman left his sacrificial fish. Then everything calmed down, but the people became worried, fearing that the goddess Shark would somehow interfere with the opening of the new dry dock, as she did last time.
But at that time Kahuna drove up and began her ritual performance. She knelt on the shore and, throwing bread crumbs and ash on the surface of the water in the dry dock, recited ancient spells that were passed down by the priests from generation to generation. When Kahuna finished, she announced that the goddess Shark had calmed down and would not cause any more trouble. Meanwhile, many old Hawaiians gathered on the shore, who were not quite ready for such a favor from their goddess.
When the ceremony was over, the pumps began pumping water out of the dry dock again. All those gathered - experienced and inexperienced in construction wisdom - looked anxiously at this engineering structure, expecting a disaster at any moment.
It seemed that this time the goddess really calmed down, and besides, the dock was solid and reliable.
Suddenly a convulsive gasp of surprise was heard in the crowd.
In the very place where the fisherman dived with his sacrificial fish so often - exactly where the geyser had recently released a fountain - people saw the dead body of a very old shark.
Years later, when the Hawaiian population was substantially Americanized and few remembered their ancient gods and the treaty once concluded between these deities and the islanders, the final retribution took place in the beautiful pearl waters.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, leaving behind heaps of twisted metal and mutilated human flesh.
The old Hawaiians shook their heads sadly: the treaty had in fact been broken, and the goddess no longer guarded the once peaceful waters. The islanders were sure that until Pearl Harbor was demilitarized and until the locals once again gave the goddess Shark their word to live in peace, peace would never return to the Pacific Ocean.