The Story of Hawaii (Illustrated Edition). Fowke Gerard

tabu is lifted,

      Free is the place,

      Tabu-free!

      Here also is another pule hoo-noa, a prayer-song addressed to Laka, an intercession for the lifting of the tabu. It will be noticed that the request is implied, not explicitly stated. All heads are lifted, all eyes are directed heavenward or to the altar, and the hands with a noiseless motion keep time as the voices of the company, led by the kumu, in solemn cantillation, utter the following prayer:

       Pule Hoo-noa no Laka

Pupu we'u-we'u²⁷³ e, Láka e,

O kona we'u-we'u e ku-wá;²⁷⁴

O Ku-ka-ohia-Laká,²⁷⁵ e;

Laua me Ku-pulu-pulu;²⁷⁶

      Ka Lehua me ke Koa lau-lii;

      O ka Lama me Moku-halii,

Kú-i-kú-i²⁷⁷ me ka Hala-pepe;

      Lakou me Lau-ka-ie-ie,

      Ka Palai me Maile-lau-lii.

      Noa, noa i kou kuahu;

      Noa, noa ia oe, Làka;

      Pa-pá-lùa noa!

      [Translation]

       Tabu-lifting Prayer (to Laka)

      Oh wildwood bouquet, O Láka!

      Set her greenwood leaves in order due;

      And Ku, god of Ohia-La-ká,

      He and Ku, the shaggy,

      Lehua with small-leafed Koa,

      And Lama and Moku-hali'i,

      Kú-i-kú-i and Haia-pé-pé;

      And with these leafy I-e-i-e,

      Fern and small-leafed Maile.

      Free, the altar is free!

      Free through, you, Laka,

      Doubly free!

      But even now, when the tabu has been removed and the assembly is supposed to have assumed an informal character, before they may indulge themselves in informalities, there remains to be chanted a dismissing prayer, pule hooku'u, in which all voices must join:

       Pule Hooku'u

Ku ka makaia a ka huaka'i moe ipo;²⁷⁸

      Ku au, hele;

      Noho oe, aloha!

      Aloha na hale o makou i makamaka ole,

Ke alanui hele mauka o Huli-wale,²⁷⁹ la;

      H-u-l-i.

      E huli a'e ana i ka makana,

      I ke alana ole e kanaenae aku ia oe.

      Eia ke kanaenae, o ka leo.

      [Translation]

       Dismissing Prayer

      Doomed sacrifice I in the love-quest,

I stand [loin-girt]²⁸⁰ for the journey;

      To you who remain, farewell!

      Farewell to our homes forsaken.

      On the road beyond In-decision,

      I turn me about--

      Turn me about, for lack of a gift,

      An offering, intercession, for thee--

      My sole intercession, the voice.

      This fragment--two fragments, in fact, pieced together--belongs to the epic of Pele. As her little sister, Hiiaka, is about to start on her adventurous journey to bring the handsome Prince Lohiau from the distant island of Kauai she is overcome by a premonition of Pole's jealousy and vengeance, and she utters this intercession.

      The formalities just described speak for themselves. They mark better than any comments can do the superstitious devotion of the old-timers to formalism, their remoteness from that free touch of social and artistic pleasure, the lack of which we moderns often lament in our own lives and sigh for as a lost art, conceiving it to have been once the possession of "the children of nature."

      The author has already hinted at the form and character of the entertainments with which hula-folk sometimes beguiled their professional interludes. Fortunately the author is able to illustrate by means of a song the very form of entertainment they provided for themselves on such an occasion. The following mele, cantillated with an accompaniment of expressive gesture, is one that was actually given at an awa-drinking bout indulged in by hula-folk. The author has an account of its recital at Kahuku, island of Oahu, so late as the year 1849, during a circuit of that island made by King Kamehameha III. This mele is reckoned as belonging to the ordinary repertory of the hula; but to which particular form of the dance it was devoted has not been learned:

       Mele

      Ua ona o Kane i ka awa;

Ua kau ke kéha²⁸¹ i ka uluna;

Ua hi'o-lani²⁸² i ka moena.

      Kipú mai la i ke kapa o ka noe.

      Noe-noe na hokú o ka lani--

      Imo-imo mai la i ka po a'e-a'e.

Mahana-lua²⁸³ na kukui a Lanikaula,²⁸⁴

He kaula no Kane.²⁸⁵

      Meha na pali o Wai-pi'o

      I ke kani mau o Kiha-pú;

      A ono ole ka awa a ke alii

      I ke kani mau o Kiha-pú;

      Moe ole kona po o ka Hooilo;

      Uluhua, a uluhua,

      I ka mea nana e hull a loaa

      I kela kupua ino i ka pali,

      Olali la, a olali.

      [Translation]

       Song

      Kane is drunken with awa;

      His head is laid on the pillow;

      His body stretched on the mat.

      A trumpet sounds through the fog,

      Dimmed are the stars in the sky;

      When the night is clear, how they twinkle!

      Lani-kaula's torches look double,

      The torches that burn for Kane.

      Ghostly and drear the walls of Waipio

      At the endless blasts of Kiha-pú.

      The king's awa fails to console