The Story of Hawaii (Illustrated Edition). Fowke Gerard

Pihana-ka-lani. Literally, the fullness of heaven. This was a forest largely of lehua that covered the mountain slope below Ka-wai-kini. It seems as if the purpose of its mention was to represent the beauties and charms of the human body. In this romantic region lived the famous mythological princes--alii kupua, the Hawaiians called them--named Kaua-kahi-alii and Aiwohi-kupua, with their princess sister Ka-hale-lehua. The second name mentioned was the one who married the famous heroine of the romantic story of Laie-i-ka-wai.

²⁹⁸ Manu hulu ma'ema'e. An allusion to the great number of plumage birds that were reputed to be found in this place.

²⁹⁹ Puna-hele ia Kaua-kahi-alli. The birds of the region are said to have been on very intimate and friendly terms with Kaua-kahi-alii. (See note b, p. 135.)

³⁰⁰ Kaili. The full form is said to be Ka-ili-lau-o-ke-koa--Skin-like-the-leaf-of-the-koa. In the text of the mele this name is analyzed into its parts and written as if the phrase at the end were an appellative and not an integral part of the name itself. This was a mythical character of unusual beauty, a person of superhuman power, kupua, a mistress of the art of surf-riding, which passion she indulged in the waters about Wai-lua.

³⁰¹ Hooipo-i-ka-Malanai. A mythical princess of Wailua, the grandmother of Kaili. This oft-quoted phrase, literally meaning to make love in the (gently-blowing) trade-wind, has become almost a stock expression, standing for romantic love, or love-making.

³⁰² Lehua-wehe. The piece of ocean near the mouth of the Wailua river in which Kaili indulged her passion for surf-riding.

³⁰³ Kalu-kalu o Kewá. Kalu-kalu may mean a species of soft, smooth grass specially fitted for sliding upon, which flourished on the inclined plain of Kewá, Kauai. One would sit upon a mat, the butt end of a coconut leaf, or a sled, while another dragged it along. The Hawaiian name for this sport is pahe'e. Kalu-kalu is also the name applied to "a very thin gauze-like kapa." (See Andrews's Hawaiian Dictionary.) If we suppose the poet to have clearly intended the first meaning, the figure does not tally with the following verse, the fifteenth. Verses 14 and 15 would thus be made to read:

      I desire the kalu-kalu (grass) of Kewá,

      That is riding the surf of Maka-iwa.

      This is an impossible figure and makes no sense. If, on the other hand, we take another version and conceive that the bard had in mind the gauze-like robe of kalu-kalu--using this, of course, as a figure for the person clad in such a robe--the rendering I have given,

      I pine for the sylph, robed in gauze,

      Who rides the surf Maka-iwa,

      would not only make a possible, but a poetic, picture. Let the critical reader judge which of these two versions hits closer to common sense and probability.