The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai. S. N. Haleole

of place allusion. Even to-day the Hawaiian editor with a nice sense of emotional values will not, in his obituary notice, speak of a man being missed in his native district, but will express the idea in some such way as this: "Never more will the pleasant Kupuupuu (mist-bearing wind) dampen his brow." The songs of the pleading sisters in the romance of Laieikawai illustrate this conventional usage. In Kualii, the poet wishes to express the idea that all the sea belongs to the god Ku. He therefore enumerates the different kinds of "sea," with their locality—"the sea for surf riding," "the sea for casting the net," "the sea for going naked," "the sea for swimming," "the sea for surf riding sideways," "the sea for tossing up mullet," "the sea for small crabs," "the sea of many harbors," etc.

      The most complete example of this kind of enumeration occurs in the chant of Kuapakaa, where the son of the disgraced chief chants to his lord the names of the winds and rains of all the districts about each island in succession, and then, by means of his grandmother's bones in a calabash in the bottom of the canoe (she is the Hawaiian wind-goddess) raises a storm and avenges his father's honor. He sings:

      There they are! There they are!!

       There they are!!!

       The hard wind of Kohala,

       The short sharp wind of Kawaihae,

       The fine mist of Waimea,

       The wind playing in the cocoanut-leaves of Kekaha,

       The soft wind of Kiholo,

       The calm of Kona,

       The ghost-like wind of Kahaluu,

       The wind in the hala-tree of Kaawaloa,

       The moist wind of Kapalilua,

       The whirlwind of Kau,

       The mischievous wind of Hoolapa,

       The dust-driven wind of Maalehu,

       The smoke-laden wind of Kalauea.

      There is no doubt in this enumeration an assertion of power over the forces the reciter calls by name, as a descendant of her who has transmitted to him the magic formula.

      Just so the technician in fishing gear, bark-cloth making, or in canoe or house building, the two crafts specially practiced by chiefs, acquires a very minute nomenclature useful to the reciter in word debate or riddling. The classic example in Hawaiian song is the famous canoe-chant, which, in the legend of Kana, Uli uses in preparing the canoe for her grandsons' war expedition against the ravisher of Hina (called the Polynesian Helen of Troy) and which is said to be still employed for exorcism by sorcerers (Kahuna), of whom Uli is the patron divinity. The enumeration begins thus:

      It is the double canoe of Kaumaielieli,

       Keakamilo the outrigger,

       Halauloa the body,

       Luu the part under water,

       Aukuuikalani the bow;

      and so on to the names of the cross stick, the lashings, the sails, the bailing cup, the rowers in order, and the seat of each, his paddle, and his "seagoing loin cloth." There is no wordplay perceptible in this chant, but it is doubtful whether the object is to record a historical occurrence or rather to exhibit inspired craftsmanship, the process of enumeration serving as the intellectual test of an inherited gift from the gods.

      Besides technical interests, the social and economic life of the people centers close attention upon the plant and animal life about them, as well as upon kinds of stone useful for working. Andrews enumerates 26 varieties of edible seaweed known to the Hawaiians. The reciters avail themselves of these well-known terms, sometimes for quick comparison, often for mere enumeration. It is interesting to see how, in the "Song of Creation," in listing plant and animal life according to its supposed order of birth—first, shellfish, then seaweed and grasses, then fishes and forests plants, then insects, birds, reptiles—wordplay is employed in carrying on the enumeration. We read:

      "The Mano (shark) was born, the Moana was born in the sea and swam,

       The Mau was born, the Maumau was born in the sea and swam,

       The Nana was born, the Mana was born in the sea and swam."

      and so on through Nake and Make, Napa and Nala, Pala and Kala, Paka (eel) and Papa (crab) and twenty-five or thirty other pairs whose signification is in most cases lost if indeed they are not entirely fictitious. Again, 16 fish names are paired with similar names of forest plants; for example:

      "The Pahau was born in the sea,

       Guarded by the Lauhau that grew in the forest."

      "The Hee was born and lived in the sea,

       Guarded by the Walahee that grew in the forest."

      Here the relation between the two objects is evidently fixed by the chance likeness of name.

      On the whole, the Hawaiian takes little interest in stars. The "canoe-steering star," to be sure, is useful, and the "net of Makalii" (the Pleiads) belongs to a well-known folk tale. But star stories do not appear in Hawaiian collections, and even sun and moon stories are rare, all belonging to the older and more mythical tales. Clouds, however, are very minutely observed, both as weather indicators and in the lore of signs, and appear often in song and story.[1]

      Besides differentiating such visible phenomena, the Polynesian also thinks in parts of less readily distinguishable wholes. When we look toward the zenith or toward the horizon we conceive the distance as a whole; the Polynesian divides and names the space much as we divide our globe into zones. We have seen how he conceives a series of heavens above the earth, order in creation, rank in the divisions of men on earth and of gods in heaven. In the passage of time he records how the sun measures the changes from day to night; how the moon marks off the month; how the weather changes determine the seasons for planting and fishing through the year; and, observing the progress of human life from infancy to old age, he names each stage until "the staff rings as you walk, the eyes are dim like a rat's, they pull you along on the mat," or "they bear you in a bag on the back."

      Clearly the interest aroused by all this nomenclature is emotional, not rational. There is too much wordplay. Utility certainly plays some part, but the prevailing stimulus is that which bears directly upon the idea of rank, some divine privilege being conceived in the mere act of naming, by which a supernatural power is gained over the object named. The names, as the objects for which they stand, come from the gods. Thus in the story of Pupuhuluena, the culture hero propitiates two fishermen into revealing the names of their food plants and later, by reciting these correctly, tricks the spirits into conceding his right to their possession. Thus he wins tuberous food plants for his people.

      For this reason, exactness of knowledge is essential. The god is irritated by mistakes.[2] To mispronounce even casually the name of the remote relative of a chief might cost a man a valuable patron or even life itself. Some chiefs are so sacred that their names are taboo; if it is a word in common use, there is chance of that word dropping out of the language and being replaced by another.

      Completeness of enumeration hence has cabalistic value. When the Hawaiian propitiates his gods he concludes with an invocation to the "forty thousand, to the four hundred thousand, to the four thousand"[3] gods, in order that none escape the incantation. Direction is similarly invoked all around the compass. In the art of verbal debate—called hoopapa in Hawaii—the test is to match a rival's series with one exactly parallel in every particular or to add to a whole some undiscovered part.[4] A charm mentioned in folk tale is "to name every word that ends with lau." Certain numbers, too, have a kind of magic finality in themselves; for example, to count off an identical phrase by ten without missing a word is the charm by which Lepe tricks the spirits. In the Kualii, once more, Ku is extolled as the tenth chief and warrior:

      The first chief, the second chief,

       The third chief, the fourth chief,

       The fifth chief, the sixth chief,

       The seventh chief, the eighth chief,

       The ninth, chief, the tenth chief is Ku,