The Story of Hawaii: History, Customs, Mythology, Geography & Archaeology. Fowke Gerard

wind raises the dust--

      Thy couch is a-drip with the rain;

      Open the door, let's trench about the house:

      Koolau, land of rain, will shoot green leaves.

      I dread the cold of the uplands.

      An adventure that of long ago.

      The poem above given from beginning to end is figurative, a piece of far-fetched, enigmatical symbolism in the lower plane of human nature.

      PAUKU 3

Hoe Puna i ka wa'a po-lolo'¹⁸⁴ a ka ino;

      Ha-uke-uke i ka wa o Koolau:

      Eha e! eha la!

Eha i ku'i-ku'i o ka Ulu-mano.¹⁸⁵

Hala 'e ka waluahe a ke A'e,¹⁸⁶

Ku iho i ku'i-ku'i a ka Ho-li'o;¹⁸⁷

      Hana ne'e ke kikala o ko Hilo Khii.

Ho'i lu'u-lu'u i ke one o Hana-kahi,¹⁸⁸

      I ka po-lolo' ua wahine o ka lua:

      Mai ka lua no, e!

      [Translation]

      STANZA 3

      Puna plies paddle night-long in the storm;

      Is set back by a shift in the weather,

      Feels hurt and disgruntled;

      Dismayed at slap after slap of the squalls;

      Is struck with eight blows of Typhoon;

      Then smit with the lash of the North wind.

      Sad, he turns back to Hilo's sand-beach:

      He'll shake the town with a scandal--

      The night-long storm with the hag of the pit,

      Hag from Gehenna!

      This is not a line-for-line translation; that the author found infeasible. Line 8 of the English represents line 7 of the Hawaiian. Given more literally, it might be, "He'll shake the buttocks of Hilo's forty thousand."

      The metaphor of this song is disjointed, but hot with the primeval passions of humanity.

      PAUKU 4

      Ho-ina-inau mea ipo i ka nahele;

      Haa-kokoe ana ka maka i ka Moani,

      I ka ike i na pua i hoomahie 'Iuna;

      Ua hi-hi-hina wale i ka moe awakea.

      Ka ino' ua poina ia Mali'o.

      Aia ka i Pua-lei o Ha'o.

      I Puna no ka waihona o ka makani;

      Kaela ka malama ana a ka Pu'u-lena,

      I kahi mea ho-aloha-loha, e!

      E aloha, e!

      [Translation]

      STANZA 4

      Love is at play in the grove,

      A jealous swain glares fierce

      At the flowers tying love-knots,

      Lying wilted at noon-tide.

      So you've forgotten Mali'o,

      Turned to the flower of Puna--

      Puna, the cave of shifty winds.

      Long have I cherished this blossom,

      A treasure hid in my heart!

      Oh, sweetheart!

      The following account is taken from the Polynesian Researches of the Rev. William Ellis, the well-known English missionary, who visited these islands in the years 1822 and 1823, and whose recorded observations have been of the highest value in preserving a knowledge of the institutions of ancient Hawaii:

      In the afternoon, a party of strolling musicians and dancers arrived at Kairua. About four o'clock they came, followed by crowds of people, and arranged themselves on a fine sandy beach in front of one of the governor's houses, where they exhibited a native dance, called hura araapapa.

      The five musicians first seated themselves in a line on the ground, and spread a piece of folded cloth on the sand before them. Their instrument was a large calabash, or rather two, one of an oval shape about three feet high, the other perfectly round, very neatly fastened to it, having also an aperture about three inches in diameter at the top. Each musician held his instrument before him with both hands, and produced his music by striking it on the ground, where he had laid a piece of cloth, and beating it with his fingers, or the palms of his hands. As soon as they began to sound their calabashes, the dancer, a young man about the middle stature, advanced through the opening crowd.

      His jet-black hair hung in loose and flowing ringlets on his naked shoulders; his necklace was made of a vast number of strings of nicely braided human hair, tied together behind, while a paraoa (an ornament made of a whale's tooth) hung pendent from it on his breast; his wrists were ornamented with bracelets formed of polished tusks of the hog, and his ankles with loose buskins, thickly set with dog's teeth, the rattle of which, during the dance, kept time with the music of the calabash drum. A beautiful yellow tapa was tastefully fastened round his loins, reaching to his knees. He began his dance in front of the musicians, and moved forward and backwards, across the area, occasionally chanting the achievements of former kings of Hawaii. The governor sat at the end of the ring, opposite to the musicians, and appeared gratified with the performance, which continued until the evening. (Vol. IV, 100–101, London, Fisher, Son & Jackson, 1831.)

      NOTE BY THE AUTHOR.--At the time of Mr. Ellis' visit to Hawaii the orthography of the Hawaiian language was still in a formative stage, and it is said that his counsels had influence in shaping it. His use of r instead of l in the words hula, alaapapa, and palaoa may, therefore, be ascribed to the fact of his previous acquaintance with the dialects of southern Polynesia, in which the sound of r to a large extent substitutes that of l, and to the probability that for that reason his ear was already attuned to the prevailing southern fashion, and his judgment prepossessed in that direction.

¹²⁶ Ilina. A sink, a place where a stream sinks into the earth or sand.

¹²⁷ Olelo. To speak, to converse; here used figuratively to mean that the place is lonely, has no view of the ocean, looks only to the sky. "Looks that commerce with the sky."

¹²⁸ Ku-kani-loko. A land in Waialua, Oahu, to which princesses resorted in the olden times at the time of childbirth, that their offspring might have the distinction of being an alii kapu, a chief with a tabu.

¹²⁹ Hale House; a familiar euphemism of the human body.

¹³⁰ Kea-au. An ahu- pua'a, small division of land, in Puna adjoining Hilo, represented as sheltering Hilo on that side.

¹³¹