The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai Part 3

[Footnote 7: Rivers, I, 374; Malo, p. 80.

Gracia (p. 41) says that the Marquesan genealogy consists in a long line of G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses married and representing a genealogy of chiefs. To the thirtieth generation they are brothers and sisters. After this point the relation is no longer observed.]

[Footnote 8: Keaulumoku's description of a Hawaiian chief (Islander, 1875) gives a good idea of the distinction felt between the cla.s.ses:

"A well-supplied dish is the wooden dish, The high-raftered sleeping-house with shelves; The long eating-house for women.

The rushes are spread down, upon them is spread the mat, They lie on their backs, with heads raised in dignity, The fly brushers wave to and fro at the door; the door is shut, the black _tapa_ is drawn up.

"Haste, hide a little in refreshing sleep, dismiss fatigue.

They sleep by day in the silence where noise is forbidden.

If they sleep two and two, double is their sleep; Enjoyable is the fare of the large-handed man.

In parrying the spear the chief is vigorous; the breaking of points is sweet.

Delightful is the season of fish, the season of food; when one is filled with fish, when one is filled with food.

Thou art satisfied with food, O thou common man, To be satisfied with land is for the chief."

Compare the account of the Fiji chief in Williams and Calvert, I, 33-42.]

[Footnote 9: Stair, p. 220; Gracia, p. 59; Alexander, History, chap. IV; Malo, p. 210. The name used for the priesthood of Hawaii, _kahuna_, is the same as that applied in the Marquesas, according to Gracia (p. 60), to the order of chanters.]

[Footnote 10: Gracia, p. 46; Mariner, II, 87, 101, 125; Gill, Myths and Songs, pp. 20, 21; Moerenhout, I, 474-482.]

[Footnote 11: Malo, p. 69.]

[Footnote 12: Ellis (III, 36) describes the art of medicine in Polynesia, and Erdland (p. 77) says that on the Marshall Islands knowledge of the stars and weather signs is handed down to a favorite child and can raise rank by attaching a man to the service of a chief.

Compare Mariner, II, 90; Moerenhout, I, 409; Williams and Calvert, I, 111.]

III. THE ART OF COMPOSITION

1. ARISTOCRATIC NATURE OF POLYNESIAN ART

The arts of song and oratory, though practiced by all cla.s.ses,[1] were considered worthy to be perfected among the chiefs themselves and those who sought their patronage. Of a chief the Polynesian says, "He speaks well."[2] Hawaiian stories tell of heroes famous in the _hoopapa_, or art of debating; in the _hula_, or art of dance and song; of chiefs who learned the lore of the heavens and the earth from some supernatural master in order to employ their skill compet.i.tively. The _oihana haku-mele_, or "business of song making," was hence an aristocratic art.

The able composer, man or woman, even if of low rank, was sure of patronage as the _haku mele_, "sorter of songs," for some chief; and his name was attached to the song he composed. A single poet working alone might produce the panegyric; but for the longer and more important songs of occasion a group got together, the theme was proposed and either submitted to a single composer or required line by line from each member of the group. In this way each line as it was composed was offered for criticism lest any ominous allusion creep in to mar the whole by bringing disaster upon the person celebrated, and as it was perfected it was committed to memory by the entire group, thus insuring it against loss. Protective criticism, therefore, and exact transmission were secured by group composition.[3]

Exactness of reproduction was in fact regarded as a proof of divine inspiration. When the chief's sons were trained to recite the genealogical chants, those who were incapable were believed to lack a share in the divine inheritance; they were literally "less gifted" than their brothers.[4]

This distinction accorded to the arts of song and eloquence is due to their actual social value. The _mele_, or formal poetic chants which record the deeds of heroic ancestors, are of aristocratic origin and belong to the social a.s.sets of the family to which they pertain. The claim of an heir to rank depends upon his power to reproduce, letter perfect, his family chants and his "name song," composed to celebrate his birth, and hence exact transmission is a matter of extreme importance. Facility in debate is not only a compet.i.tive art, with high stakes attached, but is employed in time of war to shame an enemy,[5]

quickness of retort being believed, like quickness of hand, to be a G.o.d-given power. Chants in memory of the dead are demanded of each relative at the burial ceremony.[6] Song may be used to disgrace an enemy, to avenge an insult, to predict defeat at arms. It may also be turned to more pleasing purposes--to win back an estranged patron or lover;[7] in the art of love, indeed, song is invaluable to a chief.

Ability in learning and language is, therefore, a highly prized chiefly art, respected for its social value and employed to aggrandize rank. How this aristocratic patronage has affected the language of composition will be presently clear.

_Footnotes to Section III, 1: Aristocratic Nature of Polynesian Art_

[Footnote 1: Jarves says: "Songs and chants were common among all cla.s.ses, and recited by strolling musicians as panegyrics on occasions of joy, grief, or worship. Through them the knowledge of events in the lives of prominent persons or the annals of the nation were perpetuated.

The chief art lay in the formation of short metrical sentences without much regard to the rhythmical terminations. Monosyllables, dissyllables, and trisyllables had each their distinct time. The natives repeat their lessons, orders received, or sc.r.a.ps of ancient song, or extemporize in this monotonous singsong tone for hours together, and in perfect accord."

Compare Ellis's Tour, p. 155.]

[Footnote 2: Moerenhout, I, 411.]

[Footnote 3: Andrews, Islander, 1875, p. 35; Emerson, Unwritten Literature, pp. 27, 38.]

[Footnote 4: In Fornander's story of _Lonoikamakahiki_, the chief memorizes in a single night a new chant just imported from Kauai so accurately as to establish his property right to the song.]

[Footnote 5: Compare with Ellis, I, 286, and Williams and Calvert, I, 46, 50, the notes on the boxing contest in the text of _Laieikawai_.]

[Footnote 6: Gill, Myths and Songs, pp. 268 et seq.]

[Footnote 7: See Fornander's stories of _Lonoikamakahiki, Halemano_, and _Kuapakaa_.]

2. NOMENCLATURE: ITS EMOTIONAL VALUE

The Hawaiian (or Polynesian) composer who would become a successful compet.i.tor in the fields of poetry, oratory, or disputation must store up in his memory the rather long series of names for persons, places, objects, or phases of nature which const.i.tute the learning of the aspirant for mastery in the art of expression. He is taught, says one tale, "about everything in the earth and in the heavens"--- that is, their names, their distinguishing characterstics. The cla.s.ses of objects thus differentiated naturally are determined by the emotional interest attached to them, and this depends upon their social or economic value to the group.

The social value of pedigree and property have encouraged genealogical and geographical enumeration. A long recitation of the genealogies of chiefs provides immense emotional satisfaction and seems in no way to overtax the reciter's memory. Missionaries tell us that "the Hawaiians will commit to memory the genealogical tables given in the Bible, and delight to repeat them as some of the choicest pa.s.sages in Scripture."

Examples of such genealogies are common; it is, in fact, the part of the reciter to preserve the pedigree of his chief in a formal genealogical chant.

Such a series is ill.u.s.trated in the genealogy embedded in the famous song to aggrandize the family of the famous chief Kualii, which carries back the chiefly line of Hawaii through 26 generations to Wakea and Papa, ancestors of the race.

"Hulihonua the man, Keakahulilani the woman, Laka the man, Kepapaialeka the woman,"

runs the song, the slight variations evidently fitting the sound to the movement of the recitative.

In the eleventh section of the "Song of Creation" the poet says:

She that lived up in the heavens and Piolani, She that was full of enjoyments and lived in the heavens, Lived up there with Kii and became his wife, Brought increase to the world;

and he proceeds to the enumeration of her "increase":

Kamahaina was born a man, Kamamule his brother, Kamaainau was born next, Kamakulua was born, the youngest a woman.

Following this family group come a long series, more than 650 pairs of so-called husbands and wives. After the first 400 or so, the enumeration proceeds by variations upon a single name. We have first some 50 _Kupo_ (dark nights)--"of wandering," "of wrestling," "of littleness," etc.; 60 or more _Polo_; 50 _Liili_; at least 60 _Alii_ (chiefs); followed by _Mua_ and _Loi_ in about the same proportion.

At the end of this series we read that--

Storm was born, Tide was born, Crash was born, and also bursts of bubbles.

Confusion was born, also rushing, rumbling shaking earth.

So closes the "second night of Wakea," which, it is interesting to note, ends like a charade in the death of Kupololiilialiimualoipo, whose nomenclature has been so vastly acc.u.mulating through the 200 or 300 last lines. Notice how the first word _Kupo_ of the series opens and swallows all the other five.