The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai Part 4

Such recitative and, as it were, symbolic use of genealogical chants occurs over and over again. That the series is often of emotional rather than of historical value is suggested by the wordplays and by the fact that the hero tales do not show what is so characteristic of Icelandic saga--a care to record the ancestry of each character as it is introduced into the story. To be sure, they commonly begin with the names of the father and mother of the hero, and their setting; but in the older mythological tales these are almost invariably _Ku_ and _Hina_, a convention almost equivalent to the phrase "In the olden time"; but, besides fixing the divine ancestry of the hero, carrying also with it an idea of kinship with those to whom the tale is related, which is not without its emotional value.

Geographical names, although not enumerated to such an extent in any of the tales and songs now accessible, also have an important place in Hawaiian composition. In the _Laieikawai_ 76 places are mentioned by name, most of them for the mere purpose of identifying a route of travel. A popular form of folk tale is the following, told in Waianae, Oahu: "Over in Kahuku lived a high chief, Kaho'alii. He instructed his son 'Fly about Oahu while I chew the _awa_; before I have emptied it into the cup return to me and rehea.r.s.e to me all that you have seen.'"

The rest of the tale relates the youth's enumeration of the places he has seen on the way.

If we turn to the chants the suggestive use of place names becomes still more apparent. Dr. Hyde tells us (_Hawaiian Annual_, 1890, p. 79): "In the Hawaiian chant (_mele_) and dirge (_kanikau_) the aim seems to be chiefly to enumerate every place a.s.sociated with the subject, and to give that place some special epithet, either attached to it by commonplace repet.i.tion or especially devised for the occasion as being particularly characteristic." An example of this form of reference is to be found in the _Kualii_ chant. We read:

Where is the battle-field Where the warrior is to fight?

On the field of Kalena, At Manini, at Hanini, Where was poured the water of the G.o.d, By your work at Malamanui, At the heights of Kapapa, at Paupauwela, Where they lean and rest.

In the play upon the words _Manini_ and _Hanini_ we recognize some rhetorical tinkering, but in general the purpose here is to enumerate the actual places famous in Kualii's history.

At other times a place-name is used with allusive interest, the suggested incident being meant, like certain stories alluded to in the Anglo-Saxon "Beowulf," to set off, by comparison or contrast, the present situation. It is important for the poet to know, for example, that the phrase "flowers of Paiahaa" refers to the place on Kau, Hawaii, where love-tokens cast into the sea at a point some 20 or 30 miles distant on the Puna coast, invariably find their way to sh.o.r.e in the current and bring their message to watchful lovers.

A third use of localization conforms exactly to our own sense of description. The Island of Kauai is sometimes visible lying off to the northwest of Oahu. At this side of the island rises the Waianae range topped by the peak Kaala. In old times the port of entry for travelers to Oahu from Kauai was the seacoast village of Waianae. Between it and the village of Waialua runs a great spur of the range, which breaks off abruptly at the sea, into the point Kaena. Kahuku point lies beyond Waialua at the northern extremity of the island. Mokuleia, with its old inland fishpond, is the first village to the west of Waialua. This is the setting for the following lines, again taken from the chant of _Kualii_, the translation varying only slightly from that edited by Thrum:

O Kauai, Great Kauai, inherited from ancestors, Sitting in the calm of Waianae, A cape is Kaena, Beyond, Kahuku, A misty mountain back, where the winds meet, Kaala, There below sits Waialua, Waialua there, Kahala is a dish for Mokuleia, A fishpond for the shark roasted in ti-leaf, The tail of the shark is Kaena, The shark that goes along below Kauai, Below Kauai, thy land, Kauai O!

The number of such place names to be stored in the reciter's memory is considerable. Not only are they applied in lavish profusion to beach, rock, headland, brook, spring, cave, waterfall, even to an isolated tree of historic interest, and distributed to less clearly marked small land areas to name individual holdings, but, because of the importance of the weather in the fishing and seagoing life of the islander, they are affixed to the winds, the rains, and the surf or "sea" of each locality.

All these descriptive appellations the composer must employ to enrich his means 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_ ill.u.s.trate this conventional usage. In _Kualii_, the poet wishes to express the idea that all the sea belongs to the G.o.d 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-G.o.ddess) 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 a.s.sertion 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 cla.s.sic 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 G.o.ds.

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, sh.e.l.lfish, then seaweed and gra.s.ses, 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 fict.i.tious. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 G.o.ds in heaven. In the pa.s.sage 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 G.o.ds. 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 G.o.d is irritated by mistakes.[2] To misp.r.o.nounce 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 G.o.ds he concludes with an invocation to the "forty thousand, to the four hundred thousand, to the four thousand"[3]

G.o.ds, in order that none escape the incantation. Direction is similarly invoked all around the compa.s.s. 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, Ku who stood, in the path of the rain of the heaven, The first warrior, the second warrior, The third warrior, the fourth warrior, The fifth warrior, the sixth warrior, The seventh warrior, the eighth warrior, The ninth warrior, the tenth warrior Is the Chief who makes the King rub his eyes, The young warrior of all Maui.

And there follows an enumeration of the other nine warriors. A similar use is made of counting-out lines in the famous chant of the "Mirage of Mana" in the story of _Lono_, evidently with the idea of completing an inclusive series.

Counting-out formulae reappear in story-telling in such repet.i.tive series of incidents as those following the action of the five sisters of the unsuccessful wooer in the _Laieikawai_ story. Here the interest develops, as in the lines from _Kualii_, an added emotional element, that of climax. The last place is given to the important character.

Although everyone is aware that the younger sister is the most competent member of the group, the audience must not be deprived of the pleasure of seeing each one try and fail in turn before the youngest makes the attempt. The story-teller, moreover, varies the incident; he does not exactly follow his formula, which, however, it is interesting to note, is more fixed in the evidently old dialogue part of the story than in the explanatory action.

Story-telling also exhibits how the vital connection felt to exist between a person or object and the name by which it is distinguished, which gives an emotional value to the mere act of naming, is extended further to include scenes with which it is a.s.sociated. The Hawaiian has a strong place sense, visible in his devotion to scenes familiar to his experience, and this is reflected in his language. In the _Laieikawai_ it appears in the plaints of the five sisters as they recall their native land. In the songs in the _Halemano_ which the lover sings to win his lady and the chant in _Lonoikamakahiki_ with which the disgraced favorite seeks to win back his lord, those places are recalled to mind in which the friends have met hardship together, in order, if possible, to evoke the same emotions of love and loyalty which were theirs under the circ.u.mstances described. Hawaiians of all cla.s.ses, in mourning their dead, will recall vividly in a wailing chant the scenes with which their lost friend has been a.s.sociated. I remember on a tramp in the hills above Honolulu coming upon the gra.s.s hut of a Hawaiian lately released from serving a term for manslaughter. The place commanded a fine view--the sweep of the blue sea, the sharp rugged lines of the coast, the emerald rice patches, the wide-mouthed valleys cutting the roots of the wooded hills. "It is lonely here?" we asked the man. "_Aole! maikai keia!_" ("No, the view is excellent") he answered.

The ascription of perfection of form to divine influence may explain the Polynesian's strong sense for beauty.[5] The Polynesian sees in nature the sign of the G.o.ds. In its lesser as in its more marvelous manifestations--thunder, lightning, tempest, the "red rain," the rainbow, enveloping mist, cloud shapes, sweet odors of plants, so rare in Hawaii, at least, or the notes of birds--he reads an augury of divine indwelling. The romances glow with delight in the startling effect of personal beauty upon the beholder--a beauty seldom described in detail save occasionally by similes from nature. In the _Laieikawai_ the sight of the heroine's beauty creates such an ecstasy in the heart of a mere countryman that he leaves his business to run all about the island heralding his discovery. Dreaming of the beauty of Laieikawai, the young chief feels his heart glow with pa.s.sion for this "red blossom of Puna"

as the fiery volcano scorches the wind that fans across its bosom. A divine hero must select a bride of faultless beauty; the heroine chooses her lover for his physical perfections. Now we can hardly fail to see that in all these cases the delight is intensified by the belief that beauty is G.o.dlike and betrays divine rank in its possessor. Rank is tested by perfection of face and form. The recognition of beauty thus becomes regulated by express rules of symmetry and surface. Color, too, is admired according to its social value. Note the delight in red, constantly a.s.sociated with the accouterments of chiefs.

_Footnotes to Section III, 2: Nomenclature_

[Footnote 1: In the Hawaiian Annual, 1890, Alexander translates some notes printed by Kamakau in 1865 upon Hawaiian astronomy as related to the art of navigation. The bottom of a gourd represented the heavens, upon which were marked three lines to show the northern and southern limits of the sun's path, and the equator--called the "black shining road of Kane" and "of Ka.n.a.loa," respectively, and the "road of the spider" or "road to the navel of Wakea" (ancestor of the race). A line was drawn from the north star to Newe in the south; to the right was the "bright road of Kane," to the left the "much traveled road of Ka.n.a.loa." Within these lines were marked the positions of all the known stars, of which Kamakau names 14, besides 5 planets. For notes upon Polynesian astronomy consult Journal of the Polynesian Society, iv, 236. Hawaiian priestly hierarchies recognize special orders whose function it is to read the signs in the clouds, in dreams, or the flight of birds, or to practice some form of divination with the entrails of animals. In Hawaii, according to Fornander, the soothsayers const.i.tute three of the ten large orders of priests, called Oneoneihonua, Kilokilo, and Nanauli, and these are subdivided into lesser orders. _Ike_, knowledge, means literally "to see with, the eyes," but it is used also to express mental vision, or knowledge with reference to the objective means by which such knowledge is obtained. So the "gourd of wisdom"--_ka ipu o ka ike_--which Laieikawai consults, brings distant objects before the eyes so that the woman "knows by seeing" what is going on below. Signs in the clouds are especially observed, both as weather indicators and to forecast the doings of chiefs. According to Westervelt's story of _Keaomelemele_, the lore is taught to mythical ancestors of the Hawaiian race by the G.o.ds themselves. The best a.n.a.lysis of South Sea Island weather signs is to be found in Erdland's "Marshall Insulaner," page 69. Early in the morning or in the evening is the time for making observations. Rainbows, _punohu_--doubtfully explained to me as mists touched by the end of a rainbow--and the long clouds which lie along the horizon, forecast the doings of chiefs. A pretty instance of the rainbow sign occurred in the recent history of Hawaii. When word reached Honolulu of the death of King Kalakaua, the throng pressed to the palace to greet their new monarch, and as Her Majesty Liliuokalani appeared upon the balcony to receive them, a rainbow arched across the palace and was instantly recognized as a symbol of her royal rank. In the present story the use of the rainbow symbol shows clumsy workmanship, since near its close the Sun G.o.d is represented as sending to his bride as her peculiar distinguishing mark the same sign, a rainbow, which has been hers from birth.]

[Footnote 2: Moerenhout (I, 501-507) says that the Areois society in Tahiti, one of whose chief objects was "to preserve the chants and songs of antiquity," sent out an officer called the "Night-walker," _Hare-po_, whose duty it was to recite the chants all night long at the sacred places. If he hesitated a moment it was a bad omen. "Perfect memory for these chants was a gift of G.o.d and proved that a G.o.d spoke through and inspired the reciter." If a single slip was made, the whole was considered useless.

Erdland relates that a Marshall Islander who died in 1906 remembered correctly the names of officers and scholars who came to the islands in the Chamisso party when he was a boy of 8 or 10.

Fornander notes that, in collecting Hawaiian chants, of the _Kualii_ dating from about the seventeenth century and containing 618 lines, one copy collected on Hawaii, another on Oahu, did not vary in a single line; of the _Hauikalani_, written just before Kamehameha's time and containing 527 lines, a copy from Hawaii and one from Maui differed only in the omission of a single word.

Tripping and stammering games were, besides, practiced to insure exact articulation. (See Turner, Samoa, p. 131; Thomson, pp. 16, 315.)]

[Footnote 3: Emerson, Unwritten Literature, p. 24 (note).]

[Footnote 4: This is well ill.u.s.trated in Fornander's story of Kaipalaoa's disputation with the orators who gathered about Kalanialiiloa on Kauai. Say the men:

"Kuu moku la e kuu moku, Moku kele i ka waa o Kaula, Moku kele i ka waa, Nihoa, Moku kele i ka waa, Niihau.

Lehua, Kauai, Molokai, Oahu, Maui, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Moloklni, Kauiki, Mokuhano, Makaukiu, Makapu, Mokolii."

My island there, my island; Island to which my canoe sails, Kaula, Island to which my canoe sails, Nihoa, Island to which my canoe sails, Niihau.

Lehua, Kauai, Molokai, Oahu, Maui, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Molokini, Kauiki, Mokuhano, Makaukiu, Makapu, Mokolii.

"You are beaten, young man; there are no islands left. We have taken up the islands to be found, none left."

Says the boy: