Unwritten Literature of Hawaii Part 10

In the costuming of the hula girl the same variety obtained as in the dress of a woman of rank. Sometimes her pa-u would be only a close-set fringe of ribbons stripped from the bark of the hibiscus (_hau_), the _ti_ leaf or banana fiber, or a fine rush, strung upon a thong to encircle the waist. In its most elaborate and formal style the pa-u consisted of a strip of fine tapa several yards long and of width to reach nearly to the knees. It was often delicately tinted or printed, as to its outer part, with stamped figures. The part of the tapa skirt thus printed, like the outer, decorative one in a set of tapa bed-sheets, was termed the _kilohana_.

The pa-u worn by the danseuse, when of tapa, was often of such volume as to balloon like the skirt of a coryphee. To put it on was quite an art, and on that account, if not on the score of modesty, a portion of the halau, was screened off and devoted to the use of the females as a dressing room, being known as the _unu-lau-koa_, and to this place they repaired as soon as the k.u.mu gave the signal for dressing.

The hula pa-u of the women was worn in addition to that of daily life; the hula pa-u of the men, a less pretentious affair, was worn outside the malo, and in addition to it.

The method of girding on the pa-u was peculiar. Beginning at the right hip--some say the left--a free end was allowed to hang quite to the knee; then, pa.s.sing across the back, rounding the left hip, and returning by way of the abdomen to the starting point, another circuit of the waist was accomplished; and, a reverse being made, the garment was secured by pa.s.sing the bight of the tapa beneath the hanging folds of the pa-u from below upward until it slightly protruded above the border of the garment at the waist. This second end was thus brought to hang down the hip alongside of the first free end; an arrangement that produced a most decorative effect.

The Hawaiians, in their fondness for giving personal names to inanimate objects, named the two free ends (_apua_) of the pa-u respectively _Ku-kapu-ula-ka-lani_ and _Lele-a-mahu'i_.

According to another method, which was simpler and more commonly employed, the piece was folded sidewise and, being gathered into pleats, a cord was inserted the length of the fold. The cord was pa.s.sed about the waist, knotted at the hip, and thus held the garment secure.

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While the girls are making their simple toilet and donning their unique, but scanty, costume, the k.u.mu, aided by others, soothes the impatience of the audience and stimulates their imagination by cantillating a mele that sets forth in grandiloquent imagery the praise of the pa-u.

_Oli Pa-u_

Kakua pa-u, ahu na kikepa![92]

I ka pa-u noenoe i hooluu'a, I hookakua ia a paa iluna o ka imu.[93]

Ku ka nu'a[94] o ka pali o ka wai kapu, 5 He kuina[95] pa-u pali[96] no Kupe-hau, I holo a paa ia, paa e Hono-kane.[97]

Malama o lilo i ka pa-u.

Holo ilio la ke ala ka Manu[98] i na pali; Pali ku kahako liaka a-i, 10 I ke keiki pa-u pali a Kau-kini,[99]

I hoonu'anu'a iluna o ka Auwana.[100]

[Page 52] Akahi ke ana, ka luhi i ka pa-u: Ka ho-oio i ke kapa-wai, I na kikepa wai o Apua,[101]

15 I hopu 'a i ka ua noe holo poo-poo, Me he pa-u elehiwa wale i na pali.

Ohiohi ka pali, ki ka liko o ka lama, Mama ula[102] ia ka malua ula, I hopu a omau ia e ka maino.

20 I[103] ka malo o Umi ku huna mai.

Ike'a ai na maawe wai olona,[104]

E makili ia nei i Wahilau.[105]

Holo ke olona, paa ke kapa.

Hu'a lepo ole ka pa-u; 25 Nani ka o-iwi ma ka maka kilo-hana.[106]

Makalii ka ohe,[107] paa ke kapa.

Opua ke ahi i na pali, I hookau kalena ia e ka makani, I kaomi pohaku ia i Wai-manu, 30 I na ala[108] ki-ola-ola; I na ala, i ala lele Ia Kane-poha-ka'a.[109]

Paa ia Wai-manu,[110] o-oki Wai-pi'o; Lalau o Ha'i i ka ohe, Ia Koa'e-kea,[111] 35 I kauhihi ia ia ohe laulii, ia ohe.

Oki'a a moku, mo' ke kini,[112]

[Page 53] Mo ke kihl, ka maiama ka Hoaka,[113]

I apahu ia a poe, 40 O awili[114] o Malu-o.

He pola ia no ka pa-u; E hii ana e Ka-holo-kua-iwa, Ke amo la e Pa-wili-wlli I ka pa-u poo kau-poku--[115]

45 Kau poku a hana ke ao, Kau iluna o Hala'a-wili, I owili hana haawe.

Ku-ka'a, olo-ka'a wahie; Ka'a ka opeope, ula ka pali;[116]

50 Uwa, kamalii, hookani ka pihe, Hookani ka a'o,[117] a hana pilo ka leo, I ka mahalo i ka pa-u, I ka pa-u wai-lehua a Hi'i-lawe[118] iluna, Pi'o anuenue a ka ua e ua nei.

[Footnote 92: _Kikepa_. The bias, the one-sided slant given the pa-u by tucking it in at one side, as previously described.]

[Footnote 93: _Imu_. An oven; an allusion to the heat and pa.s.sion of the part covered by the pa-u.]

[Footnote 94: _Hu'a_. Foam; figurative of the fringe at the border of the pa-u.]

[Footnote 95: _Kuina_. A term applied to the five sheets that were st.i.tched together (_kui_) to make a set of bed-clothes.

Five turns also, it is said, complete a pa-u.]

[Footnote 96: _Pali no Kupe-Hau_. Throughout the poem the pa-u is compared to a _pali_, a mountain wall. Kupe-hau is a precipitous part of Wai-pi'o valley.]

[Footnote 97: _Hono-kane_. A valley near Wai-pi'o. Here it is personified and said to do the work on the pa-u.]

[Footnote 98: _Manu_. A proper name given to this pa-u.]

[Footnote 99: _Kau-kini_. The name of a hill back of Lahaina-luna, the traditional residence of a _kahuna_ named _Lua-hoo-moe_, whose two sons were celebrated for their manly beauty. Ole-pau, the king of the island Maui, ordered his retainer, Lua-hoo-moe, to fetch for his eating some young _u-a'u_, a sea-bird that nests and rears its young in the mountains. These young birds are esteemed a delicacy. The kahuna, who was a bird-hunter, truthfully told the king that it was not the season for the young birds; the parent birds were haunting the ocean. At this some of the king's boon companions, moved by ill-will, charged the king's mountain retainer with suppressing the truth, and in proof they brought some tough old birds caught at sea and had them served for the king's table. Thereupon the king, not discovering the fraud, ordered that Lua-hoo-moe should be put to death by fire. The following verses were communicated to the author as apropos of Kau-kini, evidently the name of a man:

Ike ia Kau-kini, he lawaia manu.

He upena ku'u i ka noe i Poha-kahi, Ua hoopulu ia i ka ohu ka kikepa; Ke na'i la i ka luna a Kea-auwana; Ka uahi i ke ka-peku e hei ai ka manu o Pu-o-alii.

O ke alii wale no ka'u i makemake Ali'a la, ha'o, e!

[Translation]

Behold Kau-kini, a fisher of birds; Net spread in the mist of Poha-kahi, That is soaked by the sidling fog.

It strives on the crest of Koa-auwana.

Smoke traps the birds of Pu-o-alii.

It's only the king that I wish: But stay now--I doubt.

[Footnote 100: _Auwana_. Said to be an eminence on the flank of Haleakala, back of Ulupalakua.]

[Footnote 101: _Apua_. A place on Hawaii, on Maui, on Oahu, on Kauai, and on Molokai.]

[Footnote 102: _Mama ula ia ka malua ula_. The malua-ula was a variety of tapa that was stained with _hili kukui_ (the root-bark of the kukui tree). The ripe kukui nut was chewed into a paste and mingled with this stain. _Mama ula_ refers to this chewing. The _malua ula_ is mentioned as a foil to the pa-u, being a cheap tapa.]

[Footnote 103: _I_. A contracted form of _ti_ or _ki_, the plant or, as in this case, the leaf of the _ti_, the Dracaena (pl. V). Liloa, the father Of Umi, used it to cover himself after his amour with the mother of Umi, having given his malo in pledge to the woman. Umi may have used this same leaf as a subst.i.tute for the malo while in the wilderness of Laupahoehoe, hiding away from his brother, King Hakau.]

[Footnote 104: _Olona_. A strong vegetable fiber sometimes added to tapa to give it strength. The fibers of olona in the fabric of the pa-u are compared to the runnels and brooklets of _Waihilau_.]

[Footnote 105: _Wai-hilau_. Name applied to the water that drips in a cave in Puna. It is also the name of a stream in Wai-pi'o valley, Hawaii.]

[Footnote 106: _Kilo-hana_. The name given the outside, ornamented, sheet of a set (_kuina_) of five tapas used as bed-clothing. It was also applied to that part of a pa-u which was decorated with figures. The word comes from _kilohi_, to examine critically, and _hana_, to work, and therefore means an ornamental work.]

[Footnote 107: _Ohe_. Bamboo. In this case the stamp, made from bamboo, used to print the tapa.]

[Footnote 108: _Ala_. The hard, dark basalt of which the Hawaiian _ko'i_, adz, is made; any pebble, or small water-worn stone, such as would be used to hold in place the pa-u while spread out to dry.]

[Footnote 109: _Kane-poha-ka'a_. Kane-the-hail-sender. The great G.o.d Kane was also conceived of as Kane-hekili, the thunderer; Kane-lulu-honua, the earthquake-sender, etc.]

[Footnote 110: _Wai-manu_ and _Wai-pi'o_ are neighboring valleys.]

[Footnote 111: _Ko-a'e-kea_. A land in Wai-pi'o valley.]