Unwritten Literature of Hawaii Part 41

XXIII.--THE HULA PA-HUA

The hula _pa-hua_ was a dance of the cla.s.sical times that has long been obsolete. Its last exhibition, so far as ascertained, was in the year 1846, on the island of Oahu. In this performance both the olapa and the hoopaa cantillated the mele, while the latter squatted on the floor. Each one was armed with a sharp stick of wood fas.h.i.+oned like a javelin, or a Hawaiian spade, the _o-o_; and with this he made motions, thrusting to right and to left; whether in imitation of the motions of a soldier or of a farmer could not be learned. The gestures of these actors were in perfect time with the rhythm of the mele.

The dance-movements performed by the olapa, as the author has heard them described, were peculiar, not an actual rotation, but a sort of half-turn to one side and then to the other, an advance followed by a retreat. While doing this the olapa, who were in two divisions, marked the time of the movement by clinking together two pebbles which they held in each hand.

The use of the pebbles after the manner of castanets, the division of the dancers into two sets, their advance and retreat toward and away from each other are all suggestive of the Spanish bolero or fandango. The resemblance went deeper than the surface. The prime motive of the song, the mele, also is the same, love in its different phases even to its most frenzied manifestations.

_Mele_

Pa au i ka ihee a Kane;[326]

Nana ka maka ia Koolau;[327]

Kau ka opua[327] ma ka moana.

Lu'u a e-a, lu'u a e-a,[329]

5 Hiki i Wai-ko-loa.

Aole loa ke kula I ka pai-lani a Kane.[330]

Ke kane[331] ia no hoi ia Ka tula pe-pe'e 10 A ka hale ku'i.

Ku'i oe a lono Kahiki-nui; Hoolei ia iluna o Kaua-loa, Ka lihilihi pua o ka makemake.

Mao ole ke Koolau i ka lihilihi.

13 He lihi kuleana ia no Puna.

O ko'u puni no ia o ka ike maka.

Aohe makamaka o ka hale, ua hele oe; Nawai la au e hookipa I keia mahaoi ana mai nei o ka loa?

20 He makemake no au e ike maka; I hookahi no po, le'a ke kaunu, Ka hana mao ole a ke anu.

He anu mawaho, a he hu'i ma-loko.

A ilaila laua la, la'i pono iho.

25 Ua pono oe o kaua, ua alu ka moena; Ka hana mau a ka Inu-wai; Mao ole i ka nui kino.

Ku'u kino keia mauna ia ha'i.

E Ku, e hoolei la!

30 A ua noa!

[Footnote 327: _The a Kane_. The spear of Kane. What else can this he than that old enemy to man's peace and comfort, love, pa.s.sion?]

[Footnote 328: _Koolau_. The name applied to the weather side of an island; the direction in which one would naturally turn first to judge of the weather.]

[Footnote 329: _Opua_. A bunch of clouds; a cloud-omen; a heavenly phenomenon; a portent. In this case it probably means a lover. The present translation, is founded on this view.]

[Footnote 330: _Lu'u a e-a_. To dive and then come up to take breath, as one does in swimming out to sea against the incoming breakers, or as one might do in escaping from a pursuer, or in avoiding detection, after the manner of a loon.]

[Footnote 331: _A Kane_ and _Ke kane_. Instances of word-repet.i.tion, previously mentioned as a fas.h.i.+on much used in Hawaiian poetry. See instances also of the same figure in lines 13 and 14 and in lines 16 and 17.]

[Page 184]

[Translation]

_Song_

I am smitten with spear of Kane; Mine eyes with longing scan Koolau; Behold the love-omen hang o'er the sea.

I dive and come up, dive and come up; 5 Thus I reach my goal Wai-ko-loa.

The width of plain is a trifle To the joyful spirit of Kane.

Aye, a husband, and patron is he To the dance of the bended knee, 10 In the hall of the stamping feet.

Stamp, till the echo reaches Kahiki; Still pluck you a wreath by the way To crown your fondest ambition; A wreath not marred by the salt wind 15 That plays with the skirts of Puna.

I long to look eye into eye.

Friendless the house, you away; Pray who will receive, who welcome, This guest uninvited from far?

20 I long for one (soul-deep) gaze, One night of precious communion; Such a flower wilts not in the cold-- Cold without, a tumult within.

What bliss, if we two were together!

25 You are the blest of us twain; The mat bends under your form.

The thirsty wind, it still rages, [Page 185] Appeased not with her whole body.

My body is pledged to another.

30 Crown it, Ku, crown it.

Now the service is free!

Some parts of this mele, which is a love-song, have defied the author's most strenuous efforts to penetrate their deeper meaning. No Hawaiian consulted has made a pretense of understanding it wholly. The Philistines of the middle of the nineteenth century, into whose hands it fell, have not helped matters by the emendations and interpolations with which they slyly interlarded the text, as if to set before us in a strong light the stigmata of degeneracy from which they were suffering.

The author has discarded from the text two verses which followed verse 28:

Hai'na ia mai ka puana: Ka wai anapa i ke kala.

[Translation]

Declare to me now the riddle: The waters that flash on the plain.

The author has refrained from casting out the last two verses, though in his judgment they are entirely out of place and were not in the mele originally.

[Page 186]

XXIV--THE HULA PELE

The Hawaiian drama could lay hold of no worthier theme than that offered by the story of Pele. In this epic we find the natural and the supernatural, the everyday events of nature and the sublime phenomena of nature's wonderland, so interwoven as to make a story rich in strong human and deific coloring. It is true that the genius of the Hawaiian was not equal to the task of a.s.sembling the dissevered parts and of combining into artistic unity the materials his own imagination had spun. This very fact, however, brings us so much nearer to the inner workshop of the Hawaiian mind.

The story of Pele is so long and complicated that only a brief abstract of it can be offered now:

Pele, the G.o.ddess of the volcano, in her dreams and wanderings in spirit-form, met and loved the handsome Prince Lohiau. She would not be satisfied with mere spiritual intercourse; she demanded the sacrament of bodily presence.

Who should be the amba.s.sador to bring the youth from his distant home on Kauai? She begged her grown-up sisters to attempt the task. They foresaw the peril and declined the thankless undertaking. Hiiaka, the youngest and most affectionate, accepted the mission; but, knowing her sister's evil temper, strove to obtain from Pele a guaranty that her own forests and the life of her bosom friend Hopoe should be safeguarded during her absence.

Hiiaka was accompanied by Wahine-oma'o--the woman in green--a woman as beautiful as herself. After many adventures they arrived at Haena and found Lohiau dead and in his sepulchre, a sacrifice to the jealousy of Pele. They entered the cave, and after ten days of prayer and incantation Hiiaka had the satisfaction of seeing the body of Lohiau warmed and animated by the reentrance of the spirit; and the company, now of three, soon started on the return to Kilauea.

The time consumed by Hiiaka in her going and doing and returning had been so long that Pele was moved to unreasonable jealousy and, regardless of her promise to her faithful sister, she devastated with fire the forest parks of Hiiaka and sacrificed the life of Hiiaka's bosom friend, the innocent and beautiful Hopoe.

Hiiaka and Lohiau, on their arrival at Kilauea, seated themselves on its ferny brink, and there, in the open view of Pele's court, Hiiaka, in resentment at the broken faith of her sister and in defiance of her power, invited and received [Page 187] from Lohiau the kisses and dalliance which up to that time she had repelled. Pele, in a frenzy of pa.s.sion, overwhelmed her errant lover, Lohiau, with fire, turned his body into a pillar of rock, and convulsed earth and sea. Only through the intervention of the benevolent peacemaking G.o.d Kane was the order of the world saved from utter ruin.

The ancient Hawaiians naturally regarded the Pele hula with special reverence by reason of its mythological importance, and they selected it for performance on occasions of gravity as a means of honoring the kings and alii of the land. They would have considered its presentation on common occasions, or in a spirit of levity, as a great impropriety.

In ancient times the performance of the hula Pele, like that of all other plays, was prefaced with prayer and sacrifice.

The offering customarily used in the service of this hula consisted of salt crystals and of luau made from the delicate unrolled taro leaf. This was the gift demanded of every pupil seeking admission to the school of the hula, being looked upon as an offering specially acceptable to Pele, the patron of this hula. In the performance of the sacrifice teacher and pupil approached and stood reverently before the kuahu while the former recited a mele, which was a prayer to the G.o.ddess.