Unwritten Literature of Hawaii Part 51

15 Attentive then to love's tread, While a wee bird sings in the soul, My love comes to me heart-whole-- Then quaff the waters of bliss.

Say what is the key to all this?

20 The plover egg's laid in Kahiki.

Your love, when it comes, finds me dumb.

The plover--kolea--is a wayfarer in Hawaii; its nest-home is in distant lands, Kahiki. The Hawaiian poet finds in all this something that reminds him of the spirit of love.

[Page 221]

x.x.xI.--THE HULA MANo

The hula _mano_, shark-dance, as its name signifies, was a performance that takes cla.s.s with the hula kolea, already mentioned, as one of the animal dances. But little can be said about the physical features of this hula as a dance, save that the performers took a sitting position, that the action was without sensationalism, and that there was no instrumental accompaniment. The cantillation of the mele was in the distinct and quiet tone and manner which the Hawaiians termed ko'i-honua.

The last and only mention found of its performance in modern times was in the year 1847, during the tour, previously mentioned, which Kamehameha III made about Oahu. The place was the lonely and romantic valley of Waimea, a name already historic from having been the scene of the tragic death of Lieutenant Hergest (of the s.h.i.+p _Daedalus_) in 1792.

_Mele_

Auwe! pau au i ka mano nui, e!

Lala-keat[418] niho pa-kolu.

Pau ka papa-ku o Lono[419]

I ka ai ia e ka mano nui, 5 O Niuhi maka ahi, Olapa i ke kai lipo.

Ahu e! au-we!

A pua ka wili-wili, A nanahu ka mano,[420]

[Page 222] 10 Auwe! pau au i ka mano nui!

Kai uli, kai ele, Kai popolohua o Kane.

A lealea au i ka'u hula, Pau au i ka mano nui!

[Footnote 418: _Lala-kea_. This proper name, as it seems once to have been, has now become rather the designation of a whole cla.s.s of man-eating sea-monsters. The Hawaiians wors.h.i.+ped individual sharks as demiG.o.ds, in the belief that the souls of the departed at death, or even before death, sometimes entered and took possession of them, and that they at times resumed human form. To this cla.s.s belonged the famous shark Niuhi (verse 5).]

[Footnote 419: _Papa-ku o Lono_. This was one of the underlying strata of the earth that must be pa.s.sed before reaching _Milu_, the hades of the Hawaiians. The cosmogony of the southern Polynesians, according to Mr. Tregear, recognized ten _papa_, or divisions. "The first division was the earth's surface; the second was the abode of Rongo-ma-tane and Haumia-tiketike; ... the tenth was Meto, or Ameto, or Aweto, wherein the soul of man found utter extinction." (The Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, by Edward Tregear, F.R.G.S., etc., Wellington, New Zealand, 1891.)]

[Footnote 420: Verses 8 and 9 are from an old proverb which the Hawaiians put into the following quatrain:

A pua ka wiliwili, A nanahu ka mano; A pua ka wahine u'i, A nanahu ke kanawai.

[Translation]

When flowers the wiliwili, Then bites the shark; When flowers a young woman.

Then bites the law.

The people came to take this old saw seriously and literally, and during the season when the wiliwili (Erythrina monosperma) was clothed in its splendid tufts of brick-red, mothers kept their children from swimming into the deep sea by setting before them the terrors of the shark.]

[Translation]

_Song_

Alas! I am seized by the shark, great shark!

Lala-kea with triple-banked teeth.

The stratum of Lono is gone, Torn up by the monster shark, 5 Niuhi with fiery eyes, That flamed in the deep blue sea.

Alas! and alas!

When flowers the wili-wili tree, That is the time when the shark-G.o.d bites.

10 Alas! I am seized by the huge shark!

O blue sea, O dark sea, Foam-mottled sea of Kane!

What pleasure I took in my dancing!

Alas! now consumed by the monster shark!

Who would imagine that a Hawaiian would ever picture the G.o.d of love as a shark? As a bird, yes; but as a shark! What a light this fierce idyl casts on the imagination of the people of ancient Hawaii!

[Page 223]

x.x.xII.--THE HULA ILiO

The dog took his part and played his enthusiastic role in the domestic life of every Hawaiian. He did not starve in a fool's paradise, a neglected object of man's superst.i.tious regard, as in Constantinople; nor did he vie with kings and queens in the length and purity of his pedigree, as in England; but in Hawaii he entered with full heart of sympathy into all of man's enterprises, and at his death bequeathed his body a sacrifice to men and G.o.ds. It was fitting that the Hawaiian poet should celebrate the dog and his altogether virtuous and altruistic services to mankind. The hula _ilio_ may be considered as part of Hawaii's tribute to man's most faithful friend, the dog.

The hula ilio was a cla.s.sic performance that demanded of the actors much physical stir; they s.h.i.+fted their position, now sitting, now standing; they moved from place to place; indulged in many gestures, sometimes as if imitating the motions of the dog. This hula has long been out of commission. Like the two animal-hulas previously mentioned, it was performed without the aid of instrumental accompaniment.

The allusions in this mele are to the mythical story that tells of Kane's drinking, revels on the heights about Waipi'o valley; how he and his fellows by the noise of their furious conching disturbed the prayers and rituals of King Liloa and his priests, Kane himself being the chief offender by his blowing on the conch-sh.e.l.l Kihapu, stolen from Liloa's temple of Paka'alana: its recovery by the wit and dramatic action of the gifted dog Puapua-lenalena. (See p. 131.)

_Mele_

Ku e, nana e!

Makole[421] o Ku!

Hoolei ia ka lei,[422]

I lei no Puapua-lenalena, 5 He lei hinano no Kahili,[423]

He wehiwehi no Niho-ku[424]

[Page 224] Kaanini ka lani,[425] uwe ka honua: A aoa aku oe; Lohe o Hiwa-uli,[426]

10 Ka milimili a ka lani.

Noho opua i ka malamalama Malama ia ka ipu.[427]

He hano-wai no Kilioe,[428]

Wahine noho pali o Haena.

15 Enaena na ahi o Kilauea,[429]

Ka haku pali o Kamohoalii.[430]

A noho i Waipi'o, Ka pali kapu a Kane.

Moe ole ka po o ke alii, 20 Ke kani mau o Kiha-pu.

Ukiuki, uluhua ke alii: Hoouna ka elele;[431]

Loaa i Kauai o Mano, Kupueu a Wai-uli me Kahili; 25 A ao aku oe, aoa,[432] aoa a aoa.

Hana e o Kaua-hoa,[433]

Ka mea [=u] i o Ha.n.a.lei, Hu'e'a kaua, moe i ke awakea, [Page 225] Kapae ke kaua o ka hoahanau![434]

30 Hookahi no pua o ka oi; Awili pu me ke kaio'e.[435]

I lei no Puapua-lenalena.

O ku'u luhi ua hiki iho la, Ka nioi o Paka'a-lana.[436]

35 A lana ka manao, hakuko'i 'loko, Ka hae mau ana a Puapua-lenalena, A hiki i k.u.ma-kahi,[437]

Kahi an i noho ai, A hiki iho la ka elele, 40 Inu i ka awa kau-laau o Puna.[438]

Aoa, he, he, hene!