X.—THE HULA PA-ÍPU, OR KUÓLO

The pa-ípu, called also the kuólo, was a hula of dignified character, in which all the performers maintained the kneeling position and accompanied their songs with the solemn tones of the ípu (pl. vii), with which each one was provided. The proper handling of this drumlike instrument in concert with the cantillation of the mele made such demands upon the artist, who was both singer and instrumentalist, that only persons of the most approved skill and experience were chosen to take part in the performance of this hula.

The manner of treating the ípu in this hula differed somewhat from that employed in the ala’a-papa, being subdued and quiet in that, whereas in the pa-ípu it was at times marked with great vigor and demonstrativeness, so that in moments of excitement and for the expression of passion, fierce joy, or grief the ípu might be lifted on high and wildly brandished. It thus made good its title as the most important instrument of the Hawaiian orchestra.

In the pa-ípu, as in the hulas generally, while the actors were sometimes grouped according to sex, they were quite as often distributed indiscriminately, the place for the leader, the kumu, being the center.

The vigor that marks the literary style of the mele now given stamps it as belonging to the archaic period, which closed in the early part of the eighteenth century, that century which saw the white man make his advent in Hawaii. The poem deals apparently with an incident in one of the migrations such as took place during the period of intercourse between the North and the South Pacific. This was a time of great stir and contention, a time when there was much paddling and sailing about and canoe-fleets, often manned by warriors, traversed the great ocean in every direction. It was then that Hawaii received many colonists from the archipelagoes that lie to the southward.

Mele

(Ko’i-honua)

Footnote 189: (return) Olopana. A celebrated king of Waipio valley, Hawaii, who had to wife the famous beauty, Luukia. Owing to misfortune, he sailed away to Kahiki, taking with him his wife and his younger brother, Moikeha, who was his puna-lua, settling in a land called Moa-ula-nui-akea. Olopana probably ended his days in his new-found home, but Moi-keha, heart-sick at the loss of Luukia’s favors, came hack to Hawaii and became the progenitor of a line of distinguished men, several of whom were famous navigators. Exactly what incident in the life of Olopana is alluded to in the sixth and preceding verses, the traditions that narrate his adventures do not inform us.

Footnote 190: (return) Hei kapu. An oracle; the place where the high priest kept himself while consulting the deities of the heiau. It was a small house erected on an elevated platform of stones, and there he kept himself in seclusion at such times as he sought to be the recipient of communications from the gods.

Footnote 191: (return) Hana-ka-ulani. A name applied to several heiau (temples). The first one so styled, according to tradition, was built at Hana, Maui, and another one at Kaluanui, on Oahu, near the famous valley of Ka-liu-wa’a. These heiau are said to have been built by the gods in the misty past soon after landing on these shores. Was it to celebrate their escape from perils by sea and enemies on land, or was it in token of thankfulness to gods still higher than themselves?
The author’s informant can not tell whether these followed the fierce, strict cult of Kane or the milder cult of Lono.

Footnote 192: (return) Hoo-mamao-lani. An epithet meaning remote in the heavens, applied to an alii of very high rank.

Footnote 193: (return) Keawe.

This is a name that belonged, to several kings and a large family of gods—papa akua—all of which gods are said to have come from Kahiki and to have dated their origin from the Wa Po, the twilight of antiquity. Among the demigods that were called Keawe may be mentioned: (1) Keawe-huli, a prophet and soothsayer. (2) Keawe-kilo-pono, a wise and righteous one, who loved justice. (3) Keawe-hula-maemae. It was his function to maintain purity and cleanliness; he was a devouring flame that destroyed rubbish and all foulness. (4) Keawe-ula-o-ka-lani. This was the poetical appellation, given to the delicate flush of early morning. Apropos of this the Hawaiians have the following quatrain, which they consider descriptive not only of morning blush, but also of the coming in of the reign of the gods:

O Keawe-ula-i-ka-lani,

O Keawe-liko-i-ka-lani,

O Ke’awe-uina-poha-i-Kahiki;

Hikl mai ana o Lono.

[Translation.]

Keawe-the-red-blush-of-dawn,

Keawe-the-bud-in-the-sky,

Keawe-thunder-burst-at-Kahiki:

Till Lono comes in to reign.

(5) Keawe-pa-makani. It was his function to send winds from Kukulu-o-Kahiki, as well as from some other points. (6) Keawe-ío-ío-moa. This god inspected the ocean tides and currents, such as Au-miki and Au-ká. (7) Keawe-i-ka-liko. He took charge of flowerbuds and tender shoots, giving them a chance to develop. (8) Keawe-ulu-pu. It was his function to promote the development and fruitage of plants. (9) Keawe-lu-pua. He caused flowers to shed their petals. (10) Keawe-opala. It was his thankless task to create rubbish and litter by scattering the leaves of the trees. (11) Keawe-hulu, a magician, who could blow a feather into the air and see it at once become a bird with power to fly away. (12) Keawe-nui-ka-ua-o-Hilo, a sentinel who stood guard by night and by day to watch over all creation. (13) Keawe-pulehu. He was a thief and served as [Page 75] cook for the ods. There were gods of evil as well as of good in this set. (14) Keawe-oili. He was gifted with the power to convey and transfer evil, sickness, misfortune, and death. (15) Keawe-kaili. He was a robber. (16) Keawe-aihue. He was a thief. (17) Keuwe-mahilo. He was a beggar. He would stand round while others were preparing food, doing honest work, and plead with his eyes. In this way he often obtained a dole. (18) Keawe-puni-pua’a. He was a glutton, very greedy of pork; he was also called Keawe-ai-pua’a. (19) Keawe-inoino. He was a sloven, unclean in all his ways. (20) Keawe-ilio. The only title to renown of this superhuman creature was his inordinate fondness for the flesh of the dog. So far none of the superhuman heings mentioned seemed fitted to the role of the Keawe of the text, who was passionately fond of the sea. The author had given up in despair, when one day, on repeating his inquiry in another quarter, he was rewarded by learning of—(21) Keawe-i-na-’kai. He was a resident of the region about the southeastern point of Molokai, called Lae-ka-Ilio—Cape of the Dog. He was extravagantly fond of the ocean and allowed no weather to interfere with the indulgence of his penchant. An epithet applied to him describes his dominating passion: Keawe moe i ke kai o Kohakú, Keawe who sleeps in (or on) the sea of Kohakú. It seems probable that this was the Keawe mentioned in the twelfth and thirteenth lines of the mele.

The appellation Keawe seems to have served as a sort of Jack among the demigods of the Hawaiian pantheon, on whom was to be laid the burden of a mongrel host of virtues and vices that were not assignable to the regular orthodox deities. Somewhat in the same way do we use the name Jack as a caption, for a miscellaneous lot of functions, as when we speak of a “Jack-at-all-trades.”

[Translation.]

Song

(Distinct utterance)

Glowing is Kahiki, oh!

Glowing is Kahiki!

Lo, Kahiki is a-blaze,

The whole island a-burning.

5

Scorched is thy scion, Hawaii.

Kahiki shoots flame-tongues at Olopana,

That hero of yours, and priest

Of the oracle Hana-ka-ulani,

The sacred shrine of the king—

10

He is of the upper heavens,

The one inspired by Keawe,

That tabu-famous Keawe,

The king passion-fond of the sea.

Mele

PALE I

Lau lehua punoni ula ke kai o Kona,

Ke kai punoni ula i oweo ia;

Wewena ula ke kai la, he kokona;

Ula ia kini i ka uka o Alaea,

5

I hili ahi ula i ke kapa a ka wahine,

I hoeu ia e ka ni’a, e ka hana,

E ka auwai lino mai la a kehau.

He hau hoomoe ka lau o ka niu,

Ke oho o ka laau, lauoho loloa.

10

E lóha ana i ka la i o Kailua la, i-u-a,

O ke ku moena ololi a ehu

O ku’u aina kai paeaea.

Ea, hoea iluna o Mauna Kilohana,

Na kaha poohiwi mau no he inoa.

15

Ua noa e, ua pii’a kou wahi kapu, e-e!

I a’e ’a mai e ha’i.

[Translation.]

Song

CANTO I

Leaf of lehua and noni-tint, the Kona sea,

Iridescent saffron and red,

Changeable watered red, peculiar to Kona;

Red are the uplands Alaea;

5

All, ’tis the flame-red stained robes of women

Much tossed by caress or desire.

The weed-tangled water-way shines like a rope of pearls,

Dew-pearls that droop the coco leaf,

The hair of the trees, their long locks—

10

Lo, they wilt in the heat of Kailua the deep.

A mat spread out narrow and gray,

A coigne of land by the sea where the fisher drops hook.

Now looms the mount Kilohana—

Ah, ye wood-shaded heights, everlasting your fame!

15

Your tabu is gone! your holy of holies invaded!

Broke down by a stranger!

The intricately twisted language of this mele is allegorical, a rope whose strands are inwrought with passion, envy, detraction, and abuse. In translating it one has to choose between the poetic verbal garb and the esoteric meaning which the bard made to lurk beneath the surface.

Mele

PALE II

Kauó pu ka iwa kala-pahe’e,

Ka iwa, ka manu o Kaula i ka makani.

E ka manu o-ú pani-wai o Lehua,

O na manu kapu a Kuhai-moana,

5

Mai hele a luna o Lei-no-ai,

O kolohe, o alai mai ka Unu-lau.

Puni’a iluna o ka Halau-a-ola;

A ola aku i ka luna o Maka-iki-olea,

I ka lulu, i ka la’i o kai maio,

10

Ma ka ha’i-wá, i ka mole o Lehua la, Le-hú-a!

O na lehua o Alaka’i ka’u aloha,

O na lehua iluna o Ko’i-alana;

Ua nonoho hooipo me ke kohe-kohe;

Ua anu, maeele i ka ua noe.

15

Ua mai oe; kau a’e ka naná, laua nei, e-e,

Na ’lii e o’oni mai nei, e-e!

[Translation.]

Song

CANTO II

The scene of this mele is laid on one of the little bird-islands that lie to the northwest of Kauai. The iwa bird, flying heavily to his nesting place in the wiry grass (kala-pahee), symbolizes the flight of a man in his deep-laden pirogue, abducting the woman of his love. The screaming sea-birds that warn him off the island, represented as watch-guards of the shark-god Kuhai-moana (whose reef is still pointed out), figure the outcries of the parents and friends of the abducted woman.

After the first passionate outburst (Puni’a iluna o ka Halau-a-ola) things go more smoothly (ola, ...). The flight to covert from the storm, the cove at the base of Le-hu-a, the shady groves, the scarlet pompons of the lehua—the tree and the island have the same name—all these things are to be interpreted figuratively as emblems of woman’s physical charms and the delights of love-dalliance.

Mele

PALE III

(Ai-ha’a)

Ku aku la Kea-aú, lele ka makani mawaho,

Ulu-mano, ma ke kaha o Wai-o-lono.

Ua moani lehua a’e la mauka;

Kani lehua iluna o Kupa-koili,

5

I ka o ia i ka lau o ka hala,

Ke poo o ka hala o ke aku’i.

E ku’i e, e ka uwalo.

Loli ka mu’o o ka hala,

A helelei ka pua, a pili ke alanui:

15

Pu ia Pana-ewa, ona-ona i ke ala,

I ka nahele makai o Ka-unu-loa la.

Nani ke kaunu, ke kaunu a ke alii,

He puni ina’i poi na maua.

Ua hala ke Kau a me ka Hoilo,

15

Mailaila mai no ka hana ino.

Ino mai oe, noho malie aku no hoi au;

Hopo o’ ka inaina, ka wai, e-e;

Wiwo au, hopohopo iho nei, e-e!

[Translation.]

Song

CANTO III

(In turgid style)

A storm, from the sea strikes Ke-au,

Ulu-mano, sweeping across the barrens;

It sniffs the fragrance of upland lehua,

Turns back at Kupa-koili;

5

Sawed by the blows of the palm leaves,

The groves of pandanus in lava shag;

Their fruit he would string ’bout his neck;

Their fruit he finds wilted and crushed,

Mere rubbish to litter the road—

10

Ah, the perfume! Pana-ewa is drunk with the scent;

The breath of it spreads through the groves.

Vainly flares the old king’s passion,

Craving a sauce for his meat and mine.

The summer has flown; winter has come:

15

Ah, that is the head of our troubles.

Palsied are you and helpless am I;

You shrink from a plunge in the water;

Alas, poor me! I’m a coward.

The imagery of this mele sets forth the story of the fierce, but fruitless, love-search of a chief, who is figured by the Ulu-mano, a boisterous wind of Puna, Hawaii. The fragrance of upland lehua (moani lehua, a’e la mauka, verse 3) typifies the charms of the woman he pursues. The expression kani lehua (verse 4), literally the sudden ending of a rain-squall, signifies the man’s failure to gain his object. The lover seeks to string the golden drupe of the pandanus (halo), that he may wear them as a wreath about his neck (uwalo); he is wounded by the teeth of the sword-leaves (o ia i ka lau o ka hala, verse 5). More than this, he meets powerful, concerted resistance (ke poo o ka hala o ke aku’i, verse 6), offered by the compact groves of pandanus that grow in the rough lava-shag (aku’i), typifying, no doubt, the resistance made by the friends and retainers of the woman. After all, he finds, or declares that he finds, the hala fruit he had sought to gather and to wear as a lei about his neck, to be spoiled, broken, fit only to litter the road (loli ka mu’o o ka hala, verse 8; A helelei ka’pua, a pili ke alanui, verse 9). In spite of his repulse and his vilification of the woman, his passion, still feeds on the thought of the one he has lost; her charms intoxicate his imagination, even as the perfume of the hala bloom bewitches the air of Pana-ewa (Pu ia Panaewa, ona-ona i ke ala, verse 10).

It is difficult to interpret verses 12 to 18 in harmony with the story as above given. They may be regarded as a commentary on the passionate episode in the life of the lover, looked at from the standpoint of old age, at a time when passion still survives but physical strength is in abeyance.

As the sugar-boiler can not extract from the stalk the last grain of sugar, so the author finds it impossible in any translation to express the full intent of these Hawaiian mele.

Mele

PALE IV

Footnote 194: (return) Wai oupe-kanaka. Man-fooling water; the mirage.

Footnote 195: (return) Lima-loa. The long-armed, the god of the mirage, who made his appearance at Maná, Kauai.

Footnote 196: (return) Poloai. To converse with, to have dealings with one.

Footnote 197: (return) Koolau-wahine. The sea-breeze at Mana. There is truth as well as poetry in the assertion made in this verse. The warm moist air, rising from the heated sands of Maná, did undoubtedly draw in the cool breeze from the ocean—a fruitful dalliance.

Footnote 198: (return) Kino-lau. Having many (400) bodies, or metamorphoses, said of Kawelo.

Footnote 199: (return) Kawelo.

A sorcerer who lived in the region of Maná. His favorite metamorphosis was into the form of a shark. Even when in human form he retained the gills of a fish and had the mouth of a shark at the back of his shoulders, while to the lower part of his body were attached the tail and flukes of a shark. To conceal these monstrous appendages he wore over his shoulders a kihei of kapa and allowed himself to be seen only while in the sitting posture. He sometimes took the form of a worm, a moth, a caterpillar, or a butterfly to escape the hands of his enemies. On land he generally appeared as a man squatting, after the manner of a Hawaiian gardener while weeding his garden plot.

The cultivated lands of Kawelo lay alongside the much-traveled path to the beach where the people of the neighborhood resorted to bathe, to fish, and to swim in the ocean. He made a practice of saluting the passers-by and of asking them, “Whither are you going?” adding the caution, “Look to it that you are not swallowed head and tail by the shark; he has not breakfasted yet” (E akahele oukou o pau po’o, pau hi’u i ka manó; aohe i paina i kakahiaka o ka manó). As soon as the traveler had gone on his way to the ocean, Kawelo hastened to the sea and there assumed his shark-form. The tender flesh of children was his favorite food. The frequent utterance of the same caution, joined to the great mortality among the children and youth who resorted to the ocean at this place, caused a panic among the residents. The parents consulted a soothsayer, who surprised them with the information that the guilty one was none other than the innocent-looking farmer, Kawelo. Instructed by the soothsayer, the people made an immense net of great strength and having very fine meshes. This they spread in the ocean at the bathing place. Kawelo, when caught in the net, struggled fiendishly to break away, but in vain. According to directions, they flung the body of the monster into an enormous oven which they had heated to redness, and supplied with fresh fuel for five times ten days—elima anahulu. At the end of that time there remained only gray ashes. The prophet had commanded them that when this had been accomplished they must fill the pit of the oven with dry dirt; thus doing, the monster would never come to life. They neglected this precaution. A heavy rain flooded the country—the superhuman work of the sorcerer—and from the moistened ashes sprang into being a swarm of lesser sharks. From them have come the many species of shark that now infest our ocean.

The house which once was Kawelo’s ocean residence is still pointed out, 7 fathoms deep, a structure regularly built of rocks.

Footnote 200: (return) Maha-maha i’a. The gills or fins of a fish such as marked Kawelo.

Footnote 201: (return) Aona. A word of doubtful meaning; according to one it means lucky. That expounder (T—— P——) says it should, or-might be, haona; he instances the phrase iwi paou, in which the word paoa has a similar, but not identical, form and means lucky bone.

Footnote 202: (return) Ka-maile. A place on Kauai where prevailed the custom of throwing firebrands down the lofty precipice of Nuololo. This amusement made a fine display at night. As the fire-sticks fell they swayed and drifted in the breeze, making it difficult for one standing below to premise their course through the air and to catch one of them before it struck the ground or the water, that being one of the objects of the sport. When a visitor had accomplished this feat, he would sometimes mark his flesh with the burning stick that he might show the brand to his sweetheart as a token of his fidelity.

[Translation.]

Song

CANTO IV

Mele

PALE V

(Ai-ha’a, a he Ko’i-honua paha)

[Translation.]

Song

CANTO V

(To be recited in bombastic style, or, it may be, distinctly)

Big with child is the Princess Ku;

The whole island suffers her whimsies;

The pangs of labor are on her;

Labor that stains the land with blood,

5

Blood-clots of the heavenly born,

To preserve and guard the royal line,

The spark of king-fire now glowing:

A child is he of heavenly stock,

Like the darling of Hitu-kolo,

10

First womb-fruit born to love’s rainbow.

A bath for this child of heaven’s breast,

This mystical royal offspring,

Who ranks with the heavenly peers,

This tender bud of Liliha,

15

This atom, this parcel, this flame,

In the line Kuhi-hewa of Lola—

Ka-lola, who mothered a babe prodigious,

For glory and splendor renowned,

A scion most comely from heaven,

20

The finest down of the new-grown plume,

From bird whose moult floats to heaven,

Prime of the soaring birds of Pokahi,

The prince, heaven-flower of the island,

Ancestral sire of Ke-oua,

25

And of King Kui-apo-iwa.

The heaping up of adulations, of which this mele is a capital instance, was not peculiar to Hawaiian poetry. The Roman Senate bestowed divinity on its emperors by vote; the Hawaiian bard laureate, careering on his Pegasus, thought to accomplish the same end by piling Ossa on Pelion with high-flown phrases; and every loyal subject added his contribution to the cairn that grew heavenward.

In Hawaii, as elsewhere, the times of royal debasement, of aristocratic degeneracy, of doubtful or disrupted succession, have always been the times of loudest poetic insistence on birth-rank and the occasion for the most frenzied utterance of high-sounding titles. This is a disease that has grown with the decay of monarchy.

Applying this criterion to the mele above given, it may be judged to be by no means a product wholly of the archaic period. While certain parts, say from the first to the tenth verses, inclusive, bear the mark of antiquity, the other parts do not ring clear. It seems as if some poet of comparatively modern times had revamped an old mele to suit his own ends. Of this last part two verses were so glaringly an interpolation that they were expunged from the text.

The effort to translate into pure Anglo-Saxon this vehement outpour of high-colored phrases has made heavy demands on the vocabulary and has strained the idioms of our speech well-nigh to the point of protest.

In lines 1, 2, 4, 8, 14, and 23 the word Lani means a prince or princess, a high chief or king, a heavenly one. In lines 12, 13, 18, and 20 the same word lani means the heavens, a concept in the Hawaiian mind that had some far-away approximation to the Olympus of classic Greece.

Mele

Ooe no paha ia, e ka lau o ke aloha,

Oia no paha ia ke kau mai nei ka hali’a.

Ke hali’a-li’a mai nei ka maka,

Manao hiki mai no paha an anei.

5

Hiki mai no la ia, na wai e uwe aku?

Ua pau kau la, kau ike iaia;

Ka manawa oi’ e ai ka manao iloko.

Ua luu iho nei an i ke kai nui;

Nui ka ukiuki, paio o ka naau.

10

Aone kanaka eha ole i ke aloha.

A wahine e oe, kanaka e au;

He mau alualu ka ha’i e lawe.

Ike aku i ke kula i’a o Ka-wai-nui.

Nui ka opala ai o Moku-lana.

15

Lana ka limu pae hewa o Makau-wahine.

O ka wahine no oe, o ke kane no ia.

Hiki mai no la ia, na wai e uwe aku?

Hoi mai no la ia, a ia wai e uwe aku?

[Translation.]

Song

Footnote 203: (return) In the original, He mau alualu ka, ha’i e lawe, literally “Some skins for another to take.”

This song almost explains itself. It is the soliloquy of a lover estranged from his mistress. Imagination is alive in eye and ear to everything that may bring tidings of her, even of her unhoped-for return. Sometimes he speaks as if addressing the woman who has gone from him, or he addresses himself, or he personifies some one who speaks to him, as in the sixth line: “Your day has flown, ...”

The memory of past vexation and anguish extorts the philosophic remark, “No mortal goes scathless of love.” He gives over the past, seeks consolation in a new attachment—he dives, lu’u, into the great ocean, “deep waters,” of love, at least in search of love. The old self (selves), the old love, he declares to be only alualu, empty husks.

He—it is evidently a man—sets forth the wealth of comfort, opulence, that surrounds him in his new-found peace. The scene, being laid in the land Kailua, Oahu—the place to which the enchanted tree Maka-léi ²⁰⁴ was carried long ago, from which time its waters abounded in fish—fish are naturally the symbol of the opulence that now bless his life. But, in spite of the new-found peace and prosperity that attend him, there is a lonely corner in his heart; the old question echoes in its vacuum, “Who’ll greet her with song? who shall console?”

Footnote 204: (return) Maka-léi. (See note b, p. 17.)

Mele

O Ewa, aina kai ula i ka lepo,

I ula i ka makani anu Moa’e,

Ka manu ula i ka lau ka ai,

I palahe’a ula i ke kai o Kuhi-á.

5

Mai kuhi mai oukou e, owau ke kalohe;

Aohe na’u, na lakou no a pau.

Aohe hewa kekahi keiki a ke kohe.

Ei’ a’e; oia no palm ia.

I lono oukou ia wai, e, ua moe?

10

Oia kini poai o lakou la paha?

Ike aku ia ka mau’u hina-hina—

He hina ko’u, he aka mai ko ia la.

I aka mai oe i kou la manawa le’a;

A manawa ino, nui mai ka nuku,

15

Hoomokapu, hoopale mai ka maka,

Hoolahui wale mai i a’u nei.

E, oia paha; ae, oia no paha ia.

[Translation.]

Song

Ewa’s lagoon is red with dirt—

Dust blown by the cool Moa’e,

A plumage red on the taro leaf,

An ocherous tint in the bay.

5

Say not in your heart that I am the culprit.

Not I, but they, are at fault.

No child of the womb is to blame.

There goes, likely he is the one.

Who was it blabbed of the bed defiled?

10

It must have been one of that band.

But look at the rank grass beat down—

For my part, I tripped, the other one smiled.

You smiled in your hour of pleasure;

But now, when crossed, how you scold!

15

Avoiding the house, averting the eyes—

You make of me a mere stranger.

Yes it’s probably so, he’s the one.

A poem this full of local color. The plot of the story, as it may be interpreted, runs somewhat as follows: While the man of the house, presumably, is away, it would seem—fishing, perhaps, in the waters of Ewa’s “shamrock lagoon”—the mistress sports with a lover. The culprit impudently defends himself with chaff and dust-throwing. The hoodlums, one of whom is himself the sinner, have been blabbing, says he. His accuser points to the beaten down hina-hina grass as evidence against him. At this the brazen-faced culprit parries the stroke with a humorous euphemistic description, in which he plays on the word hina, to fall. Such verbal tilting in ancient Hawaii was practically a defense against a charge of moral obliquity as decisive and legitimate as was an appeal to arms in the times of chivalry. He euphemistically speaks of the beaten herbage as the result of his having tripped and fallen, at which, says he, the woman smiled, that is she fell in with his proposals. He gives himself away; but that doesn’t matter.

It requires some study to make out who is the speaker in the tit-for-tat of the dialogue.

Mele

(Ai-ha’a)