The following is a prayer said to have been used at the time of awa-drinking. When given in the hula, the author is informed, its recitation was accompanied by the sound of the drum.

He Pule no Pele

PALE I

PALE II

Footnote 361: (return) Maull-ola. A god of health; perhaps also the name of a place. The same word also was applied to the breath of life, or to the physician’s power of healing. In the Maori tongue the word mauri, corresponding to mauli, means life, the seat of life. In Samoan the word mauli means heart. “Sneeze, living heart” (Tihe mauri ora), says the Maori mother to her infant when it sneezes. For this bit of Maori lore acknowledgment is due to Mr. S. Percy Smith, of New Zealand.

Footnote 362: (return) According to one authority, at the close of the first canto the stranger gods—akua malihini—who consisted of that multitude of godlings called the Kini Akua, took their departure from the ceremony, since they did not belong to the Pele family. Internal evidence, however, the study of the prayer itself in its two parts, leads the writer to disagree with this authority. Other Hawaiians of equally deliberate judgment support him in this opinion. The etiquette connected with ceremonious awa-drinking, which the Samoans of to-day still maintain in full form, long ago died out in Hawaii. This etiquette may never have been cultivated here to the same degree as in its home, Samoa; but this poem is evidence that the ancient Hawaiians paid greater attention to it than they of modern times. The reason for this decline of ceremony must be sought for in the mental and esthetic make-up of the Hawaiian people; it was not due to any lack of fondness in the Hawaiian for awa as a beverage or as an intoxicant. It is no help to beg the question by ascribing the decline of this etiquette to the influence of social custom. To do so would but add one more link to the chain that binds cause to effect. The Hawaiian mind was not favorable to the observance of this sort of etiquette; it did not afford a soil fitted to nourish such an artificial growth.

Footnote 363: (return) The meaning of the word Ku-ka-la-ula presented great difficulty and defied all attempts at translation until the suggestion was made by a bright Hawaiian, which was adopted with satisfaction, that it probably referred to that state of dreamy mental exaltation which comes with awa-intoxication. This condition, like that of frenzy, of madness, and of idiocy, the Hawaiian regarded as a divine possession.

[Translation.]

A Prayer to Pele

CANTO I

Footnote 364: (return) Kalakaua, for whom all these fine words are intended, could no more claim kinship with Ku-nui-akea, the son of Kau-i-ke-aouli, than with Julius Cæsar.

Footnote 365: (return) Hale-mau-mau. Used figuratively of the mouth, whose hairy fringe—moustache and beard—gives it a fancied resemblance to the rough lava pit where Pele dwelt. The figure, to us no doubt obscure, conveyed to the Hawaiian the idea of trumpeting the name and making it famous.

Footnote 366: (return) E kuli-pe’e nui ai-ahua. Pele is here figured as an old, infirm woman, crouching and crawling along; a character and attitude ascribed to her, no doubt, from the fancied resemblance of a lava flow, which, when in the form of a-á, rolls and tumbles along over the surface of the ground in a manner suggestive of the motions and attitude of a palsied crone.

When this poem ³⁶⁷ first came into the author’s hands, though attracted by its classic form and vigorous style, he could not avoid being repelled by an evident grossness. An old Hawaiian, to whom he stated his objections, assured him that the mele was innocent of all bad intent, and when the offensive word was pointed out he protested that it was an interloper. The substitution of the right word showed that the man was correct. The offense was at once removed. This set the whole poem in a new light and it is presented with satisfaction. The mele is properly a name-song, mele-inoa. The poet represents some one as lifting a name to his mouth for praise and adulation. He tells him to take it to Kilauea—that it may reecho, doubtless, from the walls of the crater.

Footnote 367: (return) It is said to ue the work of a hula-master, now some years dead, by the name of Namakeelua.