332 THE FRIEND February, 1932 to the highest pitch. ... In their firmness mission work has been highly effective. tic plotters who live always within earshot we find reassurance for our ho]x.- and be- In fact, it is only in the success of of spies, a somewhat complicated course lief in the cause of world peace and are Christian foreign missions that we dare to of action may be conveyed in the form of reaffirmed in our judgment that foreign ho|>e for world peace."—G. R. W apparently innocent speech. This habit . seems to have been common in the South Seas. Several of Pomander's stories re- cord such an occurrence. In a tale re- corded by Fison from the Tongans, a Hawaiian Riddles and Proverbs chief on a canoe voyage runs out of food. By Martha He bids his man "Go now and see if there Warren Beckwith be any banana stalks left on the weather Tlir Folklurr FouncUtion, Vassal1 Collr^r half of the canoe." The words convey an order to one the whose HENRY recently pub- honeycomb formed the carcase of a club of women, JUDD'S in place is in of the MR.lished collection of riddles and pro- dead lion by the roadside. that part canoe. But such riddling speech as this is not directly re- verbial sayings of Hawaii, issued as Bul- These are found in old riddlings Euro- lated to the proverb, which is regularly letin 77 of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop folk tales tell of pean which competitions formed upon an abstract or general idea Museum, in so far as they represent a of wit Upon which high bets are laid or and applied in use to a specific native art adds one more to the links popular even life itself, as the stake. In an old case, or it is derived from a particular which connect old Hawaii with the cul- Scotch-English ballad the devil woos a case which, like our choice." ture area of the eastern rather than of the "Hobson's maiden with riddles: the witty answer takes on a general application. illus- western continent. No American Indian An alone frees the maiden from his power, tration of such a case in Mr. tribe has developed riddling as a social Judd's col- The Scandinavian Edda contains ''ency- lection is the saying of Kamehaineha to art with anything like the security of wont clopedic poems" which enumerate all the his men that which this collection and other evidence "Six islands are free to all wisdom of the world. In one of these the but the seventh is for Kamehameha." from Hawaiian legend and romance prove Tin- god Odin contends with the wisest of the chief wittily uses the biblical restriction native. Even a three-hundred-year con- giant race and traps him at length with upon the Sabbath day as the model for his tact with European riddling and wise- the question "What spoke Odin himself own tabu Upon his favorite wife. On the cracking has not given to the Indian any in the ears of his son ( Balder ), ere in the other hand, the saying. "Back like a preci- conspicuous taste for the pithy and sen- bale-fire he burned?", a question hi)|x>s- pice, face like a moon," is a general com- tentious saying or the paradoxical anal- sible tor any but the god himself to an- pliment to any form. ogy which constitute these forms of oral- perfect "Small swer. The Edipus riddle seems to re- canoes dash up the spray" is said to one art. It is therefore safe to assume that flect some old pre-Greek culture in which who gets angry over trifles. "Never mind the proved facility of the lawaiian in I the riddling contest was a recognized if the layer at the bottom the oven is Ixith accomplishments was gained, not id mode of rival competition. The visitor burned, but watch that at the is independently, but from a long period of top" a to the recently excavated town of the ma- councel to watch the mood of chiefs and usage before his migration to this island gician Sirikap near the site of Taxila in ignore that id commoners. group, and since the I lawaiian shares the how hero Punjab will recall the Ra- ()n the whole. Hawaiian proverbs re- arts with other Pacific Islanders, it is salu defeated in riddling Sirikap before ferring to old legendary persons are rare. likely that they were practiced in some he was admitted to the "white seat" with- A reference to the "nets of Makali'i hang- culture center prior to migration into the in the palace. Rasalu is still a well-known ing high'" is used as a reproach to a stingy Pacific. They are not the gift of Ameri- hero of the Punjab and the sites of his ad- contact of person, the "rattling of the bones of can or Polynesian invention. ventures are still known to the folk. In lua" to warn against impiety. Liloa is but are a |>art of the old-world culture the Arabian Nights tales the slave girl. I mentioned as rising to greatness which the Polynesians brought with them Tawaddud, challenges to a contest of through "the that through into their island homes. In what form, learning the learned doctors who gathered steps of the temple," is. fostering the priests. The missionaries then, did they bring over the practice? ■about the court of llaroun al Raschid. knew well how to make use Our own folk riddle is composed about The physician is routed by means of a of the Hawai- ian taste for sententious sayings. When everyday objects. The trick is to de- quaint riddle about the loop-shaped handle his parishioners reproached Mr. Lyons scribe one object in terms of another of the water-skin, the philosopher by the for letting men into the church too easily which it resembles in some particular, riddling calculation, common today in the he answered, "What holds fast to the generally in the form of a paradox, or Spanish West Indies, of the pigeons on in heavens (the faultless) belongs to Cod, name, the tree who said to those on the ground, the sound of the commonly called what falls below (the faulty) belongs to "punning." "If one of you come up to us. you will It is this sound analogy Lyons." More common are allusions to be a third ]>art of us all." which has survived today in sophisticate place names. A wanderer is likened to the wit. An even more primitive conception Some scholars believe that the riddle parasitic vim—the "trunkless tree"—of of riddling is that which describes an form is derived from that of the proverb Mana on Kauai. The "mirage of Mana" object by a single trait like color, motion, or sententious saying. It is true that many is alluded to by the skeptical listener to number. Or it jxises a question impos- proverbs are themselves couched in rid- an unlikely story just as we say "tell that sible to answer, such as the number of dling Speech. They are meant to convey, to the marines." Lele, the old name for stars in the sky or of drops in the sea, or under cover of a figure, a threat, a curse, Lahaina, and Kou for Honolulu, occur in one based on a particular exjwerience like or a warning. In a society where secret proverbs, Samson's, who made a riddle out of the conference is denied to political or domes- Hawaiian riddling involves a different February, 1932 THE FRIEND 333 technique from the proverb. Although ill the uplands, night between, night on one art doubtless plays into the hands of the shore." The expert in riddling how- the other, it is doubtful whether one is a ever knows that the words do not refer FIELDfromNOTES the direct development of the other. Prover- to the sense of universal and brooding bial savings use popular allusions in a night over the landscape, but to three riddling fashion, but riddling seems rather plants typical of these regions and which Hawaii Advisory Council: discipline of learning all the "night,"—the to derive from the contain syllable po, The Advisory Council for Young Peo- the hands id the ruling classes. It is an uplands, in popoulu banana growing in the ple's Work on the Island of Hawaii met rather than a popular art. Skill in the expert the popolo plant id the coast land, in llonokaa on February 3, 1932, and in art implies a knowledge of the geog- the ptdiuclmc of the beaches. Evidently the 1 lilo on February 10. and the natural features id the raphy riddle is not to be guessed but to be At the former meeting Mr. Frank C. group. So far as can see, riddling in I matched. 1 think the riddle of the ka clc. Atherton was guest of the group. Plans does not extend to social history, Hawaii the dark, is the retort, but the translation for more thorough and extensive work or legendary It de- genealogy allusions. is unsatisfactory. For traditional wisdom, with the young people of the "Big Island" mands complete objective knowledge too. note the riddles that enumerate proc- were considered. the world, a about material retentive esses, like "The food that is shaken, the and quickness in matching an- memory, food that is cracked, the food that is Distributing the financial Load: alogies, either in the sounds of words or crushed* the f 1 that is roasted." that The Hawaiian Board adopted Presi- in descriptive elements id objects. 'Un- dent Penult's phrase about the cut its is. the kukui nut. Not that analogy is in skilled tiddler Icarus about "the things is to absent with its accompanying tendency budget. The cut an attempt "dis above and the things below, in the up- tribute the financial load." Several to personification. The riddle of the lands and in the lowlands: the things id churches are seeking to raise a little more grass house. -"Plaited all around, plaited day and the things of night id death and money this year so as to refund to the : at the bottom, leaving an may life, of good and evil." It is the natural opening," pastors the cut which had to be made in also be that philosophy of opposites which he must given as "The men stand salaries. master. (posts), the men that lie down (battens), It may be that this cut is going to be a the men doubled up (thatch). The kukui In Hawaiian riddling the question is valuable experience after all. If the nut is "the fat fish that dances on the not so much one of guessing an answer churches find it possible to carry a little tips of the lingers" or little fish that as of matching one skilful analogy with "my more of the financial cost of their work, \ciu eat and twist, twist," with another, and if a pun is successfully eat and the results ought to be beneficial. Cer- employed it scores for the contestant. reference both to the substitution of the tainly the pastors ought not to be obliged The of has for game riddling a name and nut fish as a relish and to the move- to take a cut in their already meagre sal- a technique. The famoirs Lono'-i-ka- ment of the lingers in taking up a pinch aries. makahiki acquired it among his other of the grated meat. Or it is "the fish in- accomplishments useful to chiefs. The dulged in by the hunchback" because of The Pastor's Family: debates are accompanied by high bet- the crook of the fingers in pushing up the Someone made a very significant state- ting. In the legends a ruling chief bets morsel. A fishnet has "four hundred ment in our office the other day. He was all his possessions, a wandering one his hills (knots), four thousand streams speaking of the marvellous influence of bones, that is, his life, 'file Pomander (strands)." A hook and line is "a little the pastor and his family in the various collection contains a line version of a hunchback with long guts." The sea is communities of our Islands. He said, "If legendary contest between a chief of "a log for tapa-beating. ceaselessly sound- the pastors and their wives did nothing Kauai famous as a riddling expert and ing." Some of these simpler riddles must more than to raise a family and educate the son of one id his victims from Puna be of late composition; for example, the them, the value to Hawaii would justify on Hawaii. A fuller version of the same flat-iron as "a boat which sails between their salaries." tale was printed by Moses K. Nakuina islands." "the long-bearded race" of the Some day we may find time to list the in 1(X)2 in a little pamphlet called Kala- goats, the "fish, head downward, tail up- splendid work for our Islands by the pana, dedicated to all true Hawaiians ward" of the onion, or the pun on the splendid sons and daughters from pastors' "bone of my bone and blixxl of my blood, name of Kalakaua—"This is the day ( la) homes. It will be a long list, and they from Hawaii of Keawe to Kauai of to declare war (kaua)." But there are have rendered great service. Mano." Folk versions id a similar story other much more obscure riddles which are current. Mrs. Puktii says that in seem more genuinely native, such as Evangelism: Puna certain families refuse to answer (8-12) on the taro. (184) on the scrof- The Hawaiian Department is sponsor- riddles, saving "Ka mea keia i holeholc ia ulous neck. (224. 225) interpreted as poi ing a series of Evangelistic meetings on c ka iwi ova kitpuna —"lt was for this pounder and gourd container, (235) on ()ahu. These meetings are arousing much that the bones Of our ancestors were the group marriage of brothers or sis- interest among the people stripped (of flesh)." ters. The exact translation id such rid- This touch id reality leaves us in doubt dles as these may throw more light on Crossroads Confers With Vories: whether the legend does not represent the old native art of Hawaiian riddling. The Crossroads new plant committee actual custom. An examination of this had a very interesting meeting on Febru- collection indicates that the more native ary 11 with Mr. W. M. Vories of the Hawaiian riddle follows the form set in An interesting article. “Samoan Education,” Omi Hachiman Mission in Jajian. Mr. the riddle contest rather than that of our by Dr. Peter Buck, of Bishop Vories was passing through Honolulu on own folk riddling. Po iuka, po iwaena. Museum, will be printed in Thk PIIXND that day. He has been much interested po i km, says the riddle; that is, "Night for April. in the Crossroads Church and has donated