The Project Gutenberg EBook of Unwritten Literature of Hawaii, by Nathaniel Bright Emerson This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Unwritten Literature of Hawaii The Sacred Songs of the Hula Author: Nathaniel Bright Emerson Release Date: January 6, 2007 [EBook #20299] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNWRITTEN LITERATURE OF HAWAII *** Produced by Carlo Traverso, Rénald Lévesque and the Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net, This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica). Page 1 [Page 2][Blank] Page 3 PREFATORY NOTE Previous to the year 1906 the researches of the Bureau were restricted to the American Indians, but by act of Congress approved June 30 of that year the scope of its operations was extended to include the natives of the Hawaiian islands. Funds were not specifically provided, however, for prosecuting investigations among these people, and in the absence of an appropriation for this purpose it was considered inadvisable to restrict the systematic investigations among the Indian tribes in order that the new field might be entered. Fortunately the publication of valuable data pertaining to Hawaii is already provided for, and the present memoir by Doctor Emerson is the first of the Bureau's Hawaiian series. It is expected that this Bulletin will be followed shortly by one comprising an extended list of works relating to Hawaii, compiled by Prof. H.M. Ballou and Dr. Cyrus Thomas. W.H. HOLMES, Chief. [Page 4] [Blank] Page 5 CONTENTS Page Introduction 7 I. The hula 11 II. The halau; the kuahu--their decoration and 14 III. consecration 23 IV. The gods of the hula 26 V. Support and organization of the hula 31 VI. Ceremonies of graduation; debut of a hula dancer 38 VII. The password--the song of admission 42 VIII. Worship at the altar of the halau 49 IX. Costume of the hula dancer 57 X. The hula alá'a-papa 73 XI. The hula pa-ipu, or kuolo 91 XII. The hula ki'i 103 XIII. The hula pahu 107 XIV. The hula úliulí 113 XV. The hula puili 116 XVI. The hula ka-laau 120 XVII. The hula ili-ili 122 XVIII. The hula kaekeeke 126 XIX. An intermission 132 XX. The hula niau-kani 135 XXI. The hula ohe 138 The music and musical instruments of the Hawaiians 176 XXII. Gesture 183 XXIII. The hula pa-hua 186 XXIV. The hula Pele 202 XXV. The hula pa'i-umauma 207 XXVI. The hula ku'i Molokai 210 XXVII. The hula kielei 212 XXVIII. The hula mú'u-mú'u 216 XXIX. The hula kolani 219 XXX. The hula kolea 221 XXXI. The hula manó 223 XXXII. The hula ilio 228 XXXIII. The hula pua'a 233 XXXIV. The hula ohelo 235 XXXV. Thehula kilu 244 XXXVI. The hula hoonaná 246 XXXVII. The hula ulili 248 XXXVIII. The hula o-niu 250 XXXIX. The hula ku'i 254 XL. The oli 257 XLI. The water of Kane 260 XLII. General review 265 Glossary 271 Index Page 6 ILLUSTRATIONS PLATE I. Female dancing in hula costume Frontispiece II. Íe-íe (Freycinetia arnotti) leaves and fruit 19 III. Hála-pépe (Dracaena aurea) 24 IV. Maile (Alyxia myrtillifolia) wreath 32 V. Ti (Dracaena terminalis) 44 VI. Ilima (Sida fallax), lei and flowers 56 VII. Ipu hula, gourd drum 73 VIII. Marionettes (Maile-pakaha, Nihi-au-moe) 91 IX. Marionette (Maka-kú) 93 X. Pahu hula, hula drum 103 XI. Úli-ulí, a gourd rattle 107 XII. Hawaiian tree-snails (Achatinella) 120 XIII. Lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha) flowers and 126 XIV. leaves 131 XV. Hawaiian trumpet, pu (Cassis madagascarensis) 135 XVI. Woman playing on the nose-flute (ohe-hano-ihu) 142 XVII. Pu-niu, a drum 164 XVIII. Hawaiian musician playing on the uku-lele 170 XIX. Hala fruit bunch and drupe with a "lei" 172 Pu (Triton tritonis) XX. 181 Phyllodia and true leaves of the koa Acacia koa) XXI. 194 Pala-palai ferns XXII. 210 Awa-puhi, a Hawaiian ginger XXIII. 235 Hinano hala XXIV. 250 Lady dancing the hula ku'i FIGURE 1. 113 Puíli, bamboo rattle 2. 142 Ka, drumstick for pu-niu 3. 145 Ohe-hano-ihu, nose-flute MUSICAL PIECES Range of the nose-flute--Elsner I. 146 Music from the nose-flute--Elsner II. 146 The ukeké (as played by Keaonaloa)--Eisner III. 149 Song from the hula pa'i-umauma--Berger IV. 153 Song from the hula pa-ipu--Berger V. 153 Song for the hula Pele--Berger VI. 154 Oli and mele from the hula ala'a-papa-- VII. 156 Yarndley VIII. 162 He Inoa no Kamehameha--Byington IX. 164 Song, Poli Anuanu--Yarndley X. 166 Song, Hua-hua'i--Yarndley XI. 167 Song, Ka Mawae--Berger XII. 168 Song, Like no a Like--Berger XIII. 169 Song, Pili Aoao--Berger XIV. 172 Hawaii Ponoi--Berger Page 7 INTRODUCTION This book is for the greater part a collection of Hawaiian songs and poetic pieces that have done service from time immemorial as the stock supply of the hula. The descriptive portions have been added, not because the poetical parts could not stand by themselves, but to furnish the proper setting and to answer the questions of those who want to know. Now, the hula stood for very much to the ancient Hawaiian; it was to him in place of our concert-hall and lecture-room, our opera and theater, and thus became one of his chief means of social enjoyment. Besides this, it kept the communal imagination in living touch with the nation's legendary past. The hula had songs proper to itself, but it found a mine of inexhaustible wealth in the epics and wonder-myths that celebrated the doings of the volcano goddess Pele and her compeers. Thus in the cantillations of the old-time hula we find a ready-made anthology that includes every species of composition in the whole range of Hawaiian poetry. This epic 1 of Pele was chiefly a more or less detached series of poems forming a story addressed not to the closet-reader, but to the eye and ear and heart of the assembled chiefs and people; and it was sung. The Hawaiian song, its note of joy par excellence, was the oli; but it must be noted that in every species of Hawaiian poetry, mele--whether epic or eulogy or prayer, sounding through them all we shall find the lyric note. Footnote 1: (return) It might be termed a handful of lyrics strung on an epic thread. The most telling record of a people's intimate life is the record which it unconsciously makes in its songs. This record which the Hawaiian people have left of themselves is full and specific. When, therefore, we ask what emotions stirred the heart of the old-time Hawaiian as he approached the great themes of life and death, of ambition and jealousy, of sexual passion, of romantic love, of conjugal love, and parental love, what his attitude toward nature and the dread forces of earthquake and storm, and the mysteries of spirit and the hereafter, we shall find our answer in the songs and prayers and recitations of the hula. The hula, it is true, has been unfortunate in the mode and manner of its introduction to us moderns. An institution of divine, that is, religious, origin, the hula in modern times Page 8 has wandered so far and fallen so low that foreign and critical esteem has come to associate it with the riotous and passionate ebullitions of Polynesian kings and the amorous posturing of their voluptuaries. We must make a just distinction, however, between the gestures and bodily contortions presented by the men and women, the actors in the hula, and their uttered words. "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau." In truth, the actors in the hula no longer suit the action to the word. The utterance harks back to the golden age; the gesture is trumped up by the passion of the hour, or dictated by the master of the hula, to whom the real meaning of the old bards is ofttimes a sealed casket. Whatever indelicacy attaches in modern times to some of the gestures and contortions of the hula dancers, the old-time hula songs in large measure were untainted with grossness. If there ever were a Polynesian Arcadia, and if it were possible for true reports of the doings and sayings of the Polynesians to reach us from that happy land--reports of their joys and sorrows, their love-makings and their jealousies, their family spats and reconciliations, their worship of beauty and of the gods and goddesses who walked in the garden of beauty--we may say, I think, that such a report would be in substantial agreement with the report that is here offered; but, if one's virtue will not endure the love-making of Arcadia, let him banish the myth from his imagination and hie to a convent or a nunnery. If this book does nothing more than prove that savages are only children of a younger growth than ourselves, that what we find them to have been we ourselves--in our ancestors--once were, the labor of making it will have been not in vain'.