The Traditional Literature of Hawaii - Sacred Songs of the Hula. Nathaniel Bright Emerson
on which this song first was sung.
87. Kupukupu. Said to be a fragrant grass.
88. Kane-hoa. Said to be a hill at Kaupo, Maul. Another person says it is a hill at Lihue, on Oahu. The same name is often repeated.
89. Ho-a. To bind. An instance of word-repetition, common in Hawaiian poetry.
90. Wai-kaloa. A cool wind that Wows at Lihue, Kauai
91. Alina. A scar, or other mark of disfigurement, a moral blemish. In ancient times lovers inflicted injuries on themselves to prove devotion.
92. Kikepa. The bias, the one-sided slant given the pa-ú by tucking it in at one side, as previously described.
93. Imu. An oven; an allusion to the heat and passion of the part covered by the pa-ú.
94. Hu'a. Foam; figurative of the fringe at the border of the pa-ú.
95. Kuina. A term applied to the five sheets that were stitched together (kui) to make a set of bed-clothes. Five turns also, it is said, complete a pa-ú.
96. Pali no Kupe-Hau. Throughout the poem the pa-ú is compared to a pali, a mountain wall. Kupe-hau is a precipitous part of Wai-pi'o valley.
97. Hono-kane. A valley near Wai-pi'o. Here it is personified and said to do the work on the pa-ú.
98. Manú. A proper name given to this pa-ú.
99. Kau-kini. The name of a hill back of Lahaina-luna, the traditional residence of a kahuna named Lua-hoo-moe, whose two sons were celebrated for their manly beauty. Ole-pau, the king of the island Maui, ordered his retainer, Lua-hoo-moe, to fetch for his eating some young u-a'u, a sea-bird that nests and rears its young in the mountains. These young birds are esteemed a delicacy. The kahuna, who was a bird-hunter, truthfully told the king that it was not the season for the young birds; the parent birds were haunting the ocean. At this some of the king's boon companions, moved by ill-will, charged the king's mountain retainer with suppressing the truth, and in proof they brought some tough old birds caught at sea and had them served for the king's table. Thereupon the king, not discovering the fraud, ordered that Lua-hoo-moe should be put to death by fire. The following verses were communicated to the author as apropos of Kau-kini, evidently the name of a man:
Ike ia Kau-kini, he lawaia manu.
He upena ku'u i ka noe i Poha-kahi,
Ua hoopulu ia i ka ohu ka kikepa;
Ke na'i la i ka luna a Kea-auwana;
Ka uahi i ke ka-peku e hei ai ka manu o Pu-o-alii.
O ke alii wale no ka'u i makemake
Ali'a la, ha'o, e!
[Translation]
Behold Kau-kini, a fisher of birds;
Net spread in the mist of Poha-kahi,
That is soaked by the sidling fog.
It strives on the crest of Koa-auwana.
Smoke traps the birds of Pu-o-alii.
It's only the king that I wish:
But stay now--I doubt.
100. Auwana. Said to be an eminence on the flank of Haleakala, back of Ulupalakua.
101. Apua. A place on Hawaii, on Maui, on Oahu, on Kauai, and on Molokai.
102. Mama ula ia ka malua ula. The malua-ula was a variety of tapa that was stained with hili kukui (the root-bark of the kukui tree). The ripe kukui nut was chewed into a paste and mingled with this stain. Mama ula refers to this chewing. The malua ula is mentioned as a foil to the pa-ú, being a cheap tapa.
103. I. A contracted form of ti or ki, the plant or, as in this case, the leaf of the ti, the Dracæna (pl. V). Liloa, the father Of Umi, used it to cover himself after his amour with the mother of Umi, having given his malo in pledge to the woman. Umi may have used this same leaf as a substitute for the malo while in the wilderness of Laupahoehoe, hiding away from his brother, King Hakau.
104. Oloná. A strong vegetable fiber sometimes added to tapa to give it strength. The fibers of olona in the fabric of the pa-ú are compared to the runnels and brooklets of Waihilau.
105. Wai-hilau. Name applied to the water that drips in a cave in Puna. It is also the name of a stream in Wai-pi'o valley, Hawaii.
106. Kilo-hana. The name given the outside, ornamented, sheet of a set (kuina) of five tapas used as bed-clothing. It was also applied to that part of a pa-ú which was decorated with figures. The word comes from kilohi, to examine critically, and hana, to work, and therefore means an ornamental work.
107. Ohe. Bamboo. In this case the stamp, made from bamboo, used to print the tapa.
108. Alá. The hard, dark basalt of which the Hawaiian ko'i, adz, is made; any pebble, or small water-worn stone, such as would be used to hold in place the pa-ú while spread out to dry.
109. Kane-poha-ka'a. Kane-the-hail-sender. The great god Kane was also conceived of as Kane-hekili, the thunderer; Kane-lulu-honua, the earthquake-sender, etc.
110. Wai-manu and Wai-pi'o are neighboring valleys.
111. Ko-a'e-kea. A land in Wai-pi'o valley.
112. Mo' ke kihi. Mo' is a contracted form of moku.