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This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Unwritten Literature of Hawaii

N >> Nathaniel Bright Emerson >> Unwritten Literature of Hawaii




[Footnote 218: _Wanahili_. A princess of the mythological
period belonging to Puna, Hawaii.]

[Footnote 219: _Manu'a_. A king of Hilo, the son of Kane-hili,
famous for his skill in spear-throwing, _maika_-rolling, and
all athletic exercises. He was united in marriage, _ho-ao_,
to the lovely princess Wanahili. Tradition deals with Manua
as a very lovable character.]

[Footnote 220: _Pu kau kama_. The conch (pu) is figured as the
herald of fame. _Kau_ is used in the sense of to set on high,
in contrast with such a word as _waiho_, to set down. _Kama_
is the word of dignity for children.]

[Footnote 221: _Pu leina_. It is asserted on good authority
that the triton (_pu_), when approached in its ocean habitat,
will often make sudden and extraordinary leaps in an effort
to escape. There is special reference here to the famous
conch known in Hawaiian story as _Kiha-pu_. It was credited
with supernatural powers as a _kupua_. During the reign of
Umi, son of Liloa, it was stolen from the _heiau_ in Waipio
valley and came into the hands of god Kane. In his wild
awa-drinking revels the god terrified Umi and his people by
sounding nightly blasts with the conch. The shell was finally
restored to King Umi by the superhuman aid of the famous dog
Puapua-lena-lena.]

[Footnote 222: _Kiha-nui a Piilani_. Son of Piilani, a king of
Maui. He is credited with the formidable engineering work of
making a paved road over the mountain palis of Koolau, Maui.]

[Footnote 223: _Kauhi kalana-honu'-a-Kama_. This Kauhi, as his
long title indicates, was the son of the famous king,
Kama-lala-walu, and succeeded his father in the kingship over
Maui and, probably, Lanai. Kama-lala-walu had a long and
prosperous reign, which ended, however, in disaster. Acting
on the erroneous reports of his son Kauhi, whom he had sent
to spy out the land, he invaded the kingdom of
Lono-i-ka-makahiki on Hawaii, was wounded and defeated in
battle, taken prisoner, and offered up as a sacrifice on the
altar of Lono's god, preferring that death, it is said, to
the ignominy of release.]

[Footnote 224: _I-olena_. Roving, shifty, lustful.]

[Footnote 225: _Kanaka hoali mauna_. Man who moved mountains;
an epithet of compliment applied perhaps to Kiha, above
mentioned, or to the king mentioned in the next verse,
Kekaulike.]

[Footnote 226: _Ku'i hono i ka moku_. Who bound together into
one (state) the islands Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Kahoolawe.
This was, it is said, Kekaulike, the fifth king of Maui after
Kama-lala-walu. At his death he was succeeded by
Kamehameha-nui--to be distinguished from the Kamehameha of
Hawaii--and he in turn by the famous warrior-king Kahekili,
who routed the invading army of Kalaniopuu, king of Hawaii,
on the sand plains of Wailuku.]

[Footnote 227: _I waihona kapuahi kanaka eha_. This verse
presents grammatical difficulties. The word _I_ implies the
imperative, a form of request or demand, though that is
probably not the intent. It seems to be a means, authorized
by poetical license, of ascribing honor and tabu-glory to
the name of the person eulogized, who, the context leads the
author to think, was Kekaulike. The island names other than
that of Maui seem to have been thrown in for poetical effect,
as that king, in the opinion of the author, had no power over
Kauai, Oahu, or Hawaii. The purpose may have been to assert
that his glory reached to those islands.]

[Footnote 228: _Keawe enaena_. Keawe, whose tabu was hot as a
burning oven. Presumably Keawe, the son of Umi, is the one
meant.]

[Footnote 229: _Naulu_. The sea-breeze at Waimea, Kauai.]

[Footnote 230: _Hala-lii_. A sandy plain on Niihau, where grows
a variety of sugar-cane that lies largely covered by the
loose soil, _ke ko eli o Hala-lii_.]

[Footnote 231: _Li'u-la_. The mirage, a common phenomenon on
Niihau, and especially at Mana, on Kauai.]

[Translation]

_Song_

(Distinct utterance)

Wanahili bides the whole night with Manu'a,
By trumpet hailed through broad Hawaii,
By the white vaulting conch of Kiha--
Great Kiha, offspring of Pii-lani,
5 Father of eight-branched Kama-lala-walu
The far-roaming eye now sparkles with joy,
Whose energy erstwhile shook mountains,
The king who firm-bound the isles in one state,
His glory, symboled by four human altars,
10 Reaches Kauai, Oahu, Maui,
Hawaii the eld of Keawe,
Whose tabu, burning with blood-red blaze,
Shoots flame-tongues that leap with the wind,
The breeze from the mountain, the Naulu.
15 Waihoa humps its back, while cold Mikioi
Blows fierce and swift across Hala-li'i.
It vaunts like a king at Kekaha,
Flaunting itself in the sun's heat,
And lifts itself up in mirage,
20 Ghost-forms of woods and trees in Kekaha--
Sweeping o'er waste Kala-ihi, Water-of-Lono;
While the sun shoots forth its fierce rays--
Its heat, perchance, reaches to Honua-ula.

The mele next given takes its local color from Kauai and
brings vividly to mind the experiences of one who has climbed
the mountain walls _pali_, that buffet the winds of its
northern coast.

_Mele_

Kalalau, pali eku i ka makani;
Pu ka Lawa-kua,[232] hoi mau i Kolo-kini;
Nu a anahulu ka pa ana i-uka--
Anahulu me na po keu elua.

[Page 102] 5 Elua Hono-pu o ia kua kanaka;
Elua Ko'a-mano[233] me Wai-aloha,
Ka pali waha iho, waha iho[234] me ke kua;
Ke keiki puu iloko o ka pali nui.
E hii an'[235] e Makua i Kalalau.

[Footnote 232: Laiea-kua. A wind in Kalalau that blows for a
time from the mountains and then, it is said, veers to the
north, so that it comes from the direction of a secondary
valley, Kolo-kini, a branch of Kalalau. The bard describes it
as continuing to blow for twelve nights before It shifts, an
instance, probably, of poetic license.]

[Footnote 233: _Ko'a-mano_. A part of the ocean into which the
stream Wai-aloha falls.]

[Footnote 234: _Waha iho_. With mouth that yawns downward,
referring, doubtless, to the overarching of the _pali_,
precipice. The same figure is applied to the back (_kua_) of
the traveler who climbs it.]

[Footnote 235: Elision of the final _a_ in _ana_.]

[Translation]

_Song_

The mountain walls of Kalalau
Buffet the blasts of Lawa-kau,
That surge a decade of nights and twain;
Then, wearied, it veers to the north.

5 Two giant backs stand the cliffs Hono-pu;
The falls Wai-aloha mate with the sea:
An overhung pali--the climber's back swings in
Its mouth--to face it makes one a child--
Makua, whose arms embrace Kalalau.

The mind of the ancient bard was so narrowly centered on the
small plot his imagination cultivated that he disregarded the
outside world, forgetting that it could not gaze upon the
scenes which filled his eyes.

The valley of Kalalau from its deep recess in the
northwestern coast of Kauai looks out upon the heaving waters
of the Pacific. The mountain walls of the valley are abrupt,
often overhanging. Viewed from the ocean, the cliffs are
piled one upon another like the buttresses of a Gothic
cathedral. The ocean is often stormy, and during several
months in the year forbids intercourse with other parts of
the island, save as the hardy traveler makes his way along
precipitous mountain trails.

The hula _ala'a-papa_, hula _ipu_, hula _pa-ipu_ (or
_kuolo_), the hula _hoo-nana_, and the hula _ki'i_ were all
performed to the accompaniment of the ipu or calabash, and,
being the only ones that were so accompanied, if the author
is correctly informed, they may be classed together under one
head as the calabash hulas.

[Illustration:
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
BULLETIN 38 PLATE X
PAHU HULA, HULA DRUM]

[Page 103]




XII.--THE HULA PAHU


The hula _pahu_ was so named from the _pahu_,[236] or drum,
that was its chief instrument of musical accompaniment (pl.
x).

[Footnote 236: Full form, _pahu-hula_.]

It is not often that the story of an institution can be so
closely fitted to the landmarks of history as in the case of
this hula; and this comes about through our knowledge of the
history of the pahu itself. Tradition, direct and reliable,
informs us that the credit of introducing the big drum
belongs to La'a. This chief flourished between five and six
centuries ago, and from having spent most of his life in the
lands to the south, which the ancient Hawaiians called
Kahiki, was himself generally styled La'a-mai-Kahiki
(La'a-from-Kahiki). The young man was of a volatile
disposition, given to pleasure, and it is evident that the
big drum he brought with him to Hawaii on one of his voyages
from Kahiki was in his eyes by no means the least important
piece of baggage that freighted his canoes. On nearing the
land he waked the echoes with the stirring tones of his drum,
which so astonished the people that they followed him from
point to point along the coast and heaped favors upon him
whenever he came ashore.

La'a was an enthusiastic patron of the hula and is said to
have made a tour of the islands, in which he instructed the
natives in new forms of this seductive pastime, one of which
was the hula _ka-eke_.

There is reason to believe, it seems, that the original use
of the pahu was in connection with the services of the
temple, and that its adaptation to the halau was simply a
transference from one to another religious use.

The hula pahu was preeminently a performance of formal and
dignified character, not such as would be extemporized for
the amusement of an irreverent company. Like all the formal
hulas, it was tabu, by which the Hawaiians meant that it was
a religious service, or so closely associated with the notion
of worship as to make it an irreverence to trifle with it.
For this reason as well as for its intrinsic dignity its
performance was reserved for the most distinguished guests
and the most notable occasions.

Both classes of actors took part in the performance of the
hula pahu, the olapa contributing the mele as they stood and
went through the motions of the dance, while the hoopaa
maintained the kneeling position and operated the big drum
with the left hand. While his left hand was thus engaged, the
[Page 104] musician with a thong held in his right hand struck a tiny
drum, the _pu-niu_, that was conveniently strapped to the
thigh of the same side. As its name signifies, the pu-niu was
made from coconut shell, being headed with fish-skin.

The harmonious and rhythmic timing of these two instruments
called for strict attention on the part of the performer. The
pahu, having a tone of lower pitch and greater volume than
the other, was naturally sounded at longer intervals, while
the pu-niu delivered its sharp crisp tones in closer order.

_Mele_

(Ko'i-honua)

O Hilo oe, Hilo, muliwai a ka ua i ka lani,
I hana ia Hilo, ko-i ana e ka ua.
E halo ko Hilo ma i-o, i-anei;
Lenalena Hilo e, panopano i ka ua.
5 Ua lono Pili-keko o Hilo i ka wai;
O-kakala ka hulu o Hilo i ke anu;
Ua ku o ka paka a ka ua i ke one;
Ua moe oni ole Hilo i-luna ke alo;
Ua hana ka uluna lehu o Hana-kahi.
10 Haule ka onohi Hilo o ka ua i ke one;
Loku kapa ka hi-hilo kai o Pai-kaka.
Ha, e!

2

A Puna au, i Kuki'i au, i Ha'eha'e,
Ike au i ke a kino-lau lehua.
He laau malalo o ia pohaku.
Hanohano Puna e, kehakeha i ka ua,
5 Kahiko mau no ia no-laila.
He aina haaheo loa no Puna;
I haaheo i ka hala me ka lehua;
He maikai maluna, he a malalo;
He kelekele ka papa o Mau-kele.
10 Kahuli Apua e, kele ana i Mau-kele.

[Translation]

_Song_

(Bombastic style)

Thou art Hilo, Hilo, flood-gate of heaven.
Hilo has power to wring out the rain.
Let Hilo turn here and turn there;
Hilo's kept from employ, somber with rain;
5 Pili-keko roars with full stream;
The feathers of Hilo bristle with cold,
And her hail-stones smite on the sand.
She lies without motion, with upturned face,
The fire-places pillowed with ashes;
10 The bullets of rain are slapping the land,
Pitiless rain turmoiling Pai-kaka.
So, indeed.
[Page 105]
2

In Puna was I, in Ku-ki'i, in Ha'e-ha'e,
I saw a wraith of lehua, a burning bush,
A fire-tree beneath the lava plate.
Magnificent Puna, fertile from rain,
5 At all times weaving its mantle.
Aye Puna's a land of splendor,
Proudly bedight with palm and lehua;
Beauteous above, but horrid below,
And miry the plain of Mau-kele.
10 Apua upturned, plod on to Mau-kele.


_Mele_

Kau lilua i ke anu Wai-aleale;
He maka halalo ka lehua makanoe;[237]
He lihilihi kuku ia no Aipo,[238] e;
O ka hulu a'a ia o Hau-a-iliki;[239]
5 Ua pehi 'a e ka ua a eha ka nahele,

Maui ka pua, uwe eha i ke anu,
I ke kukuna la-wai o Mokihana.[240]
Ua hana ia aku ka pono a ua pololei;
Ua hai 'na ia aku no ia oe;
10 O ke ola no ia.

O kia'i loko, kia'i Ka-ula,[241]
Nana i ka makani, hoolono ka leo,
Ka halulu o ka Malua-kele;[242]
Kiei, halo i Maka-ike-ole.

15 Kamau ke ea i ka halau[243] a ola;
He kula lima ia no Wawae-noho,[244]
Me he puko'a hakahaka la i Waahila
Ka momoku a ka unu-lehua o Lehua.
A lehulehu ka hale pono ka noho ana,

20 Loaa kou haawina--o ke aloha,
Ke hauna[245] mai nei ka puka o ka hale.
Ea!

[Footnote 237: _Lehua makanoe_. The lehua trees that grow on
the top of Wai-aleale, the mountain mass of Kauai, are of
peculiar form, low, stunted, and so furzy as to be almost
thorny, _kuku_, as mentioned in the next line.]

[Footnote 238: _Ai-po_. A swamp that occupies the summit basin
of the mountain, in and about which the thorny lehua trees
above mentioned stand as a fringe.]

[Footnote 239: _Hau-a-iliki_. A word made up of _hau_, dew or
frost, and _iliki_, to smite. The _a_ is merely a
connective.]

[Footnote 240: _Mokihana_. The name of a region on the flank of
Wai-aleale, also a plant that grows there, whose berry is
fragrant and is used in making wreaths.]

[Footnote 241: _Ka-ula_. A small rocky island visible from
Kauai.]

[Footnote 242: _Malua-kele_. A wind.]

[Footnote 243: _Halau_. The shed or house which sheltered the
canoe, _wa'a_, which latter, as we have seen, was often used
figuratively to mean the human body, especially the body of a
woman. _Kamau ke ea i ka halau_ might be translated
"persistent the breath from her body." "There's kames o'
hinny 'tween my luve's lips."]

[Footnote 244: _Wawae-noho_. Literally the foot that abides; it
is the name of a place. Here it is to be understood as
meaning constancy. It is an instance in which the concrete
stands for the abstract.]

[Footnote 245: _Hauna_. An odor. In this connection it means
the odor that hangs about a human habitation. The hidden
allusion, it is needless to say, is to sexual
attractiveness.]
[Page 106]

[Translation]

_Song_

Wai-aleale stands haughty and cold,
Her lehua bloom, fog-soaked, droops pensive;
The thorn-fringe set ahout swampy Ai-po is
A feather that flaunts in spite of the pinching frost.
5 Her herbage is pelted, stung by the rain;

Bruised all her petals, and moaning in cold
Mokihana's sun, his wat'ry beams.
I have acted in good faith and honor,
My complaint is only to you--
10 A matter that touches my life.

Best watch within and toward Ka-ula;
Question each breeze, note every rumor,
Even the whisper of Malua-kele.
Search high and search low, unobservant.

15 There is life in the breath from her body,
Fond caress by a hand not inconstant.
Like fissured groves of coral
Stand the ragged clumps of lehua.
Many the houses, easy the life.

20 You have your portion--of love;
Humanity smells at the door.
Aye, indeed.

The imagery of this poem is peculiarly obscure and the
meaning difficult of translation. The allusions are so local
and special that their meaning does not carry to a distance.

Wai-aleale is the central mountain mass of Kauai, about 6,000
feet high. Its summit, a cold, fog-swept wilderness of swamp
and lake beset with dwarfish growths of lehua, is used as the
symbol of a woman, impulsively kind, yet in turn passionate
and disdainful. The physical attributes of the mountain are
ascribed to her, its spells of frosty coldness, its gloom and
distance, its fickleness of weather, the repellant
hirsuteness of the stunted vegetation that fringes the
central swamp--these things are described as symbols of her
temper, character, and physical make-up. The bloom and
herbage of the wilderness, much pelted by the storm, are
figures to represent her physical charms. But spite of all
these faults and imperfections, a perennial fragrance, as of
mokihana, clings to her person, and she is the object of
devoted love, capable of weaving the spell of fascination
about her victims.

This poem furnishes a good example of a peculiarity that
often is an obstacle to the understanding of Hawaiian poetry.
It is the breaking up of the composition into a number of
parts that have but a loose seeming connection the one with
the other.


[Illustration: BULLETIN 38 PLATE XI
ULI-ULI, A GOURD RATTLE]

[Page 107]




XIII.--THE HULA ULI-ULI


The hula _uli-uli_ was so called from the rattle which was
its sole instrument of accompaniment. This consisted of a
small gourd about the size of a large orange, into the cavity
of which were put shot-like seeds, like those of the canna; a
handle was then attached (pl. xi).

The actors who took part in this hula belonged, it is said,
to the class termed hoopaa, and went through with the
performance while kneeling or squatting, as has been
described. While cantillating the mele they held the rattle,
_uli-uli_, in the right hand, shaking it against the palm of
the other hand or the thigh, or making excursions in one
direction and another. In some performances of this hula
which the author has witnessed the olapa also took part, in
one case a woman, who stood and cantillated the song with
movement and gesture, while the hoopaa devoted themselves
exclusively to handling the uli-uli rattles.

The sacrificial offerings that preceded the old-time
performances of this hula are said to have been awa and a
roast porkling, in honor of the goddess Laka.

If the dignity and quality of the meles now used, or reported
to have been used, in the hula _uli-uli_ are to be taken as
any criterion of the quality and dignity of this hula, one
has to conclude that it must be assigned to a rank below that
of some others, such, for instance, as the _ala'a-papa_,
_pa-ipu_, _Pele_, and others.

David Malo, the Hawaiian historian, author of _Ka Moolelo
Hawaii_,[246] in the short chapter that he devotes to the hula,
mentions only ten hulas by name, the _ka-laau_,
_pa'i-umauma_, _pahu_, _pahu'a_, _ala'a-papa_, _pa'i-pa'i_,
_pa-ipu_, _ulili_, _kolani_, and the _kielei_. _Ulili_ is but
another form of the word _uli-uli_. Any utterance of Malo is
to be received seriously; but it seems doubtful if he
deliberately selected for mention the ten hulas that were
really the most important. It seems more probable that he set
down the first ten that stood forth prominent in his memory.
It was not Malo's habit, nor part of his education, to make
an exhaustive list of sports and games, or in fact of
anything. He spoke of what occurred to him. It must also be
remembered that, being an ardent convert to Christianity,
[Page 108] Malo felt himself conscience-bound to set himself in
opposition to the amusements, sports, and games of his
people, and he was unable, apparently, to see in them any
good whatsoever. Malo was a man of uncompromising honesty and
rigidity of principles. His nature, acting under the new
influences that surrounded him after the introduction of
Christianity, made it impossible for him to discriminate
calmly between the good and the pernicious, between the
purely human and poetic and the depraved elements in the
sports practised by his people during their period of
heathenism. There was nothing halfway about Malo. Having
abandoned a system, his nature compelled him to denounce it
root and branch.

[Footnote 246: Translated by N.B. Emerson, M.D., under the
title "Hawaiian Antiquities," and published by the B.P.
Bishop Museum. Hawaiian Gazette Company (Limited), Honolulu,
1903.]

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