Major A.R. Calhoon - "How to Get on in the World"

William Wordsworth - "Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I."

Elizabeth Davis Leavitt - "The Grasshopper Stories"

Various - "The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
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




The first mele here offered as an accompaniment to this hula
can boast of no great antiquity; it belongs to the middle of
the nineteenth century, and was the product of some gallant
at a time when princes and princesses abounded in Hawaii:


_Mele_

Aole i manao ia.
Kahi wai a o Alekoki.
Hookohu ka ua i uka,
Noho mai la i Nuuanu.
5 Anuanu, makehewa au
Ke kali ana i-laila.
Ea ino paha ua paa
Kou manao i ane'i,
Au i hoomalu ai.
10 Hoomalu oe a malu;
Ua malu keia kino
Mamuli a o kou leo.
Kau nui aku ka manao
Kani wai a o Kapena.
15 Pani'a paa ia mai
Na manowai a o uka;
Ahu wale na ki'owai,
Na papa-hale o luna.
Maluna a'e no wau,
20 Ma ke kuono liilii.
A waho, a o Mamala,
Hao mai nei ehu-ehu;
Pulu au i ka huna-kai,
Kai heahea i ka ili.
25 Hookahi no koa nui,
Nana e alo ia ino.
Ino-ino mai nei luna,
I ka hao a ka makani.
He makani ahai-lono;
30 Lohe ka luna i Pelekane.
O ia pouli nui
Mea ole i ku'u manao.
I o, i a-ne'i au,
Ka piina la o Ma'ema'e,
[Page 109] 35 E kilohi au o ka nani
Na pua i Mauna-ala.
He ala ona-ona kou,
Ke pili mai i ane'i,
O a'u lehua ula i-luna,
40 Ai ono a na manu.

[Translation]

_Song_

I spurn the thought with disdain
Of that pool Alekoki:
On the upland lingers the rain
And fondly haunts Nuuanu.
5 Sharp was the cold, bootless
My waiting up there.
I thought thou wert true,
Wert loyal to me,
Whom thou laids't under bonds.
10 Take oath now and keep it;
This body is sacred to thee,
Bound by the word of thy mouth.
My heart leaps up at thought
Of the pool, pool of Kapena;
15 To me it is fenced, shut off,
The water-heads tightly sealed up.
The fountains must be a-hoarding,
For skies are ever down-pouring;
The while I am lodged up aloft,
20 Bestowed in the cleft of a rock.
Now, tossed by sea at Mamala,
The wind drives wildly the surf;
I'm soaked with the scud of the ocean,
My body is rough with the rime.
25 But one stout hero and soldier,
With heart to face such a storm.
Wild scud the clouds,
Hurled by the tempest,
A tale-bearing wind,
30 That gossips afar.
The darkness and storm
Are nothing to me.
This way and that am I turning,
Climbing the hill Ma'e-ma'e,
35 To look on thy charms, dear one,
The fragrant buds of the mountain.
What perfume breathes from thy body,
Such time as to thee I come close,
My scarlet bloom of lehua
40 Yields nectar sought by the birds.


This mele is said to have been the production of Prince
[Page 110] William Lunalilo--afterward King of the Hawaiian islands--and
to have been addressed to the Princess Victoria Kamamalu,
whom he sought in marriage. Both of them inherited high chief
rank, and their offspring, according to Hawaiian usage, would
have outranked her brothers, kings Kamehameha IV and V.
Selfish and political considerations, therefore, forbade the
match, and thereby hangs a tale, the shadow of which darkens
this song. Every lover is one part poet; and Lunalilo, even
without the love-flame, was more than one part poet.

The poem shows the influence of foreign ways and teachings
and the pressure of the new environment that had entered
Hawaii, in its form, in the moderation of its language and
imagery, and in the coherence of its parts; at the same time
the spirit of the song and the color of its native imagery
mark it as the product of a Polynesian mind.

According to the author's interpretation of the song,
_Alekoki_ (verse 2), a name applied to a portion of the
Nuuanu stream lower down than the basin and falls of _Kapena_
(_Kahiwai a o Kapena_--verse 14), symbolizes a flame that may
once have warmed the singer's imagination, but which he
discards in favor of his new love, the pool of Kapena. The
rain, which prefers to linger in the upland regions of Nuuanu
(verses 3 and 4) and which often reaches not the lower
levels, typifies his brooding affection. The cold, the storm,
and the tempest that rage at _Mamala_ (verse 21)--a name
given to the ocean just outside Honolulu harbor--and that
fill the heavens with driving scud (verses 27 and 28)
represent the violent opposition in high quarters to the
love-match. The tale-bearing wind, _makani ahai-lono_ (verse
29), refers, no doubt, to the storm of scandal. The use of
the place-names _Ma'ema'e_ and _Mauna-ala_ seem to indicate
Nuuanu as the residence of the princess.

_Mele_

PALE I

Auhea wale oe, e ka Makani Inu-wai?
Pa kolonahe i ka ili-kai,
Hoonui me ka Naulu,
Na ulu hua i ka hapapa.
5 Ano au ike i ke ko Hala-li'i,
I keia wa nana ia Lehua.

PALE II

Aia i Waimea ku'u haku-lei?
Hui pu me ka wai ula iliahi,
Mohala ta pua i ke one o Pawene;
10 Ka lawe a ke Koolau
Noho pu me ka ua punonohu ula i ka nahele,
Ike i ka wai kea o Makaweli;
[Page 111] Ua noho pu i ka nahele
Me ka lei hinahina o Maka-li'i.
15 Liilii ka uka o Koae'a;
Nana i ka ua lani-pili,
Ka o-o, manu le'a o ka nahele.

I Pa-ie-ie an, noho pu me ke anu.
E ha'i a'e oe t ka puana:
20 Ke kahuna kalai-hoe o Puu-ka-Pele.

[Translation]

_Song_

CANTO I

Whence art thou, thirsty wind,
That gently kissest the sea,
Then, wed to the ocean breeze,
Playest fan with the breadfruit tree?
5 Here sprawl Hala-lii's canes,
There stands bird-haunted Lehua.

CANTO II

My wreath-maker dwells at Waimea.
Partnered is she to the swirling river;
They plant with flowers the sandy lea,
10 While the bearded surf, tossed by the breeze,
Vaunts on the hills as the sun-bow,
Looks on the crystal stream Makaweli,
And in the wildwood makes her abode
With Hinahina of silvern wreaths.
15 Koaea's a speck to the eye,
Under the low-hanging rain-cloud,
Woodland home of the plaintive o-o.

From frost-bitten Pa-ie-ie
I bid you, guess me the fable:
20 Paddle-maker on Pele's mount.

This mele comes from Kauai, an Island in many respects
individualized from the other parts of the group and that
seems to have been the nurse of a more delicate imagination
than was wont to flourish elsewhere. Its tone is archaic, and
it has the rare merit of not transfusing the more crudely
erotic human emotions into the romantic sentiments inspired
by nature.

The Hawaiians dearly loved fable and allegory. Argument or
truth, dressed out in such fanciful garb, gained double force
and acceptance. We may not be able to follow a poet in his
wanderings; his local allusions may obscure to us much of his
meaning; the doctrine of his allegory may be to us largely a
riddle; and the connection between the body of its thought
and illustration and the application, or solution, of the
poetical conundrum may be past our comprehension; but the
[Page 112] play of the poet's fancy, whether childish or mature, is an
interesting study, and brings us closer in human sympathy to
the people who took pleasure in such things.

In translating this poem, while not following literally the
language of the poet, the aim has been to hit the target
of his deeper meaning, without hopelessly involving the
reader in the complexities of Hawaiian color and local
topography. A few words of explanation must suffice.

The _Makani Inu-wai_ (verse 1)--known to all the islands--is
a wind that dries up vegetation, literally a water-drinking
wind.

The _Naulu_ (verse 3) is the ordinary sea-breeze at Waimea,
Kauai, sometimes accompanied by showers.

_Hala-li'i_ (verse 5) is a sandy plain on Niihau, and the
peculiarity of its canes is that they sprawl along on the
ground, and are often to a considerable extent covered by the
loose soil.

_Lehua_ (verse 6) is the well-known bird-island, lying north
of Niihau and visible from the Waimea side of Kauai.

The wreath-maker, _haku-lei_ (verse 7), who dwells at Waimea,
is perhaps the ocean-vapor, or the moist sea-breeze, or, it
may be, some figment of the poet's imagination--the author
can not make out exactly what.

The _hinahina_ (verse 14), a native geranium, is a mountain
shrub that stands about 3 feet high, with silver-gray leaves.

_Maka-weli, Maka-li'i, Koae'a_, and _Pa-ie-ie_ are names of
places on Kauai.

_Puu-ka-Pele_ (verse 20) as the name indicates, is a volcanic
hill, situated near Waimea.

The key or answer (_puana_), to the allegory given in verse
20, _Ke kahuna kalai-hoe o Puu-ka-Pele_, the paddle-making
kahuna of Pele's mount, when declared by the poet
(_haku-mele_), is not very informing to the foreign mind; but
to the Hawaiian auditor it, no doubt, took the place of our
_haec fabula docet_, and it at least showed that the poet was
not without an intelligent motive. In the poem in point the
author acknowledges his inability to make connection between
it and the body of the song.

One merit we must concede to Hawaiian poetry, it wastes no
time in slow approach. The first stroke of the artist places
the auditor _in medias res_.

[Page 113]




XIV.--THE HULA PUILI


The character of a hula was determined to some extent by the
nature of the musical instrument that was its accompaniment.
In the hula _puili_ it certainly seems as if one could
discern the influence of the rude, but effective, instrument
that was its musical adjunct. This instrument, the _puili_
(fig. 1), consisted of a section of bamboo from which one
node with its diaphragm had been removed and the hollow
joint at that end split up for a considerable distance into
fine divisions, which gave forth a breezy rustling when the
instrument was struck or shaken.

The performers, all of them hoopaa, were often placed in two
rows, seated or kneeling and facing one another, thus
favoring a responsive action in the use of the puili as well
as in the cantillation of the song. One division would
sometimes shake and brandish their instruments, while the
others remained quiet, or both divisions would perform at
once, each individual clashing one puili against the other
one held by himself, or against that of his vis-a-vis; or
they might toss them back and forth to each other, one bamboo
passing another in mid air.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Puili, bamboo-rattle.]

While the hula puili is undeniably a performance of classical
antiquity, it is not to be regarded as of great dignity or
importance as compared with many other hulas. Its character,
like that of the meles associated with it, is light and
trivial.

The mele next presented is by no means a modern production.
It seems to be the work of some unknown author, a fragment of
folklore, it might be called by some, that has drifted down
to the present generation and then been put to service in the
hula. If hitherto the word _folklore_ has not been used it is
not from any prejudice against it, but rather from a feeling
that there exists an inclination to stretch the application
of it beyond its true limits and to make it include popular
songs, stories, myths, and the like, regardless of its
fitness of application. Some writers, no doubt, would apply
this vague term to a large part of the poetical pieces which
are given in this book.
[Page 114]
On the same principle, why should they not apply the term
folklore to the myths and stories that make up the body of
Roman and Greek mythology? The present author reserves the
term folklore for application to those unappropriated scraps
of popular song, story, myth, and superstition that have
drifted down the stream of antiquity and that reach us in the
scrap-bag of popular memory, often bearing in their battered
forms the evidence of long use.

Mele

Hiki mai, niki mai ka La, e.
Aloha wale ka La e kau nei,
Aia malalo o Ka-wai-hoa,[247]
A ka lalo o Kauai, o Lehua.
5 A Kauai au, ike i ka pali;
A Milo-lii[248] pale ka pali loloa.
E kolo ana ka pali o Makua-iki;[249]
Kolo o Pu-a, he keiki,
He keiki makua-ole ke uwe nei.

[Translation]

_Song_

It has come, it has come; lo the Sun!
How I love the Sun that's on high;
Below it swims Ka-wai-hoa,
Oa the slope inclined from Lehua.
5 On Kauai met I a pali,
A beetling cliff that bounds Milo-lii,
And climbing up Makua-iki,
Crawling up was Pua, the child,
An orphan that weeps out its tale.

The writer has rescued the following fragment from the
wastebasket of Hawaiian song. A lean-to of modern verse has
been omitted; it was evidently added within a generation:

_Mele_

Malua,[250] ki'i wai ke aloha,
Hoopulu i ka liko mamane.
Uleuleu mai na manu,
Inu wai lehua o Panaewa,[251]
5 E walea ana i ke onaona,
Ke one wali o Ohele.
[Page 115] Hele mal nei kou aloha
A lalawe i ko'u nui kino,
Au i hookohu ai,
10 E kuko i ka manao.
Kuhi no paha oe no Hopoe[252]
Nei lehua au i ka hana ohi ai.

[Footnote 247: Kawaihoa. The southern point of Niihau, which is
to the west of Kauai, the evident standpoint of the poet, and
therefore "below" Kauai.]

[Footnote 248: _Milo-lii_. A valley on the northwestern angle
of Kauai, a precipitous region, in which travel from one
point to another by land is almost impossible.]

[Footnote 249: _Makua-iki_. Literally "little father," a name
given to an overhanging pali, where was provided a hanging
ladder to make travel possible. The series of palis in this
region comes to an end at Milo-lii.]

[Footnote 250: The _Malua_ was a wind, often so dry that it
sucked up the moisture from the land and destroyed the tender
vegetation.]

[Footnote 251: Panaewa was a woodland region much talked of in
poetry and song.]

[Footnote 252: _Hopoe_ was a beautiful young woman, a friend
of Hiiaka, and was persecuted by Pele owing to jealousy. One
of the forms in which she as a divinity showed herself was as
a lehua tree in full bloom.]

[Translation]

_Song_

Malua, fetch water of love,
Give drink to this mamane bud.
The birds, they are singing ecstatic,
Sipping Panaewa's nectared lehua,
5 Beside themselves with the fragrance
Exhaled from the garden Ohele.
Your love comes to me a tornado;
It has rapt away my whole body,
The heart you once sealed as your own,
10 There planted the seed of desire.
Thought you 'twas the tree of Hopoe,
This tree, whose bloom you would pluck?

What is the argument of this poem? A passion-stricken swain,
or perhaps a woman, cries to _Malua_ to bring relief to his
love-smart, to give drink to the parched _mamane_
buds--emblems of human feeling. In contrast to his own
distress, he points to the birds caroling in the trees,
reveling in the nectar of _lehua_ bloom, intoxicated with the
scent of nature's garden. What answer does the lovelorn swain
receive from the nymph he adores? In lines 11 and 12 she
banteringly asks him if he took her to be like the
traditional lehua tree of Hopoe, of which men stood in awe as
a sort of divinity, not daring to pluck its flowers? It is as
if the woman had asked--if the poet's meaning is rightly
interpreted--"Did you really think me plighted to vestal
vows, a tree whose bloom man was forbidden to pluck?"
[Page 116]




XV.--THE HULA KA-LAAU


The hula _ka-laau_ (_ka_, to strike; _laau_, wood) was named
from the instruments of wood used in producing the
accompaniment, a sort of xylophone, in which one piece of
resonant wood was struck against another. Both divisions of
the performers, the hoopaa and the olapa, took part and each
division was provided with the instruments. The cantillation
was done sometimes by one division alone, sometimes by both
divisions in unison, or one division would answer the other,
a responsive chanting that was termed _haawe aku, haawe
mai_--"to give, to return."

Ellis gives a quotable description of this hula, which he
calls the "hura ka raau:"

Five musicians advanced first, each, with a staff in his left
hand, five or six feet long, about three or four inches in
diameter at one end, and tapering off to a point at the
other. In his right hand he held a small stick of hard wood,
six or nine inches long, with which he commenced his music by
striking the small stick on the larger one, beating time all
the while with his right foot on a stone placed on the ground
beside him for that purpose. Six women, fantastically dressed
in yellow tapas, crowned, with garlands of flowers, having
also wreaths of native manufacture, of the sweet-scented
flowers of the _gardenia_, on their necks, and branches of
the fragrant _mairi_ (another native plant,) bound round
their ankles, now made their way by couples through the
crowd, and, arriving at the area, on one side of which the
musicians stood, began their dance. Their movements were
slow, and, though not always graceful, exhibited nothing
offensive to modest propriety. Both musicians and dancers
alternately chanted songs in honor of former gods and chiefs
of the islands, apparently much to the gratification of the
spectators. (Polynesian Researches, by William Ellis, IV,
78-79, London, 1836.)

The mele here first presented is said to be an ancient mele
that has been modified and adapted to the glorification of
that astute politician, genial companion, and pleasure-loving
king, Kalakaua.

It was not an uncommon thing for one chief to appropriate the
_mele inoa_ of another chief. By substituting one name for
another, by changing a genealogy, or some such trifle, the
skin of the lion, so to speak, could be made to cover with
more or less grace and to serve as an apparel of masquerade
for the ass, and without interruption so long as there was no
lion, or lion's whelp, to do the unmasking.

The poets who composed the mele for a king have been spoken
of as "the king's washtubs." Mele inoa were not crown-jewels
[Page 117] to be passed from one incumbent of the throne to another. The
practice of appropriating the mele inoa composed in honor of
another king and of another line was one that grew up with
the decadence of honor in times of degeneracy.

_Mele_

O Kalakaua, be inoa,
O ka pua mae ole i ka la;
Ke pua mai la i ka mauna,
I ke kuahiwi o Mauna-kea;
5 Ke a la i Ki-lau-e-a,
Malamalama i Wahine-kapu,
I ka luna o Uwe-kahuna,
I ka pali kapu o Ka-au-e-a.
E a mai ke alii kia-manu;
10 Ua Wahi i ka hulu o ka mamo,
Ka pua nani o Hawaii;
O Ka-la-kaua, he inoa!

[Translation]

Song

Ka-la-kaua, a great name,
A flower not wilted by the sun;
It blooms on the mountains,
In the forests of Mauna-kea;
5 It burns in Ki-lau-e-a,
Illumines the cliff Wahine-kapu,
The heights of Uwe-kabuna,
The sacred pali of Ka-au-e-a.
Shine forth, king of bird-hunters,
10 Resplendent in plumage of mamo,
Bright flower of Hawaii:
Ka-la-kaua, the Illustrious!

The proper names _Wahine-kapu, Uwe-kahuna_, and _Ka-au-e-a_
in the sixth, seventh, and eighth verses are localities,
cliffs, bluffs, precipices, etc., in and about the great
caldera of Kilauea, following up the mention (in the fifth
verse) of that giant among the world's active volcanoes.

The purpose of the poem seems to be to magnify the prowess of
this once famous king as a captivator of the hearts and
loving attentions of the fair sex.

_Mele_

Kona kai opua[253] i kala i ka la'i;
Opua binano ua i ka malie;
Hiolo na wai naoa a ke kehau,
[Page 118] Ke' na-u[254] la na kamalii,
5 Ke kaohi la i ke kukuna o ka la;
Ku'u la koili i ke kai--
Pumehana wale ia aina!
Aloha wale ke kini o Hoolulu,
Aohe lua ia oe ke aloha,
10 O ku'u puni, o ka me' owa.

[Footnote 253: _Opua_ means a distinct cloud-pile, an omen, a
weather-sign.]

Copyright (c) 2007. topboookz.com. All rights reserved.