Havelock Ellis - "Impressions And Comments"

Mary Austin - "The Lovely Lady"

Frank Gee Patchin - "The Pony Rider Boys in Texas"

Edward Sell - "The Faith of Islam"

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 strictest propriety and decorum were exacted of the
pupils; there must be no license whatever. Even married
people during the weeks preceding graduation must observe
abstinence toward their partners. The whole power of one's
being must be devoted to the pursuit of art.

The rules demanded also the most punctilious personal
cleanliness. Above all things, one must avoid contact with a
corpse. Such defilement barred one from entrance to the halau
until ceremonial cleansing had been performed. The offender
must bathe in the ocean; the kumu then aspersed him with holy
water, uttered a prayer, ordered a penalty, an offering to
the kuahu, and declared the offender clean. This done, he
was again received into fellowship at the halau.

The ordinary penalty for a breach of ceremony or an offense
against sexual morality was the offering of a baked porkling
with awa. Since the introduction of money the penalty has
generally been reckoned on a commercial basis; a money fine
is imposed. The offering of pork and awa is retained as a
concession to tradition.

[Page 31]




V--CEREMONIES OF GRADUATION; DEBUT OF A HULA DANCER


CEREMONIES OF GRADUATION

The _ai-lolo_ rite and ceremony marked the consummation of a
pupil's readiness for graduation from the school of the halau
and his formal entrance into the guild of hula dancers. As
the time drew near, the kumu tightened the reins of
discipline, and for a few days before that event no pupil
might leave the halau save for the most stringent necessity,
and then only with the head muffled (_pulo'u_) to avoid
recognition, and he might engage in no conversation whatever
outside the halau.

The night preceding the day of ai-lolo was devoted to special
services of dance and song. Some time after midnight the
whole company went forth to plunge into the ocean, thus to
purge themselves of any lurking ceremonial impurity. The
progress to the ocean and the return they made in complete
nudity. "Nakedness is the garb of the gods." On their way to
and from the bath they must not look back, they must not turn
to the right hand or to the left.

The kumu, as the priest, remained at the halau, and as the
procession returned from the ocean he met it at the door and
sprinkled each one (_pikai_) with holy water. Then came
another period of dance and song; and then, having
cantillated a _pule hoonoa_, to lift the tabu, the kumu went
forth to his own ceremonial cleansing bath in the sea. During
his absence his deputy, the _kokua kumu_, took charge of the
halau. When the kumu reached the door on his return, he made
himself known by reciting a _mele wehe puka_, the
conventional password.

Still another exercise of song and dance, and the wearied
pupils are glad to seek repose. Some will not even remove the
short dancing, skirts that are girded about them, so eager
are they to snatch an hour of rest; and some lie down with
bracelets and anklets yet unclasped.

At daybreak the kumu rouses the company with the tap of the
drum. After ablutions, before partaking of their simple
breakfast, the company stand before the altar and recite a
tabu-removing prayer, accompanying the cantillation with a
rhythmic tapping of feet and clapping of hands:


_Pule Hoonoa_

Pupu we'uwe'u e, Laka e!
O kona we'uwe'u ke ku nei.
[Page 32] Kaumaha a'e la ia Laka.
O Laka ke akua pule ikaika.
5 Ua ku ka maile a Laka a imua;
Ua lu ka liua[32] o ka maile.
Noa, noa ia'u, ia Kahaula--
Papalua noa.
Noa, a ua noa.
10 Eli-eli kapu! eli-eli noa!
Kapu oukou, ke akua!
Noa makou, ke kanaka'.


[Translation]

_Tabu-lifting Prayer_

Oh wildwood bouquet, oh Laka!
Hers are the growths that stand here.
Suppliants we to Laka.
The prayer to Laka has power;
5 The maile of Laka stands to the fore.
The maile vine casts now its seeds.
Freedom, there's freedom to me, Kahaula--
A freedom twofold.
10 Freedom, aye freedom!
A tabu profound, a freedom complete.
Ye gods are still tabu;
We mortals are free.

[Footnote 32: _Lu ka hua_. Casts now its seeds. The maile vine
(pl. IV), one of the goddess's emblems, casts its seeds,
meaning that the goddess gives the pupils skill and inspires
them.]

At the much-needed repast to which the company now sit down
there may be present a gathering of friends and relatives and
of hula experts, called _olohe_. Soon the porkling chosen to
be the _ai-lolo_ offering is brought in--a black suckling
without spot or blemish. The kumu holds it down while all the
pupils gather and lay their hands upon his hands; and he
expounds to them the significance of the ceremony. If they
consecrate themselves to the work in hand in sincerity and
with true hearts, memory will be strong and the training, the
knowledge, and the songs that have been intrusted to the
memory will stay. If they are heedless, regardless of their
vows, the songs they have learned will fly away.

The ceremony is long and impressive; many songs are used.
Sometimes, it was claimed, the prayers of the kumu at this
laying on of hands availed to cause the death of the little
animal. On the completion of the ceremony the offering is
taken out and made ready for the oven.

One of the first duties of the day is the dismantling of the
old kuahu, the shrine, and the construction of another from
new materials as a residence for the goddess. While night yet
shadows the earth the attendants and friends of the pupils
[Page 33] have gone up into the mountains to collect the material for
the new shrine. The rustic artists, while engaged in this
loving work of building and weaving the new kuahu, cheer and
inspire one another with joyful songs vociferous with the
praise of Laka. The halau also they decorate afresh, strewing
the floor with clean rushes, until the whole place enthralls
the senses like a bright and fragrant temple.

[Illustration:
BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY
BULLETIN 38 PLATE IV
MAILE (ALYXIA MYRTILLIFOLIA) WREATH]

The kumu now grants special dispensation to the pupils to go
forth that they may make good the results of the neglect of
the person incident to long confinement in the halau. For
days, for weeks, perhaps for months, they have not had full
opportunity to trim hair, nails, or beard, to anoint and
groom themselves. They use this short absence from the hall
also to supply themselves with wreaths of fragrant maile,
crocus-yellow ilima, scarlet-flaming Jehua, fern, and what
not.

At the appointed hour the pupils, wreathed and attired like
nymphs and dryads, assemble in the halau, sweet with woodsy
perfumes. At the door they receive aspersion with consecrated
water.

The ai-lolo offering, cooked to a turn--no part raw, no part
cracked or scorched--is brought in from the _imu_, its bearer
sprinkled by the guard at the entrance. The kumu, having
inspected the roast offering and having declared it
ceremonially perfect, gives the signal, and the company break
forth in songs of joy and of adulation to goddess Laka:

_Mele Kuau_

Noho ana Laka I ka ulu wehi-wehi,
Ku ana iluna I Mo'o-helaia,[33]
Ohia-Ku[34] ouna o Mauna-loa.[35]
Aloha mai Kaulana-ula[36] ia'u.
5 Eia ka ula la, he ula leo,[37]
He uku, he modai, he kanaenae,
He alana na'u ia oe.
E Laka e, e maliu mai;
E maliu mai oe, i pono au,
10 A pono au, a pono kaua.

[Footnote 33: _Mo'o-helaia_. A female deity, a _kupua_, who at
death became one of the divinities, _au-makua_, of the hula.
Her name was conferred on the place claimed as her residence,
on Mauna-loa, island of Molokai.]

[Footnote 34: _Ohia-Ku_. Full name _ohia-ku-makua_; a variety
of the ohia, or lehua (pl. XIII), whose wood was used in
making temple gods. A rough stem of this tree stood on each
side near the _hala-pepe_. (See pl. III, also pp. 19-20.)]

[Footnote 35: _Mauna-loa_. Said to be the mountain of that
name on Molokai, not that on Hawaii.]

[Footnote 36: _Kaulana-ula_. Full form _Kaulana-a-ula_; the
name of a deity belonging to the order, _papa_, of the hula.
Its meaning is explained in the expression _ula leo_, in the
next line.]

[Footnote 37: _Ula leo_. A singing or trilling sound, a
_tinnitus aurium_, a sign that the deity Kaulanaula was
making some communication to the one who heard it.

"By the pricking of my thumbs
Something wicked this way comes."]

[Page 34]

[Translation]

_Altar-Prayer_

Laka sits in her shady grove,
Stands on her terrace, at Mo'o-helaia;
Like the tree of God Ku on Mauna-loa.
Kaulana-ula trills in my ear;
5 A whispered suggestion to me,
Lo, an offering, a payment,
A eulogy give I to thee.
O Laka, incline to me!
Have compassion, let it be well--
10 Well with me, well with us both.

There is no stint of prayer-song. While the offering rests on
the Imahu, the Joyful service continues:

_Mele Kualiu_

E Laka, e!
Pupu we'uwe'u e, Laka e!
E Laka i ka leo;
E laka i ka loaa;
5 E Laka i ka waiwai;
E Laka i na mea a pau!

[Translation]

_Altar-Prayer_

O goddess Laka!
O wildwood bouquet, O Laka!
O Laka, queen of the voice!
O Laka, giver of gifts!
5 O Laka, giver of bounty!
O Laka, giver of all things!

At the conclusion of this loving service of worship and song
each member of the troupe removes from his head and neck the
wreaths that had bedecked him, and with them crowns the
image of the goddess until her altar is heaped with the
offerings.

Now comes the pith of the ceremony: the novitiates sit down
to the feast of ai-lolo, theirs the place of honor, at the
head of the table, next the kuahiu. The _ho'o-pa'a_, acting
as carver, selects the typical parts--snout, ear-tips, tail,
feet, portions of the vital organs, especially the brain
(_lolo_). This last it is which gives name to the ceremony.
He sets an equal portion before each novitiate. Each one must
eat all that is set before him. It is a mystical rite, a
sacrament; as he eats he consciously partakes of the virtue
of the goddess that is transmitted to himself.
[Page 35]
Meantime the _olohe_ and friends of the novitiates, inspired
with the proper enthusiasm, of the occasion, lift their
voices in joyful cantillations in honor of the goddess,
accompanied with the clapping of hands.

The ceremony now reaches a new stage. The kumu lifts the tabu
by uttering a prayer--always a song--and declares the place
and the feast free, and the whole assembly sit down to enjoy
the bounty that is spread up and down the halau. On this
occasion men and women may eat in common. The only articles
excluded from this feast are _luau_--a food much like
spinach, made by cooking the young and delicate taro
leaf---and the drupe of the _hala_, the pandanus (pl. xviii).

The company sit down to eat and to drink; presently they rise
to dance and sing. The kumu leads in a tabu-lifting,
freedom-giving song and the ceremony of ai-lolo is over. The
pupils have been graduated from the school of the halau; they
are now members of the great guild of hula dancers. The time
has come for them to make their bow to the waiting public
outside, to bid for the favor of the world. This is to be
their "little go;" they will spread their wings for a
greater flight on the morrow.

The kumu with his big drum, and the musicians, the ho'o-pa'a,
pass through the door and take their places outside in the
lanai, where sit the waiting multitude. At the tap of the
drum the group of waiting olapa plume themselves like fine
birds eager to show their feathers; and, as they pass out the
halau door and present themselves to the breathless audience,
into every pose and motion of their gliding, swaying figures
they pour a full tide of emotion in studied and unstudied
effort to captivate the public.

DEBUT OF A HULA DANCER

The occasion is that of a lifetime; it is their _uniki_,
their debut. The song chosen must rise to the dignity of the
occasion. Let us listen to the song that enthralls the
audience seated in the rushstrown lanai, that we may judge of
its worthiness.

_He Mele-Inoa (no Naihe)_[38]

Ka nalu nui, a ku ka nalu mai Kona,
Ka malo a ka mahiehie,[39]
Ka onaulu-loa,[40] a lele ka'u malo.
[Page 36] O kakai[41] malo hoaka,[42]
5 O ka malo kai,[43] malo o ke alii
E ku, e hume a paa i ka malo.

E ka'ika'i [44] ka la i ka papa o Halepo;[45]
A pae o Halepo i ka nalu.
Ho-e'e i ka nalu mai Kahiki;[46]
10 He nalu Wakea,[47] nalu ho'ohua.[48]
Haki opu'u [49] ka nalu, haki kua-pa.[50]

Ea mai ka makakai [51] he'e-nalu,
Kai he'e kakala [52] o ka moku,
Kai-ka o ka nalu nui,
15 Ka hu'a o ka nalu o Hiki-au.[53]
Kai he'e-nalu i ke awakea.

Ku ka puna, ke ko'a i-nka.
Ka makaha o ka nalu o Kuhihewa.[54]
Ua o ia,[55] noha ka papa!
20 Nona Maui, nauweuwe,
Nauweuwe, nakelekele.

Nakele ka ili o ka i he'e-kai.
Lalilali ole ka ili o ke akamai;
Kahilihili ke kai a ka he'e-nalu.
25 Ike'a ka nalu nui o Puna, o Hilo.

[Footnote 38: Naihe. A man of strong character, but not a
high chief. He was horn in Kona and resided at Napoopoo. His
mother was Ululani, his father Keawe-a-heulu, who was a
celebrated general and strategist under Kamehameha I.]

[Footnote 39: Mahiehie. A term conferring dignity and
distinction.]

[Footnote 40: Onaulu-loa. A roller of great length and
endurance, one that reaches the shore, in contrast to a
Kalcala.]

[Footnote 41: _Kalai._ An archaic word meaning forty.]

[Footnote 42: _Hooka._ A crescent; the name of the second day
of the month. The allusion is to the curve (downward) of a
large number (kakai) of malo when hung on a line, the usual
way of keeping such articles.]

[Footnote 43: _Malo kai._ The ocean is sometimes poetically
termed the _malo_ or _pa-a_ of the naked swimmer, or bather.
It covers his nakedness.]

[Footnote 44: _Ka'ika'i._ To lead or to carry; a tropical use
of the word. The sun is described as leading the board.]

[Footnote 45: _Hale-po._ In the opinion of the author it is
the name of the board. A skilled Hawaiian says it is the name
given the surf of a place at Napoopoo, in Kona, Hawaii. The
action is not located there, but in Puna, it seems to the
author.]

[Footnote 46: _Kahiki._ Tahiti, or any foreign country; a term
of grandiloquence.]

[Footnote 47: _Wakea._ A mythical name, coming early in
Hawaiian genealogies; here used in exaggeration to show the
age of the roller.]

[Footnote 48: _Ho'ohua._ Applied to a roller, one that rolls
on and swells higher.]

[Footnote 49: _Opu'u._ Said of a roller that completes its run
to shore.]

[Footnote 50: _Kua-pa._ Said of a roller as above that dies
at the shore.]

[Footnote 51: _Maka-kai._ The springing-up of the surf after
an interval of quiet.]

[Footnote 52: _Kakala._ Rough, heaped up, one wave overriding
another, a chop sea.]

[Footnote 53: _Hiki-au._ Said to be the name of a temple.]

[Footnote 54: _Kuhihewa._ Full name _Ka-kuhi-hewa_, a
distinguished king of Oahu.]

[Footnote 55: _O iu._ Meaning that the board dug its nose
into the reef or sand.]

[Translation]

_A Name-Song, a Eulogy_ (for Naihe)

The huge roller, roller that surges from Kona,
Makes loin-cloth fit for a lord;
Far-reaching swell, my malo streams in the wind;
Shape the crescent malo to the loins--
5 The loin-cloth the sea, cloth for king's girding.
Stand, gird fast the loin-cloth!

[Page 37] Let the sun guide the board Ilalepo,
Till Halepo lifts on the swell.
It mounts the swell that rolls from Kahiki,
10 From Wakea's age enrolling.
The roller plumes and ruffles its crest.

Here comes the champion surf-man,
While wave-ridden wave beats the island,
A fringe of mountain-high waves.
15 Spume lashes the Hiki-an altar--A
surf this to ride at noontide.

The coral, horned coral, it sweeps far ashore.
We gaze at the surf of Ka-kuhi-hewa.
The surf-board snags, is shivered;
20 Maui splits with a crash,
Trembles, dissolves into slime.

Glossy the skua of the surf-man;
Undrenched the skin of the expert;
25 Wave-feathers fan the wave-rider.
You've seen the grand surf of Puna, of Hilo.

This spirited song, while not a full description of a
surf-riding scene, gives a vivid picture of that noble sport.
The last nine verses have been omitted, as they add neither
to the action nor to the interest.

It seems surprising that the accident spoken of in line 19
should be mentioned; for it is in glaring opposition to the
canons that were usually observed in the composition of a
_mele-inoa._ In the construction of a, eulogy the Hawaiians
were not only punctiliously careful to avoid mention of
anything susceptible of sinister interpretation, but they
were superstitiously sensitive to any such unintentional
happening. As already mentioned (p. 27), they believed that
the fate compelling power of a word of ill-omen was
inevitable. If it did not result in the death of the one
eulogized, retributive justice turned the evil influence back
on him who uttered it.

[Page 38]




VI.--THE PASSWORD--THE SONG OF ADMISSION


There prevailed among the practitioners of the hula from one
end of the group to the other a mutual understanding,
amounting almost to a sort of freemasonry, which gave to any
member of the guild the right of free entrance at all times
to the hall, or halau, where a performance was under way.
Admission was conditioned, however, on the utterance of a
password at the door. A snatch of song, an oli, denominated
_mele kahea,_ or _mele wehe puka,_ was chanted, which, on
being recognized by those within, was answered in the same
language of hyperbole, and the door was opened.

The verbal accuracy of any mele kahea that may be adduced is
at the present day one of the vexed questions among hula
authorities, each hula-master being inclined to maintain that
the version given by another is incorrect. This remark
applies, though in smaller measure, to the whole body of
mele, pule, and oli that makes up the songs and liturgy of
the hula as well as to the traditions that guided the
maestro, or kumu-hula, in the training of his company. The
reasons for these differences of opinion and of test, now
that there is to be a written text, are explained by the
following facts: The devotees and practitioners of the hula
were divided into groups that were separated from one another
by wide intervals of sea and land. They belonged quite likely
to more than one cult, for indeed there were many gods and
_au-makua_ to whom they sacrificed and offered prayers. The
passwords adopted by one generation or by the group of
practitioners on one island might suffer verbal changes in
transmission to a later generation or to a remote island.

Again, it should be remembered that the entire body of
material forming the repertory of the hula--pule, mele, and
oli--was intrusted to the keeping of the memory, without the
aid of letters or, so far as known, of any mnemonic device;
and the human mind, even under the most athletic discipline,
is at best an imperfect conservator of literary form. The
result was what might be expected: as the imagination and
emotions of the minstrel warmed under the inspiration of his
trust, glosses and amendments crept in. These, however,
caused but slight variations in the text. The substance
remains substantially the same.

After carefully weighing the matter, the author can not avoid
the conclusion that jealousy had much to do with the slight
differences now manifest, that one version is as
[Page 39] authoritative as another, and that it would be well for each
kumu-hula to have kept in mind the wise adage that shines
among the sayings of his nation: _Aohe pau ka ike i kau halau
_[56]--" Think not that all of wisdom resides in your
halau."[57]

[Footnote 56: Sophocles (Antigone, 705) had said the same
thing:[Greek: me nun en ethos pounon en sauto phorei os
phes su, kouden allo, tout' orphos echein]--"Don't get this
idea fixed in your head, that what you say, and nothing else,
is right."]

[Footnote 57: _Hatoa._ As previously explained, in this
connection _halau_ has a meaning similar to our word
"school," or "academy," a place where some art was taught, as
wrestling, boxing, or the hula.]

_Mele Kahea_

Li'u-li'u aloha ia'u,
Ka uka o Kohola-lele,
Ka nahele mauka o Ka-papala [58] la.
Komo, e komo aku hoi an maloko.
5 Mai ho'ohewahewa mai oe ia'u; oau no ia,
Ke ka-nae-nae a ka mea hele,
He leo, e-e,
A he leo wale no, e-e!
Eia ka pu'u nui owaho nei la,
10 He ua, lie ino, he anu, he ko'e-ko'e.
E ku'u aloha, e,
Maloko aku au.

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