Читать книгу Unwritten Literature of Hawaii: The Sacred Songs of the Hula - Nathaniel Bright Emerson - Страница 42

Anklet-Song

Fragrant the grasses of high. Kane-hoa.

Bind on the anklets, bind!

Bind with finger deft as the wind

That cools the air of this bower.

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Lehua bloom pales at my flower,

O sweetheart of mine,

Bud that I'd pluck and wear in my wreath,

If thou wert but a flower!

Footnote 87:(return) Kupukupu. Said to be a fragrant grass.

Footnote 88:(return) 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.

Footnote 89:(return) Ho-a. To bind. An instance of word-repetition, common in Hawaiian poetry.

Footnote 90:(return) Wai-kaloa. A cool wind that Wows at Lihue, Kauai

Footnote 91:(return) Alina. A scar, or other mark of disfigurement, a moral blemish. In ancient times lovers inflicted injuries on themselves to prove devotion.

The short skirt, pa-u, was the most important piece of attire worn by the Hawaiian female. As an article of daily wear it represented many stages of evolution beyond the primitive fig-leaf, being fabricated from a great variety of materials furnished by the garden of nature. In its simplest terms the pa-ú was a mere fringe of vegetable fibers. When placed as the shield of modesty about the loins of a woman of rank, or when used as the full-dress costume of a dancing girl on a ceremonious occasion, it took on more elaborate forms, and was frequently of tapa, a fabric the finest specimens of which would not have shamed the wardrobe of an empress.

In the costuming of the hula girl the same variety obtained as in the dress of a woman of rank. Sometimes her pa-ú would be only a close-set fringe of ribbons stripped from the bark of the hibiscus (hau), the ti leaf or banana fiber, or a fine rush, strung upon a thong to encircle the waist. In its most elaborate and formal style the pa-ú consisted of a strip of fine tapa several yards long and of width to reach nearly to the knees. It was often delicately tinted or printed, as to its outer part, with stamped figures. The part of the tapa skirt thus printed, like the outer, decorative one in a set of tapa bed-sheets, was termed the kilohana.

The pa-ú worn by the danseuse, when of tapa, was often of such volume as to balloon like the skirt of a coryphée. To put it on was quite an art, and on that account, if not on the score of modesty, a portion of the halau, was screened off and devoted to the use of the females as a dressing room, being known as the unu-lau-koa, and to this place they repaired as soon as the kumu gave the signal for dressing.

The hula pa-ú of the women was worn in addition to that of daily life; the hula pa-ú of the men, a less pretentious affair, was worn outside the malo, and in addition to it.

The method of girding on the pa-ú was peculiar. Beginning at the right hip--some say the left--a free end was allowed to hang quite to the knee; then, passing across the back, rounding the left hip, and returning by way of the abdomen to the starting point, another circuit of the waist was accomplished; and, a reverse being made, the garment was secured by passing the bight of the tapa beneath the hanging folds of the pa-ú from below upward until it slightly protruded above the border of the garment at the waist. This second end was thus brought to hang down the hip alongside of the first free end; an arrangement that produced a most decorative effect.

The Hawaiians, in their fondness for giving personal names to inanimate objects, named the two free ends (apua) of the pa-ú respectively Ku-kápu-úla-ka-láni and Léle-a-mahu'i.

According to another method, which was simpler and more commonly employed, the piece was folded sidewise and, being gathered into pleats, a cord was inserted the length of the fold. The cord was passed about the waist, knotted at the hip, and thus held the garment secure.

While the girls are making their simple toilet and donning their unique, but scanty, costume, the kumu, aided by others, soothes the impatience of the audience and stimulates their imagination by cantillating a mele that sets forth in grandiloquent imagery the praise of the pa-ú.

Oli Pa-ú

Kakua pa-ú, ahu na kikepa! ⁹²

I ka pa-ú noenoe i hooluu'a,

I hookakua ia a paa iluna o ka imu. ⁹³

Ku ka nu'a ⁹⁴ o ka pali o ka wai kapu,

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He kuina ⁹⁵ pa-ú pali ⁹⁶ no Kupe-hau,

I holo a paa ia, paa e Hono-kane. ⁹⁷

Malama o lilo i ka pa-ú.

Holo ilio la ke ala ka Manú ⁹⁸ i na pali;

Pali ku kahakó liaka a-i,

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I ke keiki pa-ú pali a Kau-kini, ⁹⁹

I hoonu'anu'a iluna o ka Auwana. ¹⁰⁰

Akahi ke ana, ka luhi i ka pa-ú:

Ka ho-oio i ke kapa-wai,

I na kikepa wai o Apua, ¹⁰¹

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I hopu 'a i ka ua noe holo poo-poo,

Me he pa-ú elehiwa wale i na pali.

Ohiohi ka pali, ki ka liko o ka lama,

Mama ula ¹⁰² ia ka malua ula,

I hopu a omau ia e ka maino.

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I ¹⁰³ ka malo o Umi ku huná mai.

Ike'a ai na maawe wai oloná, ¹⁰⁴

E makili ia nei i Wahilau. ¹⁰⁵

Holo ke oloná, paa ke kapa.

Hu'a lepo ole ka pa-ú;

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Nani ka o-iwi ma ka maka kilo-hana. ¹⁰⁶

Makalii ka ohe, ¹⁰⁷ paa ke kapa.

Opua ke ahi i na pali,

I hookau kalena ia e ka makani,

I kaomi pohaku ia i Wai-manu,

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I na alá ¹⁰⁸ ki-óla-óla;

I na alá, i alá lele

Ia Kane-poha-ka'a. ¹⁰⁹

Paa ia Wai-manu, ¹¹⁰ o-oki Wai-pi'o;

Lalau o Ha'i i ka ohe,

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Ia Koa'e-kea, ¹¹¹

I kauhihi ia ia ohe laulii, ia ohe.

Oki'a a moku, mo' ke kini, ¹¹²

Mo ke kihl, ka maiáma ka Hoaka, ¹¹³

I apahu ia a poe,

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O awili ¹¹⁴ o Malu-ô.

He pola ia no ka pa-ú;

E hii ana e Ka-holo-kua-iwa,

Ke amo la e Pa-wili-wlli

I ka pa-ú poo kau-poku-- ¹¹⁵

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Kau poku a hana ke ao,

Kau iluna o Hala'a-wili,

I owili hana haawe.

Ku-ka'a, olo-ka'a wahie;

Ka'a ka opeope, ula ka pali; ¹¹⁶

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Uwá, kamalii, hookani ka pihe,

Hookani ka a'o, ¹¹⁷ a hana pilo ka leo,

I ka mahalo i ka pa-ú,

I ka pa-ú wai-lehua a Hi'i-lawe ¹¹⁸ iluna,

Pi'o anuenue a ka ua e ua nei.

Footnote 92:(return) Kikepa. The bias, the one-sided slant given the pa-ú by tucking it in at one side, as previously described.

Footnote 93:(return) Imu. An oven; an allusion to the heat and passion of the part covered by the pa-ú.

Footnote 94:(return) Hu'a. Foam; figurative of the fringe at the border of the pa-ú.

Footnote 95:(return) 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.

Footnote 96:(return) 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.

Footnote 97:(return) Hono-kane. A valley near Wai-pi'o. Here it is personified and said to do the work on the pa-ú.

Footnote 98:(return) Manú. A proper name given to this pa-ú.

Footnote 99: (return)

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!