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Analogy is the basis of many a double meaning. There is, in fact, no lyric song describing natural scenery that may not have beneath it some implied, often indelicate, allusion whose riddle it takes an adroit and practiced mind to unravel.

This riddling tendency of figurative verse seems to be due to the aristocratic patronage of composition, whose tendency was to exalt language above the comprehension of the common people, either by obscurity, through ellipsis and allusion, or by saying one thing and meaning another. A special chief's language was thus evolved, in which the speaker might couch his secret resolves and commands unsuspected by those who stood within earshot. Quick interpretation of such symbols was the test of chiefly rank and training. On the other hand, the wish to appear innocent led him to hide his meaning in a commonplace observation. Hence nature and the objects and actions of everyday life were the symbols employed. For the heightened language of poetry the same chiefly strain was cultivated—the allusion, metaphor, the double meaning became essential to its art; and in the song of certain periods a play on words by punning and word linking became highly artificial requirements.[1]

Illustrations of this art do not fall upon a foreign ear with the force which they have in the Polynesian, because much of the skill lies in tricks with words impossible to translate, and often the jest depends upon a custom or allusion with which the foreigner is unfamiliar. It is for this reason that such an art becomes of social value, because only the chief who keeps up with the fashion and the follower who hangs upon the words of his chief can translate the allusion and parry the thrust or satisfy the request. In a Samoan tale a wandering magician requests in one village "to go dove catching," and has the laugh on his simple host because he takes him at his word instead of bringing him a wife. In a Tongan story[2] the chief grows hungry while out on a canoe trip, and bids his servant, "Look for a banana stalk on the weather side of the boat." As this is the side of the women, the command meant "Kill a woman for me to eat." The woman designed for slaughter is in this case wise enough to catch his meaning and save herself and child by hiding under the canoe. In Fornander's story a usurper and his accomplice plan the moment for the death of their chief over a game of konane, the innocent words which seem to apply to the game being uttered by the conspirators with a more sinister meaning. The language of insults and opprobrium is particularly rich in such double meanings. The pig god, wishing to insult Pélé, who has refused his advances, sings of her, innocently enough to common ears, as a "woman pounding noni." Now, the noni is the plant from which red dye is extracted; the allusion therefore is to Pélé's red eyes, and the goddess promptly resents the implication.

It is to this chiefly art of riddling that we must ascribe the stories of riddling contests that are handed down in Polynesian tales. The best Hawaiian examples are perhaps found in Fornander's Kepakailiula. Here the hero wins supremacy over his host by securing the answer to two riddles—"The men that stand, the men that lie down, the men that are folded," and "Plaited all around, plaited to the bottom, leaving an opening." The answer is in both cases a house, for in the first riddle "the timbers stand, the batons lie down, the grass is folded under the cords"; in the second, the process of thatching is described in general terms. In the story of Pikoiakaala, on the other hand; the hero puzzles his contestants by riddling with the word "rat." This word riddling is further illustrated in the story of the debater, Kaipalaoa, already quoted. His opponents produce this song:

The small bird chirps; it shivers in the rain, in Puna, at Keaau, at Iwainalo,

and challenge him to "find another nalo." Says the boy:

The crow caw caws; it shines in the rain. In Kona, at Honalo, it is hidden (nalo).

Thus, by using nalo correctly in the song in two ways, he has overmatched his rivals.

In the elaborated hula songs, such as Emerson quotes, the art can be seen in full perfection. Dangerous as all such interpretation of native art must be for a foreigner, I venture in illustration, guided by Wise's translation, the analysis of one of the songs sung by Halemano to win back his lost lady love, the beauty of Puna. The circumstances are as follows: Halemano, a Kauai chief, has wedded a famous beauty of Puna, Hawaii, who has now deserted him for a royal lover. Meanwhile a Kohala princess who loves him seeks to become his mistress, and makes a festival at which she may enjoy his company. The estranged wife is present, and during the games he sings a series of songs to reproach her infidelity. One of them runs thus:

Ke kua ia mai la e ke kai ka hala o Puna.

E halaoa ana me he kanaka la,

Lulumi iho la i kai o Hilo-e.

Hanuu ke kai i luna o Mokuola.

Ua ola ae nei loko i ko aloha-e.

He kokua ka inaina no ke kanaka.

Hele kuewa au i ke alanui e!

Pela, peia, pehea au e ke aloha?

Auwe kuu wahine—a!

Kuu hoa o ka ulu hapapa o Kalapana.

O ka la hiki anuanu ma Kumukahi.

Akahi ka mea aloha o ka wahine.

Ke hele neiia wela kau manawa,

A huihui kuu piko i ke aloha,

Ne aie kuu kino no ia la-e.

Hoi mai kaua he a'u koolau keia,

Kuu wahine hoi e! Hoi mai.

Hoi mai kaua e hoopumehana.

Ka makamaka o ia aina makua ole.

Hewn down by the sea are the pandanus trees of Puna.

They are standing there like men,

Like a multitude in the lowlands of Hilo.

Step by step the sea rises above the Isle-of-life.

So life revives once more within me, for love of you.

A bracer to man is wrath.

As I wandered friendless over the highways, alas!

That way, this way, what of me, love?

Alas, my wife—O!

My companion of the shallow planted breadfruit of Kalapana.

Of the sun rising cold at Kumukahi.

Above all else the love of a wife.

For my temples burn,

And my heart (literally "middle") is cold for your love,

And my body is under bonds to her (the princess of Kohala).

Come back to me, a wandering Au bird of Koolau,

My love, come back.

Come back and let us warm each other with love,

Beloved one in a friendless land (literally, "without parents").

Paraphrased, the song may mean:

The sea has encroached upon the shore of Puna and Hilo so that the hala trees stand out in the water; still they stand firm in spite of the flood. So love floods my heart, but I am braced by anger. Alas! my wife, have you forgotten the days when we dwelt in Kalapana and saw the sun rise beyond Cape Kumukahi? I burn and freeze for your love, yet my body is engaged to the princess of Kohala, by the rules of the game. Come back to me! I am from Kauai, in the north, and here in Puna I am a stranger and friendless.

The first figure alludes to the well-known fact that the sinking of the Puna coast has left the pandanus trunks standing out in the water, which formerly grew on dry land. The poetical meaning, however, depends first upon the similarity in sound between Ke kua, "to cut," which begins the parallel, and He Kokua, which is also used to mean cutting, but implies assisting, literally "bracing the back," and carries over the image to its analogue; and, second, upon the play upon the word ola, life: "The sea floods the isle of life—yes! Life survives in spite of sorrow," may be the meaning. In the latter part of the song the epithets anuanu, chilly, and hapapa, used of seed planted in shallow soil, may be chosen in allusion to the cold and shallow nature of her love for him.

The nature of Polynesian images must now be apparent. A close observer of nature, the vocabulary of epithet and image with which it has enriched the mind is, especially in proverb or figurative verse, made use of allusively to suggest the quality of emotion or to convey a sarcasm. The quick sense of analogy, coupled with a precise nomenclature, insures its suggestive value. So we find in the language of nature vivid, naturalistic accounts of everyday happenings in fantastic reshapings, realistically conceived and ascribed to the gods who rule natural phenomena; a figurative language of signs to be read as an implied analogy; allusive use of objects, names, places, to convey the associated incident, or the description of a scene to suggest the accompanying emotion; and a sense of delight in the striking or phenomenal in sound, perfume, or appearance, which is explained as the work of a god.

Footnotes to Section III, 4: The Double Meaning

[Footnote 1: See Moerenhout, II, 210; Jarves, p. 34; Alexander in

Andrews' Dict., p. xvi; Ellis, I, 288; Gracia, p. 65; Gill, Myths and

Songs, p. 42.]

[Footnote 2: Fison, p. 100.]