Unwritten Literature of Hawaii | Page 3

for pu-niu
142
3. Ohe-hano-ihu, nose-flute
145

MUSICAL PIECES
I. Range of the nose-flute--Elsner
146
II. Music from the nose-flute--Elsner
146
III. The _ukeké_ (as played by Keaonaloa)--Eisner

149
IV. Song from the hula pa'i-umauma--Berger
153
V. Song from the hula pa-ipu--Berger
153
VI. Song for the hula Pele--Berger
154
VII. Oli and mele from the hula
ala'a-papa--Yarndley 156
VIII. _He Inoa no Kamehameha_--Byington
162
IX. Song, _Poli Anuanu_--Yarndley
164
X. Song, _Hua-hua'i_--Yarndley
166
XI. Song, _Ka Mawae_--Berger
167
XII. Song, _Like no a Like_--Berger
168
XIII. Song, _Pili Aoao_--Berger
169
XIV. _Hawaii Ponoi_--Berger
172

[Page 7]
INTRODUCTION
This book is for the greater part a collection of Hawaiian songs and
poetic pieces that have done service from time immemorial as the stock
supply of the _hula_. The descriptive portions have been added, not
because the poetical parts could not stand by themselves, but to furnish
the proper setting and to answer the questions of those who want to
know.
Now, the hula stood for very much to the ancient Hawaiian; it was to
him in place of our concert-hall and lecture-room, our opera and theater,
and thus became one of his chief means of social enjoyment. Besides
this, it kept the communal imagination in living touch with the nation's
legendary past. The hula had songs proper to itself, but it found a mine
of inexhaustible wealth in the epics and wonder-myths that celebrated

the doings of the volcano goddess Pele and her compeers. Thus in the
cantillations of the old-time hula we find a ready-made anthology that
includes every species of composition in the whole range of Hawaiian
poetry. This epic[1] of Pele was chiefly a more or less detached series
of poems forming a story addressed not to the closet-reader, but to the
eye and ear and heart of the assembled chiefs and people; and it was
sung. The Hawaiian song, its note of joy par excellence, was the _oli_;
but it must be noted that in every species of Hawaiian poetry,
_mele_--whether epic or eulogy or prayer, sounding through them all
we shall find the lyric note.
[Footnote 1: It might be termed a handful of lyrics strung on an epic
thread.]
The most telling record of a people's intimate life is the record which it
unconsciously makes in its songs. This record which the Hawaiian
people have left of themselves is full and specific. When, therefore, we
ask