Laka seems to have been a friend, but not a relative, of the numerous Pele family. So far as the author has observed, the fiery goddess is never invited to grace the altar with her presence, nor is her name so much as mentioned in any prayer met with.

To compare the gods of the Hawaiian pantheon with those of classic Greece, the sphere occupied by Laka corresponds most nearly to that filled by Terpsichore and Euterpe, the muses, respectively, of dance and of song. Lono, in one song spoken of as the husband of Laka, had features in common with Apollo.

That other gods, Kane, Ku, Kanaloa,[26] with Lono, Ku-pulupulu,[27] and the whole swarm of godlings that peopled the wildwood, were also invited to favor the performances with their presence can be satisfactorily explained on the ground, first, that all the gods were in a sense members of one family, related to each other by intermarriage, if not by the ties of kinship; and, second, by the patent fact of that great underlying cause of bitterness and strife among immortals as well as mortals, jealousy. It would have been an eruptive occasion of heart-burning and scandal if by any mischance a privileged one should have had occasion to feel slighted; and to have failed in courtesy to that countless host of wilderness imps and godlings, the Kini Akua,[28] mischievous and irreverent as the monkeys of India, would indeed have been to tempt a disaster.

While it is true that the testimony of the various kumu-hula, teachers of the hula, and devotees of the art of the hula, so far as the author has talked with them, has been overwhelmingly to the effect that Laka was the one and only divine patron of the art known to them, there has been a small number equally ready to assert that there were those who observed the cult of the goddess Kapo and worshiped her [Page 25] as the patron of the hula. The positive testimony of these witnesses must be reckoned as of more weight than the negative testimony of a much larger number, who either have not seen or will not look at the other side of the shield. At any rate, among the prayers before the kuahu, of which there are others yet to be presented, will be found several addressed to Kapo as the divine patron of the hula.

[Footnote 25: The teacher, a leader and priest of the hula. The modern school-master is called kumu-kula.]

[Footnote 26: Kanaloa. Kane, Ku, Kanaloa, and Lono were the major gods of the Hawaiian pantheon.]

[Footnote 27: Ku-pulupulu. A god of the canoe-makers.]

[Footnote 28: Kini Akua. A general expression—often used together with the ones that follow—meaning the countless swarms of brownies, elfs, kobolds, sprites, and other godlings (mischievous imps) that peopled the wilderness. Kini means literally 40,000, lehu 400,000, and mano 4,000. See the Pule Kuahu—altar-prayer—on page 21. The Hawaiians, curiously enough, did not put the words mano, kini, and lehu in the order of their numerical value.]

Kapo was sister of Pele and the daughter of Haumea.[29] Among other roles played by her, like Laka she was at times a sylvan deity, and it was in the garb of woodland representations that she was worshiped by hula folk. Her forms of activity, corresponding to her different metamorphoses, were numerous, in one of which she was at times “employed by the _kahuna_[30] as a messenger in their black arts, and she is claimed by many as an aumakua,” [31] said to be the sister of Kalai-pahoa, the poison god.

[Footnote 29: Haumea. The ancient goddess, or ancestor, the sixth in line of descent from Wakea.]

[Footnote 30: Kahuna. A sorcerer; with a qualifying adjective it meant a skilled craftsman; Kahuna-kalai-wa’a was a canoe-builder; kahuna lapaau was a medicine-man, a doctor, etc.]

[Footnote 31: The Lesser Gods of Hawaii, a paper by Joseph S. Emerson, read before the Hawaiian Historical Society, April 7, 1892.]

Unfortunately Kapo had an evil name on account of a propensity which led her at times to commit actions that seem worthy only of a demon of lewdness. This was, however, only the hysteria of a moment, not the settled habit of her life. On one notable occasion, by diverting the attention of the bestial pig-god Kama-pua’a, and by vividly presenting to him a temptation well adapted to his gross nature, she succeeded in enticing him away at a critical moment, and thus rescued her sister Pele at a time when the latter’s life was imperiled by an unclean and violent assault from the swine-god.

Like Catherine of Russia, who in one mood was the patron of literature and of the arts and sciences and in another mood a very satyr, so the Hawaiian goddess Kapo seems to have lived a double life whose aims were at cross purposes with one another—now an angel of grace and beauty, now a demon of darkness and lust.

Do we not find in this the counterpart of nature’s twofold aspect, who presents herself to dependent humanity at one time as an alma mater, the food-giver, a divinity of joy and comfort, at another time as the demon of the storm and earthquake, a plowshare of fiery destruction?

The name of Hiiaka, the sister of Pele, is one often mentioned in the prayers of the hula. [Page 26]

IV.—SUPPORT AND ORGANIZATION OF THE HULA

In ancient times the hula to a large extent was a creature of royal support, and for good reason. The actors in this institution were not producers of life’s necessaries. To the alii belonged the land and the sea and all the useful products thereof. Even the jetsam whale-tooth and wreckage scraps of iron that ocean cast up on the shore were claimed by the lord of the land. Everything was the king’s. Thus it followed of necessity that the support of the hula must in the end rest upon the alii. As in ancient Rome it was a senator or general, enriched by the spoil of a province, who promoted the sports of the arena, so in ancient Hawaii it was the chief or headman of the district who took the initiative in the promotion of the people’s communistic sports and of the hula.

We must not imagine that the hula was a thing only of kings’ courts and chiefish residences. It had another and democratic side. The passion for the hula was broadspread. If other agencies failed to meet the demand, there was nothing to prevent a company of enthusiasts from joining themselves together in the pleasures and, it might be, the profits of the hula. Their spokesman—designated as the po’o-puaa, from the fact that a pig, or a boar’s head, was required of him as an offering at the kuahu—was authorized to secure the services of some expert to be their kumu. But with the hula all roads lead to the king’s court.

Let us imagine a scene at the king’s residence. The alii, rousing from his sloth and rubbing his eyes, rheumy with debauch and awa, overhears remark on the doings of a new company of hula dancers who have come into the neighborhood. He summons his chief steward.

“What is this new thing of which they babble?” he demands.

“It is nothing, son of heaven,” answers the kneeling steward.

“They spoke of a hula. Tell me, what is it?”

“Ah, thou heaven-born (lani), it was but a trifle—a new company, young graduates of the halau, have set themselves up as great ones; mere rustics; they have no proper acquaintance with the traditions of the art as taught by the bards of... your majesty’s father. They mouth and twist the old songs all awry, thou son of heaven.”

“Enough. I will hear them to-morrow. Send a messenger for this new kumu. Fill again my bowl with awa.” [Page 27] Thus it comes about that the new hula company gains audience at court and walks the road that, perchance, leads to fortune. Success to the men and women of the hula means not merely applause, in return for the incense of flattery; it means also a shower of substantial favors—food, garments, the smile of royalty, perhaps land—things that make life a festival. If welcome grows cold and it becomes evident that the harvest has been reaped, they move on to fresh woods and pastures new.

To return from this apparent digression, it was at the king’s court—if we may extend the courtesy of this phrase to a group of thatched houses—that were gathered the bards and those skilled in song, those in whose memories were stored the mythologies, traditions, genealogies, proverbial wisdom, and poetry that, warmed by emotion, was the stuff from which was spun the songs of the hula. As fire is produced by friction, so it was often by the congress of wits rather than by the flashing of genius that the songs of the hula were evolved.

The composition and criticism of a poetical passage were a matter of high importance, often requiring many suggestions and much consultation. If the poem was to be a mele-inoa, a name-song to eulogize some royal or princely scion, it must contain no word of ill-omen. The fate-compelling power of such a word, once shot from the mouth, was beyond recall. Like the incantation of the sorcerer, the kahuna ánaaná, it meant death to the eulogized one. If not, it recoiled on the life of the singer.

The verbal form once settled, it remained only to stereotype it on the memories of the men and women who constituted the literary court or conclave. Think not that only thus were poems produced in ancient Hawaii. The great majority of songs were probably the fruit of solitary inspiration, in which the bard poured out his heart like a song-bird, or uttered his lone vision as a seer. The method of poem production in conclave may be termed the official method. It was often done at the command of an alii. So much for the fabrication, the weaving, of a song.