II.— THE HALAU; THE KUAHU— THEIR DECORATION 

 AND CONSECRATION 



The Halau 



In building a halau, or hall, in which to perform the hula a 

 Hawaiian of the old, old time was making a temple for his god. In 

 later and degenerate ages almost any structure would serve the pur- 

 pose ; it might be a flimsy shed or an extemporaneous lanal such as is 

 used to shelter that al fresco entertainment, the hiau. But in the old 

 times of strict tabu and rigorous etiquette, when the chief had but to 

 lift his hand and the entire population of a district ransacked plain, 

 valley, and mountain to collect the poles, beams, thatch, and cord- 

 stuff ; when the workers were so numerous that the structure grew and 

 took shape in a day, we may well believe that ambitious and punc- 

 tilious patrons of the hula, such as La 'a, Liloa, or Lono-i-ka-makahiki, 

 did not allow the divine art of Laka to house in a barn. 



The choice of a site was a matter of prime importance. A formi- 

 dable code enunciated the principles governing the selection. But — • 

 a matter of great solicitude — there were omens to be heeded, snares 

 and pitfalls devised by the superstitious mind for its own entangle- 

 ment. The untimely sneeze, the ophthalmic eye, the hunched back 

 were omens to be shunned. 



Within historic times, since the abrogation of the tabu system and 

 the loosening of the old polytheistic ideas, there has been in the hula 

 a lowering of former standards, in some respects a degeneration. 

 The old gods, however, were not entirely dethroned ; the people of the 

 hula still continued to maintain the form of divine service and still 

 appealed to them for good luck; but the soul of worship had 

 exhaled ; the main study now was to make of the hula a pecuniary 

 success. 



In an important sense the old way was in sympathy with the 

 thought,- "Except God be with the workmen, they labor in vain that 

 build the house." The means for gaining divine favor and averting 

 the frown of the gods were those practised by all religionists in the 

 infantile state of the human mind — the observance of fasts and tabus, 

 the offering of special prayers and sacrifices. The ceremonial purifi- 

 cation of the site, or of the building if it had been used for profane 

 purposes, was accomplished by aspersions with sea water mixed with 

 turmeric or red earth. 



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