24 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 38 



Laka was invoked as the god of the maile, the ie-ie, and other wild- 

 wood growths before mentioned (pi. ii). She was hailed as the 

 " sister, wife, of god Lono," as " the one who by striving attained 

 favor with the gods of the upper ether ;" as " the kumu '^ hula " — head 

 teacher of the Terpsichorean art; "the fount of joy;" "the prophet 

 who brings health to the sick;" " the one whose presence gives life." 

 In one of the prayers to Laka she is besought to come and take pos- 

 session of the worshiper, to dwell in him as in a temple, to inspire 

 him in all his parts and faculties — voice, hands, feet, the whole body. 



Laka seems to have been a friend, but not a relative, of the numer- 

 ous 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,'' with Lono, Ku-pulupulu," 

 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,'^ mischievous and irreverent as the monkeys of India, 

 would indeed have been to tempt a disaster. 



^^Tiile 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 



" Kumu-hiila. The teacher, a leader and priest of the hula. The modern school-mas- 

 ter is called kumu-kula. 



'> Kanaloa. Kane, Ku, Kanaloa, and Lono were the major gods of the Hawaiian pan- 

 theon. 



•^ Ku-pulupulu. A god of the canoe-makers. 



■* Kini Akua. A general expression — often used together with the ones that follow — 

 meaning the countless swarms of brownies, elfs, koholds, 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 Kuahii — altar-prayer — on page 21. The Ha- 

 wailans, curiously enough, did not put the words mano, kini, and lehu in the order of 

 their numerical value. 



