IX.— THE HULA ALA'A-PAPA 



Every formal hula was regarded b}^ the people of the olden time as 

 a sacred and religious performance {tabu) ; but all hulas were not 

 held to be of equal dignity and rank {hanohano). Among those 

 deemed to be of the noblest rank and honor was the ala'a-papa. In its 

 best clays this was a stately and dignified performance, comparable 

 to the old-fashioned courtly minuet. 



We shall observe in this hula the division of the performers into 

 two sets, the hoopa\i and the olapa. Attention will naturally bestow 

 itself first on the olapa, a division of the company made up of splendid 

 youthful figures, young men, girls, and women in the prime of life. 

 They stand a little apart and in advance of the others, the right hand 

 extended, the left resting upon the hip, from which hangs in swelling 

 folds the pa-u. The time of their waiting for the signal to begin the 

 dance gives the eye opportunity to make deliberate survey of the 

 forms that stand before us. 



The figures of the men are more finely proportioned, more statu- 

 esque, more worthy of preservation in marble or bronze than those of 

 the women. Only at rare intervals does one find among this branch 

 of the Polynesian race a female shape which from crown to sole will 

 satisfy the canons of proportion — which one carries in the eye. That 

 is not to say, however, that the artistic eye will not often meet a shape 

 that appeals to the sense of grace and beauty. The springtime of 

 Hawaiian womanly beauty hastes away too soon. AA^ould it were 

 possible to stay that fleeting period which ushers in full womanhood ! 



One finds himself asking the question to what extent the responsi- 

 bility for this overthickness of leg and ankle — exaggerated in ap- 

 pearance, no doubt, by the ruffled anklets often worn — this pronounced 

 tendency to the growth of that degenerate weed, fat, is to be explained 

 by the standard of beauty which held sway in Hawaii's courts and 

 for many ages acted as a principle of selection in the physical mold- 

 ijig of the Hawaiian female. 



The prevailing type of physique among the Hawaiians, even more 

 marked in the women than in the men, is the short and thick, as op- 

 posed to the graceful and slender. One does occasionally^ find deli- 

 cacy of modeling in the young and immature; but with adolescence 

 fatness too often comes to blur the outline. 



The hoopa'a, who act as instrumentalists, very naturally maintain 

 a position between sitting and kneeling, the better to enable them to 



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