144 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 38 



the author's experiments with tlie kaekeeke an excellent substitute 

 was found in a bag filled with sand or earth. 



In choosing bamboo for the kaekeeke it is best to use a variety 

 which is thin-Avalled and long-jointed, like the indigenous Hawaiian 

 varieties, in preference to such as come from the Orient, all of which 

 are thick- walled and short -jointed, and therefore less resonant than 

 the Hawaiian. 



The performer held a joint in each hand, the two being of different 

 sizes and lengths, thus producing tones of diverse pitch. By making 

 a proper selection of joints it would be possible to obtain a set capa- 

 ble of producing a perfect musical scale. The tone of the kaekeeke 

 is of the utmost purity and lacks only sustained force and carrying 

 power to be capable of the best effects. 



An old Hawaiian once informed the writer that about the year 

 1850, in the reign of Kamehameha III, he was present at a hula 

 kaekeeke given in the royal palace in Honolulu. The instrumen- 

 talists numbered six, each one of whom held two bamboo joints. 

 The old man became enthusiastic as he described the effect produced 

 by their performance, declaring it to have been the most charming 

 hula he ever witnessed. 



5. The idi-uli (pi. xi) consisted of a small gourd of the size of one's 

 two fists, into which were introduced shotlike seeds, such as those of 

 the canna. In character it was a rattle, a noise-instrument pure and 

 simple, but of a tone by no means disagreeable to the ear, even as 

 tlie note produced by a woodpecker drumming on a log is not without 

 its pleasurable effect on the imagination. 



The illustration of the liliuli faithfully pictured by the artist 

 reproduces a specimen that retains the original simplicity of the 

 instrument before the meretricious taste of modern times tricked 

 it out with silks and feathers. (For a further description of this 

 instrument, see p. 107.) 



6. The pu-ili was also a variety of the rattle, made by splitting a 

 long joint of bamboo for half its length into slivers, every alternate 

 sliver being removed to give the remaining ones greater freedom and 

 to make their play the one upon the other more lively. The tone is a 

 murmurous breezy rustle that resembles the notes of twigs, leaves, 

 or reeds struck against one another by the wind — not at all an un- 

 worthy imitation of nature-tones familiar to the Hawaiian ear. 



The performers sat in two rows facing each other, a position that 

 favored mutual action, in which each row of actors struck their in- 

 struments against those of the other side, or tossed them back and 

 forth. (For further account of the manner in which the puili was 

 used in the hula of the same name, see p. 113.) 



7. The laau was one of the noise-instruments used in the hula. It 

 consisted of two sticks of hard resonant wood, the smaller of which 



