152 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 38 



testimony as this, which at the best is only negative. In many cases 

 it is evident the witnesses do not understand the true meaning and 

 bearing of the question. The Hawaiians have no word or expression 

 synonjanous with our expression " musical chord." In all inquiries 

 the writer has found it necessary to use periphrasis or to appeal to 

 some illustration. The fact must be borne in mind, however, that 

 people often do a thing, or possess a thing, for which they have no 

 name. 



2. As to the practice among Hawaiians at the present time, no sat- 

 isfactory proof has been found of the existence of any case in which 

 in the cantillations of their own songs the Hawaiians — those unin- 

 fluenced by foreign music — have given an illustration of what can 

 properly be termed part-singing; nor can anyone be found who can 

 testify affirmatively to the same effect. Search for it has thus far 

 been as fruitless as j)ursuit of the will-o'-the-wisp. 



3. The light that is thrown on this question by the study of the 

 old Hawaiian musical instruments is singularly inconclusive. If it 

 Avere possible, for instance, to bring together a complete set of 

 kaekeeke bamboos which were positively known to have been used 

 together at one performance, the argument from the fact of their 

 forming a musical harmony, if such were found to be the case — or, 

 on the other hand, of their producing only a haphazard series of un- 

 related sounds, if such were the fact — would bring to the decision 

 of the question the overwhelming force of indirect evidence. But 

 such an assortment the author has not been able to find. Bamboo is 

 a frail and perishable material. Of the two specimens of kaekeeke 

 tubes found by him in the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum one was 

 cracked and voiceless ; and so the testimony of its surviving partner 

 was of no avail. 



The Hawaiians of the present dsij are so keenl}^ alive to musical 

 harmony that it is hardly conceivable that their ancestors two or 

 three generations ago perpetrated discords in their music. They 

 must either have sung in unison or hit on "concords such as were not 

 disagreeable to the ear." If the music heard in the halau to-day in 

 any close degree resembles that of ancient times — it must be assumed 

 that it does — no male voice of ordinary range need have found any 

 difficulty in sounding the notes, nor do they scale so low that a female 

 voice would not easily reach them. 



Granting, then, as we must, the accuracy of Captain King's state- 

 ment, the conclusion to which the author of this paper feels forced 

 is that since the time of the learned doctor's visit to these shores, 

 more than one hundred and twenty-eight years ago, the art and 

 practice of singing or cantillating after the old fashion has declined 

 among the Hawaiians. The hula of the old times, in spite of all the 

 efforts to maintain it, is becoming more and more difficult of procure- 



