EMERSON] 



UNWRITTEN LITERATURE OF HAWAII 



153 



ment every day. Almost none of the singing that one hears at the 

 so-called hula j)erformances gotten up for the delectation of sight- 

 seers is Hawaiian music of the old sort. It belongs rather to the sec- 

 ond or third rattoon-crop, which has sprung up under the influence 

 of foreign stimuli. Take the published hula songs, such as ^^Tomi- 

 tomi^'' " Wahine Poupou^^'' and a dozen others that might be men- 

 tioned, to say nothing about the words — the music is no more related 

 to the genuine Hawaiian article of the old times than is " ragtime " 

 to a Gregorian chant. 



The bare score of a hula song, stripped of all embellishments and 

 reduced by the logic of our musical science to the merest skeleton of 

 notes, certainly makes a poor showing and gives but a feeble notion of 

 the song itself — its rhythm, its multitudinous grace-notes, its weird 

 tone-color. The notes given below offer such a skeletal presentation 

 of a song which the author heard cantillated by a skilled hula-master. 

 They were taken down at the author's request by Capt. H. Berger, 

 conductor of the Royal Hawaiian Band : 



IV — Song from the Hula Pa'i-umauma 



Arranged by H. Berger 



:| 



^fee 



:1: 



The same comment may be made on the specimen next to be given 

 as on the previous one: there is an entire omission of the trills and 

 flourishes with which the singer garlanded his scaffolding of song, 

 and which testified of his adhesion to the fashion of his ancestors, 

 the fashion according to which songs have been sung, prayers recited, 

 brave deeds celebrated since the time when Kane and Pele and the 

 other gods dipped paddle for the first time into Ilawaiian waters. 

 Unfortunately, in this as in the previous piece and as in the one next 

 to be given, the singer escaped the author before he was able to catch 

 the words. 



V — Song from the Hula Pa-ipu 



Arranged by H. Berger 

 A llegro — A i-luC a 



