XXXL— THE HULA MANO 



The hula 'ma no, shark-danco, as its name signifies, was a perform- 

 ance that takes class with the hula kolea, already mentioned, as one of 

 the animal dances. But little can be said about the physical features 

 of this hula as a dance, save that the performers took a sitting posi- 

 tion, that the action was without sensationalism, and that there Avas 

 no instrumental accompaniment. The cantillation of the mele was in 

 the distinct and quiet tone and manner which the Hawaiians termed 

 ko'i-honua. 



The last and only mention found of its performance in modern 

 times was in the year 1847, during the tour, j^reviously mentioned, 

 which Kamehameha III made about Oahu. The place was the lonely 

 and romantic valley of Waimea, a name already historic from having 

 been the scene of the tragic death of Lieutenant Ilergest (of the ship 

 Da'dalus) in 1792. 



Mele 



Anwe ! pan an i ka niano nni. c ! 

 Lala-kea" nilio pa-kolu. 

 I'au ka i)ai)a-kn o Lono ^ 

 I ka ai ia e ka uianO nni, 

 n () Ninlii niaka alii. 

 Olapa i ke kai lipo. 

 Ahn e! au-we! 

 A pna ka wili-wili. 

 A nanahn ka niauo,^ 



" Liihi-kcn. This proper name, as it seems once to liave boon, lias now becomL? ratlicr 

 tlie designation of a wiiole class of man-eating: sea-monsters. Tlie Hawaiians worsliiped 

 individdal sliarks as demisods, in tlie belief that the souls of the departed at death, or 

 even before death, sometimes entered and took possession of them, and that they at times 

 resumed human form. To this class bolonjied the famous shark Niuhi (verse 5). 



^' Papa-lu Lviio. This was one of the underlying strata of the earth that must be 

 passed before reachins MiUi, the hades of the Hawaiians. The cosmogony of the soutli- 

 ern Polynesians, according to Mr. Tregear, recognized ten ixiixi. or divisions. " The hist 

 division was the earth's surface ; the second was the abode of Uongo-ma-tane and Ilaumia 

 tiketike; * * * the tenth was Meto, or Ameto, or Aweto. wherein the soul of man 

 found utter extinction." (The Mnori-I'olynesi.-m Comparative Dictionary, by Kdwanl 

 Tregear. F. I{. <i. 8., etc., Wellington, New Zealand, ISOl.) 



' Verses 8 and 'J are from an old proverb which the Hawaiians put into the following 

 i|uatraiu : 



A pna ka wiliwili, 



A nanaliu ka mano ; 



A pua ka wahine u"i, 



A nanahu ke kanawai. 



TTranslation] 

 When flowers the wiliwili, 

 Then bites the shark ; 

 When flowers a young woman. 

 Then bites the law. 



The people came to take this old saw seriously and literally, and during the season 

 when the wiliwili (lirythrina monosperma) was clothed in its splendid tufts of brick-red. 

 mothers kept theii- children from swimming into the deep sea by setting before them the 

 terrors of the sliark. 



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