THE HAWAITAN ROMANCE OF LATEIKAWAI 
WITH INTRODUCTION AND TRANSLATION 
By MarrHa WARREN BECKWITH 
INTRODUCTION 
I. Tae Book anv rrs Writer; Score or THE Present Eprrion 
wooing of a native chiefess of high rank and her final deifi- 
cation among the gods. The story was handed down orally 
from ancient times in the form of a kaao, a narrative rehearsed in 
prose interspersed with song, in which form old tales are still recited 
by Hawaiian story-tellers It was put into writing by a native Ha- 
waiian, ‘Haleole by name, who hoped thus to awaken in his country- 
men an interest in genuine native story-telling based upon the folk- 
lore of their race and preserving its ancient customs—already fast 
disappearing since Cook’s rediscovery of the group in 1778 opened 
the way to foreign influence—and by this means to inspire in them 
old ideals of racial glory. Haleole was born about the time of the 
death of Kaméhaméha I, a year or two before the arrival of the 
first American missionaries and the establishment of the Protestant 
mission in Hawaii. In 1834 he entered the mission school at Lahai- 
naluna, Maui, where his interest in the ancient history of his people 
was stimulated and trained under the teaching of Lorrin Andrews, 
compiler of the Hawaiian dictionary, published in 1865, and Sheldon 
Dibble, under whose direction David Malo prepared his collection 
of “Hawaiian Antiquities,’ and whose History of the Sandwich 
Islands (1848) is an authentic source for the early history of the 
mission. Such early Hawaiian writers as Malo, Kamakau, and 
John Ii were among Haleole’s fellow students. After leaving school 
he became first a teacher, then an editor. In the early sixties he 
brought out the Laietkawai, first as a serial in the Hawaiian 
Ts Laieikawai is a Hawaiian romance which recounts the 
1Compare the Fijian story quoted by Thomson (p. 6). 
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