308 HAWAIIAN ROMANCE OF LAIEIKAWAI [ETH. ANN. 33 
delight of the common people, their curious spying into the chief’s 
affairs, the treacherous paddlers, the different orders of landowners; 
in the temple, the human sacrifices, prayers, visions; the prophet’s 
search for a patron, his wrestling with the god, his affection for his 
chief, his desire to be remembered to posterity by the saying “the 
daughters of Hulumaniani”—all these incidents reflect the course 
of everyday life in aristocratic Polynesian society and hence belong 
to the common stock of Hawaiian romance. 
Such being the material of Polynesian romance—a world in which 
gods and men play their part; a world which includes the heavens 
yet reflects naturalistically the beliefs and customs of everyday life, 
let us next consider how the style of the story-teller has been shaped 
by his manner of observing nature and by the social requirements 
which determine his art—by the world of nature and the world of 
man. And in the first place let us see under what social conditions 
Polynesia has gained for itself so high a place, on the whole, among 
primitive story-telling people for the richness, variety, and beauty 
of its conceptions." 
Polynesian romance reflects its own social world—a world based 
upon the fundamental conception of social rank. The family tie and 
the inherited rights and titles derived from it determine a man’s 
place in the community. The families of chiefs claim these rights 
and titles from the gods who are their ancestors.? They consist not 
only in land and property rights but in certain privileges in ad- 
ministering the affairs of a group, and in certain acknowledged forms 
of etiquette equivalent to the worship paid to a god. These rights 
are administered through a system of taboo.® 
A taboo depends for its force upon the belief that it is divinely 
ordained and that to break it means to bring down the anger of the 
gods upon the offender. In the case, therefore, of a violation of 
taboo, the community forestalls the god’s wrath, which might other- 
wise extend to the whole number, by visiting the punishment directly 
upon the guilty offender, his family or tribe. But it is always under- 
1J. A. Macculloch (in Childhood of Fiction, p: 2) says, comparing the literary ability 
of primitive people: ‘‘ Those who possess the most elaborate and imaginative tales are 
the Red Indians and Polynesians.” 
2 Moerenhout, 11, 4, 265. 
3 Gracia (p. 47) says that the taboo consists in the interdict from touching some food 
or object which has been dedicated to a god. The chief by his divine descent repre- 
sents the god. Compare Ellis, iv, 385; Mariner, 11, 82, 173; Turner, Samoa, pp. 112, 
185; Fison, pp. 1-3; Malo, p. 88; Dibble, p. 12; Moerenhout, 1, 528-533. WFornander 
says of conditions in Hawaii: ‘“‘ The chiefs in the genealogy from Kane were called 
Ka Hoalii or ‘anointed’ (poni ia) with the water of Kane (wai-niu-a-Kane) and they 
became ‘divine tabu chiefs’ (na@’ lii kapu-akua). ‘Their genealogy is called Iku-pau, 
because it alone leads up to the beginning of all genealogies. They had ‘two taboo rights, 
the ordinary taboo of the chiefs (Kapu-alii) and the taboo of the gods (Kapu-akua). The 
genealogy of the lower ranks of chiefs (he’ lii noa), on the other hand, was called 
Iku-nuu. Their power was temporal and they accordingly were entitled only to the 
ordinary taboo of chiefs (Kapu-alii).” 
