BECKWITH] INTRODUCTION 313 
2. NOMENCLATURE: ITS EMOTIONAL VALUE 
The Hawaiian (or Polynesian) composer who would become a 
successful competitor in the fields of poetry, oratory, or disputation 
must store up in his memory the rather long series of names for 
persons, places, objects, or phases of nature which constitute the 
learning of the aspirant for mastery in the art of expression. He is 
taught, says one tale, “about everything in the earth and in the 
heavens ””—that is, their names, their distinguishing characterstics. 
The classes of objects thus differentiated naturally are determined by 
the emotional interest attached to them, and this depends upon their 
social or economic value to the group. 
The social value of pedigree and property have encouraged genea- 
logical and geographical enumeration. A long recitation of the 
genealogies of chiefs provides immense emotional satisfaction, and 
seems in no way to overtax the reciter’s memory. Missionaries tell 
us that “the Hawaiians will commit to memory the genealogical 
tables given in the Bible, and delight to repeat them as some of the 
choicest passages in Scripture.” Examples of such genealogies are 
common; it is, in fact, the part of the reciter to preserve the pedigree 
of his chief in a formal genealogical chant. 
Such a series is illustrated in the genealogy embedded in the 
famous song to aggrandize the family of the famous chief Kualii, 
which carries back the chiefly line of Hawaii through 26 generations 
to Wakea and Papa, ancestors of the race. 
“Hulihonua the man, 
Keakahulilani the woman, 
Laka the man, Kepapaialeka the woman,” 
runs the song, the slight variations evidently fitting the sound to the 
movement of the recitative. 
In the eleventh section of the “Song of Creation” the poet says: 
She that lived up in the heavens and Piolani, 
She that was full of enjoyments and lived in the heavens, 
Lived up there with Kii and became his wife, 
Brought increase to the world; 
and he proceeds to the enumeration of her “ increase”: 
Kamahaina was born a man, 
Kamamule his brother, 
Kamaainau was born next, 
Kamakulua was born, the youngest a woman. 
Following this family group come a long series, more than 650 pairs 
of so-called husbands and wives. After the first 400 or so, the 
enumeration proceeds by variations upon a single name. We have 
first some 50 Kupo (dark nights) —“ of wandering,” “ of wrestling,” 
“of littleness,” ete.; 60 or more Polo; 50 Liili; at least 60 Alii 
(chiefs) ; followed by Mua and Loi in about the same proportion. 
