314 HAWAIIAN ROMANCE OF LAIEIKAWAI [ETH. ANN. 33 
At the end of this series we read that— 
Storm was born, Tide was born, 
Crash was born, and also bursts of bubbles. 
Confusion was born, also rushing, rumbling shaking earth. 
oe ’ 
So closes the “second night of Wakea,” which, it is interesting to 
note, ends like a charade in the death of Kupololilalimualoipo, 
whose nomenclature has been so vastly accumulating through the 
200 or 300 last lines. Notice how the first word Apo of the series 
opens and swallows all the other five. 
Such recitative and, as it were, symbolic use of genealogical chants 
occurs over and over again. That the series is often of emotional 
rather than of historical value is suggested by the wordplays and 
by the fact that the hero tales do not show what is so characteristic 
of Icelandic saga—a care to record the ancestry of each character 
as it is introduced into the story. To be sure, they commonly begin 
with the names of the father and mother of the hero, and their 
setting; but in the older mythological tales these are almost in- 
variably Aw and Hina, a convention almost equivalent to the phrase 
“In the olden time”; but, besides fixing the divine ancestry of the 
hero, carrying also with it an idea of kinship with those to whom 
the tale is related, which is not without its emotional value. 
Geographical names, although not enumerated to such an extent 
in any of the tales and songs now accessible, also have an important 
place in Hawaiian composition. In the Laieikawai 76 places are 
mentioned by name, most of them for the mere purpose of identify- 
ing a route of travel. A popular form of folk tale is the following, 
told in Waianae, Oahu: “Over in Kahuku lived a high chief, 
Kaho’alii. He instructed his son ‘Fly about Oahu while I chew 
the awa; before I have emptied it into the cup return to me and 
rehearse to me all that you have seen.’” The rest of the tale relates 
the youth’s enumeration of the places he has seen on the way. 
If we turn to the chants the suggestive use of place names becomes 
still more apparent. Dr. Hyde tells us (Hawaiian Annual, 1890, 
p. 79): “In the Hawaiian chant (mele) and dirge (kanikau) the 
aim seems to be chiefly to enumerate every place associated with the 
subject, and to give that place some special epithet, either attached 
to it by commonplace repetition or especially devised for the occasion 
as being particularly characteristic.” An example of this form of 
reference is to be found in the Awaldi chant. We read: 
Where is the battle-field 
Where the warrior is to fight? 
On the field of Kalena, 
At Manini, at Hanini, 
Where was poured the water of the god, 
By your work at Malamanui, 
At the heights of Kapapa, at Paupauwela, 
Where they lean and rest. 
