BECKWITH] INTRODUCTION 319 
upon the idea of rank, some divine privilege being conceived in the 
mere act of naming, by which a supernatural power is gained over 
the object named. The names, as the objects for which they stand, 
come from the gods. Thus in the story of Pupuhuluena, the culture 
hero propitiates two fishermen into revealing the names of their 
food plants and later, by reciting these correctly, tricks the spirits 
into conceding his right to their possession. Thus he wins tuberous 
food plants for his people. ‘ 
For this reason, exactness of knowledge is essential. The god 
is irritated by mistakes.1 To mispronounce even casually the name 
of the remote relative of a chief might cost a man a valuable patron 
or even life itself. Some chiefs are so sacred that their names are 
taboo; if it is a word in common use, there is chance of that word 
dropping out of the language and being replaced by another. 
Completeness of enumeration hence has cabalistic value. When 
the Hawaiian propitiates his gods he concludes with an invoca- 
tion to the “forty thousand, to the four hundred thousand, to 
the four thousand ”? gods, in order that none escape the incantation. 
Direction is similarly invoked all around the compass. In the art 
of verbal debate—called hoopapa in Hawaii—the test is to match a 
rival’s series with one exactly parallel in every particular or to add 
to a whole some undiscovered part.? A charm mentioned in folk 
1 Moerenhout (1, 501-507) says that the Areois society in Tahiti, one of whose chief 
cbjects was ‘‘to preserve the chants and songs of antiquity,’ sent out an officer called 
the “ Night-walker,”’ Hare-po, whose duty it was to recite the chants all night long at 
the sacred places. If he hesitated a moment it was a bad omen. ‘ Perfect memory for 
these chants was a gift of god and proved that a god spoke through and inspired the 
reciter.” Ifa single slip was made, the whole was considered useless. 
Erdland relates that a Marshall Islander who died in 1906 remembered correctly 
the names of officers and scholars who came to the islands in the Chamisso party when 
he was a boy of 8 or 10. 
Fornander notes that, in collecting Hawaiian chants, of the Kualii dating from about 
the seventeenth century and containing 618 lines, one copy collected on Hawaii, another 
on Oahu, did not vary in a single line; of the Hauikalani, written just before Kame- 
hameha’s time and containing 527 lines, a copy from Hawaii and one from Maui 
ciffered only in the omission of a single word. 
Tripping and stammering games were, besides, practiced to insure exact articulation. 
(See Turner, Samoa, p. 131; Thomson, pp. 16, 315.) 
2 Emerson, Unwritten Literature, p..24 (note). 
8 This is well illustrated in Fornander’s story of Kaipalaoa’s disputation with the 
orators who gathered about Kalanialiiloa on Kauai. Say the men: 
“ Kuu moku la e kuu moku, My island there, my island; 
Moku kele i ka waa o Kaula, Island to which my canoe sails, Kaula, 
Moku kele i ka waa, Nihoa, Island to which my canoe sails, Nihoa, 
Moku kele i ka waa, Niihau. Island to which my canoe sails, Niihau. 
Lehua, Kauai, Molokai, Oahu, Lehua, Kauai, Molokai, Oahu, 
Maui, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Maui, Lanai, Kahoolawe, 
Molokini, Kauiki, Mokuhano, Molokini, Kauiki, Mokuhano, 
Makaukiu, Makapu, Mokolii. Makaukiu, Makapu, Mokolii. 
“You are beaten, young man; there are no islands left. We have taken up the 
islands to be found, none left.” 
