BECKWITH] NOTES ON THE TEXT 617 
"The adoption by their grandparents and hiding away of the twins must be 
compared with a large number of concealed birth tales in which relatives of 
superior supernatural power preserve the hero or heroine at birth and train 
and endow their foster children for a life of adyenture. This motive reflects 
Polynesian custom. Adoption was by no means uncommon among Polynesians, 
and many a man owed his peservation from death to the fancy of some distant 
relative who had literally picked him off the rubbish heap to make a pet of. 
The secret amours of chiefs, too, led, according to Malo (p. 82), to the theme of 
the high chief’s son brought up in disguise, who later proves his rank, a theme 
as dear to the Polynesian as to romance lovers of other lands, 
CHAPTER II 
*The iako of a canoe are the two arched sticks which hold the outrigger. 
The kua iako are the points at which they are bound to the canoe, or rest upon 
it, aft and abaft of the canoe. 
*The verb hookuiia means literally “cause to be pierced” as with a needle 
or other sharp instrument. Ai describes the act of piercing. hoo is the 
causative prefix, ia the passive particle, which was, in old Hawaiian, com- 
monly attached to the verb as a suffix. The Hawaiian speech expresses much 
more exactly than our own the delicate distinction between the subject in its 
active and passive relation to an action, hence the passive is vastly more 
common. Mr. J. S. Emerson points out to me a classic example of the passive 
used as an imperative—an old form unknown to-day—in the story of the rock, 
Lekia, the “pohaku o Lekia’’ which overlooks the famous Green Lake at 
Kapoho, Puna. Lekia, the demigod, was attacked by the magician, Kaleikini, 
and when almost overcome, was encouraged by her mother, who ealled out, 
“ Pohaku o Lekia, onia a paa”’—‘ be planted firm.’’ This the demigod effected 
so successfully as never again to be shaken from her position. 
* Hawaiian challenge stories bring out a strongly felt distinction in the 
Polynesian mind between these two provinces, maloko a mawaho, “ inside and 
outside” of a house. When the boy Kalapana comes to challenge his oppressor 
he is told to stay outside; inside is for the chief. ‘“‘ Very well,’ answers the 
hero, “I choose the outside; anyone who comes out does so at his peril.” So 
he proves that he has the better of the exclusive company. 
“In his invocation the man recognizes the two classes of Hawaiian society, 
chiefs and common people, and names certain distinctive ranks. The com- 
moners are the farming class, hw, makaainu, lopukuakea, lopahoopiliwale refer- 
ring to different grades of tenant farmers. Priests and soothsayers are ranked 
with chiefs, whose households, aialo, are made up of hangers-on of lower rank— 
courtiers as distinguished from the low-ranking countrymen—makaaina—who 
remain on the land. Chiefs of the highest rank, niaupio, claim descent within 
‘the single family of a high chief, All high-class chiefs must claim parentage 
at least of a mother of the highest rank; the low chiefs, kauwkaualii, rise to 
rank through marriage (Malo, p. 82). The ohi are perhaps the wohi, high 
chiefs who are of the highest rank on the father’s side and but a step lower on 
the mother’s. 
“With this judgment of beauty should be compared Fornander’s story of 
Kepakailiula, where “ mother’s brothers ” search for a woman beautiful enough 
to wed their protegé, but find a flaw in each candidate; and the episode of the 
match of beauty in the tale of Kalanimanuia. 
CuHapter IIL 
*The building of a heiau, or temple, was a common means of propitiating a 
deity and winning his help for a cause. Ellis records (1825) that on the 
