KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 57. N:0 4. 145 



. Wandering about, and the only man who got there. 

 Passed is the day of Kukahi and the day of Kulua, 

 The night of Kukahi and the day of Kulua. 

 By niorsels was the food; 

 Picking the food with a noise like a bird! 

 Listen, bird of victory! 

 Hush! with whom the victory? 

 With Ku indeed. 



To this Fornander adds the following comments: — 



The above verses . . . throw a singular and unexpected light on the knowledge, mode of thoughts, 

 and relation to the outer world possessed by the Hawaiians of two hundred years ago. From these we 

 learn that Kualii had visited Kahiki, that foreign, mysterious land where the white man (Haole) 

 dwelt, with bis proud manners and his stränge language, a land shrouded in mists and fogs, and reached 

 only after a long voyage, when provisions fell short, and from which he successf ully escaped or returned 

 to his island home. 



While declaring this visit of Kualii to the white man's land to be an "historicalfact", 

 Fornander admits that his hypothesis that Kualii was taken on board a Spanish galleon, 

 carried to Mexico, and thence conveyed back to his home, is a conjecture which he scarcely 

 expects will be confirmed. Now that we know fairly completely, from what has been said 

 in the preceding chapters, the voyages of the galleons during the ti me in question — the 

 close of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century - - we can with certainty 

 characterize Fornander' s hypothesis as baseless. As regards the content of the song, its 

 meaning can certainly not be fully comprehended except by one who is familiar with 

 the poetical form in which it is clothed, and the stränge circle of ideas in which it 

 moves; but despite this, it can scarcely be disputed that it demands a böld imagination to 

 be able to read into this content that which my honoured fellow-countryman lays down 

 as "historical facts". 1 



The final result of the account of the Hawaiian traditions here given, therefore, is 

 that they provide no certain foundation for any "prehistoric" intercourse between 

 Hawaiians and Europeans. 



But it is not only the traditions that ha ve been adduced as evidence for such inter- 

 course. Traces hereof have been found in a number of other things. I do not think it 

 necessary, however, to try in this place to refer all that has been asserted in that way to 

 its original source, but I will content myself with citing the summary of the supposed 

 evidences, as given by Professor W. E. Blackman. 2 



1 It is of course not my intention by this to deny the value of Fornander's work : as ''a storehouse 

 of trustworthy information on the history and legends of Hawaii" it is of great importance. A proof of the 

 estimation in which it is still held is the publication long after the author's death (in 1887) of an Index to 

 the three volumes published in 1878—85. To this Index, printed in Honolulu in 1909, is added a short biography 

 of Fornander by W. D. Alexander, who of him says, "that he did more to preserve the ancient history and 

 folk-lore of the Hawaiians than any other man". 



2 The Making of Hawaii, a Study in Social Evolution, New York 1906, p. 63. 



K. Sv. Vet. Akad. Handl. Band 57. N:o 4. 19 



