68 



HA WAIL 



[letter vii. 



" mountain," is a mere prefix, and though always used in 

 naming the two giants of the Pacific, Mauna Kea, and Mauna 

 Loa, is hardly ever applied to Hualalai, "the offspring of 

 ihe shining sun ; " or to Haleakala on Maui, " the house of 

 the sun." 



I notice that the foreigners never use the English or botanical 

 names of trees or plants, but speak of ohias, ohelos, kukui (candle- 

 nut), lauhala (pandanus), pulu (tree fern), mamane, koa, &c. 

 There is one native word in such universal use that I already 

 find I cannot get on without it, pilikia. It means anything, 

 from a downright trouble to a slight difficulty or entanglement. 

 "I'm in a pilikia" or " very pilikia" or " pilikia J "' A revo- 

 lution would be "a pilikia." The fact of the late king dying 

 without naming a successor was pre-eminently a pilikia, and it 

 would be a serious pilikia if a horse were to lose a shoe on the 

 way to Kilauea. Hou-hon, meaning " in a huff," I hear on all 

 sides ; and two words, makai, signifying " on the sea-side," and 

 mauka, " on the mountain side." These terms are perfectly 

 intelligible out of doors, but it is puzzling when one is asked 

 to sit on " the mauka side of the table." The word aloha, in 

 foreign use, has taken the place of every English equivalent. 

 It is a greeting, a farewell, thanks, love, goodwill. Aloha looks 

 at you from tidies and illuminations, it meets you on the roads 

 and at house-doors, it is conveyed to you in letters, the air is 

 full of it. " My aloha to you," " he sends you his aloha," " they 

 desire their aloha." It already represents to me all of kindness 

 and goodwill that language can express, and the convenience 

 of it as compared with other phrases is, that it means exactly 

 what the receiver understands it to mean, and consequently, 

 in all cases can be conveyed by a third person. There is no 

 word for "thank you." Maikai, "good," is often useful in its 

 place, and smiles supply the rest. There are no words which 

 express "gratitude" or "chastity," or some others of the 

 virtues ; and they have no word for " weather," that which we 

 understand by " weather " being absolutely unknown. 



Natives have no surnames. Our volcano guide is Upa, or 

 Scissors, but his wife and children are anything else. The late 

 king was Kamehameha, or the " lonely one." The father of 

 the present king is called Kanaina, but the king's name is 

 Lunalilo, or "above all." Nor does it appear that a man is 

 always known by the same name, nor that a name necessarily 

 indicates the sex of its possessor. Thus, in signing a paper 

 the signature would be Hoapili kanaka, or Hoapili wahine, 



