2.  NOMENCLATURE:  ITS EMOTIONAL VALUE

The Hawaiian (or Polynesian) composer who would become a successful competitor in the fields of poetry, oratory, or disputation must store up in his memory the rather long series of names for persons, places, objects, or phases of nature which constitute the learning of the aspirant for mastery in the art of expression.  He is taught, says one tale, “about everything in the earth and in the heavens”—–­ that is, their names, their distinguishing characterstics.  The classes of objects thus differentiated naturally are determined by the emotional interest attached to them, and this depends upon their social or economic value to the group.

The social value of pedigree and property have encouraged genealogical and geographical enumeration.  A long recitation of the genealogies of chiefs provides immense emotional satisfaction and seems in no way to overtax the reciter’s memory.  Missionaries tell us that “the Hawaiians will commit to memory the genealogical tables given in the Bible, and delight to repeat them as some of the choicest passages in Scripture.”  Examples of such genealogies are common; it is, in fact, the part of the reciter to preserve the pedigree of his chief in a formal genealogical chant.

Such a series is illustrated in the genealogy embedded in the famous song to aggrandize the family of the famous chief Kualii, which carries back the chiefly line of Hawaii through 26 generations to Wakea and Papa, ancestors of the race.

  “Hulihonua the man,
   Keakahulilani the woman,
   Laka the man, Kepapaialeka the woman,”

runs the song, the slight variations evidently fitting the sound to the movement of the recitative.

In the eleventh section of the “Song of Creation” the poet says: 

  She that lived up in the heavens and Piolani,
  She that was full of enjoyments and lived in the heavens,
  Lived up there with Kii and became his wife,
  Brought increase to the world;

and he proceeds to the enumeration of her “increase”: 

  Kamahaina was born a man,
  Kamamule his brother,
  Kamaainau was born next,
  Kamakulua was born, the youngest a woman.

Following this family group come a long series, more than 650 pairs of so-called husbands and wives.  After the first 400 or so, the enumeration proceeds by variations upon a single name.  We have first some 50 Kupo (dark nights)—­“of wandering,” “of wrestling,” “of littleness,” etc.; 60 or more Polo; 50 Liili; at least 60 Alii (chiefs); followed by Mua and Loi in about the same proportion.

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.

So closes the “second night of Wakea,” which, it is interesting to note, ends like a charade in the death of Kupololiilialiimualoipo, whose nomenclature has been so vastly accumulating through the 200 or 300 last lines.  Notice how the first word Kupo of the series opens and swallows all the other five.