“The Pahau was born in the sea,
   Guarded by the Lauhau that grew in the forest.”

  “The Hee was born and lived in the sea,
   Guarded by the Walahee that grew in the forest.”

Here the relation between the two objects is evidently fixed by the chance likeness of name.

On the whole, the Hawaiian takes little interest in stars.  The “canoe-steering star,” to be sure, is useful, and the “net of Makalii” (the Pleiads) belongs to a well-known folk tale.  But star stories do not appear in Hawaiian collections, and even sun and moon stories are rare, all belonging to the older and more mythical tales.  Clouds, however, are very minutely observed, both as weather indicators and in the lore of signs, and appear often in song and story.[1]

Besides differentiating such visible phenomena, the Polynesian also thinks in parts of less readily distinguishable wholes.  When we look toward the zenith or toward the horizon we conceive the distance as a whole; the Polynesian divides and names the space much as we divide our globe into zones.  We have seen how he conceives a series of heavens above the earth, order in creation, rank in the divisions of men on earth and of gods in heaven.  In the passage of time he records how the sun measures the changes from day to night; how the moon marks off the month; how the weather changes determine the seasons for planting and fishing through the year; and, observing the progress of human life from infancy to old age, he names each stage until “the staff rings as you walk, the eyes are dim like a rat’s, they pull you along on the mat,” or “they bear you in a bag on the back.”

Clearly the interest aroused by all this nomenclature is emotional, not rational.  There is too much wordplay.  Utility certainly plays some part, but the prevailing stimulus is that which bears directly 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.[2] 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.