hangs upon the words of his chief can translate the allusion and parry the thrust or satisfy the request.  In a Samoan tale a wandering magician requests in one village “to go dove catching,” and has the laugh on his simple host because he takes him at his word instead of bringing him a wife.  In a Tongan story[2] the chief grows hungry while out on a canoe trip, and bids his servant, “Look for a banana stalk on the weather side of the boat.”  As this is the side of the women, the command meant “Kill a woman for me to eat.”  The woman designed for slaughter is in this case wise enough to catch his meaning and save herself and child by hiding under the canoe.  In Fornander’s story a usurper and his accomplice plan the moment for the death of their chief over a game of konane, the innocent words which seem to apply to the game being uttered by the conspirators with a more sinister meaning.  The language of insults and opprobrium is particularly rich in such double meanings.  The pig god, wishing to insult Pele, who has refused his advances, sings of her, innocently enough to common ears, as a “woman pounding noni.”  Now, the noni is the plant from which red dye is extracted; the allusion therefore is to Pele’s red eyes, and the goddess promptly resents the implication.

It is to this chiefly art of riddling that we must ascribe the stories of riddling contests that are handed down in Polynesian tales.  The best Hawaiian examples are perhaps found in Fornander’s Kepakailiula.  Here the hero wins supremacy over his host by securing the answer to two riddles—­“The men that stand, the men that lie down, the men that are folded,” and “Plaited all around, plaited to the bottom, leaving an opening.”  The answer is in both cases a house, for in the first riddle “the timbers stand, the batons lie down, the grass is folded under the cords”; in the second, the process of thatching is described in general terms.  In the story of Pikoiakaala, on the other hand; the hero puzzles his contestants by riddling with the word “rat.”  This word riddling is further illustrated in the story of the debater, Kaipalaoa, already quoted.  His opponents produce this song: 

  The small bird chirps; it shivers in the rain, in Puna, at Keaau,
                                                       at Iwainalo,

and challenge him to “find another nalo.”  Says the boy: 

  The crow caw caws; it shines in the rain.  In Kona, at Honalo,
    it is hidden (nalo).

Thus, by using nalo correctly in the song in two ways, he has overmatched his rivals.