What is the argument of this poem? A passion-stricken swain, or perhaps a woman, cries to _Malua_ to bring relief to his love-smart, to give drink to the parched _mamane_ buds—emblems of human feeling. In contrast to his own distress, he points to the birds caroling in the trees, reveling in the nectar of _lehua_ bloom, intoxicated with the scent of nature’s garden. What answer does the lovelorn swain receive from the nymph he adores? In lines 11 and 12 she banteringly asks him if he took her to be like the traditional lehua tree of Hopoe, of which men stood in awe as a sort of divinity, not daring to pluck its flowers? It is as if the woman had asked—if the poet’s meaning is rightly interpreted—“Did you really think me plighted to vestal vows, a tree whose bloom man was forbidden to pluck?” [Page 116] XV.—THE HULA KA-LAAU The hula _ka-laau_ (_ka_, to strike; _laau_, wood) was named from the instruments of wood used in producing the accompaniment, a sort of xylophone, in which one piece of resonant wood was struck against another. Both divisions of the performers, the hoopaa and the olapa, took part and each division was provided with the instruments. The cantillation was done sometimes by one division alone, sometimes by both divisions in unison, or one division would answer the other, a responsive chanting that was termed _haawe aku, haawe mai_—“to give, to return.” Ellis gives a quotable description of this hula, which he calls the “hura ka raau:”