[Footnote 11: _Ou-alii_. The Hawaiians seem to have lost the
meaning of this word. The author has been at some pains to
work it out somewhat conjecturally.]
[Footnote 12: _E Lono, e hu’ ia, mai, etc_. The unelided form
of the word _hu’_ would be _hui_. The final _i_ is dropped
before the similar vowel of _ia_.]
[Footnote 13: _Kukúlu o Kahíki_. The pillars of Kahiki. The
ancient Hawaiians supposed the starry heavens to be a solid
dome supported by a wall or vertical
construction—_kukulu_—set up along the horizon. That
section of the wall that stood over against Kahiki they
termed _Kukulu o Kahiki_. Our geographical name Tahiti is of
course from Kahiki, though it does not apply to the same
region. After the close of what has been termed “the period
of intercourse,” which, came probably during the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, and during which the ancient Hawaiians
voyaged to and fro between Hawaii and the lands of the South,
geographical ideas became hazy and the term _Kahiki_ came to
be applied to any foreign country.]
[Footnote 14: _Áno-ái_. An old form of salutation, answering
in general to the more modern word aloha, much used at the
present time. _Ano-ai_ seems to have had a shade of meaning
more nearly answering to our word “welcome.” This is the
first instance the author has met with of its use in poetry.]
[Page 18]
[Translation.]
_A Prayer of Adulation to Laka_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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