[Translation.]

A Prayer to Pele

CANTO I

Lo, Pele’s the god of my choice:

Let heaven and earth in silence wait

Here is awa, potent, sacred,

Bitter sea, great Hiiaka’s root;

’Twas cut at Mauli-ola—

Awa to the women forbidden,

Let it tabu be!

Exact be the rite of your awa,

O Pele of the sacred land.

Proclaim it, mother. Haumea,

Of the goddess of Kilauea;

She who dug the pit world-deep,

And Mau-wahine and Kupu-ena,

Who prepare the awa for drink.

A health to the stranger gods!

CANTO II

Bedeck now the board for the feast;

Fill up the last bowl to the brim;

Then pour a draught in the sun-cave

Shall flow to the mellow haze,

That tints the land of the gods.

All hail to the stranger gods!

This my offering, simply a voice,

Only a welcoming voice.

Turn in!

Lo, the feast!

This prayer, though presented in two parts or cantos, is really one, its purpose being to offer a welcome, kanaenae, to the feast and ceremony to the gods who had a right to expect that courtesy.

One more mele of the number specially used in the hula Pele:

Mele

Nou paha e, ka inoa

E ka’i-ka’i ku ana,

A kau i ka nuku.

E hapa-hapai a’e;

A pa i ke kihi

O Ki-lau-é-a.

Ilaila ku’u kama,

O Ku-nui-akea. [³⁶⁴]

Hookomo a’e iloko

A o Hale-ma’u-ma’u; [³⁶⁵]

A ma-ú na pu’u

E óla-olá, nei.

E kulipe’e nui ai-ahua. [³⁶⁶]

E Pele, e Pele!

Huai’na! huai’na!

Ku ia ka lani,

Pae a huila!

Footnote 364:[ (return) ] Kalakaua, for whom all these fine words are intended, could no more claim kinship with Ku-nui-akea, the son of Kau-i-ke-aouli, than with Julius Cæsar.

Footnote 365:[ (return) ] Hale-mau-mau. Used figuratively of the mouth, whose hairy fringe—moustache and beard—gives it a fancied resemblance to the rough lava pit where Pele dwelt. The figure, to us no doubt obscure, conveyed to the Hawaiian the idea of trumpeting the name and making it famous.

Footnote 366:[ (return) ] E kuli-pe’e nui ai-ahua. Pele is here figured as an old, infirm woman, crouching and crawling along; a character and attitude ascribed to her, no doubt, from the fancied resemblance of a lava flow, which, when in the form of a-á, rolls and tumbles along over the surface of the ground in a manner suggestive of the motions and attitude of a palsied crone.