Small crabs, alemihi, were very good, and pinkish round tidbits from squid tentacles; to say nothing of some little parboiled lobsters.
(1) Diamond Head. (2) A Pair of Jacks—Atkinson and London. (3) Ahuimanu.
One toothsome accompaniment to a Hawaiian meal is the kukui, or candlenut (Aleurites Moluccana). Its meat is baked and crushed, then mixed with native salt. Pinches of this relish, called i-na-mo-na, are taken with poi and other viands, and it is sometimes stirred in to season a mess of raw mullet. The kukui tree, a comparatively recent introduction from the South Seas, has nearly as many uses as the coconut palm, for aside from the gustatory excellence of its nut, a gum from the bark is valuable, and a dye found in the nut shell was formerly used to paint the intricate patterns of the tapa that served for clothing. This dye also formed a waterproofing for tapa cloaks, and with it tattoo artists drew fashionable designs into the flesh of their patrons, who also rubbed their bodies with oil pressed from the nut, especially in making them slippery for wrestling and fighting. The nuts strung on the midrib of a coconut leaf formed the Hawaiians’ only torch. The oil of the nut, expressed under pressure, is a valuable paint oil.
For the drinking we were given choice of a mild beer and “pop” (soda-water of various colors), and coconut water in the shell; and for dessert, the not unpleasant anti-climax of good old vanilla ice cream to remind us that Hawaii has long been in the grasp of Jack’s “inevitable white man.”
Next came the dancing. Mr. Moore had promised us a hula; but a hula, except by professional dancers, is more easily promised than delivered. The native must be in the precise right humor before any performance is forthcoming for the malihini. Our pleasant task was to overcome the shyness that whelmed both Kanakas and wahines when we coaxed them to show their paces. Few, very likely, had ever danced before strangers. Indeed, for the most part, the hula is frowned upon by haole residents. And the majority of these were simple rural folk with a terror of wrong-doing. I think the Hawaiians are quick to detect a meretricious gayety or any patronizing, overdone familiarity; and to make them feel one’s genuine interest in their customs is the only means by which to establish a basis of confidence. Left to themselves, they will dance anywhere at any time. Tochigi witnessed his first hula on Toby’s train! He did not comment upon it; but after seeing Americans dance, each couple following its own method, he had respectfully observed that he thought we danced more for our own pleasure than for that of onlookers.
At length a bolder or more persuadable spirit, yearning to express the real general desire to please, broke through the crust of reserve and began a series of convolutions to the endless two-step measure of guitars and ukuleles that during the luau had throbbed in a leafy corner of the grass shelter.
Arch faces lighted, hands clapped and feet beat time, eyes and teeth flashed in the dim light of lanterns and lamps, and flower-burdened shoulders swung involuntarily to the rhythm. One after another added the music of his throat to an old hula that has never seen printer’s ink, while the violin threnody of the Alapai raised the plaintive, savage lilt to something incommunicably high and haunting.
Jack seemed in a trance, his eyes like stars, while his broad shoulders swayed to the measure. Discovering my regard, caught in his emotion of delight in this pregnant folk dance and song, he did not smile, but half-veiled his eyes as he laid a hand on mine in token of acknowledgment of my comprehension of his deep mood. For in every manifestation of human life, he goes down into the tie ribs of racial development, as if in eternal quest to connect up the abysmal past with the palpable present.
A pause, full of murmurs and low laughter, then a strapping young wahine with the profile of Diana seized an old guitar. With a shout to another girl to get on her feet, she leaned over and swept the strings masterfully with the backs of her fingers, at the same time setting up a wanton, thrilling hula song that was a love cry in the starlight, each repeated phrase ending in a fainting, crooning, tremulous falsetto which trailed into a vanishing wisp of sound. She could not sit quietly, but swung her body and lissom limbs in rhythm like a wild thing possessed, seeming to galvanize the dancers by sheer force of will, for one by one they sprang to the bidding of her voice and magnetic fingers, into the flickering light where they swayed and bent and undulated like mad sweet nymphs and fauns. Now and again a brown sprite separated from the moving group, and came to dance before the haole guests, the dance a provocation to join the revelry. Sometimes the love appeal was unmistakable, accompanied by singing words we wotted not of, but which were the cause of good-natured merriment from the others. Then abruptly the performer would become impersonal in face and gesture, and melt back into the weaving group.