[9] Pa’iauma. This is a word that has presented some difficulties in the discovery of its meaning. The reference, I believe, is to breast-beating practiced by persons distracted with grief. Uma, the final part of the word, I take to be the shortened form of umauma, the bosom. [↑]
[10] Pili, to meet, the point or line of meeting, the boundaries of a land, therefore, the whole land. [↑]
[11] Ka-ma’o-ma’o, the name given to the sandy plain between Kahului and Wailuku, Maui. [↑]
[12] Female deities of necromancy. [↑]
[13] Akua, literally, a god, or godlike, i.e., in an awe-inspiring manner. [↑]
[14] Ke-olo-ewa, an akua ki’i, i.e., a god of whom an image was fashioned. Some form of cloud was recognized as his body (Ke-ao-lewa(?)). One of his functions was rain-producing. Farmers prayed to him: “Send rain to my field; never mind the others.” S. Percy Smith of New Zealand (in a letter to Professor W. D. Alexander) says that in Maori legend Te Orokewa, also called Poporokewa, was one of the male apa, guardians and messengers of Io, the supreme god who presided over the 8th heaven.
According to Hawaiian tradition Ke-olo-ewa was, as Fornander has it, the second son of Kamauaua, a superior chief, or king of Moloka’i, and succeeded his father in the kingship of that island. His brother, Kau-pe’e-pe’e-nui-kauila, it was who stole away Hina, the beautiful wife of Haka-lani-leo of Hilo, and secreted her on the famous promontory of Haupu on Moloka’i. For the story of this interesting tradition see Fornander’s “The Polynesian Race,” Vol. II, p. 31. After death he became deified and was prayed to as a rain god. [↑]
[15] Kama-ua, literally, the son of rain. [↑]
[16] Ulu-nui, meaning the crop-giver. This was the name of a king, or chief of Makawao, Maui, under whom agriculture greatly flourished. [↑]
[17] Me-ha’i-kana, the goddess of the bread-fruit tree; said to be one with Papa. [↑]