Footnote 11:[ (return) ] 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:[ (return) ] 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:[ (return) ] 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:[ (return) ] 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.
[Translation.]
A Prayer of Adulation to Laka
In the forests, on the ridges
Of the mountains stands Laka;
Dwelling in the source of the mists.