And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,”
but in some rude pagan fashion; all of which is wrought out and symbolized in the mele with such imagery as is native to the mind of the savage.
The attentive reader will not need be told that, as in many another piece out of Hawaii’s old-time legends, the path through this song is beset with euphuistic stumbling blocks. The purpose of language, says Talleyrand, is to conceal thought. The veil in this case is quite gauzy.
The language of the following song for the marionette dance, hula ki’i, as in the one previously given, is mostly of that kind which the Hawaiians term olelo kapékepéke, or olelo huná, shifty talk, or secret talk. We might call it slang, though, it is not slang in the exact sense in which we use that word, applying it to the improvised counters of thought that gain currency in our daily speech until they find admission to the forum, the platform, and the dictionary. It is rather a cipher-speech, a method of concealing one’s meaning from all but the initiated, of which the Hawaiian, whether alii or commoner, was very fond. The people of the hula were famous for this sort of accomplishment and prided themselves not a little in it as an effectual means of giving appropriate flavor and gusto to their performances.
Mele
Ele-ele kau-kau; [213]
Ka hala-le, [214] e kau-kau,
Ka e-ele ihi,
Ele ihi, ele a,
Ka e-ele ku-pou; [215]