Of Mau-kele.
Little by little
Your thoughts will be mine.
Little by little
Your thoughts I’ll divine.
Manono was the name of the brave woman, wife of Ke-kua-o-kalani, who fell in the battle of Kuamo’o, in Kona, Hawaii, in 1819, fighting by the side of her husband. They died in support of the cause of law and order, of religion and tabu, the cause of the conservative party in Hawaii, as opposed to license and the abolition of all restraint.
The uluhe (verses 5, 6) is the stag-horn fern, which forms a matted growth most obstructive to woodland travel.
The burden Manono is asked to bear, what else is it but the burden of life, in this case lightened by love?
Whether there is any connection between the name of the hula—breast-beating—and the expression, in the first verse of the following mele is more than the author can say.
Mele