Footnote 406:[ (return) ] Akahakaha. A variety of moss. If one ate of this as he gathered it, the ocean at once became tempestuous.
Footnote 407:[ (return) ] Opihi. An edible bivalve found in the salt waters of Hawaii. Pele is said to have been very fond of it. There is an old saying, He akua ai opihi o Pele—“Pele is a goddess who eats the opihi.” In proof of this statement they point to the huge piles of opihi shells that may be found along the coast of Puna, the middens, no doubt, of the old-time people. Koéle was a term applied to the opihi that lives well under water, and therefore are delicate eating. Another meaning given to the word koele—opihi koele,—line 17—is “heaped up.”
Footnote 408:[ (return) ] O Ku ka mahu nui akea. The Hawaiians have come to treat this phrase as one word, an epithet applied to the god Ku. In the author’s translation it is treated as an ordinary phrase.
Footnote 409:[ (return) ] Milo-hólu. A grove of milo trees that stood, as some affirm, about that natural basin of warm water in Puna, which the Hawaiians called Wai-wela-wela.
Footnote 410:[ (return) ] Pi, Pa. These were two imaginary little beings who lived in the crater of Kilauea, and who declared their presence by a tiny shrill piping sound, such, perhaps, as a stick of green wood will make when burning. Pi was active at such times as the fires were retreating, Pa when the fires were rising to a full head.
[Translation.]
Black crabs are climbing,
Crabs from the great sea,
Sea that is darkling.