To see the wild herd careering past,
Or such a combination as this:
He was a mere flat,
Yet flattered the girls.
Such artificial productions as these give us but a momentary intellectual entertainment. While the intellectual element in them was not lacking with the Hawaiians, the predominant feeling, no doubt, was a sensuous delight coming from the repetition of a full-throated vowel-combination.
XXXIII.—THE HULA PUA’A
The hula pua’a rounds out the number of animal-dances that have survived the wreck of time, or the memory of which has come down to us. It was a dance in which only the olapa took part without the aid of instrumental accompaniment. Women as well as men were eligible as actors in its performance. The actors put much spirit into the action, beating the chest, flinging their arms in a strenuous fashion, throwing the body into strained attitudes, at times bending so far back as almost to touch the floor. This energy seems to have invaded the song, and the cantillation of the mele is said to have been done in that energetic manner called ai-ha’a.
The hula pua’a seems to have been native to Kauai. The author has not been able to learn of its performance within historic times on any other island.
The student of Hawaiian mythology naturally asks whether the hula pua’a concerned itself with the doings of the mythological hog-deity Kama-pua’a whose amour with Pele was the scandal of Hawaiian mythology. It takes but a superficial reading of the mele to answer this question in the affirmative.