the color and the motion of
rising and falling are common to all three.

This last passage indicates the precise charm of Polynesian metaphor. It
lies in the singer's close observation of the exact and characteristic
truth which suggests the likeness, an exactness necessary to carry the
allusion with his audience, and which he sharpens incessantly from the
concrete facts before him. Kuapakaa sings:

The rain in the winter comes slanting,
Taking the breath away, pressing down the hair,
Parting the hair in the middle.

The chants are full of such precise descriptions, and they furnish the
rich vocabulary of epithet employed in recalling a place, person, or
object. Transferred to matters of feeling or emotion, they result in
poetical comparisons of much charm. Sings Kuapakaa (Wise's translation):

The pointed clouds have become fixed in the heavens,
The pointed clouds grow quiet like one in pain before childbirth,
Ere it comes raining heavily, without ceasing.
The umbilicus of the rain is in the heavens,
The streams will yet be swollen by the rain.

[Illustration: A HAWAIIAN PADDLER (HENSHAW)]

Hina's song of longing for her lost lover in _Laieikawai_ should be
compared with the lament of Laukiamanuikahiki when, abandoned by her
lover, she sees the clouds drifting in the direction he has taken:

The sun is up, it is up;
My love is ever up before me.
It is causing me great sorrow, it is pricking me in the side,
For love is a burden when one is in love,
And falling tears are its due.

How vividly the mind enters into this analogy is proved, by its swift
identification with the likeness presented. Originally this
identification was no doubt due to ideas of magic. In romance, life in
the open--in the forests or on the sea--has taken possession of the
imagination. In the myths heroes climb the heavens, dwelling half in the
air; again they are amphibian like their great lizard ancestors. In the
_Laieikawai_, as in so many stories, note how much of the action takes
place on or in the sea--canoeing, swimming, or surfing. In less
humanized tales the realization is much more fantastic. To the
Polynesian, mind such figurative sayings as "swift as a bird" and "swim
like a fish" mean a literal transformation, his sense of identity being
yet plastic, capable of uniting itself with whatever shape catches the
eye. When the poet Marvel says--

Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the bough