tisfy the canons of
proportion--which one carries in the eye. That is not to say,
however, that the artistic eye will not often meet a shape
that appeals to the sense of grace and beauty. The springtime
of Hawaiian womanly beauty hastes away too soon. Would it
were possible to stay that fleeting period which ushers in
full womanhood!

One finds himself asking the question to what extent the
responsibility for this overthickness of leg and
ankle--exaggerated in appearance, no doubt, by the ruffled
anklets often worn--this pronounced tendency to the growth of
that degenerate weed, fat, is to be explained by the standard
of beauty which held sway in Hawaii's courts and for many
ages acted as a principle of selection in the physical
molding of the Hawaiian female.

The prevailing type of physique among the Hawaiians, even
more marked in the women than in the men, is the short and
thick, as opposed to the graceful and slender. One does
occasionally find delicacy of modeling in the young and
immature; but with adolescence fatness too often comes to
blur the outline.

The hoopa'a, who act as instrumentalists, very naturally
maintain a position between sitting and kneeling, the better
[Page 58] to enable them, to handle that strangely effective drumlike
instrument, the _ipu_, the one musical instrument used as an
accompaniment in this hula. The ipu is made from the bodies
of two larger pear-shaped calabashes of unequal sizes, which
are joined together at their smaller ends in such a manner as
to resemble a figure-of-eight. An opening is left at the top
of the smaller calabash to increase the resonance. In moments
of calm the musicians allow the body to rest upon the heels;
as the action warms they lift themselves to such height as
the bended knee will permit.

The ala'a-papa is a hula of comparatively moderate action.
While the olapa employ hands, feet, and body in gesture and
pose to illustrate the meaning and emotion of the song, the
musicians mark the time by lifting and patting with the right
hand the ipu each holds in the left ha