he tabu
system and the loosening of the old polytheistic ideas, there
has been in the hula a lowering of former standards, in some
respects a degeneration. The old gods, however, were not
entirely dethroned; the people of the hula still continued to
maintain the form of divine service and still appealed to
them for good luck; but the soul of worship had exhaled; the
main study now was to make of the hula a pecuniary success.

In an important sense the old way was in sympathy with the
thought, "Except God be with the workmen, they labor in vain
that build the house." The means for gaining divine favor and
averting the frown of the gods were those practised by all
religionists in the infantile state of the human mind--the
observance of fasts and tabus, the offering of special
prayers and sacrifices. The ceremonial purification of the
site, or of the building if it had been used for profane
purposes, was accomplished by aspersions with sea water mixed
with turmeric or red earth.
[Page 15]
When one considers the tenacious hold which all rites and
ceremonies growing out of what we are accustomed to call
superstitions had on the mind of the primitive Hawaiian, it
puzzles one to account for the entire dropping out from
modern memory of the prayers which were recited during the
erection of a hall for the shelter of an institution so
festive and so popular as the hula, while the prayers and
gloomy ritual of the temple service have survived. The
explanation may be found, perhaps, in the fact that the
priests of the temple held position by the sovereign's
appointment; they formed a hierarchy by themselves, whereas
the position of the _kumu-hula_, who was also a priest, was
open to anyone who fitted himself for it by training and
study and by passing successfully the _ai-lolo_[2] ordeal.
After that he had the right to approach the altar of the hula
god with the prescribed offerings and to present the prayers
and petitions of the company to Laka or Kapo.

[Footnote 2: _Ai-lolo_. See pp. 32, 34, 36.]

In pleasing contrast to the worship of th