ele_

Ele-ele kau-kau;[213]
Ka hala-le,[214] e kau-kau,
Ka e-ele ihi,
Ele ihi, ele a,
5 Ka e-ele ku-pou;[215]
Ku-pou.
Ka hala, e![216]

[Translation]

_Song_

Point to a dark one,
Point to a dainty piece,
A delicate morsel she!
Very choice, very hot!
5 She that stoops over--
Aye stoops!
Lo, the hala fruit!

The translation has to be based largely on conjecture. The
author of this bit of fun-making, which is couched in
old-time slang, died without making known the key to his
cipher, and no one whom the present writer has met with is
able to unravel its full meaning.

[Footnote 213: _Kau-kau_. Conjectural meaning to point out some
one in the audience, as the marionettes often did. People
were thus sometimes inveigled in behind the curtain.]

[Footnote 214: _Hala-le_. Said to mean a sop, with which one
took up the juice or gravy of food; a choice morsel.]

[Footnote 215: _Ku-pou_. To stoop over, from devotion to one's
own pursuits, from modesty, or from shame.]

[Footnote 216: The meaning of this line has been matter for
much conjecture. The author has finally adopted the
suggestion embodied in the translation here given, which is a
somewhat gross reference to the woman's physical charms.]

The following mele for the hula ki'i, in language colored by
the same motive, was furnished by an accomplished
practitioner who had traveled far and wide in the practice of
her art, having been one of a company of hula dancers that
attended the Columbian exposition in Chicago. It was her good
[Page 98] fortune also to reach the antipodes in her travels, and it
was at Berlin, she says, that she witnessed for the first
time the European counterpart of the hula ki'i, the "Punch
and Judy" show:

_Mele no ka Hula Ki'i_

E le'e kau-kau, kala le'e;
E le'e kau-kau.
E le'e kau-kau, kala le'e.
E lepe kau-kau.
5 E