rain_:

Protector, heaven-sent,
Kamehameha great,
To vanquish every foe,
With conquering spear.

2. Men of Hawaii's land,
Look to your native chiefs,
Your sole surviving lords,
The nation's pride.

_Refrain_:

3. Men of Hawaiian stock,
My nation ever dear,
With loins begirt for work,
Strive with your might.

_Refrain_.
[Page 176]

XXII.--GESTURE

Gesture is a voiceless speech, a short-hand dramatic picture.
The Hawaiians were adepts in this sort of art. Hand and foot,
face and eye, and those convolutions of gray matter which are
linked to the organs of speech, all worked in such harmony
that, when the man spoke, he spoke not alone with his vocal
organs, but all over, from head to foot, every part adding
its emphasis to the utterance. Von Moltke could be reticent
in six languages; the Hawaiian found it impossible to be
reticent in one.

The hands of the hula dancer are ever going out in gesture,
her body swaying and pivoting itself in attitudes of
expression. Her whole physique is a living and moving picture
of feeling, sentiment, and passion. If the range of thought
is not always deep or high, it is not the fault of her art,
but the limitations of her original endowment, limitations of
hereditary environment, the universal limitations imposed on
the translation from spirit into matter.

The art of gesture was one of the most important branches
taught by the kumu. When the hula expert, the _olohe_, who
has entered the halau as a visitor, utters the prayer (p.
47), "O Laka, give grace to the feet of Pohaku, and to her
bracelets and anklets; give comeliness to the figure and
skirt of Luukia. To each one give gesture and voice. O Laka,
make beautiful the _lei_; inspire the dancers to stand before
the assembly," his meaning was clear and unmistakable, and
showed his high valuation of this method of expression. We
are not, h