tioners of the hula worshiped and sought
to placate were many; but the goddess Laka was the one to
whom they offered special prayers and sacrifices and to whom
they looked as the patron, the _au-makua_,[23] of that
institution. It was for her benefit and in her honor that the
kuahu was set up, and the wealth of flower and leaf used in
its decoration was emblematic of her beauty and glory, a
pledge of her bodily presence, the very forms that she, a
sylvan deity, was wont to assume when she pleased to manifest
herself.

As an additional crutch to the imagination and to emphasize
the fact of her real presence on the altar which she had been
invoked to occupy as her abode, she was symbolized by an
uncarved block of wood from the sacred _lama_[24] tree. This
was wrapped in a robe of choice yellow tapa, scented with
turmeric, and set conspicuously upon the altar.

[Footnote 22: _Imu_. The Hawaiian oven, which was a hole in
the ground lined and arched over with stones.]

[Footnote 23: _Au-makua_. An ancestral god.]

[Footnote 24: _Lama_. A beautiful tree having firm,
fine-grained, white wood; used in making sacred inclosures
and for other tabu purposes.]
[Page 24]
Laka was invoked as the god of the maile, the ie-ie, and
other wildwood growths before mentioned (pl. II). She was
hailed as the "sister, wife, of god Lono," as "the one who by
striving attained favor with the gods of the upper ether;" as
"the kumu[25] hula"--head teacher of the Terpsichorean art;
"the fount of joy;" "the prophet who brings health to the
sick;" "the one whose presence gives life." In one of the
prayers to Laka she is besought to come and take possession
of the worshiper, to dwell in him as in a temple, to inspire
him in all his parts and faculties--voice, hands, feet, the
whole body.

Laka seems to have been a friend, but not a relative, of the
numerous Pele family. So far as the author has observed, the
fiery goddess is never invited to grace the altar with her
presence, nor is her name so much as mentioned in any prayer
met with.