stuff from which
was spun the songs of the hula. As fire is produced by
friction, so it was often by the congress of wits rather than
by the flashing of genius that the songs of the hula were
evolved.

The composition and criticism of a poetical passage were a
matter of high importance, often requiring many suggestions
and much consultation. If the poem was to be a _mele-inoa_, a
name-song to eulogize some royal or princely scion, it must
contain no word of ill-omen. The fate-compelling power of
such a word, once shot from the mouth, was beyond recall.
Like the incantation of the sorcerer, the _kahuna anaana_, it
meant death to the eulogized one. If not, it recoiled on the
life of the singer.

The verbal form once settled, it remained only to stereotype
it on the memories of the men and women who constituted the
literary court or conclave. Think not that only thus were
poems produced in ancient Hawaii. The great majority of songs
were probably the fruit of solitary inspiration, in which the
bard poured out his heart like a song-bird, or uttered his
lone vision as a seer. The method of poem production in
conclave may be termed the official method. It was often done
at the command of an alii. So much for the fabrication, the
weaving, of a song.

If the composition was intended as a eulogy, it was
cantillated ceremoniously before the one it honored; if in
anticipation of a prince yet unborn, it was daily recited
before the mother until the hour of her delivery; and this
cantillation published it abroad. If the song was for
production in the hula, it lay warm in the mind of the kumu,
the master and teacher of the hula, until such time as he had
organized his company.

The court of the alii was a vortex that drew in not only the
bards and men of lore, but the gay and fashionable rout of
pleasure-seekers, the young men and women of shapely form and
gracious presence, the sons and daughters of the king's
[Page 28] henchmen and favorites; among them, perhaps, the offspring of
the king's morganatic alliances and amours--the flower and