all
classes, and recited by strolling musicians as panegyrics on occasions
of joy, grief, or worship. Through them the knowledge of events in the
lives of prominent persons or the annals of the nation were perpetuated.
The chief art lay in the formation of short metrical sentences without
much regard to the rhythmical terminations. Monosyllables, dissyllables,
and trisyllables had each their distinct time. The natives repeat their
lessons, orders received, or scraps of ancient song, or extemporize in
this monotonous singsong tone for hours together, and in perfect
accord."

Compare Ellis's Tour, p. 155.]

[Footnote 2: Moerenhout, I, 411.]

[Footnote 3: Andrews, Islander, 1875, p. 35; Emerson, Unwritten
Literature, pp. 27, 38.]

[Footnote 4: In Fornander's story of _Lonoikamakahiki_, the chief
memorizes in a single night a new chant just imported from Kauai so
accurately as to establish his property right to the song.]

[Footnote 5: Compare with Ellis, I, 286, and Williams and Calvert, I,
46, 50, the notes on the boxing contest in the text of _Laieikawai_.]

[Footnote 6: Gill, Myths and Songs, pp. 268 et seq.]

[Footnote 7: See Fornander's stories of _Lonoikamakahiki, Halemano_, and
_Kuapakaa_.]

2. NOMENCLATURE: ITS EMOTIONAL VALUE

The Hawaiian (or Polynesian) composer who would become a successful
competitor in the fields of poetry, oratory, or disputation must store
up in his memory the rather long series of names for persons, places,
objects, or phases of nature which constitute the learning of the
aspirant for mastery in the art of expression. He is taught, says one
tale, "about everything in the earth and in the heavens"--- that is,
their names, their distinguishing characterstics. The classes of objects
thus differentiated naturally are determined by the emotional interest
attached to them, and this depends upon their social or economic value
to the group.

The social value of pedigree and property have encouraged genealogical
and geographical enumeration. A long recitation of the genealogies of
chiefs provides immense emotional satisfaction and seems in no way to
overtax the reciter's memory. Missionaries tell us that "the Hawaiians
will commit to memory the genealogical tables given in the Bible, and
delight to repeat them as some of the choicest passages in Scripture."
Examples of such genealogies are common; it is, in fact, the part of the
reciter to preserve the pedigree of his chief in