lk, the eyes are dim like a rat's, they pull you along on the mat," or
"they bear you in a bag on the back."

Clearly the interest aroused by all this nomenclature is emotional, not
rational. There is too much wordplay. Utility certainly plays some part,
but the prevailing stimulus is that which bears directly upon the idea
of rank, some divine privilege being conceived in the mere act of
naming, by which a supernatural power is gained over the object named.
The names, as the objects for which they stand, come from the gods. Thus
in the story of _Pupuhuluena_, the culture hero propitiates two
fishermen into revealing the names of their food plants and later, by
reciting these correctly, tricks the spirits into conceding his right to
their possession. Thus he wins tuberous food plants for his people.

For this reason, exactness of knowledge is essential. The god is
irritated by mistakes.[2] To mispronounce even casually the name of the
remote relative of a chief might cost a man a valuable patron or even
life itself. Some chiefs are so sacred that their names are taboo; if it
is a word in common use, there is chance of that word dropping out of
the language and being replaced by another.

Completeness of enumeration hence has cabalistic value. When the
Hawaiian propitiates his gods he concludes with an invocation to the
"forty thousand, to the four hundred thousand, to the four thousand"[3]
gods, in order that none escape the incantation. Direction is similarly
invoked all around the compass. In the art of verbal debate--called
_hoopapa_ in Hawaii--the test is to match a rival's series with one
exactly parallel in every particular or to add to a whole some
undiscovered part.[4] A charm mentioned in folk tale is "to name every
word that ends with _lau_." Certain numbers, too, have a kind of magic
finality in themselves; for example, to count off an identical phrase by
ten without missing a word is the charm by which Lepe tricks the
spirits. In the _Kualii_, once more, Ku is extolled as the tenth chief
and warrior:

The first chief, the second chief,
The third chief, the fourth chief,
The fifth chief, the sixth chief,
The seventh chief, the eighth chief,
The ninth, chief, the tenth chief is Ku,
Ku who stood, in the path of the rain of the heaven,
The first warrior, the second warrior,
The third warrior, the fourth warrior,
The fifth warrior, the sixth warrior,
The seventh warrior, the eighth warr