This ready imitativeness, often converted into
caricature, enters into the minutest detail of life and is the clew to
many a familiar proverb like that of the canoe on the coral reef quoted
in the text.[3] The chants abound in such symbols. Man is "a long-legged
fish" offered to the gods. Ignorance is the "night of the mind." The
cloud hanging over Kaula is a bird which flies before the wind[4]--
The blackbird begged,
The bird of Kaula begged,
Floating up there above Waahila.
The coconut leaves are "the hair of the trees, their long locks." Kailua
district is "a mat spread out narrow and gray."
The classic example of the use of such metaphor in Hawaiian song is the
famous passage in the _Hauikalani_ in which chiefs at war are compared
with a cockfight, the favorite Hawaiian pastime[5] being realistically
described in allusion to Keoua's wars on Hawaii:
Hawaii is a cockpit; the trained cocks fight on the ground.
The chief fights--the dark-red cock awakes at night for battle;
The youth fights valiantly--Loeau, son of Keoua.
He whets his spurs, he pecks as if eating;
He scratches in the arena--this Hilo--the sand of Waiolama.
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