And so Laieikawai lived until her
death.
And from that time to this she is still worshiped as The Woman of the
Twilight.
(THE END)
NOTES ON THE TEXT
CHAPTER I
[Footnote 1: Haleole uses the foreign form for wife, _wahine mare_,
literally "married woman," a relation which in Hawaiian is represented
by the verb _hoao_. A temporary affair of the kind is expressed in
Waka's advice to her granddaughter, "_O ke kane ia moeia_," literally,
"the man this to be slept with".]
[Footnote 2: The chief's vow, _olelo paa_, or "fixed word," to slay all
his daughters, would not be regarded as savage by a Polynesian audience,
among whom infanticide was commonly practiced. In the early years of the
mission on Hawaii, Dibble estimated that two-thirds of the children born
perished at the hands of their parents. They were at the slightest
provocation strangled or burned alive, often within the house. The
powerful Areois society of Tahiti bound its members to slay every child
born to them. The chief's preference for a son, however, is not so
common, girls being prized as the means to alliances of rank. It is an
interesting fact that in the last census the proportion of male and
female full-blooded Hawaiians was about equal.
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