The Legends and Myths of Hawaii: The fables and folk-lore of a strange people — A Reader’s Guide

Voice Between Ethnography and Legend

The book's opening sections read like a scholarly report: physical characteristics of the islands, historic outlines, the tabu system. The prose is declarative and generalizing. But once the legends begin, the voice becomes more varied. In “Umi, the Peasant Prince of Hawaii,” the narrator adopts a closer perspective, reporting characters' thoughts and emotions. For instance, Kulamea's fear that Umi will forget her is rendered as indirect discourse: “she felt that they were soon to part for ever.” This blend of reportage and interiority gives the legends a novelistic texture not present in the introduction.

The editor, R. M. Daggett, likely shaped this hybrid voice. His introduction uses formal, periodic sentences, while the legends themselves contain colloquial dialogue and exclamations like “Down on your knees before him!” The result is a work that oscillates between documenting a culture and telling its stories.

Pacing Through Dialogue and Gesture

Pacing in these excerpts is controlled by the alternation of summary and scene. In the Umi episode, the narrative accelerates during Akahia's revelation: a series of short actions—Maakao seizing a knife, Umi reaching for his pahoa, Akahia springing forward—creates a rapid, cinematic sequence. Then the pace slows for Akahia's long speech, which explains Umi's parentage in measured, ceremonial language.

This technique appears elsewhere. In “The Apotheosis of Pele,” the prose likely shifts between mythic summary and vivid encounter. The excerpts show that Kalakaua and Daggett use direct speech to mark emotional peaks. When Akahia says “He is not your son; he is your chief!” the sentence rhythm changes, breaking the earlier descriptive flow. Such moments suggest a deliberate craft in managing reader attention across long narratives.

Recurring Details of Status and Objects

Certain material details recur across the legends, linking status to objects. In the Umi excerpt, the plumed helmet and cape of oo feathers function as proof of royal birth. Akahia has secretly fabricated them, and Umi dons them before approaching Liloa. The keepsakes left by Liloa—mementoes hidden in an ipu—serve a similar evidentiary role. These objects are not merely decorative; they drive the plot and signify legitimacy.

Other legends likely use comparable tokens. The table of contents lists “The Iron Knife” and “The Sacred Spear-Point,” suggesting that weapons and tools carry symbolic weight. The preface notes that some legends are “in a measure historic,” and the recurring emphasis on regalia and heirlooms reinforces a worldview where lineage is proven through tangible items. Readers attentive to such details will find a consistent material logic beneath the fabulous surface.

Because the excerpts cover only a portion of the collection, readers should note that the narrative voice may shift further in later tales. The appendix and the range of story lengths—from a few pages to nearly seventy—suggest varied pacing and focus. Pay attention to how each legend balances explanatory passages with dramatic scenes, and how objects like the plumed helmet or the iron knife carry meaning across different contexts.

There’s something about how those old Hawaiian stories hold their breath before a secret is spoken—the way Umi’s truth lands. I felt that same quiet pause again in The coasts of illusion — A Closer Reading, where every revealed thing seems to walk the edge of disappearing. It stayed with me, not as a story, but as a feeling I keep turning over, gently.