"
I notice that the foreigners never use the English or botanical
names of trees or plants, but speak of ohias, ohelos, kukui (candle-
nut), lauhala (pandanus), pulu (tree fern), mamane, koa, etc. There
is one native word in such universal use that I already find I
cannot get on without it, pilikia. It means anything, from a
downright trouble to a slight difficulty or entanglement. "I'm in a
pilikia," or "very pilikia," or "pilikia!" A revolution would be "a
pilikia." The fact of the late king dying without naming a
successor was pre-eminently a pilikia, and it would be a serious
pilikia if a horse were to lose a shoe on the way to Kilauea. Hou-
hou, meaning "in a huff," I hear on all sides; and two words, makai,
signifying "on the sea-side," and mauka, "on the mountain side."
These terms are perfectly intelligible out of doors, but it is
puzzling when one is asked to sit on "the mauka side of the table."
The word aloha, in foreign use, has taken the place of every English
equivalent. It is a greeting, a farewell, thanks, love, goodwill.
Aloha looks at you from tidies and illuminations, it meets you on
the roads and at house-doors, it is conveyed to you in letters, the
air is full of it.
Pages:
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133