"My aloha to you," "he sends you his aloha,"
"they desire their aloha." It already represents to me all of
kindness and goodwill that language can express, and the convenience
of it as compared with other phrases is, that it means exactly what
the receiver understands it to mean, and consequently, in all cases
can be conveyed by a third person. There is no word for "thank
you." Maikai "good," is often useful in its place, and smiles
supply the rest. There are no words which express "gratitude" or
"chastity," or some others of the virtues; and they have no word for
"weather," that which we understand by "weather" being absolutely
unknown.
Natives have no surnames. Our volcano guide is Upa, or Scissors,
but his wife and children are anything else. The late king was
Kamehameha, or the "lonely one." The father of the present king is
called Kanaina, but the king's name is Lunalilo, or "above all."
Nor does it appear that a man is always known by the same name, nor
that a name necessarily indicates the sex of its possessor. Thus,
in signing a paper the signature would be Hoapili kanaka, or Hoapili
wahine, according as the signer was man or woman. I remember that
in my first letter I fell into the vulgarism, initiated by the
whaling crews, of calling the natives Kanakas.
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