Note 55 — A Wakea Creation Chant.

I nai i ka ai, this is a difficult verse to get into English; I nai signifies to eat delicate food, i.e., to feed leisurely, ai is vegetable food in distinction to ia animal food further on in the verse; the meaning then may be, the conquered ones are eating the food of men, i.e., suffering their calamities, undergoing their miseries, partaking of their errors; and parallel with this it is poetical, added, they eat also understood, the ia, the animal food of flight, i.e., they feed upon the food of misfortune, they eat also the stronger food [animal food] of overthrow. ↑