Note 24 — PREFACE. (continued 4)

It is not shown which of the two alaes is here under the ban of the priest, the white, or red (but probably the latter), both of which figure in Hawaiian mythology, the red being credited as “the first that stole fire from the gods and gave it to the natives hence its crimson frontal knob where the feathers were burned away by the sacred fire.”—Henshaw’s “Birds of Hawaiian Islands.” ↑