Note (return) — III.—THE GODS OF THE HULA.

That other gods, Kane, Ku, Kanaloa, 26 with Lono, Ku-pulupulu, 27 and the whole swarm of godlings that peopled the wildwood, were also invited to favor the performances with their presence can be satisfactorily explained on the ground, first, that all the gods were in a sense members of one family, related to each other by intermarriage, if not by the ties of kinship; and, second, by the patent fact of that great underlying cause of bitterness and strife among immortals as well as mortals, jealousy. It would have been an eruptive occasion of heart-burning and scandal if by any mischance a privileged one should have had occasion to feel slighted; and to have failed in courtesy to that countless host of wilderness imps and godlings, the Kini Akua, 28 mischievous and irreverent as the monkeys of India, would indeed have been to tempt a disaster.