Note 292 — XIX.—THE HULA MAU-KANI

Footnote 292: (return) Kau-ka-opua. Originally a phrase meaning “the cloud-omen hangs,” has come to be used as the proper name of a place. It is an instance of a form of personification often employed by the Hawaiians, in which words having a specific meaning—such, for instance, as our “jack-in-the-box”—have come to be used as a noun for the sake of the meaning wrapped up in the etymology. This figure of speech is, no doubt, common to all languages, markedly so in the Hawaiian. It may be further illustrated by the Hebrew name Ichabod—“his glory has departed.”