Then again, the
story is full of expressions like this: "His _heart beat with joy_,
for he thought she was Kaala;" or "He asked her for a smile and she
_gave him her heart_." Such phrases mislead not only the general
reader but careless anthropologists into the belief that the lower
races feel and express their love just as we do. As a matter of fact,
Polynesians do not attribute feelings to the heart. Ellis (II., 311),
could not even make them understand what he was talking about when he
tried to explain to them our ideas regarding the heart as a seat of
moral feeling. The fact that our usage in this respect is a mere
convention, not based on physiological facts, makes it all the more
reprehensible to falsify psychology by adorning aboriginal tales with
the borrowed plumes and phrases of civilization.
VAGARIES OF HAWAIIAN FONDNESS
It is quite possible that the events related in the cave-story did
occur; but a Hawaiian, untouched by missionary influences, would have
told them very differently. It is very much more likely, however, that
if a Hawaiian had found himself in the predicament of Kaaialii, he
would have sympathized with the king's contemptuous speech: "What!
would you throw your life away for a girl? There are others as fair.
Here is Ua; she shall be your wife." This would have been much more in
accordance with what observers have told us of Hawaiian
"heart-affairs.
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