They Never Take Short,
Continuous Draughts, Like Europeans, But One Of These "Oahu Puffs,"
As The Sailors Call Them, Serves
For an hour or two, until some one
else lights his pipe, and it is passed round in the same
Manner.
Each Kanaka on the beach had a pipe, flint, steel, tinder, a hand
of tobacco, and a jack-knife, which he always carried about with him.
That which strikes a stranger most peculiarly is their style of
singing. They run on, in a low, guttural, monotonous sort of chant,
their lips and tongues seeming hardly to move, and the sounds modulated
solely in the throat. There is very little tune to it, and the
words, so far as I could learn, are extempore. They sing about
persons and things which are around them, and adopt this method
when they do not wish to be understood by any but themselves;
and it is very effectual, for with the most careful attention I never
could detect a word that I knew. I have often heard Mr. Mannini,
who was the most noted improvisatore among them, sing for an hour
together, when at work in the midst of Americans and Englishmen;
and, by the occasional shouts and laughter of the Kanakas,
who were at a distance, it was evident that he was singing about
the different men that he was at work with. They have great powers
of ridicule, and are excellent mimics; many of them discovering and
imitating the peculiarities of our own people, before we had seen
them ourselves.
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