Hawaiian chants (Topical Term)

Work cat.: Hula pahu : Hawaiian drum dances, 1993: back cover of v. 1 ("Hula pahu are sacred chants and ritual movements performed with the pahu, the sharkskin-covered drum." "Adrienne Kaeppler analyzes dance movements and explains their evolution from early ha'a (ritual) traditions ... Kaeppler believes that the chants and movements that once honored the gods, or akua, were transferred, after the arrival of Christian missionaries, to rituals honoring the surviving ancestral gods.") v. 2 ("Elizabeth Tatar sets out to reconstruct the earliest vocabulary of Hawaiian chant and drumming.")

Tatar, E. Hawaiian chant, 1980.

Tatar, E. Nineteenth century Hawaiian chant, 1982.

New Grove dict. Am. music: v. II, p. 348.

New Grove dict. of mus. WWW site, Nov. 24, 2009: Polynesia/Eastern Polynesia/Hawaii/Traditional vocal music (The term mele applies to poetic texts as well as their recited presentation.)

http://www.coffeetimes.com/sept97.htm, Nov. 24, 2009: B. Fullard-Leo, Chants: Mele Of Antiquity (In pre-contact Hawai'i, mele was the word for "poetic language;" it has since evolved to mean song.)

Hawaiian encycl. WWW site, Nov. 24, 2009: (With no written language, the ancient Hawaiians recorded their histories, genealogies, legends, and the phenomena of their gods through the creation and memorization of chants, known as oli, and dances called hula. Mele is a more general word that refers to any type of song or chant. An oli is a chant that traditionally was not accompanied by dance.)