There was a question by MA Kaiulani Milham about a translation of an earlier post about the mele “Ninipo Hoonipo Song,” by Queen Liliuokalani. There is a very nice book of many of the Queen’s songs put out by Hui Hanai in 1999, “The Queen’s Songbook.” The lyrics are in there along with the music, a translation, and a short writeup!
nupepa
This is an independent blog. Please note that I am nowhere near fluent, and that these are not translations, but merely works in progress. Please do comment if you come across misreads or anything else you think is important.
nupepa 
That’s a great book, but very hard to find on the mainland. I finally found it when I was in Honolulu, at Iolani Palace.
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i am pretty sure it is still readily available here. Just another reason to come to Hawaii nei.
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I’m puzzled about the dates. Your original post gives it as 1894, but the Queen’s Songbook places it at 1876. The date would make a big difference in understanding what the Queen would have been “Yearning, Longing” for when she wrote it. Does anyone have any other information or thoughts?
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Mele are often published more than once in the Hawaiian-Language Newspapers. There might be mele originally written years earlier but suddenly appearing in a random column of the newspaper. I believe it is because they knew back then that the papers would be around for us today, so that we could “re-member” the songs. Much in the same way, the stories and histories are available to us today, because they were carefully written down in the pages of the newspapers.
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