Before getting to the pidgin phrase in question, I had a question in the last paragraph which in the original read: “ke hele la a mauakea i ka la.” And thankfully there was a response.

Puakea says:

Aloha – the last line might be missing an “o” – Ke hele la a moauakea i ka la – making a haughty display- like white-feathered chickens – in the sun. (moa uakea – often a reference for Maunaloa/Maunakea when snow-covered)

That would fit in nicely, considering there were typos in the newspapers even back then. The last paragraph would then read something like:

The white-haired old men of Kalaupapa are out surfing these days, resembling white-feathered chickens under the sun.

As for the pidgin phrase: “Kokami iu palali kanaka! Iu anu faita, ai am solon, mi kivi iu kut polo, mi inilis man,”

There was one suggestion.

Robert Ikuwa says:

“Go come you bloody kanaka. You wanna fight. I am strong. Me give you good blow, me is invisible [? invincible] man.”

Another suggestion I have is maybe:

“Goddam you bloody kanaka. You wanna fight? I am strong. Me give you good blow. Me Englishman.”

Also there was another comment just a few minutes ago!

Michael Newtson says:

In our Cummings Ohana I have written of many of our ancestors exploits. But these long overdue articles brings to mind an early story of our Patriarch Thomas Booth Cummings who was so inspired by a hapa Hawaiian who served alongside of him in the jury pools of Edwin Miner’s court in Lahaina (1848-50) that he named his first born son after him. The young man who had such a promising will to help the needy was William Humphreys, who often went by the name Ulawalea as a pen name when writing the countless articles in Hawaiian Nupepa about the injustices of the peninsula. Kalaupapa has received much of the attention, in part from Father Damien. However, there was a second smaller colony at the eastern end of the peninsula at Kalawao. Most patients here were Chinese, and this is where Humphreys concentrated his efforts in the early until his untimely death from a prescribed medicine in the mid 1860’s. He might have been one of the first to use the media of his day to educate those in the islands that were unaware of the seriousness of the conditions. At Kalawao he organized voting blocks, book clubs and taught many years for no expense. He served two terms as Sheriff and was imprisoned twice, once for refusing to arrest patients for victimless crimes and another for butchering beef on a nearby ranch to provide fresh meat for the starving. He like many others, worked under the radar and was but a small foot print in Hawaii’s history, but when passed the patients of Kalawao lost their dearest friend.

Mahalo to everyone that gave responses, they put much more meaning into this post!