LETTERS.

We do not accept the responsibility for the blame for ideas published under this heading, but it falls on those who write them.

HE IS NOT CORRECT.

O Aloha Aina Newspaper,

Please include these words in your delicate body, that being this, there is talk from someone calling himself Laakea. This is what we have to say, the two of us who redid the Ahuula of Kahalelaukoa Hoapili Baker [Kahalelaukoa Hoapili Peka], denying what he said is true. You asked if I had seen an Ahuula belonging to Kamakahelei upon the coffin of the alii Hoapili Baker on the day of his funeral, and if what I saw was the Ahuula that Oliwa quickly made on the coffin.

Put in our hands was an old Ahuula that was damaged in some places. We unfurled it and plucked off once again the feathers, hearing at that time that the Ahuula belonged to Kamakahelei, the grandmother of Kahalelaukoa.  When the time came to rework the feathers to the new net [? upena aiaha], this job was given to Oliwa, but strange enough, when it was thought that he was going to do it, Oliwa refused, saying that he was not taught the craft of the Ahuula. At this time, we told the one to whom the feathers belong that the two of us would blindly attempt to rework them like how we saw it was done when we took them off, and this is what we did until this Ahuula was completed. There was not a single feather from the first to the last that Oliwa did. You speak of the lei, and we two agree that it was just him that worked at it until his death [?? E i mai oe no ka lei ae maua ia oe, nana wale no ia i hana a hiki i kona make ana.]

So you, Wahamana, are correct in saying that this Ahuula is from Kamakahelei. As for you Laakea, we did not see you there when the two of us were putting together the Ahuula, but there were many who did witness it, and we say to you, you are wrong for making assumptions.

Sincerely,

KAHOOIO,

KANOE KAAUMOANA,

Honolulu, March 14, 1902.

(Aloha Aina, 3/15/1902, p. 5)

Ke Aloha Aina, Buke VIII, HElu 11, Aoao 5. Maraki 15, 1902.