Hawaiian Chant
Hawaiian ChantHawaiian Chant
From what I understand the chant Kamamalu was sung sometime during a trip to England. I think it has a really solemn and somewhat sad mood to it. Because from what I got from it over all is that she did not want to go but was commanded to by a higher power, which I will explain later. What I notice mostly about this chant was in the way it was organized. The first four lines are like two separate categories. All most like they were meant for two separate readers. "Oh sky, Oh earth", which seem to me that she is saying goodbye to everything she knows from the sky to the earth and then "Oh mountains, Oh ocean", it's almost like the first two verses but it's not. The third and fourth lines seem to be more of what she will miss in a spiritual level. It as if she knew that she would never see the world she once knew. If I was to just read the first four lines I would think that she was not only talking to herself but to a God or Gods. But when you continue it can go either way, it's really hard to tell whom she's talking to, almost like there could be two versions of the same chant. Because you could easily separate certain lines and make two different chants with the same meaning but meant for two different audiences. The fifth and sixth lines sound the same also but just like the first four lines are different. "Oh (my) people/commoners", she's say's this in a way were it means her immediate family and I guess other people of royalty. Then in the next line she says, "Oh people of the land", which goes back to what we were talking about in class that in the Hawaiian beliefs they believe that they came from the land and that they are connected. So she's also mourning the lose of her people as a whole not just her close relatives. Then she states "Beloved are you! (Farewell!)", which shows her love for both the people close to her and for the rest...
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