Certain words were considered sacred, and could be spoken only by the kahuna or the ali'i. The evolution of Pidgin Creating and expressions of identity through writing. She teaches my son to put words on paper. He learns the language of sticks breaking. The tapa beaters thump village gossip.
Fishermen sing to the shark.
I hear the flutter of 'iwi birds captured for feathers and Grandfather's songs between pages. Both oral and literate cultures are juxtaposed within this one stanza. When immigrants from around the world began to arrive in Hawaii to work on the plantations, they developed a pidgin English in order to communicate with one another. Now you know. I not just niele.