Strongly Opposed to the Hula Kuʻi.

This past Monday, Ben Haaheo and Frank Lops stood before the District Judge to explain the cause of their trouble. Ben Haaheo sued this Portuguese man for injuring him. The cause of said injury is the hula kuʻi, one of the very famous dances of Hawaiʻi nei. Lops and his wife lived very near to where the sister of Ben Haaheo lived. This Sunday, Ben Haaheo’s sister held a party. That Ben was invited, and he went there to have a good time. He went out onto the lānai and began to hula kuʻi. While he was doing the hula kuʻi, Mrs. Lops came outside of her yard and saw this man doing the hula kuʻi. When Ben saw this woman, he invited her to come in and drink with him, but this woman refused. Ben quickly jumped up and went in to this Portuguese woman’s yard and began to hula kuʻi in front of her, and asked the woman to join him in this fine activity. The woman was terribly frightened¹ and began to cry. Ben was overcome by the power of the liquid of her tears and he disappeared into his sister’s yard. He once again let loose all of his knowledge of hula kuʻi before an audience who didn’t cry when they saw it. When the husband of this Portuguese woman came home, she told him of Ben Haaheo’s attempt to teach her to hula kuʻi and her adamantly refusing being that she did not feel that she could dance the way Ben did. She also told him about her crying and about Ben coming and then disappearing into his sister’s yard. When Lops heard this, he was incensed. He was not able to beat up Ben in that house so he cunningly called Ben to come over to his house to hula kuʻi with him. He also said that he had drinks in his house and he wanted Ben to come and drink with him. Because Ben had a great desire for this jug and also that he would see his hula kuʻi student again, he agreed to this request. When the two of them came to a good place, Ben received some “kuʻi,” but not hula kuʻi; it was a different kind of kuʻi.² Lops decided that it was a fine time to teach Ben another kind of kuʻi. Ben made much protest to this kind of kuʻi, and took his protest before the District Judge. The judge listened to their difficulties and he greatly opposed the teaching of this other kind of kuʻi to Ben. He said, that was not the proper thing for Lops to do. If he had gotten an arrest warrant for Ben, with that the court would have given their approval to him. Or if Ben was found exerting his knowledge of hula kuʻi before his [Lops’] wife, that maybe would have been a little better. But when he [Lops] returned, Ben’s twirling was ended, and therefore, his deceptive invitation with the intent to hurt Ben was not warranted. The Judge felt much the same way as Ben, and that Portuguese man was given severe punishment for his actions. One more hilarious thing was when Mrs. Lops stood to testify before the court. She was asked if she knew this man, Ben Haaheo, and she replied that she did. When she was asked to point him out, she looked all over the structure and looked once more. She almost was going to tell the court she did not see her hula kuʻi teacher, and only then did she see Ben behind another man. Lops could not pay his fine, therefore he was detained in jail.