Wehewehe Wikiwiki Hawaiian language dictionaries

1. n., Large torch, formerly 60 to 90 cm tall, with the light coming from burning kukui nuts strung on a coconut midrib and wrapped in dried ti leaves and placed at the tips of bamboo handles; signal fires; lantern (Lunk. 7.16); sparks, as of a torch (Isa. 50.11).

• Examples:
  • Lamakū o ka naʻauao, torch of wisdom [said of great thinkers).

2. Name for a medicine applied to sores.

Large torch made by stringing the meats of roasted kukui nuts on a wiry stalk of grass and putting 6 to 10 of these strings together, parallel, and then binding the whole with dried banana leaves, 2 to 4 feet long. On lighting one end a large and brilliant light is produced.

Torch with bamboo handle and the bundle of strings of roasted kukui nuts strung on a sliver or strip of bamboo or on a nīʻau (coco leaflet midrib). (KILO.)