A Hawaiian does not need a fire to prepare a meal; and at a _luau_, or feast, all the food is served cold, except the pig, which ought to be hot.
Hospitable and liberal as he is in his daily life, when the Hawaiian invites his friends to a _luau_ he expects them to pay.

He provides for them roast pig, poi, baked ti-root, which bears a startling resemblance in looks and taste to New England molasses-cake; raw fish and shrimps, limu, which is a sea-moss of villainous odor; kuulaau, a mixture of taro and cocoa-nut, very nice; paalolo, a mixture of sweet-potato and cocoa-nut; raw and cooked cuttle-fish, roast dog, sea-eggs, if they can be got; and, if the feast is something above the ordinary, raw pickled salmon with tomatoes and red-pepper.
The object of such a luau is usually to enable the giver to pay for his new house, or to raise money for some private object of his own.

Notice of the coming feast is given months beforehand, as also of the amount each visitor is expected to give.

It will be a twenty-five cent, or a fifty cent, or a dollar luau.

The pigs--the centre-piece of the feast--have been fattening for a year before.