Chihoo! A Samoan Cry

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, I’m Rachel calling from San Diego.

Hi, Rachel. Welcome.

What can we do for you?

Yeah, so recently me and my husband were playing a very dorky game of who could name more onomatopoeias.

He would go and I would go.

And after quite a while, we were running out and I offered the word she-hoo, which we lived in Hawaii for a long time.

And you say it’s kind of similar to like yippee or yahoo when you’re jumping like off a waterfall or excited about something.

And he argued that wasn’t an onomatopoeia, but I argued that it was because it’s just the sound that you make when you’re excited.

Chi-hoo.

So he wanted your take on who was right.

Chi-hoo?

Yes.

How would you spell that?

I believe it’s C-H-E-E-Y-O-O.

Okay.

So I don’t know how you spell it because you would say, like, oh, give him a good chi-hoo at, like, a basketball game.

Or if you’re jumping off a waterfall, and I’m really butchering it because you kind of shout it and you go,

Chee-hoo, really loudly.

Yeah, that’s right.

There are a bunch of different ways to spell it.

So you were sitting around playing a game about onomatopoeia.

Sounds like one of our listeners.

Let me ask you, what other words did you come up with that fit into your category of onomatopoeia?

A lot of animal sounds, obviously.

Right, sure, like oink or moo.

Woof.

Woof.

Yes.

Good.

And P-R-U drip, which I wasn’t really sure about that one.

Drip?

Yeah.

Maybe drip.

Maybe plop is a better one if we’re going to do liquids.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So onomatopoeia is a word that the sounds of the word resemble the sound that it refers to, right?

Mm—

Okay.

And your question is, gee-hoo!

Is that?

I can’t even do it.

Yeah.

It’s a little like the rebel yell or what I think Chewie and Han do it in one of the Star Wars movies.

Look up Chi-Hu on YouTube.

There are a lot of fantastic examples.

C-H-I-H-O-O is the common spelling that I see.

I think the answer is yes, it is an onomatopoeic word.

That the word spelled C-H-I-H-O-O is an onomatopoeia for the sounds that are made.

And I will tell you why.

Because it’s not originally Hawaiian.

And there are Samoan words for this cry that are nothing like, really, not very much like

Chi hu at all.

So it’s sometimes called the faamu, F-A apostrophe A-M-U, or it’s also known as the ususu or the

Sisusu.

And so this is a traditional Samoan war cry.

And it is kind of spread throughout the Pacific Island cultures.

Some people might think it sounds a little bit like some parts of the haka that they do in New Zealand.

Yeah, exactly.

And then when it arrived in Hawaii, it’s gone through a little bit of a popularization and I would say a slight corruption.

It is, like you said, nowadays in Hawaii, it’s just kind of a shout of exuberance.

And it’s not necessarily about, I’m about to do something brave or I’m about to go into battle or anything like that.

So in any case, it’s got its own name in Samoan culture, in the Samoan language.

And the chihu isn’t very much like that.

It really does resemble the sounds of the cry.

Exactly.

Yay, I’m so excited.

I won.

So it’s a word for the cry itself, like yahoo or yippee.

That’s right, exactly.

Rather than the kind of onomatopoeia like cuckoo or sizzle or buzz.

Well, I would say yahoo and yippee are onomatopoeic.

Well, yeah, that’s what I’m saying.

It’s for the word itself rather than something like sizzle or buzz.

Right.

Instead of a name, like you might say he cried.

Well, cry doesn’t sound anything like crying, right?

You might say he whined.

Whined sounds a little bit like actual the act of whining.

So, yeah, I would call it onomatopoeia.

And thank you for bringing this to my attention.

I assume many of our listeners have never heard the Chihu cry either.

It is amazing.

It is like immediately fills you with energy, doesn’t it?

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

So do you jump off lots of waterfalls?

I’m usually the person filming the people jumping off the waterfalls.

You can tell by my not very loud Chihu.

All right.

Playing on a lot of PIA games on the sidelines.

Well, yeah, yeah.

You definitely sound like an A Way with Words listener if you’re doing that.

Hey, thanks a lot for calling.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

Take care now.

Bye, Rachel.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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