adamah<\/em> (literally, \u201cred clay\u201d) and the Lord God breathes into him \u201cthe breath of life,\u201d is obvious.<\/p>\nAssociated with dawn, sun and sky, K\u0101ne seems to have been the highest of the four great deities. He was the god of procreation and the ancestor of all humans, both chiefs and commoners.<\/p>\n
K\u016b, god of politics and war, bore many names, including K\u016b ka\u02bbilimoku (the \u201cSnatcher of Land\u201d). Uniquely among Hawaiian gods, his worship sometimes included ritual human sacrifice. Perhaps appropriately, he was associated with such animals as sharks and hawks.<\/p>\n
Lono \u2014 sometimes called \u201cLono-makua\u201d (\u201cLono the Provider\u201d) \u2014 was linked with rainfall, fertility and agriculture, as well as with music and peace. Although the traditions are unclear and sometimes contradictory, there seems to have been a legend in which Lono manifested himself in human form, departing afterwards to \u201cKahiki\u201d (likely Tahiti) with a promise to return.<\/p>\n
Captain James Cook arrived at the Big Island of Hawaii in 1779 during the great harvest festival of Makahiki, sacred to Lono. Coincidentally, the rigging of his ship, HMS Resolution<\/em>, resembled some of the artifacts associated with Lono-worship, and, just as ritual processions honoring Lono went clockwise around the island, Cook had sailed clockwise around the island before making landfall.<\/p>\nSome historians speculate that, for these and other reasons, the Hawaiians took Captain Cook to be a manifestation of Lono. When a member of his crew became ill and died, however \u2014 something not expected among deities\u2014the Hawaiians became suspicious and much less compliant. And when a violent altercation broke out, Cook and several others among his crew were killed.<\/p>\n
Some authorities theorize that Kanaloa was a lesser god who was created to preside over the dead and even that his worship may have arrived in Hawaii only after A.D. 1100, via a secondary Polynesian migration. Given his connection with the underworld, several commentators have tried to identify him as a god of evil and of death itself, permanently at war with K\u0101ne. But this may reflect the viewpoint of European missionaries, who were perhaps seeking to associate the four great Hawaiian deities with the Christian Trinity and (in Kanaloa\u2019s case) with Lucifer or Satan.<\/p>\n
One legend says that Kanaloa tried to mimic the creation of man by K\u0101ne, Lono and K\u016b, but that \u2014 unlike them \u2014 he was unable to bring his statue to life. So, humiliated, he challenged K\u0101ne, vowing that K\u0101ne\u2019s human creations would be mortal and that, when they died, they would belong to him in the underworld.<\/p>\n
Balanced against such accounts, however, is the fact that Kanaloa and K\u0101ne were actually often associated with one another and worshiped together. They were apparently viewed as mutually complementary rather than opposed, and may even have been considered brothers.<\/p>\n
Canoe builders, for example, would invoke K\u0101ne during their labors, while sailors aboard completed boats would call upon Kanaloa for guidance and protection. K\u0101ne was the lord of the area north of the sun\u2019s annual path, while Kanaloa was the master of the area to its south. Some commentators have suggested that the two gods together represent a divine duality of wildness and domestication, much like the famous \u201cyin and yang\u201d of Chinese Taoism.<\/p>\n
And now for just a bit of very amateur comparative thinking:<\/p>\n
In\u00a0M\u0101ori mythology,\u00a0T\u0101ne\u00a0is the\u00a0god\u00a0of forests and of birds, and the son of\u00a0Ranginui\u00a0and\u00a0Papat\u016b\u0101nuku, the\u00a0sky father\u00a0and the\u00a0earth mother.\u00a0 On\u00a0Tahiti, T\u0101ne was the god of peace and beauty.<\/p>\n
In M\u0101ori, the common noun t\u0101ne<\/em> means \u201chusband,\u201d \u201cmale,\u201d \u201cman.\u201d\u00a0 (Not infrequently, it\u2019s one of the identifiers on the doors of men\u2019s restrooms.) In Hawaiian, the common noun k\u0101ne<\/em> refers to a male such as a husband, or a brother-in-law, or a boyfriend. (Not infrequently, it\u2019s one of the identifiers on the doors of men\u2019s restrooms.)<\/p>\nAll you need is a sound shift of t>k<\/em>.\u00a0 And that sound shift is abundantly attested among the Polynesian languages.\u00a0 (Did you miss \u201c\u2018Kahiki\u2019 (likely Tahiti)\u201d above?)<\/p>\nThink, for example, of the now-common M\u0101ori name for New Zealand, Aotearoa<\/em>.\u00a0 It is typically translated as \u201c[land of the] long white cloud,\u201d where ao-<\/em> equals \u201ccloud,\u201d \u2013tea-<\/em> (pronounced TEH-a<\/em>) equals \u201cwhite,\u201d and -roa<\/em> equals \u201clong.\u201d\u00a0 Now compare the massive volcanic peak on Hawaii\u2019s Big Island called Mauna Kea (\u201cWhite Mountain\u201d).<\/p>\nCompare, too, the enormously important starchy plant taro<\/em>, which, in Hawaii, is used to make poi<\/em>. \u00a0The word is taro<\/em>\u00a0in\u00a0Tahitian,\u00a0talo<\/em>\u00a0in\u00a0Samoan\u00a0and\u00a0Tongan,\u00a0ta\u02bbo<\/em>\u00a0in\u00a0Marquesan,\u00a0dalo<\/em>\u00a0in\u00a0Fijian, and\u00a0kalo<\/em>\u00a0in\u00a0Hawaiian.<\/p>\nAnd then there\u2019s the English term\u00a0taboo<\/em>.\u00a0 Meaning \u201cprohibited\u201d or \u201cforbidden,\u201d it comes directly from Tongan\u00a0or\u00a0M\u0101ori\u00a0tapu<\/em>, which is\u00a0kapu <\/em>in Hawaiian.<\/em><\/p>\nThese predictable sound shifts intrigue me.\u00a0 If I had another few lifetimes, I think that I would spend at least a few solid months on Polynesian linguistics.<\/p>\n
Remember the -roa<\/em> (\u201clong\u201d) in Aotearoa<\/em>?\u00a0 Think of the other great Hawaiian volcano, Mauna Loa (\u201cLong Mountain\u201d). \u00a0A common shift between l<\/em> and r<\/em> is easily demonstrated in the Polynesian languages.\u00a0 For example, the Hawaiian term aloha<\/em> is familiar to many even beyond Hawaii as a greeting.\u00a0 Among its rich and multiple meanings are \u201clove\u201d and \u201ccompassion,\u201d perhaps even \u201cempathy.\u201d\u00a0 Its Polynesian cognates include talofa<\/em> in Samoan, ta\u2019alofa<\/em> in Tuvaluan,\u00a0aro\u2019a<\/em>\u00a0in Cook Island M\u0101ori, and aroha <\/em>in New Zealand M\u0101ori.<\/p>\nAnd here is an exceptionally interesting case:\u00a0 In Peru and\u00a0Bolivia, where the sweet potato apparently originated and where it was probably first cultivated, one of the words for it in Quechua is khumara<\/em>, or kumar <\/em>(Ayacucho Quechua), or\u00a0kumara<\/em>\u00a0(Bolivian Quechua).\u00a0 Those words are pretty obviously similar to the Polynesian name\u00a0kumara<\/em> and to its regional Oceanic cognates (umala<\/em>,\u00a0\u02bbuala<\/em>, etc.).\u00a0 In Hawaiian, the sweet potato is called kumala<\/em>.\u00a0 Along with compelling genetic evidence, this has led scholars to postulate pre-Columbian transoceanic contact between the Americas and Polynesia. \u00a0An interesting thought, that.<\/p>\nPosted from Honolulu, O\u2019ahu, Hawai\u2019i<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 According to accounts preserved in Hawaiian mythology, the great gods K\u0101ne (pronounced KAH-nay), Lono, K\u016b, and (possibly) Kanaloa existed before the creation of the world. In the beginning, according to one tradition, nothing existed except a chaotic blackness called the \u201cPo\u201d (\u201cnight\u201d). But K\u0101ne awoke and, realizing that he was distinct from the Po, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":38531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[482,37307,37310,2208,37313,37304],"class_list":["post-104021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-hawaii","tag-kane","tag-kumara","tag-new-zealand","tag-sweet-potato","tag-tane"],"yoast_head":"\n
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