The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai. S. N. Haleole

sufficiently religious "must lie under the spreading Kou trees of Milu's world, drink its waters and eat lizards and butterflies for food." Traditional points from which the soul took its leap into this underworld are to be found at the northern point of Hawaii, the west end of Maui, the south and the northwest points of Oahu, and, most famous of all, at the mouth of the great Waipio Valley on Hawaii. Compare Thomson's account from Fiji of the "pathway of the shade." p. 119.]

      [Footnote 3: White, I, chart; Gill, Myths and Songs, pp. 3, 4; Ellis,

       III, 168–170.]

      [Footnote 4: Gill says of the Hervey Islanders (p. 17 of notes): "The state is conceived of as a long house standing east and west, chiefs from the north and south sides of the island representing left and right; under chiefs the rafters; individuals the leaves of the thatch. These are the counterpart of the actual house (of the gods) in the spirit world." Compare Stair, p. 210.]

      [Footnote 5: Bastian, Samoanische Schöpfungs-Sage; Ellis, I, 321; White, vol. I; Turner, Samoa, 3; Gill, Myths and Songs, pp. 1–20; Moerenhout I, 419 et seq.; Liliuokalani, translation of the Hawaiian "Song of Creation"; Dixon, Oceanic Mythology.]

      [Footnote 6: Moerenhout translates (I, 419): "He was, Taaroa (Kanaloa) was his name. He dwelt in immensity. Earth was not. Taaroa, called, but nothing responded to him, and, existing alone, he changed himself into the universe. The pivots (axes or orbits), this is Taaroa; the rocks, this is he. Taaroa is the sand, so is he named. Taaroa is the day. Taaroa is the center. Taaroa is the germ. Taaroa is the base. Taaroa is the invincible, who created the universe, the sacred universe, the shell for Taaroa, the life, life of the universe."]

      [Footnote 7: Moerenhout, I, 423: "Taaroa slept with the woman called Hina of the sea. Black clouds, white clouds, rain are born. Taaroa slept with the woman of the uplands; the first-germ is born. Afterwards is born all that grows upon the earth. Afterwards is born the mist of the mountain. Afterwards is born the one called strong. Afterwards Is born the woman, the beautiful adorned one," etc.]

      [Footnote 8: Grey, pp. 38–45; Krämer, Samoa Inseln, pp. 395–400; Fison, pp. 139–146; Mariner, I, 228; White, II, 75; Gill, Myths and Songs, p. 48.]

      [Footnote 9: In Fornander's collection of origin chants the Hawaiian group is described as the offspring of the ancestors Wakea and Papa, or Hina.]

3. THE DEMIGOD AS HERO

       Table of Contents

      As natural forms multiplied, so multiplied the gods who wedded and gave them birth. Thus the half-gods were born, the kupua or demigods as distinguished from akua or spirits who are pure divinities.[1] The nature of the Polynesian kupua is well described in the romance of Laieikawai, in Chapter XXIX, when the sisters of Aiwohikupua try to relieve their mistress's fright about marrying a divine one from the heavens. "He is no god—Aole ia he Akua—" they say, "he is a man like us, yet in his nature and appearance godlike. And he was the first-born of us; he was greatly beloved by our parents; to him was given superhuman power—ka mana—which we have not. … Only his taboo rank remains, Therefore fear not; when he comes you will see that he is only a man like us." It is such a character, born of godlike ancestors and inheriting through the favor of this god, or some member of his family group, godlike power or mana, generally in some particular form, who appears as the typical hero of early Hawaiian romance. His rank as a god is gained by competitive tests with a rival kupua/ or with the ancestor from whom he demands recognition and endowment. He has the power of transformation into the shape of some specific animal, object, or physical phenomenon which serves as the "sign" or "body" in which the god presents himself to man, and hence he controls all objects of this class. Not only the heavenly bodies, clouds, storms, and the appearances in the heavens, but perfumes and notes of birds serve to announce his divinity, and special kinds of birds, or fish, or reptiles, or of animals like the rat, pig, or dog, are recognized as peculiarly likely to be the habitation of a god. This is the form in which aumakua, or guardian spirits of a family, appear to watch over the safety of the household they protect.[2]

      Besides this power of transformation the kupua has other supernatural gifts, as the power of flight,[3] of contraction and expansion at will, of seeing what is going on at a distance, and of bringing the dead to life. As a man on earth he is often miraculously born or miraculously preserved at birth, which event is heralded by portents in the heavens. He is often brought up by some supernatural guardian, grows with marvelous rapidity, has an enormous appetite—a proof of godlike strain, because only the chief in Polynesian economic life has the resources freely to indulge his animal appetite—and phenomenal beauty or prodigious skill, strength, or subtlety in meeting every competitor. His adventures follow the general type of mythical hero tales. Often he journeys to the heavens to seek some gift of his ancestors, the ingenious fancy keeping always before it an objective picture of this heavenly superstructure—bearing him thither upon a cloud or bird, on the path of a cobweb, a trailing vine, or a rainbow, or swung thither on the tip of a bamboo stalk. Arrived in the region of air, by means of tokens or by name chants, he proves his ancestry and often substantiates his claim in tests of power, ability thus sharing with blood the determining of family values. If his deeds are among men, they are of a marvelous nature. Often his godlike nature is displayed by apparent sloth and indolence on his part, his followers performing miraculous feats while he remains inactive; hence he is reproached for idleness by the unwitting. Sometimes he acts as a transformer, changing the form of mountains and valleys with a step or stroke; sometimes as a culture hero bringing gifts to mankind and teaching them the arts learned from the gods, or supplying food by making great hauls of fish by means of a miraculous hook, or planting rich crops; sometimes he is an avenger, pitting his strength against a rival demigod who has done injury to a relative or patron of his own, or even by tricks outwitting the mischievous akua. Finally, he remains on earth only when, by transgressing some kupua custom or in contest with a superior kupua, he is turned into stone, many rock formations about the islands being thus explained and consequently worshiped as dwelling places of gods. Otherwise he is deified in the heavens, or goes to dwell in the underworld with the gods, from whence he may still direct and inspire his descendants on earth if they worship him, or even at times appear to them again on earth in some objective form.[4]

       Footnotes to Section II, 3: The Demigod as Hero

      [Footnote 1: Mariner, II, 103; Turner, Nineteen Tears in Polynesia, pp. 238–242; Ibid., Samoa, pp. 23–77; Ellis, I, 334; Gracia, pp. 41–44; Krämer (Samoa Inseln, p. 22) and Stair (p. 211) distinguished akua as the original gods, aiku as their descendants, the demonic beings who appear in animal forms and act as helpers to man; and kupua as deified human beings.]

      [Footnote 2: When a Polynesian invokes a god he prays to the spirit of some dead ancestor who acts as his supernatural helper. A spirit is much stronger than a human being—hence the custom of covering the grave with a great heap of stone or modern masonry to keep down the ghost. Its strength may be increased through prayer and sacrifice, called "feeding" the god. See Fornander's stories of Pumaia, and Nihoalaki. In Fison's story of Mantandua the mother has died of exhaustion in rescuing her child. As he grows up her spirit acts as his supernatural helper, and appears to him in dreams to direct his course. He accordingly achieves prodigies through her aid. In Kuapakaa the boy manages the winds through his grandmother's bones, which he keeps in a calabash. In Pamano, the supernatural helper appears in bird shape. The Fornander stories of Kamapua'a, the pig god, and of Pikoiakaalala, who belongs to the rat family, illustrate the kupua in animal shape. Malo, pp. 113–115. Compare Mariner, II, 87, 100; Ellis, I, 281.]

      [Footnote 3: Bird-bodied gods of low grade in the theogony of the heavens act as messengers for the higher gods. In Stair (p. 214) Tuli, the plover, is the bird messenger of Tagaloa. The commonest messenger birds named in Hawaiian stories are the plover, wandering tattler, and turnstone, all migratory from about April to August, and hence naturally fastened upon by the imagination as suitable messengers