Hawaiian Mythology · 21 of 55

Papa and Wakea

GENEALOGIES are of great importance in Hawaiian social life since no one can claim admittance to the Papa ali‘i or ranking body of high chiefs with all its privileges and prerogatives who cannot trace his ancestry back to Ulu or Nanaulu, sons of Ki‘i and Hinakoula. Chiefs of Maui and Hawaii generally trace from the Ulu genealogy; those of Kauai and Oahu from the Nanaulu. Both lines are respected alike. Both stem from Wakea and Papa and follow approximately the same succession down to the name of Ki‘i as twelfth in line from Wakea. It is to be observed that on the Ulu line three Nana names follow those of Ulu and his wife Ulu-kou, and others occur down the line.

This association of names is also found in the Moriori genealogy, where the names Tiki, Uru, Ngangana follow those of the gods Tu, Rongo, Tane, Tangaroa, Rongo-mai, Kahukura as given in Tregear’s Maori Dictionary (page 669) quoted by Stokes. In Maori, Uru-te-ngangana (Ulu-and-Nanana) heads the list of the family of gods from Rangi and Papa taught in the Whare-wananga or House-of-learning, and presides over the Whare-kura temple situated at the place where man was first taught the doctrines of Tane and where occurred the creation (naming) of land and sea plants and animals. 1 In Tahitian chants Uru is called the canoe bailer of Tu and Ta‘aroa. 2 Nana is one of the artisans who shapes the man child Tane of Ta‘aroa. 3 Uru-o-te-oa-ti‘a is the son of Ti‘i, the first man, and Hina-te-‘u‘ti-mahai-tuamea, the two-faced first woman. Three others are born of the same pair and from these descend chiefs and commoners (manahune) of Tahiti. 4

From these comparisons it may be inferred that the names of Wakea and Papa as ancestors of the Hawaiian people derive from old tribal tradition. In the South Seas, Wakea or his equivalent is god of light and of the heavens who “opens the door of the sun”; Papa is a goddess of earth and the underworld and mother of gods. The name of Wakea appears in the Hawaiian word for midday, “awakea.” “Papa” in Hawaii is “a word applied to any flat surface,” especially to those foundation layers underseas from which new lands are said to rise—perhaps related in a figure to the successive generations of mankind born out of the vast waters of the spirit world and identified through their family leaders with the lands which they inhabit. Papa-hanau-moku (Papa from whom lands are born) is her epithet. Stories and genealogies connect the Wakea-Papa line with the myth already noticed of a marriage between a high chief from a distant land and a native-born chiefess. A struggle is implied between an older line and a new order which imposes the separation of chiefs from commoners and of both from a degraded slave class, and establishes religious tapus, especially as related to women, by which so powerful a weapon is placed in the hands of the new theocracy, chiefs working in harmony with the priesthood, as to control conduct and effectually to subordinate the people to their ruling chiefs.

Wakea, from whom all Hawaiian genealogies stem as the ancestor of the Hawaiian people, “both chiefs and commoners,” is regarded as a man in Hawaiian tradition, not as a god as in southern groups. Stokes thinks him a duplicate of Ki‘i, twelfth in descent from Wakea, husband of Hina-Koula, and father of Ulu and Nana-ulu. The southern equivalent of Ki‘i is Ti‘i or Tiki, the first man, generally coupled with the story of the birth of the first woman out of a pile of sand impregnated by Tiki, a tradition which Stokes sees reflected in the Hawaiian euphemistic version of Wakea’s infidelity to his wife Papa and marriage with the young daughter Ho‘ohoku-ka-lani (The heavenly one who made the stars). The name indeed suggests that from this marriage descended the chiefs, since stars are ascribed to chiefs in Hawaiian lore.

Wakea is called the son of Kahiko-lua-mea (Very ancient and sacred) and his wife Kupulanakehau. To them are born Lihau-ula (Liha-ula, Lehu-ula) from whom are descended the priests (kahuna) and Wakea from whom come the chiefs (ali‘i). From a third son, Maku‘u, some say by another wife, come the commoners (maka-aina). 5 In the fourteenth era of the Kumulipo chant occur the names of Wakea, Lehu-ula (Lihau-ula) and Makulukulu-kaee-au-lani (Makuu) in connection with the name Paupani-a(wa) kea, a name applied either to Wakea alone or to the whole family group named above.

Paupani-akea is said to have been born to Kupulanakehau when she lived with Kahiko, the very ancient sacred one. The name may mean “End of the closing up of light,” or “Opening up of light,” possibly through the extending of the priestly line to include the chiefs. Malo, who does not name the third son, says that in the genealogy called Ololo, Kahiko (ancient) is the first kanaka (man). 6 Kepelino makes Kahiko an immigrant from Kahiki or “a descendant of La‘ila‘i, who is the mother of the race on the Kumulipo genealogy. 7 In the chant of Kamahualele 8 about the birth of the islands, Kahiko is spoken of as O Kahiko ke kumu aina Nana i mahele ka‘awale na moku.

“Kahiko the root of the land Who divided and separated the islands.”

The parceling out of the land among families of chiefs seems to be pointed to in this reference. Kamakau says that Kahiko-lua-mea was descended from Kane-huli-honua (Kane made out of earth) and Ke-aka-huli-lani (The shadow made of the sky) through their child Ka-papa-is-laka; that he was a devout chief under whom the land was blessed. To his son Lihauula belonged the “priesthood of Milipomea” and to his son Wakea the temporal rule. 9 During the early years of settlement, reasons Kamakau, there were few people and each family governed itself. The kahuna class was first separated from the rest of the family line and it was not until some hundred years later that chiefs came to be set up over the land. Human sacrifices he thinks were unknown. 10 According to Kepelino the chiefs eventually found their power restricted by that of the priests and they sought means of uniting the two offices under one line. Just how this was achieved is not made clear. 11 Two Wakea legends are given which may or may not have reference to a struggle to unite the priestly office with that of ruling chief and to establish a closed class of chiefs who might claim the right to the sacred office through descent from the gods. Wakea’s fight for the controlling power is one of these legends; his infidelity to his wife Papa and marriage with their daughter Ho‘ohoku-ka-lani is the other, out of which grow the stories of the birth of Haloa and of Waia who succeed Wakea on the genealogies.

Malo version. Kahiko at his death bequeaths the land to his elder son Lihau-ula “leaving Wakea destitute.” Lihau-ula gives battle to Wakea the blond (ehu) against the advice of his counselor, who would not have him fight during the summer lest his men melt away. Lihau-ula is slain and Wakea takes over the rule. He fights with Kane-ia-kumu-honua and is defeated and obliged to take to sea; but as they are swimming about his kahuna bids him form a symbolic heiau and its sacrifice with his hand (described much like our own hand game of the church and the steeple), gather his people together, and offer prayer to his god, which done he renews the battle, is victorious, and wins the government (aupuni). Those who place the fight in Hawaii say that he was driven to the extreme western islet of Kaula and thence oversea; others say that he fought in Kahiki-ku. 12

(a) Papa is the wife of Wakea. She (or some say the wife of his kahuna) bears a daughter Ho‘ohoku-ka-lani who grows to be a beautiful girl. Wakea desires her but finds no way to gratify his desire without arousing Papa’s jealousy. His kahuna Komoawa suggests that he arrange tapu nights when husband and wife shall separate, and tell Papa that this is done at the command of the god. Papa is unsuspicious and consents to the tapus. On the second of the tapu nights when he takes Ho‘ohoku, he unluckily oversleeps, although the kahuna chants the awakening song, and Papa discovers the trick. Wakea and Papa separate, one spitting in the other’s face as sign of repudiation. 13

(b) Kumulipo version (twelfth era, translation after Daniel Ho‘olapa).

Great Papa bearer of islands, Papa lived with Wakea, Haalolo the woman was born, Was born jealousy, anger, Papa was deceived by Wakea, He ordered the days in the month, The night to Kane for the last, The night to Hilo for the first, The house platform was tapu (to women), the place where they sat, The house where Wakea lived, . . .

and there follow a number of food tapus which further restrict women except of the highest rank.

(a) Naua society version. Ho‘ohoku-o-ka-lani’s first child by her father Wakea is born in the form not of a human being but of a root, and is thrown away (kiola) at the east corner of the house. Not long after a taro plant grows from the spot and afterwards, when a real child is born to them, Wakea names it from the stalk (ha) and the length (loa). 14

(b) Lyman version. The child of Papa is born deformed without arms or legs and is buried at night at the end of the long house. In the morning appear the stalk and leaves of a taro plant which Wakea names Ha-loa (Long rootstalk) and Papa’s next child is named after this plant. 15

According to Kepelino it is with this second Haloa that the union between chief and priest takes place, Haloa having assumed the three natures of god, kahuna, and chief. 16 His nature as god may perhaps be represented by the spirit of the unformed child which enters into him with the taking of the name of the plant which grows out of its body. It was an assertion of his power as a god that gave a chief the right to perform the sacred offices in the heiau which seems previously to have belonged to the kahuna alone.

Of Waia, child of Haloa according to the Nanaulu line and of Ho‘ohokukalani according to the Ulu, tradition has nothing good to say. He is called a corrupt and evil ruler.