Hawaiian Mythology · 24 of 55

Myth of Papa-Hanau-Moku

(a) Pakui version.

Wakea son of Kahiko-lua-mea, Papa, called Papa-giving-birth-to-islands, was his wife, p. 302 Eastern Kahiki, western Kahiki were born, The regions below were born, The regions above were born, Hawaii was born, The firstborn child was the island Hawaii Of Wakea together with Kane, And Papa in the person of Walinu‘u as wife. Papa became pregnant with the island, Sick with the foetus she bore, Great Maui was born, an island, . . . Papa was in heavy travail with the island Kanaloa (Kahoolawe). . . A child born to Papa. Papa left and returned to Tahiti, Went back to Tahiti at Kapakapakaua, Wakea stayed, lived with Kaula as wife, Lanai-kaula was born, The firstborn of that wife. Wakea sought a new wife and found Hina, Hina lived as wife to Wakea, Hina became pregnant with the island of Molokai, The island of Molokai was a child of Hina. The messenger of Kaula (Laukaula) told Of Wakea’s living with another woman; Papa was raging with jealousy, Papa returned from Tahiti Bitter against her husband Wakea, Lived with Lua, a new husband, Oahu son of Lua was born, Oahu of Lua, an island child, A child of Lua’s youth. She lived again with Wakea, Conceived by him, Became pregnant with the island Kauai, The island Kama-wae-lua-lani was born, Ni‘ihau was an afterbirth, Lehua a boundary, Kaula the last Of the low reef islands of Lono. . . . 26

Another chanter called Ka-haku-i-ka-moana (The lord of the ocean) tells the story in a way to show that it is the ruling chiefs of each island upon whom his attention is directed.

(b) Ka-haku-i-ka-moana version.

Behold Great-broad-Hawaii, Behold it emerge out of the underworld (po), The island comes forth, the land, The string of islands from Nu‘u-mea-lani, The group of islands at the borders of Kahiki, Maui is born, an island, a land, For the children of Kama-lala-walu (Child of eight branches) to dwell in. For Kuluwaiea, the husband of Haumea, For Hina-nui-a-lana as wife Was found Molokai, a god, a priest, A yellow flower from Nu‘umea. The chief, the heavenly one, stands forth, Anointed (?) with the living water of Kahiki, Lanai was found, an adopted child For Keaukanai when he slept With Walinu‘u of Holani (Oahu).

A sacred seed of Uluhina, Kahoolawe was born, a foundling, Uluhina was summoned, Cut the navel cord of the little one, The afterbirth of the child was thrown Into the bosom of the wave; In the froth of the billows Was found a loincloth for the child, The island Molokini Was an afterbirth, an afterbirth was the island. Ahukini son of La‘a stands forth, A chief from a foreign land, From the gill of the fish, From the whelming wave of Halehale-ka-lani, Oahu was found, the wohi chief, A wohi chiefship for Ahukini son of La‘a. From La‘a-kapu as husband, p. 304 La‘a-mea-la‘a-kona as wife, . . .

At the tapu temple of Nonea, In the lightning on the sacred night of Makali‘i, Kauai was born, a chief, an offspring of chiefs, Of the families of chiefs of Hawaii, Head of the islands, Spread out by the heavenly one.. . . Wanalia was the husband, Hanala‘a the wife, Ni‘ihau was born, a land, an island, A land like the navel string at the navel of the land. There were three children Born on the same day, Ni‘ihau, Kaula, Nihoa, (then) The mother became barren, No more lands appeared. 27

The conception of Papa-hanau-moku both as a human being—wife of Wakea and progenitress of the long line of descendants who form the common stock which peopled the group—and as a foundation land out of which islands were formed agrees with the Hawaiian belief that land forms arise as the material body of the spirit which informs them and which is in effect a god with power, in some cases, to take human form at will. It is this belief in the animate nature of land forms which gives poetic integrity to the conception and raises it above a mere poetic conceit. It is certainly with this double meaning that the chanters of Kamehameha’s day composed their hymns of the birth of the islands upon the pattern set in the story which tells of Wakea and Papa and their loves and angers. The attempt to give it literal meaning is as foreign to the Hawaiian composer’s thought as that to rationalize it as a mere metaphor. Kamakau would have us compare a current birth story, as follows:

Papa gives birth to a gourd, which forms a calabash and its cover. Wakea throws up the cover and it becomes the sky. He throws up the pulp and it becomes the sun; the seeds, and they become the stars; the white lining of the gourd, and it becomes the moon; the ripe white meat, and it becomes the clouds; the juice he pours over the clouds and it becomes rain. Of the calabash itself Wakea makes the land and the ocean.

This charming conceit is exactly in the mood of Hawaiian riddling speech and it would be absurd, says Kamakau, to take it literally. He thinks that the myth is a poetic way of telling the story of beloved ancestors (who presumably belonged to different branches tracing back to a common stock) who lived as chiefs and whose names were after their death given to the islands where their descendants settled and ruled. 28

The names in Kahaku’s chant are not those by which the islands were known to the earliest colonizers of the group. Wakea and Papa were not the first settlers on the islands, says Kamakau. They belonged rather to the middle period of colonization and it was after their day that the islands were renamed. Hawaii, the firstborn, Maui, and Kauai were children of Wakea and Papa. Hawaii was called Lono-nui-akea in old days, Maui was Ihi-kapalau-maewa, Kauai was Kama-wae-lua-lani (The middle of the circle of the sky). Oahu was named after the good chief Ahu, son of Papa and Lua; of old it was called Lalolo-i-mehani (Lalo-i-mehani), Lalo-waia, Lalo-o-hoaniani. 29 The old name for Kahoolawe is said to be Kanaloa, although Emerson gives this name to Lanai. 30 A chant name for Kahoolawe was Kohe-malamalama (Glowing vagina). 31 Lanai was called Nanai or Lanai-kaula (Lanai the prophet), and a place on the island still bears this name. Both these islands were anciently inhabited by spirits alone and neither chiefs nor commoners ventured upon them.

Such is the story of Wakea and Papa, ancestors through Ki‘i of the Ulu and Nanaulu lines from whom all high chiefs of the Hawaiian group stem. What the actual history was of the settlement of this ruling class upon the islands still awaits analysis. It was a period of colonization and of organization under control of the priests and later under that of chiefs, a control united, according to the Wakea myth, in the person of Waia (compare Lalo-waia) or the still more mythical Haloa, son or grandson of Wakea, and follows a confusion of myths which tell of the creation of man out of black and red earth; of a flood which inundated the land; of a famous kahuna who at the command of his god led his son up to the hills for a religious sacrifice; of genealogies tracing back of Wakea and Papa “the first ancestors of the Hawaiian people, both chiefs and commoners” to mythical progenitors and to the gods; of stone and wood workers who live in the forest uplands and are called the Mu, the Wa, and the Menehune people; of the overwhelming of the first two by the last group and their final migration to a mythical land of the gods; of rival families of the gods (akua) and their struggle for supremacy; the demigods (kupua) who champion the cause of one or another overlord; the ancestral guardians (aumakua) venerated in the bodies of plants and animals or of physical nature, about whom and their worshipers the story cycles revolve. Out of all these elements the first period of Hawaiian history is compounded.

To the question of the meaning of the Papa and Wakea legend as it took shape in Hawaii no single answer can be given. Back of it is the Polynesian mythical conception of a dark formless spirit world presided over by the female element, and a world of form born out of the spirit world and to which it again returns, made visible and active in this human life through light as the impregnating male element. Back of it is also the actual picture of society in Hawaii, revealing a struggle for ascendancy among incoming settlers both in the Hawaiian group itself and in earlier lands—an ascendancy dominated by the idea of ancestry from a divine parent stock and hence of grades of rank as revealed in family genealogies.

Footnotes 293:1 Smith, MPS 3: 82, 83, 118.

293:2 Henry, 356.

293:3 Ibid., 365.

293:4 Ibid., 402-403.

295:5 For. Pol. Race 1: 112.

295:6 23.

295:7 190.

295:8 For. Col. 4: 20-21.

295:9 Ke Au Okoa, March 24, 1870.

296:10 Ibid., March 17, 1870.

296:11 60-67.

296:12 Malo, 312-314; For. Col. 6: 318-319.

297:13 Moolelo Hawaii (1838), 37-40; Pogue, 23-24; Malo, 314-315; Kepelino, 62-66; For. Col. 6: 319; Kamakau, Ke Au Okoa, October 14, 1869.

297:14 Kepelino, 192-193.

298:15 Thrum, More Tales, 238.

298:16 62, 66.

299:17 Moolelo Hawaii (1838), 40-41; Pogue, 32-33; Malo, 320-322.

299:18 Ibid., 50-61; Kepelino, 64-66, 98-113; Kamakau, Ke Au Okoa, March 24, 1870.

300:19 Malo, 96-101.

300:20 Kepelino, 142-147; Kamakau, Ke Au Okoa, November 3, 1870.

300:21 Kepelino, 195-198; Kamakau, Ke Au Okoa, October 27, 1870.

300:22 Chamberlain, xxxviii, 17 note 3.

301:23 Ke Au Okoa, October 14, 1869.

301:24 For. Col. 4: 10 note.

301:25 For. Col. 6: 360 note 1.

302:26 For. Col. 4: 12-19; cf. 6: 360-363.

304:27 For. Col. 4: 2-13.

305:28 For. Col. 6: 322; Kamakau, Ke Au Okoa, October 14, 1869.

305:29 Ke Au Okoa, October 14, 21, 1869.

305:30 Pele, 194.

305:31 For. Col. 5: 514.