Hawaiian Mythology · 49 of 55

Legend of Lonomaaikanaka

At the time when Lono-ma-ai-kanaka was living back of Hilo with some of his chiefs, one of the chiefesses wandered into the back country and lived with the commoners on popolo berries and wild ferns. After a time she longed for fish and proposed an expedition to the coast. At Ka-nuku-o-ka-manu (Beak of the bird) they approached Lono’s encampment. Her friends were about to retire, but the chiefess ran forward, the cords fell before her, and she went and lay upon the chests of the chiefs and embraced their heads. Thus for the first time her friends of the back country knew that she was a chiefess of high rank, and they feared for their lives; but she dismissed them with honor. 20

The stretching-tree kupua, called Niu-ola-hiki or Niu-loa-hiki in Hawaiian story, occurs in the Marquesas, Rarotonga, and the Tuamotus, generally as an intermediary between earth and heaven, man and the gods, a child and his divine ancestors, youth and manhood; or, in one case, as a symbolic connection between this world and that of the dead. In romance a chief goes by this path to woo a divine chiefess; the canoe in which a hero sails upon adventure is called by this name.

In the Marquesas, Tanaoa outsails his brothers in a canoe made out of a coconut sheath and named Niu-oa-fiti, here translated “Distant coconut at Fiji.” 21 Koomahu climbs up to heaven after his sister and, finding her waiting upon old blind Tapa for whom she is roasting bananas, he restores the blind woman’s eyes with coconut water from the Niu-oa-i-Fiti, translated “Long coconut palm in Fiji.” 22 In the rite to consecrate a new-born child, two mythical “coconuts” are referred to, called niu-oa-i-fiti and niu-oa-ani, one for furnishing food for the child, the other for the navel cord, but whether invoked as gods is not made clear. 23 In Rarotonga, to say that one “climbs the coconut tree Nu-roa-ki-iti” is equivalent to saying that one commits suicide. 24 Ta‘aki goes to seek his father by the road between heaven and earth called Nu-roa-ki-iti. 25 In the Tuamotus, in Fagatau, Tahaki climbs Niu-roa-i-Hiti and finds himself precipitated into Hina’s bathing pool. 26 An Anaa chant quoted by Stimson says, “The ship of Maui is the shell of the High-coconut-of-Havaiki.” The tree Niu-roa-i-Havaiki grows from the head of Tuna-te-vai-ora, the demigod whose wife Hina-tuatu-a-akakai comes to Havaiki after a husband and becomes Mauitikitiki’s wife. 27 In the Chant of Rua, a canoe called Niu-roa-i-hiti is constructed in Nuku-tavake to sail to Vahitahi, which was the original home of the Nuku-tavake people. The story proceeds:

The chief as high priest performs ceremonies proper for the occasion and despatches heralds to call the people together to the court before the House-of-learning. During the ceremony he becomes possessed by the god, who reveals that the demon god Rua-tuputupua has taken possession of the ship. Chants are uttered to free the ship from the power of the demon, invoking Tane, Tagaroa, Tu. Te-tahi the captain chants songs. He sends one herald aloft to watch for land birds, then another, who sees birds riding the waves. The land of Vahitahi, lying twenty miles distant from Nuku-tavake, is now in sight. The seer at Vahitahi foresees the ship’s arrival and knows that it is possessed by a demon. Every effort is now made to exorcise the demon. The ship is hauled upon the reef with erotic songs in-tended to arouse the men to their highest pitch of energy. The songs describe the safe passage of the reef, the bringing of the ship to shore, its lodging there, and precautions to prevent the demon from escaping on land. All proceed in file to the temple. The demon is exorcised into a pool of fresh water and the ship cleansed with smoke from its influence. 28

Besides these allusions to a stretching tree or a swift canoe with a name obviously a variant of that of the Hawaiian kupua, there are a number of legends told in the South Seas where a lengthening unnamed tree serves as roadway between earth and heaven. In Mangaia, Tane climbs a tree beset by insects whose top seems to reach the sky, from which he shakes down nuts upon his own homeland. 29 A ladder-like tree beset by insects is alluded to in the Samoan Ahoeitu story. 30 In one Samoan story a lad goes up to the moon on a tree; 31 in another a boy sent to climb a tree at an ogre’s house finds that it stretches upward when he attempts to pick a nut. 32 In Tonga, a child born with strength in his hands goes up to visit his father in the sky on a casuarina tree that grows up from his own staff. 33 In the Banks islands a lengthening Casuarina tree saves Qat and his brothers from Qasavara. 34 In Dobu a scabby-skinned man, deserted by his fellows, travels to the sky on a lengthening casuarina tree. 35 In San Cristoval, brothers cause a betel tree to stretch in order to rid them-selves of a younger brother, and it lengthens to the skies and bends over to the boy’s home. 36 A lengthening areca tree which a man climbs after nuts for his brother carries a man to the country of the skies. 37 In a tale from North Borneo, a man escapes to the sky by a lengthening tree which pigs, woodpeckers, and porcupines are attempting to fell. 38 In Whitsuntide island of the New Hebrides, Tagaro comes to earth and begets a son who follows him to the skies on an arrow which turns into an aerial tree root. 39 Again, a grandmother sends a child up a tree after fruit and when he gives her none she causes the tree to lengthen. 40 In the Lau islands the daughter of Turi climbed a tree and “flew like a bird right up to heaven and married the god Mbengga.” 41

In Hawaii, according to information given by a worshiper of Kane-huna-moku, the kupua Niu-ola-hiki in his tree form is the path that leads to the land of the gods, a land of “sacred coconuts,” where Kane, Lono, and Kanaloa first made man. Here the “coconuts” are phallic symbols. The chant addressed to Ku and Hina by herb pickers is identical with that by which the mother of Niauepo‘o summons the boy’s ancestor to bear him safely to the far land of his father:

O Life-giving coconut! Budded in Kahiki, Rooted in Kahiki, Forming a trunk in Kahiki, Bearing leaves in Kahiki, Bearing fruit in Kahiki, Ripened in Kahiki!

The myth of the “life-giving,” or “far-traveling” coconut palm of Kahiki or Avaiki may be regarded as the symbolic expression throughout Polynesia of the blood tie which connects a migrating people to their original ancestral line. It is a claim upon paternal recognition. It is a living impersonation of the family line which carries the genealogy of the newborn child back over whatever distance of time or space to his ultimate ancestry and to all the honors and dignities which such ancestry implies. It is the claim made by a migrating people for recognition by others of their line of their divine patrimony. It probably has phallic meaning in connection with the sexual life of the child who becomes himself an element in the preservation of the family line. The Tuamotu references strongly suggest ritual symbolism. So also the eel form in Hawaii, employed, like the coconut palm and the canoe, as a phallic symbol.

Footnotes 478:1 Rice, 22.

478:2 Ibid., 16.

478:3 Dickey, HHS Reports 25: 16-17.

478:4 Westervelt, Gods and Ghosts, 173.

478:5 Ibid., 190.

479:6 Green and Pukui, 179-185.

480:7 For. Col. 4: 548-553.

481:8 For. Col. 5: 274-283.

481:9 White 1: 141-145.

481:10 Ibid. 3: 197-198, 200-202.

482:11 White 2: 173-175.

482:12 Best, JPS 34: 296-307.

482:13 Handy, Bul. 69: 56-63; Von den Steinen, ZE 1933, 347, 349.

482:14 Ibid., 363.

483:15 Gifford, Bul. 8: 25-29, 38-43.

483:16 Hocart, 212-213.

483:17 Handy, Bul. 9: 43, 75, 79.

483:18 Ibid. 69: 106.

484:19 Collocott, Bul. 46: 32.

484:20 Kamakau, Ke Au Okoa, November 4, 1869; told also to Mrs. Pukui by friends in Hilo.

484:21 Handy, Bul. 69: 91.

485:22 Von den Steinen, ZE 1933, 370-373.

485:23 Handy, Bul. 69: 91.

485:24 Smith, JPS 30: 202.

485:25 Ibid. 4.

485:26 Stimson, Bul. 127: 68.

485:27 Stimson, ibid. 33-35.

486:28 Stimson MS.

486:29 Gill, 111-112.

486:30 Turner, 199-200.

486:31 Ibid., 203.

486:32 Krämer 1: 144.

486:33 Fison, 49-57; Gifford, Bul. 8: 38-40.

486:34 Codrington, 164-166.

486:35 Fortune, 219.

486:36 Fox, 155, 159-160.

486:37 Ibid., 121-123.

486:38 Evans, 251-255.

487:39 Codrington, 169.

487:40 Anthropos 7: 42-44.

487:41 Hocart, 200.