The game of ume ought to be seen as a useful adaptation to island life. First, it provides a sanctioned outlet for sexual desires that could otherwise lead to conflict and disharmony. In a way, like ho’oponopono, the game of ume helped everybody get along with everybody else. Also, partner swapping would be a useful way of increasing the potential genetic diversity in an isolated population, preventing inbreeding and ensuring that the Native Hawaiian genome would remain healthy.
Polynesian Mythology and History
The oral histories and legends collected by Abraham Fornander, a circuit court judge of Maui during the reign of King David Kalakaua in the late 18th century, give us some additional insight into the development of the Hawaiian people. In his book A History of The Polynesian People, Fornander asserts that the Hawaiian islands were colonized by at least two waves of settlers. He points, for instance, to differences in the spoken Hawaiian language between different areas of the kingdom as evidence of cultural influence from other Polynesian islands. Based on the oral history at his disposal, he concludes that one of these waves likely came from Samoa, and the other from Tahiti.
To Fornander’s credit, it is now generally accepted that at least some of the colonists of Hawai’i came from Tahiti. There is ample linguistic evidence for this, including the striking similarity between the Tahitian and Hawaiian languages: if you can speak Tahitian, it’s not much of a struggle to understand Hawaiian.
In Hawaiian, the proper noun Kahiki can refer either to Tahiti, or to the mythical place from which the gods originated. Fornander points to this as evidence that some of the figures in Hawaiian mythology were, in fact, historical people who came from Tahiti during the second wave of colonization. He singles out Pele, the volcano goddess, and her family, saying that perhaps these were mortal people who settled near the volcano on the Big Island of Hawai’i, and so over time became linked with the volcano in the popular psyche. The demigod Kamapuaa, an unwelcome suitor of Pele, was perhaps also an historical person who later became the subject of myth. As evidence of this Fornander points to Kamapuaa’s presence in the genealogy of Oahu chiefs, in which Kamapuaa is supposed to be the son of Kahikiula. Kahikiula and his brother Olopana, according to the genealogy, arrived from Kahiki and settled in the Koolau region of Oahu. Kamapuaa, according to the oral history, later returns to Kahiki, his father’s birthplace, and gets married.
The oral history does not specify whether Kamapuaa’s return to Kahiki happens before or after he attempts to court Pele. According to the legend as it is collected in Hawaiian Mythology by Martha Beckwith, it wasn’t a pleasant courtship. Kamapuaa encounters Pele in her home, the crater of the volcano Kilauea. He sings love songs to her, and she rebuffs him by calling him “a pig and the son of a pig.” This wasn’t just Pele being cruel: according to legend, the demigod Kamapuaa could assume the form of a giant boar, and taken literally his name means “pig child.” Kamapuaa is insulted by Pele’s taunt, and brings torrential rain to extinguish the fire of the volcano. Pele gives up, the two become lovers, and then divide the Big Island between them: Kamapuaa taking the windward side, which is often rainy, and Pele taking the leeward side, which is often covered with lava flows.
According to a different version of the story, it is Kamapuaa who yields, only escaping from Pele’s wrath by hiding in the form of a fern. This species of fern still grows near Kilauea today, and bears a superficial resemblance to a pig with red singe-marks left by Pele’s fire.
In more modern times, the story of the Law of the Splintered Paddle gives us another example of the layering of myth on top of historical fact. The Law of the Splintered Paddle, or Kanawai Malamahoe, was one of the strictest laws promulgated by King Kamehameha I, making murder and robbery punishable by death. This law is significant in the development of the Hawaiian Kingdom that Kamehameha I created. It is so significant, in fact, that a version of it is included in the constitution of the state of Hawai’i.
In the state constitution, it appears in section 10 of Article IX:
Section 10. The law of the splintered paddle, mamala-hoe kanawai, decreed by Kamehameha I—Let every elderly person, woman and child lie by the roadside in safety—shall be a unique and living symbol of the State’s concern for public safety. The State shall have the power to provide for the safety of the people from crimes against persons and property.
However, the oral histories do not agree on the exact incident that led to the creation of the law. In the version collected by Fornander, a young Kamehameha attacked the subjects of a rival chief on the Big Island while they were peacefully fishing on the reef near Keaau. In the ensuing fight, Kamehameha’s foot got caught in the reef, putting him off balance and allowing one of the fishermen to club him several times on the head with a paddle. As the story goes, Kamehameha’s life was spared only because the fisherman did not know the identity of his assailant. The Kanawai Malamahoe was promulgated by the king later in his life in commemoration of this incident, when he nearly died because he foolishly chose to attack harmless noncombatants.
A version of the story collected by Pukui in Folktales of Hawai’i is different. In this version, the young Kamehameha I was building a heiau, or temple, and needed human sacrifices. He attempted to capture a pair of fisherman, but as he was pursuing them his foot got caught in a fissure of lava and he fell. One of the fishermen clubbed him over the head with his paddle so hard that the paddle splintered. As Kamehameha lay there stunned, he heard one of the men ask the other, “Why don’t you kill him?” The second man replies, “Because life is sacred to [the god] Kane.”
Kamehameha was so impressed by their reverence for life that he later promulgated the Kanawai Mamalahoe, which abolished human sacrifice and established the basic right to life in the Hawaiian culture.
There are still other versions of the story, collected by other historians, and it is not clear which version is the most accurate, if indeed any of them are. We have the law itself, but we can’t say for certain what chain of events led Kamehameha I to promulgate it.
The voyaging canoes, too, were lost in myth, like the Kanawai Mamalahoe. Despite the efforts of historians like Fornander, Beckwith, and Malo, we still don’t know why the period of colonization stopped, and we can’t say for certain what happened while it was going on. But, because of the work of Nainoa Thompson and the Polynesian Voyaging Society, we can see the Hokule’a moored in Honolulu, or sailing the open ocean between Hawai’i, Tahiti, and New Zealand.
The Polynesian Voyaging society now has an additional voyaging canoe besides the Hokule’a. Both vessels are used to educate the public about Hawaiian culture and the traditional techniques of instrumentless navigation. Brigham Young University in Hawai’i recently completed work on a voyaging canoe of their own, which students there will use for a similar purpose. These vessels give us a concrete connection to the past, allowing us to see a point in human history where one of the most advanced cultures of the time undertook a project of exploration and colonization more advanced than any before, and spread their culture across the widest area of any nation on Earth.
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Orignially born in Hawai’i, Ramon now lives in Washington state with his wife and two cats. His work has appeared in the Hawai’i Review and The Absinthe Literary Review.
Bibliography & Further Reading
The Polynesian Voyaging Society Web site is an invaluable resource for information about traditional navigation.
Beckwith, Martha. Hawaiian Mythology. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. 1975.
Fornander, Abraham. Ancient History of the Hawaiian People. Mutual Publishing, Honolulu. 1996.
Malo, David. Mo’olelo Hawaii, trans. Nathaniel B. Emerson. Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu. 1997.
New Pocket Hawaiian Dictionary, Mary Kawena Pukui, Samuel H. Elbert, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1975.
Pukui, Mary Kawena. Folktales Of Hawaii. Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, 1995.
Shook, Victoria E. Ho’oponopono: Contemporary Uses of a Hawaiian Problem Solving Process. The East-West Center. Honolulu. 1985.
driftings
By Dana Christina
1/7/02
She watches the three sister-moons as they dance nightly across the paths of comets and meteorites. Their motions are bright lines in a glittering swirl of stars and planets; the moons whirl and fall, chased by the sun, like wheels of time.
Her cheeks, her brow, and the folds of her gown are tinted with a fine, gray shadow of minerals: an echo of the land before her, tinted with all that the world has ever been.