Mystic Isles of the South Seas.

by Frederick O'Brien

The Polynesians had very fixed ideas upon the origin of the universe and of man. In Hawaii, Taaroa made man out of red earth, araea, and breathed into his nostrils. He made woman from man’s bones, and called her ivi (pronounced eve-y). At the hill of Kauwiki, on the eastern point of the island of Maui, Hawaii, the heaven was so near the earth that it could be reached by the thrust of a strong spear, and is to-day called lani haahaa.

The Marquesans said that in the beginning there was no light, life, or sound in the world; that a boundless night, Po, enveloped everything, over which Tanaoa, (Darkness), and Mutu-hei, (Silence), ruled supreme. Then the god of light separated from Tanaoa, fought him, drove him away, and confined him to night. Then the god Ono, (Sound), was evolved from Atea, (Light), and banished Silence. From all this struggle was born the Dawn, (Atanua). Atea married the Dawn, and they created earth, animals, man.

In most of Polynesia there are legends of a universal flood from which few escaped. In Fiji it was said that two races were entirely wiped out, one of women, and the other of men and women with tails. A little bird sat on the top of the uncovered land and wailed the destruction. The Marquesans built a great canoe like a house, with openings for air and light, but tight against the rain. The ark was stored with provisions, and the animals of the earth were driven in two by two, fastened in couples. Then the family of four men and four women entered the ark, sacrificed a turtle to God, and retired to rest amidst the terrific din of the confined animals. The storm burst, and the waters covered the entire land. The storm ceased and a black bird was sent over the sea of Hawaii. It returned to the ark, and a wind set in from the north. Another bird was loosed, and alighted on the sea-shore. It was recalled, and a third bird brought back twigs. The ark soon grounded, and the four men and four women released the beasts, and went ashore. These repopulated the earth.

The Samoans believed that the earth was once covered with water and the sky alone was inhabited, until God sent his only begotten daughter in the form of a kuri, or snipe, to look for dry land. She found a spot, and brought down to it earth, and a creeping plant, which grew and decomposed into worms, and, lo! the worms turned into men and women.

In Hawaii Nuu was saved from a similar flood, and with him his three sons and their families. Ten generations later Kanehoalani was commanded by God to introduce circumcision. He went to a far-off country, had a son by a slave woman and one by his wife. He was then commanded, this descendant of Nuu in the tenth generation, to go up on a mountain and perform a sacrifice. He sought a mountain, but none appeared suitable; so he communed with God, who told him to travel to the east, and he would find a precipice. He departed with his son and a servant. The Hawaiians still call the mountains back of Koolau, near Honolulu, after the name of the three, and when the missionaries gave them the Jewish sacred books, were delighted to point out that long before Christ came to earth they had believed as above, and that Abraham was the tenth from Noah, that Abraham practised circumcision, and was father of Isaac and the illegitimate Ishmael, and that their descendant of Nuu, as Abraham, became the father of twelve children, and the founder of the Polynesian race, as Abraham had of the Jews.

One might detect some relation to the Hebraic scriptures in the legends of the Maoris of New Zealand and Tonga that the older son of the first man killed his brother, and that in Fiji one still is shown the site where a vast tower was built because the Fijians wanted to peer into the moon to discover if it was inhabited. A lofty mound was erected, and the building of timber upon it. It was already in the sky when the fastenings broke, and the workmen were precipitated over every part of Fiji.

The sun stood still for Hiaka when she attempted to recover the body of Lohiau, her sister Pele’s lover. There was not daylight enough to climb the mountain Kalalau and bring down the body from a cave, so she prayed, and the sun set much later than usual. Aukelenui-a Iku, the next to the youngest of twelve children, was hated by his brothers because he was his father’s favorite, and they threw him into a pit to die. His next eldest brother rescued him, and he became a traveler, and found the water of life, with which he restored his brother who had been drowned years before. The Chaldeans had a similar legend. Ninkigal, goddess of the regions of the dead, ordered Simtar, her attendant, to restore life to Ishtar with the “waters of life.”

Naula-a-Maihea of Oahu, not far from Honolulu, was upset from his canoe while paddling to Kauai, and was swallowed by a whale, which kindly threw him up on the beach of Wailua.

Kana-loa and Kane-Apua, prophets, walked about the world, causing water to flow from rocks, as did Moses, and in the ancient litany, recited by priest and congregation, the responses of “Hooia, e oia!” meant “It is true!” as does Amen, the response of Christian litanies to-day. The custom of using holy water prevailed all over Polynesia.

“The ocean which surrounds the earth was made salt by God so it should not stink,” said the legend, “and to keep it salt is the special work of God.”