The Hawaiian Romance of Laieikawai | Page 9

picture of a paradise in the heavens or of an underworld inhabited by
spirits of the dead got mixed up with that of a land of origin on earth,
an earthly paradise called Hawaiki or Bulotu or "the lost land of
Kane"--a land about which clustered those same wistful longings which
men of other races have pictured in their visions of an earthly
paradise--the "talking tree of knowledge," the well of life, and plenty
without labor.[3] "Thus they dwelt at Paliuli," says Haleole of the
sisters' life with Laieikawai, "and while they dwelt there never did they
weary of life. Never did they even see the person who prepared their
food, nor the food itself save when, at mealtimes, the birds brought
them food and cleared away the remnants when they had finished. So
Paliuli became to them a land beloved."
Gods and men are, in fact, to the Polynesian mind, one family under
different forms, the gods having superior control over certain
phenomena, a control which they may impart to their offspring on earth.
As he surveys the world about him the Polynesian supposes the signs of
the gods who rule the heavens to appear on earth, which formerly they
visited, traveling thither as cloud or bird or storm or perfume to effect
some marriage alliance or govern mankind. In these forms, or
transformed themselves into men, they dwelt on earth and shaped the
social customs of mankind. Hence we have in such a romance as the
Laieikawai a realistic picture, first, of the activities of the gods in the

heavens and on earth, second, of the social ideas and activities of the
people among whom the tale is told. The supernatural blends into the
natural in exactly the same way as to the Polynesian mind gods relate
themselves to men, facts about one being regarded as, even though
removed to the heavens, quite as objective as those which belong to the
other, and being employed to explain social customs and physical
appearances in actual experience. In the light of such story-telling even
the Polynesian creation myth may become a literal genealogy, and the
dividing line between folklore and traditional history, a mere shift of
attention and no actual change in the conception itself of the nature of
the material universe and the relations between gods and men.

Footnotes to Section II, 4: The Earthly Paradise
[Footnote 1: Grey, pp. 1-15; White, I, 46; Baessler, Neue Südsee-Bilder,
pp. 244, 245; Gill, Myths and Songs, pp. 58-60.]
[Footnote 2: Compare Krämer's Samoan story (in Samoa Inseln, p. 413)
of the quest after the pearl fishhooks kept by Night and Day in the
twofold heavens with the Hawaiian stories collected by Fornander of
Aiai and Nihoalaki. Krämer's story begins:
"Aloalo went to his father To appease Sina's longing; He sent him to
the twofold heavens, To his grandparents, Night and Day, To the house
whence drops fall spear-shaped, To hear their counsel and return.
Aloalo entered the house, Took not the unlucky fishhook, Brought
away that of good luck," etc.]
[Footnote 3: Krämer, Samoa Inseln, pp. 44, 115; Fison, pp. 16, 139-161,
163; Lesson, II, 272, 483 (see index); Mariner, II, 100, 102, 115, et seq.;
Moerenhout, I, 432; Gracia, p. 40; Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia,
p. 237; Gill, Myths and Songs, pp. 152-172.
In Fison's story (p. 139) the gods dwell in Bulotu, "where the sky meets
the waters in the climbing path of the sun." The story goes: "In the
beginning there was no land save that on which the gods lived; no dry

land was there for men to dwell upon; all was sea; the sky covered it
above and bounded it on every side. There was neither day nor night,
but a mild light shone continually through the sky upon the water, like
the shining of the moon when its face is hidden by a white cloud."]

5. THE STORY: ITS MYTHICAL CHARACTER
These mythical tales of the gods are reflected in Haleole's romance of
Laieikawai. Localized upon Hawaii, it is nevertheless familiar with
regions of the heavens. Paliuli, the home of Laieikawai, and
Pihanakalani, home of the flute-playing high chief of Kauai, are
evidently earthly paradises.[1] Ask a native where either of these places
is to be found and he will say, smiling, "In the heavens." The long lists
of local place names express the Polynesian interest in local
journeyings. The legend of Waiopuka is a modern or at least adapted
legend. But the route which the little sister follows to the heavens
corresponds with Polynesian cosmogonic conceptions, and is true to
ancient stories of the home of the gods.
The action of the story, too, is clearly concerned with a family of
demigods. This is more evident if we compare a parallel story
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