800 HAWAIIAN ROMANCE OF LAIEIKAWATI [ETH. ANN. 83 
descended. Chiefs rank, in fact, according to their claim to direct 
descent from the ancient gods.1 
Just how this came about is not altogether uniformly explained. 
In the Polynesian creation story? three things are significant—a 
monistic idea of a god existing before creation; * a progressive order 
of creation out of the limitless and chaotic from lower to higher 
forms, actuated by desire, which is represented by the duality of sex 
generation in a long line of ancestry through specific pairs of forms 
from the inanimate world—rocks and earth, plants of land and sea 
forms—to the animate—fish, insects, reptiles, and birds;* and the 
special analysis of the soul of man into “ breath,’ which constitutes 
life; “ feeling,” located in the heart; “desire” in the intestines; and 
“thought” out of which springs doubt—the whole constituting 
akamai or “ knowledge.” In Hawaii the creation story lays emphasis 
upon progressive sex generation of natural forms. 
Individual islands of a group are popularly described as rocks 
dropped down out of heaven or fished up from below sea as resting 
places for the gods;° or they are named as offspring of the divine 
ancestors of the group.° The idea seems to be that they are 
a part of the divine fabric, connected in kind with the original source 
of the race. 
3. THE DEMIGOD AS HERO 
As natural forms multiplied, so multiplied the gods who wedded 
and gave them birth. Thus the half-gods were born, the kupua or 
demigods as distinguished from akua or spirits who are pure divini- 
1Gill says of the Hervey islanders (p. 17 of notes): ‘‘ The state is conceived of as a 
long house standing east and west, chiefs from the north and south sides of the island 
representing left and right; under chiefs the rafters; individuals the leaves of the 
thatch. These are the counterpart of the actual house (of the gods) in the spirit 
world.” Compare Stair, p. 210. 
2? Bastian, Samoanische Schodpfungs-Sage; Ellis, 1, 821; White, vol. 1; Turner, Samoa, 
%; Gill, Myths and Songs, pp. 1-20; Moerenhout 1, 419 et seq. ; Liliuokalani, translation of 
the Hawaiian ‘‘ Song of Creation’’; Dixon, Oceanic Mythology. 
3 Moerenhout translates (1, 419): ‘‘ He was, Taaroa (Kanaloa) was his name. He 
dwelt in immensity. Earth was not. Taaroa called, but nothing responded to him, 
and, existing alone, he changed himself into the universe. The pivots (axes or orbits), 
this is Taaroa; the rocks, this is he. Taaroa is the sand, so is he named. Taaroa is 
the day. Taaroa is the center. Taaroa is the germ. Taaroa is the base. Taaroa 
is the invincible, who created the universe, the sacred universe, the shell for Taaroa, 
the life, life of the universe.” 
4Moerenhout, 1, 423: ‘‘ Taaroa slept with the woman called Hina of the sea. Black 
clouds, white clouds, rain are born. Taaroa slept with the woman of the uplands; the 
first germ is born. Afterwards is born all that grows upon the earth. Afterwards is 
born the mist of the mountain. Afterwards is born the one called strong. Afterwards 
is born the woman, the beautiful adorned one,” etc. 
5 Grey, pp. 38-45; Kriimer, Samoa Inseln, pp. 395-400; Fison, pp. 189-146; Mariner, 
1, 228; White, 11, 75; Gill, Myths and Songs, p. 48. 
*In Fornander’s collection of origin chants the Hawaiian group is described as the 
offspring of the ancestors Wakea and Papa, or Hina. 
