Oceanic Mythology

OCEANIC MYTHOLOGY

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By his fourth wife, Hotu-papa "Sobbing Earth" , he was the father of a host of children, for the most part of little note, though Tu and Rongo again appear among them. The offspring of the fifth and sixth wives were unimportant. This conception, familiar in classical mythology and elsewhere, seems very characteristic of New Zealand, and apparently reached a higher development there than elsewhere in Polynesia. For the Sky Father an origin from the primeval night or chaos is, as we have seen, sometimes asserted; but no explanation of the origin of the Earth Mother is usually thought necessary.

New Zealand thus exhibits, a type of cosmogony in which the evolutional element, although sometimes well marked, is not invariably present; and in which the belief in the Sky Father and the Earth Mother seems especially strong. The general character of the variants found in different versions suggests that these may bee the result of the blending of several sets of beliefs. It is pretty well established that when New Zealand was discovered, its inhabitants were composed of two main elements: Unfortunately, little attempt has been made to recover the undoubtedly older mythology of these "aborigines," so that we have little evidence as to what their beliefs may have been.

Some light may be thrown on the question, however, by the fragments recovered from the Moriori of the. Unhappily, the actual cosmogonic myths recorded from the Moriori are very brief, but, so far as they go they make little mention of the evolutionary theme, ascribing the beginning of all things to Rangi and Papa, of whose origin almost nothing is said.

Leaving Maori mythology and turning to the other island groups in Polynesia it is apparent that the cosmogonic myths current in the Marquesas present striking analogies to some of those in New Zealand. Here, again, in the beginning is the primeval void in which "arises a swelling, a seething, a dark surging, a whirling, a bubbling, and a swallowing--there arises a whole series of supports or posts, the great and the small, the long and the short, the crooked and the bent--there arise innumerable and endless supports. They riot in such contrasts and synonyms. There arises in particular the foundation--the firmness--there arises space and light and cliffs of various sorts.

In comparison with New Zealand, accordingly, there seems to be a much greater development of the evolutional, or, as it might perhaps more accurately be termed, the developmental, theme. The antecedents of the existing universe comprise a bewildering series of abstract and partially personified, contrasted qualities; and there is an evident attempt to carry these, on the one hand, backward to an original, negative void, and on the other, forward to an ultimate, primitive substance. In other words, we have here more of a philosophic.

Club from the Marquesas Islands. The decoration of heads and faces in various combinations is unquestionably symbolic, but the precise meaning of the various figures is unknown. Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the course of time Atea "Light" evolved or separated himself from Tanaoa, and drove him away; and after this, Ono "Sound" evolved himself from Atea and destroyed Mutuhei. From these two struggles arose Atanua "Dawn" , whom Atea took to wife, and so begat a host of deities, besides creating the heavens and the earth. This second version introduces a new factor in the suggestion of a primeval deity, Tangaroa.

Taaroa was his name. In the immensity There was no earth, there was no sky, There was no sea, there was no man. Taaroa calls, but nothing answers. Existing alone, he became the universe. Taaroa is the root, the rocks foundation. Taaroa is the sands. It is thus that he is named.

Taaroa is the light.

Taaroa is the germ. Taaroa is the support. He erected the land of Hawaii, Hawaii, the great and sacred, As a body or shell for Taaroa. The earth is moving. They do not unite. Stretch out the seven heavens, let ignorance cease.

Create the heavens, let darkness cease. Let the period of messengers cease. It is the time of the speaker. Completed the foundations, Completed the rocks, Completed the sands, The heavens are enclosing, The heavens are raised. In the depths is finished the land of Hawaii. Soon after this, the heralds of day, the dark and light blue sky, appeared before Taaroa, and solicited a soul for his offspring--the then inanimate universe. The foundation of all replied, 'It is done,' and directed his son, the Sky-producer, to accomplish his will.

In obedience to the mandate of Taaroa, his son looked up into the heavens, and the heavens received the power of bringing forth new skies, and clouds, sun, moon, and stars, thunder and lightning, rain and wind.

He then looked downwards, and the unformed mass received the power to bring forth earth, mountains, rocks, trees, herbs, and flowers, beasts, birds, and insects, fountains, rivers, and fish. Rai-tubu, or Sky-producer, then looked to the abyss, and imparted to it the power to bring forth the purple water. It is obvious that we are now dealing with quite a different aspect from that with which we started. Tangaroa is here a sort of world soul; a self-evolving, self-existent, creative deity, who alone is ultimately responsible for the origin of the universe.

The idea of a primeval, creative deity is, however, not wholly absent from New Zealand, as is shown by the following: The Universe was in darkness, with water everywhere, There was no glimmer of dawn, no clearness, no light. And he began by saying these words,-- That He might cease remaining inactive: He then repeated those self-same words in this manner, That He might cease remaining inactive: Io then looked to the waters, which compassed him about, And spake a fourth time, saying: The cosmogonic ideas of the inhabitants of the Cook or Hervey Group are not clear.

The universe, of whose beginning nothing is said, is pictured as a hollow shell, in form like a beet, at the lower extremity of which is "The Root of All Existence," above which comes "Breathing All Life" and the "Long-Lived. The account does not harmonize well with any of the preceding beliefs, almost its only point of contact being the union of Vatea associated with the light or bright sky and Papa, and their consequent begetting of the gods.

It seems very probable that the real cosmogonic myths of this group have not been recorded. Summing up the material thus far presented, it may be said that we have in New Zealand one form of cosmogonic myth which indicates a belief in the origin, from an initial chaos, of a Sky-God, Rangi, who, in conjunction with Papa "The Earth" and other female powers, becomes the father of gods and men. The accounts, as we have them, give the impression of being somewhat fragmentary, as well as composite, and they represent, it may be suggested, the overlaying of an older stratum by the type of origin-myth which was current in the Cook and Society Groups in the fourteenth century--the time of the historic emigration from this portion of central Polynesia which brought to New Zealand the ancestors of the great bulk of the population found there at the period of its discovery.

This central Polynesian form of myth appears to be strongly developed in the Marquesas also, though with some modifications, notably in tracing the origin of Papa more. In the Society Group this feature is still more pronounced, and we have Tangaroa treated almost as a world soul, a deity of whom the cosmos is only a manifestation. One of the most curious and interesting of Polynesian cosmogonic myths is that found in Hawaii, which, although differing in several important particulars from those just outlined, must yet be considered as belonging to the same general type.

The drama of creation, according to the Hawaiian account, is divided into a series of stages, and in the very first of these life springs from the shadowy abyss and dark night. There is here, however, no long series of antecedent, vaguely personified entities ranged in genealogical sequence, but the immediate appearance of living things. At first the lowly zoophytes and corals come into being, and these are followed by worms and shellfish, each type being declared to conquer and destroy its predecessor, a struggle for existence in which the strongest survive.

Parallel with this evolution of animal forms, plant life begins on land and in the sea--at first with the algae, followed by seaweeds and rushes. In the next Period Black Night and Wide-Spread Night give birth to leafy plants and to insects and birds, while in the darkness the first faint glimmering.

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The sea brings forth its higher forms, such as the medusae, fishes, and whales; and in the dim twilight monstrous forms creep in the mud. Food plants come into existence while all nature is thrown into an uproar under the stress of its birth-pains.

The Gods of Polynesia and the South Seas

The fifth period sees the emergence of swine the highest mammal known to the Hawaiian , and night becomes separated from day. In the sixth, mice appear on land, and porpoises in the sea; the seventh period witnesses the development of various abstract psychic qualities, later to be embodied in man; while in the eighth, the turmoil and uproar having subsided, from peace and quiet, fructified by the light, which is now brilliant, woman is born, and also man, together with some of the higher gods. The principal difference between this conception--which is truly remarkable for a savage people--and the myths previously outlined are fivefold: In spite of these divergencies, however, the fundamental idea of evolutionary sequence, as opposed to creation, is clearly marked; and here, as in the New Zealand myths, the gods; are a product of, or an emanation from, the universe, rather than the preexistent germ of all development.

The evolutionary motive has been shown to be well developed both in New Zealand and in Hawaii as well as in the Marquesas; but in the West it appears to survive only in more or less fragmentary form, being largely overlaid and supplanted by other themes. Between their descendants arises a mighty conflict, in which water wins and the world is destroyed by a flood only to be recreated by Tangaloa. This element of world-destruction and re-creation suggests the Hawaiian myth already outlined, but the evolutionary feature is here reduced to a mere fragment.

In these forms we see very clearly the genealogical impulse and the developmental idea, but here the primeval pair is the solid rock rather than the formless chaos and silence of Marquesan and New Zealand myths. In outline the legends of this class recount that in the beginning the gods dwelt in an upper sky-world, below which there was nothing but a wide-spread sea. Into this a deity cast a stone, which ultimately became the world, where, after some of the heavenly beings had descended, mankind later appeared.

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From the high heavens Tangaloa saw a stone floating in the boundless sea beneath, and this he brought up to the skies, where he shaped it into human form, inspired it with life, and took it to wife. After a while the bird returned to Tangaloa, complaining of the shadeless character of the land, and so the god cast down a vine which grew and gave shadow, but afterward Tangaloa in anger sent worms, which fed upon the vines and killed them, and from the worms or maggots, developed from the rotting vines, man was later made.

In this and in other versions from Samoa there is, as a rule, little of an actual fashioning or shaping of the world, although this element appears in. Figure of Taria-nui, "Big Ears," a fishing god, venerate by fishermen and prayed to for success. Peabody Museum, Cambridge Massachusetts. A similar version is or was current in Tonga. Tangaloa, the divine messenger, was ordered to descend to this world to see if he could find any land, wherefore he departed on a bird, and after flying about for a long time descried a sandbank on which the waves broke.

Returning to the skies, he reported that he could find no dry land, but the lords of heaven said to him, "Wait for seven days, and then go back and look again. Bringing back tidings of his discovery, he was again instructed to wait and to look once more, for this dry land which he had seen was indeed the earth. Tangaloa, the divine messenger, then complained that there was no place below where he could rest and was told to ask Tangaloa, the divine artificer, to cast down chips and shavings from his work.

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This he did, and the island of Eua arose. The divine messenger again descended and lo, there was land which thus had fallen from the skies. The lords of heaven now ordered him to go and live upon this land, but when he had visited it he returned again to heaven and said, "It is a great land that I have seen, but there is in it no plant or tree.

Outside of Samoa and Tonga this form of origin-myth scarcely occurs, except in so far as one may perhaps detect an echo of it in the statement that in the beginning there was nothing but a wide-extending sea, on which a deity floated. Thus, in the Society Group, a myth fragment states: Tongan mythology also refers to the primeval sea and to the realm of the gods far away, whence Maui sails to fish up the land of Tonga.

Still another origin-myth, which is particularly interesting because of its similarities, is that of the cosmic egg. An old man and an old woman emerged with a canoe, and after they had entered it--together with a boy and a girl, one carrying a dog, the other a pig--it drifted to land in New Zealand. The resemblance shown to Hindu cosmogonic ideas is not a little striking, and leads to possible conclusions. Such a migration, coming into central Polynesia, might have brought this, together with other elements, which later were distributed north to Hawaii and south to New Zealand before the period of wide contact came to an end in the twelfth or thirteenth centuries.

From the materials at present available it would appear that we may with reasonable certainty draw the conclusion that the cosmogonic myths of the Polynesian people are based on at least two themes, one of which may be called the evolutionary or genealogical, and the other the creative. The relative importance and geographic distribution of these two contrasted themes have, moreover, been shown to differ in that the former seems best developed in New Zealand and Hawaii and is largely modified or overlaid by the second in central and western Polynesia.

This latter, although it is found almost everywhere in its simple contrast of creation as opposed to evolution, presents an altogether special form in Samoa, and perhaps also in the Marquesas and Society Groups. The evolutionary or genealogical element in Polynesian legends has always attracted attention, and to a certain extent the inborn interest in genealogy shown by all Polynesians is probably responsible for the growth of this side of the mythology.

To a people so infused with this genealogical habit the ascription of an ancestry not only to the gods, but to the world and to all natural phenomena, was not an illogical step. Other factors, however, also entered into the problem, for from the character of most of these primitive ancestral pairs it is clear that the Polynesian mind had something of a philosophic turn, and that it groped about for a real cause or beginning, seeking to derive the concrete and tangible from the abstract and intangible.

Living, as they did, isolated on small islands in the midst of a wide-reaching expanse of ocean--with the contrast between the immobility and changelessness of their little lands and the ever-moving, ever-changing sea always before them--it would not be surprising if they were led to try to account for this stability in the midst of universal flux on some such basis as that which we actually find.

On that theory it is evident that this type of cosmogonic myth would be said to be a strictly local product of the environment in which the Polynesians dwelt; but, on the other hand, there is not a little evidence that the germs, at least, of this type were present among the original immigrants.

Theoretically, a quite different solution of the problem might be proposed, based on real or fancied resemblance to Hindu speculation. On this basis it might be argued, as previously in regard to the cosmic egg, that the last immigrant groups to reach Polynesia from the West did not leave the Indonesian region until after this had been influenced by Indian culture, already strong in south-eastern Asia at the beginning of our era; and although this theory meets with several serious difficulties, it must, nevertheless, be taken into consideration.

Further discussion of the question of possible Indian influence in Polynesia may, however, best be reserved for the final estimate of Oceanic mythology as a whole.

Critical consideration and comparison of the creation theme must also be left until the Indonesian myths have been discussed, for this type, especially in the particular form in which it appears in Samoa and Tonga, is widely distributed in the more westerly area--a region in which, moreover, the proximate origin of the Polynesian peoples must be sought. The myths thus far considered have been those which were concerned only with the source of the world; we have now to deal with those which describe the origin of man. As before, we may recognize more than one type of myth. There is, first, the form according to which the ancestors of mankind were directly created by one or other of the deities.

A second type is that where the first human being, a woman, was thus immediately created by a deity and subsequently taken to wife by him, so that man, as his descendant, is thus in origin half divine. Related to this is a third form, where man is said to be the direct offspring of the deities, and so wholly divine. Lastly, we have the types in which human beings are thought to be the result of a sort of evolutionary process, developing from worms, which are shaped and moulded into human form. Maori mythology offers examples of the type which ascribes the origin of man to direct creation.

He patted it with his hands into form from the soil of Hawaiki.

When he had completed it, he raised it up and stood it erect. Tiki or Tiki-au-a-ha was the name Tane gave to the form he made of the earth, which was the first inhabitant of the world. Then he ordered her to live with Tiki as his wife, and by them all the world was peopled. In Hawaii we also find the myth of the direct creation of man. The ensuing episode of the creation of the first woman from one of the man's ribs is clearly the result of missionary contact. The second type of myth, that, namely, which recounts the creation of a female human being and her marriage to her creator, is found in numerous versions.

One from New Zealand runs thus: But Papa said, 'Do not turn your inclination towards me, for evil will come to you. Go to your ancestor Mumuhango. Her offspring was the rusty water of mountains, and the monster reptiles common to mountains. Tane was displeased, and returned to his mother. Papa said to him, 'Go to your ancestor Ranga-hore. This greatly displeased Tane, who again went back to Papa. And Ngaore gave birth to the toetoe a species of rush-like grass. Tane returned to his mother in displeasure. Tane had a great many other wives at his mother's bidding, but none of them pleased him, and his heart was greatly troubled, because no child was born to give birth to Man; so he thus addressed his mother--'Old lady, there will never be any progeny for me.

When you reach the beach at Kura-waka, gather up the earth in the form of man. He gathered up the earth, the body was formed, and then the head, and the arms; then he joined on the legs, and patted down the surface of the belly, so as to give the form of man; and when he had done this, he returned to his mother, and said, 'The whole body of the man is finished. Tane took Hine-ahu-one to wife.

She first gave birth to Tiki-tohua--the egg of a bird from which have sprung all the birds of the air. After that, Tiki-kapakapa was born--a female. Then first was born for Tane a human child. From another of the Maori tribes a briefer form is given. He went, therefore, and took mud, and mixing it with sand upon the beach of Hawaiki, he made a figure of a woman from it. When he had formed her, he laid her down, covered her with garments, breathed into her mouth and left her; but after a while he returned, and found her moving and shaking and gazing on this side and on that to observe all that she could see.

Looking behind her, she beheld Tane and laughed, so he put out his hand and took her, and made her his wife.

Mythology of Oceania

Some form of this. A belief in the direct descent of man from the gods seems not to be so clearly or explicitly stated in the Maori myths, although references to this type do occur. Well, we have already cut Australia adrift because that is a whole continent with its own Gods and traditions. We have tried to keep track of all the Oceanic Gods, even if we have to nail them to the seabed. Every time we see waving palms we shall wave back and examine the coconuts.

Maps are being flapped and boundaries are being pushed and lots of skirting and scouting has been invoked. Once upon a time it was just the South Seas and a setting for ripping yarns involving pearls, buried treasure, typhoons, a thrilling battle with a giant octopus and escape from sacrifice and the cannibal cooking pot as a volcano erupted. How was it the white heroes always escaped whilst the 'savages' perished?

How we longed for Captain Cast-iron to be rent asunder by the Octopus, his parts cooked in volcanic ash, and then thrown away as being totally tasteless Many Gods are spread across different regions, cultures and tribes. We've tried to pin them down to a particular area if possible. But corrections are always welcome, especially from people with first-hand knowledge. So if you know the region and would like to comment, we'd love to hear from you.

Fijians, Hawaiian, Samoan, Rapanui, Maori, etc etc etc.. More detailed info always welcome.

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