In Hawaiian religion, the Kumulipo is the creation chant, first recorded in the 18th century. It also includes a

genealogy Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...

of the members of Hawaiian royalty and was created in honor of

Kalaninuiamamao Kalaninuiamamao (sometimes called Ka-I-i-Mamao or Kaeamamao) was a prince of the Big Island of Hawaii, or 1st Alii Nui of Kaū, an ancestor of the Queen Liliuokalani.Alapaiwahine Alapaiwahine was a princess of the Island of Hawaii and great-grandmother of King David Kalākaua and Queen Lydia Liliuokalani. She was a ''Naha'' chiefess: the product of a rare father and daughter marriage uncommon in Hawaiian history. Biogr ...

Creation chant

In the ''Kumulipo'' the world was created over a cosmic night. This is not just one night, but many nights over time. The ancient Hawaiian ''

kahuna Kahuna (; ) is a Hawaiian word that refers to an expert in any field. Historically, it has been used to refer to doctors, surgeons and dentists, as well as priests, ministers, and sorcerers. Background A may be versed in agriculture,Archiv ...

'' and priests of the Hawaiian religion would recite the ''Kumulipo'' during the ''

makahiki The Makahiki season is the ancient Hawaiian New Year festival, in honor of the god Lono of the Hawaiian religion. It lasts four consecutive lunar months, approximately from October/November through February/March. It is a time for men, women ...

'' season, honoring the god

Lono In Hawaiian religion, the god Lono is associated with fertility, agriculture, rainfall, music and peace. In one of the many Hawaiian stories of Lono, he is a fertility and music god who descended to Earth on a rainbow to marry Laka. In agricul ...

. In 1779, Captain

James Cook Captain (Royal Navy), Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 176 ...

arrived in

Kealakekua Bay Kealakekua Bay is located on the Kona coast of the island of Hawaii about south of Kailua-Kona. Settled over a thousand years ago, the surrounding area contains many archeological and historical sites such as religious temples ( heiaus) an ...

on the

island of Hawaii Hawaii is the List of islands of the United States by area, largest island in the United States, located in the Hawaii, state of Hawaii, the southernmost state in the union. It is the southeasternmost of the Hawaiian Islands, a chain of volcani ...

during the season and was greeted by the Hawaiians reciting the ''Kumulipo''. Some stories say Cook was mistaken for Lono, because of the type of sails on his ship and his pale skintone. In 1889,

King Kalākaua King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a constitutional monarch if his power is restrained by f ...

printed a sixty-page pamphlet of the ''Kumulipo''. Attached to the pamphlet was a 2-page paper on how the chant was originally composed and recited. Years later Queen Liliuokalani described the chant as a prayer of the development of the universe and the ancestry of the

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

ans. Liliuokalani translated the chant under house arrest in Iolani Palace. The translation was published in 1897, then republished by Pueo Press in 1978. The ''Kumulipo'' is a total of 2,102 lines long, in honor of

, which means that it relates to the creation of the universe and the descent of humans and other entities. Out of the 2102 lines, it has 16 "wā" which means era or age. In each ''wā'', something is born whether it is a human, plant, or other creature.

Divisions

The ''Kumulipo'' is divided into sixteen ''wā'', sections. The first seven ''wā'' fall under the section of ''pō'' (darkness), the age of spirit. The Earth may or may not exist, but the events described do not take place in a physical universe. The words show the development of life as it goes through similar stages as a human child. All plants and animals of sea and land, earth and sky, male and female are created. Eventually, it leads to early mammals. These are the first twelve lines of the ''Kumulipo'', in Hawaiian, in Liliuokalani's English translation and in Bastian's German translation. Two other significant English translations - Rock's translation of Bastian and Beckwith's translation - appear in Beckwith's 1951 book ''The Kumulipo''. : The second section, containing the remaining nine wā, is ''ao'' and is signaled by the arrival of light and the gods, who watch over the changing of animals into the first humans. After that is the complex genealogy of Kalaninuiamamao that goes all the way to the late 18th century.

Births in each ''wā''

The births in each age include:Hawaiʻi: Center of the Pacific, Lilikalā Kameʻeleihiwa. ''Kumulipo''. # In the first ''wā'', the sea urchins and ''limu'' (seaweed) were born. The ''limu'' was connected through its name to the land ferns. Some of these ''limu'' and fern pairs include: ʻEkaha and ʻEkahakaha, Limu ʻAʻalaʻula and ʻalaʻalawainui mint, Limu Manauea and Kalo Maunauea upland taro, Limu Kala and ʻakala berry. These plants were born to protect their sea cousins. # In the second ''wā'', 73 types of fish. Some deep sea fish include ''Naiʻa'' (porpoise) and the ''Mano'' (shark). Also reef fish, including ''Moi'' and ''Weke''. Certain plants that have similar names are related to these fish and are born as protectors of the fish. # In the third ''wā'', 52 types of flying creatures, which include birds of the sea such as ʻIwa (frigate or man-of-war bird), the Lupe, and the Noio (Hawaiian noddy tern). These sea birds have land relatives, such as '' Io'' (hawk), '' Nene'' (goose), and ''

Pueo The pueo (''Asio flammeus sandwichensis'') is a subspecies of the short-eared owl and is endemic to Hawaii. The pueo is one of the more famous of the various physical forms assumed by '' aumākua'' (ancestor spirits) in Hawaiian culture. Taxono ...

'' (owl). In this wā, insects were also born, such as Peʻelua (caterpillar) and the Pulelehua (butterfly). # In the fourth ''wā'', the creepy and crawly creatures are born. These include ''Honu'' (sea turtle), ''Ula'' (lobster), ''Moʻo'' (lizards), and ''Pololia'' (jellyfish). Their cousins on land include ''Kuhonua'' ( maile vine) and ''ʻOheʻohe'' bamboo. # In the fifth ''wā'', ''Kalo'' (taro) is born. # In the sixth ''wā'', ''Uku'' (flea) and the ''ʻIole'' (rat) are born. # In the seventh ''wā'', ''ʻĪlio'' (dog) and the ''Peʻapeʻa'' (bat) are born. # In the eighth ''wā'', the four divinities are born: Laʻilaʻi (Female), Kiʻi (Male),

Kāne In Hawaiian mythology, Kāne is considered the highest of the three major Hawaiian deities, along with Kū and Lono. He represented the god of procreation and was worshipped as ancestor of chiefs and commoners. Kāne is the creator and giv ...

(God), Kanaloa (Octopus), respectively. # In the ninth ''wā'', Laʻilaʻi takes her eldest brother Kiʻi as a mate and the first humans are born from her brain. # In the tenth ''wā'', Laʻilaʻi takes her next brother Kāne as a mate after losing interest in Kiʻi, she then had four of Kāne's children: Laʻiʻoloʻolo, Kamahaʻina (Male), Kamamule (Male), Kamakalua (Female). Laʻilaʻi soon returned to Kiʻi and three children are born: Haʻi(F), Haliʻa(F), and Hākea(M). Having been born during their mothers being with two men they become "Poʻolua" and claim the lineage of both fathers. # The eleventh ''wā'' pays homage to the Moa. # The twelfth ''wā'' honors the lineage of

Wākea In the Hawaiian religion, Wākea, the Sky father weds Papahānaumoku, the earth mother. The two are considered the parent couple of the ruling chiefs of Hawaii. ''Wākea'' was the eldest son of Kahiko ("Ancient One"), who lived in Olalowa ...

, whose son

Hāloa Haloa () is a Hawaiian mythological figure who was born of Hawaiian gods, and is the ancestor of the Hawaiian people. The title of a well-known chant about him and the creation of the Hawaiian Islands is also "Haloa". Birth of the islands Papahā ...

is the ancestor of all people. # The thirteenth ''wā'' honors the lineage of Hāloa's mother Papahānaumoku. # In the fourteenth ''wā'' Liʻaikūhonua mates with Keakahulihonua, and have their child Laka. # The fifteenth ''wā'' refers to Haumeanuiʻāiwaiwa and her lineage, it also explains Māui's adventures and siblings. # The sixteenth ''wā'' recounts all of Māui's lineage for forty-four generations, all the way down to the ''Moʻi'' of Māui,

Piʻilani Piʻilani ("ascent to heaven") (born ca. 1460) ruled as Alii nui of Maui, Chief of the island of Maui in the later part of the 15th century. At the time Maui was an independent Monarchy, kingdom within the List of islands of Hawaii, islands of Haw ...

. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, anthropologists

Adolf Bastian Adolf Philipp Wilhelm Bastian (26 June 18262 February 1905) was a 19th-century polymath remembered best for his contributions to the development of ethnography and the development of anthropology as a discipline. His theory of the ''Elementargedan ...

and Roland Burrage Dixon interpreted a recurring verse of the Kumulipo as describing the octopus as the sole survivor of a previous age of existence. In her 1951 translation of the Kumulipo, ethnographer

Martha Warren Beckwith Martha Warren Beckwith (January 19, 1871 – January 28, 1959) was an American folklorist and ethnographer who was the first chair in folklore at any university or college in the U.S. Early life and education Beckwith was born in Wellesley Hei ...

provided a different translation of the verse, although she does discuss the possibility that "octopus" is the correct translation and describes the god Kanaloa.

Comparative literature

Comparisons may be made between marital partners (husband and wife often have synonymous names), between genealogical and flora-fauna names, and in other Polynesian genealogies.

Cultural impact

The

supermassive black hole A supermassive black hole (SMBH or sometimes SBH) is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions, of times the mass of the Sun (). Black holes are a class of astronomical ...

M87*, captured by the

Event Horizon Telescope The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a Astronomical interferometer, telescope array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes. The EHT project combines data from several very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) stations around Earth, wh ...

, was informally given the Hawaiian name "Pōwehi", a poetic description of generative darkness or the spirit world taken from the ''Kumulipo''. In 2009, the poet Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio performed her poem, Kumulipo, at a poetry event at the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

Notes

References

{{Reflist

External links

The Kumulipo
Another copy of "The Kumulipo" with commentary and translations by

.
The Kumulipo: a Hawaiian creation chant
Another online copy of the Beckwith book, Paperback edition 1981.

University of Hawaii Press A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Uni ...

Into the Source
Article about Kumulipo translations by Shannon Wianecki. ''

Maui No Ka 'Oi Magazine Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago, at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2). It is the 17th-largest in the United States. Maui is one of Maui County's five islands, along with Molokai, Lānai, K ...

'' Volume 12 Number 6 (November 2008). Hawaiian mythology Creation myths