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I love Hawaiian mythology and I'm so excited to share some of it with you!

That may sound a bit too enthusiastic. But it's true :)

Before the Europeans came and destroyed/commercialized remnants of their culture, Hawaiians were very civilized, sophisticated people. They were skilled engineers, accomplished fishermen and harvesters, great military leaders and chiefs, and even had gender equality and freedom of sexual orientation, which was reflected in their complex pantheon of Gods and myths. In Hawaiian culture, the stories of old about their gods and people were considered real. Myth and history was one and the same, the two interacting and mixing with each other, the blending of fact and fiction. These orations, as they had no written language, and thus much is lost, were only told in the day- they had no place in the dark and evil of night, and were treated with much respect.

What made authors like Rick Riordan so successful (because I'm a die-hard PJO fan) was that he was able to breathe new, albeit irreverent life, into tales worn out by time and truism. Hawaiian mythology, by contrast, is very much alive, in the hearts and minds of its people. After all, it is their history. People still honor the gods at heiaus, shrines, and the bumpers of their cars, don't bring pork when going through the Pali Highway from the windward to leeward side of the island in genuine superstition of invoking the goddess of volcanoes' wrath. (It's representative of her ex, a real pig, and they had an oath that they weren't to get in each other's spaces.) Their mythology even has an impact on our world today. (Maui smiles and says, you're welcome.)

I'm just a haole, but I'm captivated by what remains preserved of their myths and legends. I hope you like these too:

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Hawaiian's creation myth is similar to the Greek's, oddly (I would suspect this is due to Western influences, yet sources seem to show its ancient). In the beginning, there was I'o, which could create all things. It started by creating Mana, which is essentially like the Force, and could grow or shrink in a person due to their actions. Io sent Mana across Po, the darkness, and Kane, the creator and purple king of the gods, aspects of which also being the god of forests, sky, thunder, and taro roots (their version of the potato), was created. (Another thing about Hawaiian mythology is that gods, in addition their many aspects, manifest perhaps first as a primordial, mother force, then become a new deity as the spouse to a deity, and then as the daughter of the same deity.) Through this confusing process all the other first generation gods were made, and others emigrated to Hawaii from other islands, like Tahiti, just like its people did. (On that note, Hawaiian mythology has a crazy amount of parallels to the Maori's of New Zealand, who, in their mythology, were said to come from an island, far, far away...) Like the Olympians, there are four great gods, followed by a ton of smaller deities: Kane, the creator, king of the gods and of the sky and forest, Kanaloa, his alter ego (in a positive way) the chief god of the ocean, Ku, the god of war and incarnation of masculinity, and Lono, the god of peace, learning, mana, winter break, rain, and also fertility. The other gods weren't as important, except for Pele, because... she made herself important, as you shall see... The sky, Wakea, and mother earth, Papa, created the islands, on which plants flourished, and animals and man, who was (also) shaped out of clay in his creator, Kane, 's image.

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This is the Hawaiian version, of sorts, of the Odyssey with a little bit of the Iliad thrown in, in which the heroine, Hi'iaka is sent on a giant quest by her older sister, the fearsome goddess of fire and volcanoes, Pele, to retrieve... a boy. According to the story, Pele had fallen asleep, and as in Hawaiian mythology your soul travels when you sleep, and in Pele's dreams, she visited a cute young chief, Lohiau, playing the drums at a festival, and liked watching him so much that she stayed asleep. For nine days. So then Hi'iaka, being the responsible younger sister, wakes her up, but Pele's pining for him was incessant. So Hi'iaka, the goddess of chant, sorcery, medicine and (one of the many goddesses of) hula (because why not), is sent on the errand of retrieving him. Pele gives her guidelines- she must return within 40 days (he lives on a far off other Hawaiian Island, and this is apparently suitable for a goddess), and whatever she did, she was NOT allowed to fall in love with him or embrace him. Hi'iaka agreed, but made her sister promise in turn not to destroy her grove of lehua trees, which she liked to dance in, or harm her hula instructor/lover, Hopoe. With these terms in place, Pele gives Hi'iaka three gifts- superstrength, a Critical Eye, which gave her godly wisdom about everything she encountered, and... for a weapon. *drumroll*.. a magical hula skirt possessing the power of lightning to obliterate her enemies. (This is an important feminist point, as femininity, represented as a skirt, is seen as powerful. Just saying.) She's accompanied by a family maid and soon by another girl demigod, and together, they encounter all sorts of obstacles, Amazonian-type shape shifting dragon women, chiefs of varying ambivalence, and evil kupua, which basically means any sort of thing that's magic and usually shape shifts too, including demigods. So Hi'iaka battles her way across the islands, doing random really nice things for the islanders, solving unsolvable riddles, and slaying monsters, and FINALLY gets to the chief.  And... guess what? He's dead from longing for Pele so much. But that's okay, because, as Hi'iaka has a flourish for demonstrating, she can bring people back to life. So with some only moderate anoxic brain injury he makes his way back with Hi'iaka across the islands. And all is well. Except, when they get there, it turns out to have been the 41st day, and Pele, being the super paranoid and jealous goddess she is, decides Hi'iaka must have cheated on her boy and thus retaliates by throwing lava streams at Hi'iaka's beloved grove and turned Hopoe into stone. All this beaming Hi'iaka steps into, and when she sees that her sister just destroyed all that she cared about when she had done this entire journey and everything Pele had asked, she's furious, and, out of spite, turns around, throws her arms around Lohiau. Pele becomes even more furious at this blatant act of betrayal in front of her face and then throws a fireball at them, killing Lohiau instantly. After literally everything. But then both sisters feel upset about it, and they resurrect the poor, singed, and bewildered mortal again. Pele, in a rare act of kind submissiveness, agreed to allow him to choose between the two. Him: Um, hard decision... So he picks Hi'iaka, they're happy, and Pele is all put out about it. And like they say, all's well that ends well...

(This is one of my favorite mythological stories because A.) It's so feminist, and we need ancient representation! B.) Shape shifting warrior dragon women, C.) Shape shifting warrior dragon women. D.) It's so dramatic. The poor guy literally dies twice by the girl who wanted him's hand.

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Half of the myths, it seems, in Hawaiian mythology, revolve around Pele's jealousy, (usually over a boy), and ensuing chaos. Here is another such tale.
Pele and the Hi'iaka (there's the Hi'iaka, all technically fire gods, and then Hi'iaka, which is the youngest of the family and couldn't be bothered with a proper first name even though she's cool) have this rivalry, naturally, with the snow goddesses, (even though one is the goddess of "fine rain," which doesn't seem magical until you actually experience it). The most powerful and beautiful of these is Poliahu. Poliahu's actually pretty nice and even-tempered for most goddesses, lives on Maunakea, if counting the seafloor, the highest mountain in the world, but Pele, who lived with her family on the opposing volcano Kilauea, still managed to get under her skin.

Holua racing is a very dangerous Hawaiian sport that's basically like luging headfirst down a rocky slope on a very, very narrow sledge, reaching speeds faster than 50 miles an hour. Poliahu and Pele were both very passionate and competitive in this sport, and so when Pele, disguised as a beautiful woman, came to compete with the other Islanders against Poliahu, who was a champion, she was welcomed and the two agreed to race to three, and Poliahu won the first. Pele is a pretty sore loser and got all huffy, so Poliahu graciously offered to swap sledges, which they did. When they went again, Poliahu in the in the lead yet again, suddenly Pele, in her frustration, sent giant streams of lava towards her so she could win. This of course blew her disguise, and Poliahu, dodging the lava streams, cooled and hardened them with her snow/ice powers. Pele sent lava down Poliahu's snowy mountain top of Maunakea, and Poliahu rushed to defend her home. There was a huge battle, and Poliahu drove Pele out of Maunakea and the northern half of the island of Hawaii, while Pele simmered on Kilauea and continued to expand the southern part of the island with her eruptions. This story explained why the volcanoes were snowy and dormant on the north side of the island, and the eruptions on the southern part.

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The Nightmarchers, or, in Hawaiian, Huaka'i po, meaning "Spirit Ranks" are legendary deadly ghostly figures from Hawaiian mythology and folklore. They are said to be the dead ancestors/warriors of Hawaiians, escorting a past chief or chieftess, and appear on special holidays, or to take the dying away. They are said to float above the ground in a massive horde, often making a racket with drums and conch shells, alerting any mortal to get out of their way, along with their smell of death (although their arrangement and actions depend on the whims of the chief in question. Gods also often accompany Nightmarchers on special days, especially Hi'iaka.) They are dangerous, and any showing defiance by looking up at them are to be killed (namely by being vaporized by lasers shooting out of several of the Nightmarcher's eyes. I'm serious, that's essentially what the ancient texts [aka reliability of Wikipedia] says). There are various ways to try and divert this violent end, such as running to shelter in a house and lying on the floor, showing deference and fear towards them and their power. However, Nightmarchers can (and will) walk through houses with a front and back door in a straight line, so people can plant ti shrubs around their house to ward them and other malevolent spirits away. They're still taken very seriously- there are ghost tours at deadly battle grounds, where the warriors died, all the time, and people come away very shaken and genuinely convinced. If no houses are available, a person might be spared if a Nightmarcher recognizes them as their decendant and shouts, "Na'u!" meaning "mine." By claiming them as their own, they will be spared by the procession.

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The hardest thing about this project was picking just one mythology and then the stories from that mythology. I decided on Hawaiian just because there's so many great stories about the gods, heroes, and creatures (and I felt like I had to include the kind of boring creation myth here just to give a background to it all). Of course I still went completely overboard anyway (sorry), but still, I love these stories and their freshness. Also, good thing this is technically written down, because seeing that it's nearly midnight, I'm totally disrespecting the gods. So. Pele. Please don't throw a fireball at me.