HENRY thinks that the Hawaiian Lono as "Great Lono dwelling in the waters" (Lono-nui-noho-i-ka-wai) is the Tahitian god Ro‘o, messenger of the gods and especially of Tane, who "sets himself in the cloud" and feeds upon it, is born and matured there, and travels on with it. 1 Lono in Hawaii is associated with cloud signs and the phenomena of storms. According to some old Hawaiians, the god "with head hidden in the dark clouds above" (po‘o huna i ke ao lewa) is primarily Lono. In the address of the priest to the returning Lono at the Makahiki he is associated with the clouds:THE GOD LONO
A long cloud, a short cloud,
A watchful cloud,
An overlooking cloud; in the heavens (it is),
From Uliuli, from Melemele,
From Polapola, from Ha‘eha‘e,
From Omao-ke-ulu-lu,
From the land that gave birth to Lono.
Behold Lono places the stars
That sail resplendent through the heavens.
High resplendent is the great image of Lono;
The stem of Lono links our dynasties with Kahiki, Has lifted them up,
Purified them in the ether of Lono. . . . 2
says the chant. The Lono order of priests in the days of Kamehameha set up heiaus to pray for rain, abundant crops, or escape from sickness and trouble. A prayer to Lono, recorded in the Fornander collection under Thrum, shows how, after the coming of Kane and Kanaloa and the establishment of the ancestral line through Kumuhonua and Lalohonua and its spread over the island through Wakea and Papa, from whom were born the chiefs, there came Lono also from the ancestral birth-place, to whom were offered the redfish, the black coconut, the whitefish, and the growing awa; to Kane and Kanaloa were made sacred the red fowl, the pig, and awa: "Ku, Kane, and Kanaloa are supreme in Kahiki." The coming of Lono is heralded by cloud signs in the heavens and finally:
The heaven that rumbles,
The disturbed sea,
Living together, fructifying the earth,
Observing the tapu of women,
Clouds bow down over the sea,
The earthquake sounds
Within the earth,
Tumbling down there
Below Malama. 3
Kea in the chant is the goddess Nuakea. Nuakea, descended from Maweke of Oahu, lived on earth as a prophetess and became the wife of Keolo-ewa, ruling chief of Molokai and son of Kamauaua. 4 Her name is coupled with Lono's in the ceremony for weaning a boy child, in which the symbolic gourd of Lono plays an important part. The common people remembered the fructifying powers of Lono in the shape of a symbolic food gourd, which, like the stone of Kane, was used for
My vine branch this; and this the fruit on my vine branch.
Thick set with fruit are the shooting branches, a plantation of gourds. . . .
How many seeds from this gourd, pray, have been planted in
this land cleared-by-fire? have been planted and flowered out in Hawaii?
Planted is this seed. It grows; it leafs; it flowers; lo! it fruits--this gourd-vine.
The gourd is placed in position; a shapely gourd it is. Plucked is the gourd; it is cut open.
The core within is cut up and emptied out.
The gourd is this great world; its cover the heavens of Kuakini.
Thrust it into the netting! Attach to it the rainbow for a handle! . . .
Lono as god of fertility was celebrated in the Makahiki festival held during the rainy season of the year, covering a
Before the Long-god was brought out, fires were lighted on the beach and the people bathed ceremonially in the sea and put on fresh garments. This bathing festival was called hi‘u-wai (water-splashing). 7 For five days thereafter the high priest was kept blindfolded and "merry-making, boastful demonstrations of prowess, and boxing were the occupations of the day." Offerings to the god were collected from each district. The Long-god was borne along the seacoast, the procession moving clockwise, with the land side to the right. A Little-god was in the meantime borne along through the uplands in the opposite direction, followed by the people, who gathered huge packs of edible fern as they went, and returned that same evening to the point of departure. It might take twenty days for the Long-god to make the circuit. At each chief's place the carriers were fed, the chief's wife hung a fresh tapa-cloth girdle about the god, and the chief clasped an ivory tooth ornament upon it. "Hail to Lono!" cried the people while the priest prayed to the god and pointed out the clouds from Tahiti which were the signs of his coming. Meanwhile
During the passage of the Long-god from district to district, offerings for the god were collected in the form of vegetable food, live animals, dried fish, bark-cloth garments, ornaments, and other valuable property. If the offering was considered too small, the god remained overnight until more could be gathered, and the land overseer was likely to be dispossessed. In Kamehameha's day a kind of game was made of such an event; the pole was let down, and the whole following were at liberty to raid the district and take what property they pleased, but if anyone took anything after the pole was set straight again, he was subject to the owner's retaliation. 9
The legend given by Henry Lyman of the way in which Lono came to institute the Makahiki games is as follows: Lono sends out two of his brothers as messengers to find him a wife on earth. They travel from island to island and finally in the Waipio valley on Hawaii beside the falls of Hi‘ilawe they find the beautiful Ka-iki-lani dwelling in a breadfruit grove
The story opens much like the version given by Ellis of the institution of the Arioi society by the god Oro, in the person of Oro-tetefa as Mühlmann thinks, whom he takes to be the earthly Oro and perhaps a historical person. 16 (a) Ellis and Mühlmann versions. Oro desires a wife of the daughters of Ta-ata, the first man. He sends his two brothers, Tu-fara-pai-nu‘u and Tu-fara-pai-ra‘i, to seek for such a wife. They visit island after island and finally at Moua-tahataha-rua (Red-ridged mountain) on Borabora they find the beautiful Vai-raumati. Oro makes of the rainbow a pathway to earth. He finds the girl bathing at Ovaiaia at Vai-tape on Borabora and makes her his wife. Hoa-tabu-i-to-rai is the child born to him. His younger brothers come in search of him, Oro-tetefa and Uru-tetefa. Finding the wife and having no suitable gift to present to her, one turns himself into a pig and a bunch of red feathers and the other makes the offering. To reward his brothers,
(b) Moerenhout version. Oro himself descends to earth on the island of Borabora and with his two sisters, the goddesses Teouri and Oaaoa, attends all the festivals where women are gathered. At Vaitapé he finds a girl of rare beauty bathing in the pool Ovaiaia, Vairaumati by name. The sisters approach her on his behalf and she consents to have an affair with him provided he is young, handsome, and a chief. Each night he descends on a rainbow to his bride. His brothers come to seek him and, finding him with the girl and having with them no presents to offer, one takes the body of a pig, the other of a bunch of red feathers and, retaining also their human bodies, they present their gifts. That night the pig bears seven little ones which are dedicated to the Arioi, which a man named Mahi now initiates at Oro's request. Oro quits Vairaumati in a column of flame after bidding her name the child Oa-tabou-te-ra‘i (Sacred friend of the gods). This child becomes a great chief and rules well. At his death he ascends to the heavens where his father and mother dwell. 18 The likeness between this late Hawaiian Lono story and that collected early in Tahiti as the origin of the Arioi society under the patronage of Oro does not argue for an original identity of Lono with the Tahitian god Oro, whose worship at the great temple at Raiatea probably arose later than the migration period to Hawaii. The theme of the descent of a god from heaven to a beautiful woman of earth is a stock theme in Polynesian mythology and recurs repeatedly in Hawaiian chant and story. Further investigation is needed to prove that it originally belonged to the Lono myth, tempting as is the hypothesis. Its application to the figure of this new god--who is said to have been introduced late from Maui into the orders of priesthood and who was worshiped without human sacrifice as a god of peace and of fructification of the earth, in contrast to the severe Ku ritual directed toward
Rono [Lono], Etooah [akua or god] of Hawaii, in ancient times, resided with his wife at Karakakooa [Kealakekua or Path of the gods]. The name of the goddess, his love, was Kaikirani-Aree-Opuna [Kaikilani-ali‘i-o-Puna]. They dwelt beneath the steep rock. A man ascended to the summit, and from the height thus addressed the spouse of Rono: "O Kaikiranee-Aree-Opuna, your lover salutes you: keep this, remove that: one will still remain." Rono, overhearing this artful speech, killed his wife with a hasty stroke. Sorry for this rash deed, he carried to a morai the lifeless body of his wife, and made great wail over it. He traveled through Hawaii in a state of frenzy, boxing with every man he met. The people astonished said, "Is Rono entirely mad?" He replied, "I am frantic on her account, I am frantic with my great love."
Ere he departed he prophesied, "I will return in after times, on an island bearing coconut trees, and swine, and dogs." A second question of relation with the Oro figure in Tahiti arises in connection with the Arioi society, of which Oro was the patron god. 20 The dramatic dances whose performance was an important part of the program of this society correspond to the schools of dancing in Hawaii organized under expert leaders and dedicated to gods of the hula, whose elaborate performances on the island of Hawaii were witnessed by Vancouver in the latter part of the eighteenth century. That these were connected with the Makahiki festival and hence must have been on this island under the patronage of the god Lono is proved by the fact that Kamehameha and his queen were obliged at this time to withdraw before the dance "as they are prohibited by law from attending such amusements, except on the festival of the new year [that is, the Makahiki festival]" and that the performance itself on that day "was contrary to the established rules of the island" and only permitted out of compliment to the foreign visitors. 21 The hula dance in Hawaii is developed in connection with the Pele deities, and these deities are invoked together with Lono in the prayers offered to Kane in the heiau. Laka is the male god named as patron of the hula dance. He is represented in the ohia lehua tree, whose red blossoms were used for decoration of the altar in the religious ceremonies of the dance. Emerson identifies Lono with Laka, and there is some ground for the association in the fact that in the Ku ritual Lono is invoked with Ku in prayers connected with the setting up of the Ku image cut from an ohia lehua tree of the forest. Lono-makua, the name given to the Long-god of the Makahiki festival, is also the name of Pele's fire keeper as
31:1 369-371. 31:2 Malo, 191-192, translation by N. B. Emerson. 32:3 For. Col. 6: 505-506. 32:4 For. Pol. Race 2: 31-32. 33:5 Kamakau, Kuokoa, August 24, 1867; HAA 1910, 56-57; 1911, 156. 33:6 Malo, 120-127. 34:7 Malo, 190, 202; Kepelino, 96, 193; Pogue, 19. 35:8 Malo, 186-210; Pogue, 18-19; Kamakau, Ke Au Okoa, February 17, 1870; For. Col. 6: 34-44. 35:9 Kamakau, Kuokoa, July 6, 1867. 36:10 Henry, 177. 36:11 Handy, Bul. 9: 218. 36:12 Thomson, 114. 36:13 Collocott, Bul. 46: 53. 36:14 Fox, 80-81. 37:15 Thrum, Tales, 108-116; see Handy, Bul. 34: 112. 37:16 Tour, 75. 38:17 Ellis, Researches 1: 231-234; Mühlmann, 37-40. 38:18 Moerenhout 1: 484-489. 39:19 Byron, 20-21. 40:20 Mühlmann; Ellis, Researches 1: 229-247; Henry, 230-246; Moerenhout 1: 484-489; Handy, Bul. 79: 61-65; 9: 39-42; N. Emerson, Songs of the Hula. 40:21 Vancouver, 5: 63-75.LEGEND OF THE MAKAHIKI
LEGEND OF ORO
SONG OF LONO
