Oceanic Mythology: Part I. Polynesia: Chapter I. Myths of Origins and the Deluge

A second version 19 is interesting in comparison with this. "Taaroa (whose origin is not described) embraced a rock, the imagined foundation of all things, which afterward brought forth the earth and sea. . . . 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., rocks and corals, and all the inhabitants of the ocean."

20

The cosmogonic ideas of the inhabitants of the Cook or Hervey Group are not clear. The form in which they are given is quite divergent from that in other islands, but the account 21 really gives no true cosmogony, for it describes only the origin

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

22 Here, however, this type appears itself to be strongly modified in some versions by still another class of myth, that, namely, in which Tangaroa plays the part of a real creator. 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. 23 In the very beginning, however, a striking variation occurs, in that although we have the source of all things from chaos, it is a chaos which is simply the wreck and ruin of an earlier world. "And so, creation begins in the origin of a new world from the shadowy reflex of one that is past. . . .

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. 25 As type follows type, the accumulating slime of their decay raises the land above the waters, in which, as spectator of all, swims the octopus, the lone survivor from an earlier world. 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

26 in which a triad of gods (not including Tangaroa, however) is said to have "existed from and before chaos." 27 The evolutionary myth, moreover, which has been outlined. above,

28 of the origin-myth begins with a genealogical series of rocks or cliffs, 29 from which at length arises the octopus, whose children are fire and water. 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. Another version, 30 in giving the genealogy of the Malietoa, or ruling chief, carries the ancestors back through a long series of pairs of deities or natural phenomena to "The High Rocks" and the "Earth Rocks," as follows:

31 recalls more strongly the Hawaiian type, since it presents a succession of forms of vegetable life following each other as offspring and parent, although the elaborateness and coherence of the Hawaiian evolution of life forms is far from being equalled. In the few fragments of the Tongan mythology which have been preserved 32 no trace of this evolutionary theme appears.

The Creative Type.--Turning to the second of the main themes shown in the origin-myths, namely, that characterized by belief in a more or less definite creation, notable differences in distribution are at once apparent. 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. For the fullest versions of this myth we must turn to Samoa, 33 on the western verge of the Polynesian area, where, it will be remembered, only fragments of the evolutionary theme still survive. 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. 34 She bore him a bird, which he sent down from the sky-world, casting into the sea a great rock to serve it for a home. 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

PLATE IV

Figure of Taria-nui, "Big Ears," a fishing god, venerate by fishermen and prayed to for success. Rarotonga, Cook Group. Peabody Museum, Cambridge Massachusetts.

35 The important feature is the belief in a pre-existing world of the gods above, whence something from which the world is ultimately to be made is cast down into the universal sea below; and a further element is the appearance of the bird, who is the messenger or offspring of the sky-deity. A similar version is (or was) current in Tonga. 36 Tama-pouli-alamafoa ("King of Heaven"), Tangaloa-eiki ("Celestial Chief "), Tangaloa-tufuga (" Celestial Artisan "), and Tangaloa-atu-logo-logo ("Celestial Messenger") dwelt in the heavens. 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." He did so and found the land already risen above the waters. 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. 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." Then the divine chief gave him a seed, ordering him to plant it, and when he had done so, the seed germinated and grew, and a great vine arose, spreading until it covered all the land.

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

37 "In the beginning there was only the god Ihoiho. 38 Afterward there was an expanse of waters that covered the abyss; and the god Timo-taata floated on the surface." Similarly, in the Marquesas we find it stated 39 that "In the beginning there was only the sea, on which Tiki, a deity existing from the first, floated in a canoe, and afterward fished up the land from the bottom of the ocean." These-suggest the Samoan versions, 40 according to which Tangaroa, in the beginning, flew far and wide over the boundless waters, seeking a place to rest. The theme is, perhaps, still more clearly recognizable in another version from the Society Group, 41 according to which Taaroa existed alone in the heavens, where he created his daughter with whom, on the foundation of a rock in the sea, he made the earth, the sky, and the sea. 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. 42 This latter episode seems to represent a different element almost throughout Polynesia and probably should not be regarded as belonging to this theme. 43

Still another origin-myth, which is particularly interesting because of its similarities, is that of the cosmic egg. A fragment of a myth from the Society Group 44 states, "In the beginning, Taaroa existed in an egg, in darkness, from which he later burst forth." In Hawaii another version appears, according to which a bird laid an egg upon the primeval waters, and this afterward burst of itself and produced the world. 45 A somewhat similar tale has been reported from New Zealand also, 46 according to which a great bird flew over the primeval sea and dropped into it an egg, which burst after floating for some time. 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

47 and while such a declaration is not so significant as the more detailed forms, yet it serves to indicate a distinctly different conception from what has been called the "evolutionary" theme.

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.

48 that the peculiar environment of the Polynesians had much to do with the development of their special type of cosmogony. 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.

49 Tane desired to make man, so he formed a model of earth. "The arms stood forth, and the head, and the feet, and the thighs, and the whole body; and all were fashioned to the design he had formed in his mind--made to resemble the body of man. 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." Tane next meditated how he could make a woman who should be a companion to Tiki-au-a-ha,

50 According to other versions, however, it was Tiki himself who, as a deity, made the first man of red clay or of clay mixed with his own blood. 51

In Hawaii we also find the myth of the direct creation of man. Here it was said 52 that the three great gods, Kane, Ku, and Lono, formed man of red earth and the spittle of the gods, shaping him in the likeness of Kane; and having made the image, they breathed into it, calling on it to rise, and it became alive. The ensuing episode of the creation of the first woman from one of the man's ribs is clearly the result of missionary contact. A similar tale is given from Tahiti, 53 where, however, Taaroa is the creative deity.

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: 54 "Some time after this Tane desired to have his mother Papa for his wife. But Papa said, 'Do not turn your inclination towards me, for evil will come to you. Go to your ancestor Mumuhango.' So Tane took Mumuhango to wife, who brought forth the totara-tree. Tane returned to his mother dissatisfied, and his mother said, 'Go to your ancestor Hine-tu-a-maunga (= the mountain maid).' So Tane took Hine-tu-a-maunga to wife, who conceived, but did not bring forth a child. 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.' So Tane went, and took that female for a wife, who brought forth stone. This greatly displeased Tane, who again went back to Papa. Then Papa said, 'Go to your ancestor Ngaore (= the tender one).' Tane took Ngaore to wife. And Ngaore gave birth to the toetoe (a species of rush-like grass). Tane returned to his mother in displeasure. She next advised

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. 55 Tane took a tree to wife, but his offspring were trees, not men. 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. 56 A similar tale is found in the Society Group, 57 according to Which Tii made a woman from the earth at Ati-auru and dwelt with her, thus becoming the parent of a daughter, from whom and Tii-maaraatai all men are descended. Some form of this

58 where again it is Tiki who thus creates a wife for himself from the sands of the shore.

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. 59 In the Cook Group, 60 three sons of Rongo are said to be the ancestors of all the peoples of Mangaia, though we are not told of the divine origin of their wives. The Marquesans 61 appear also to have had a similar belief, since mankind was derived from Tii-tapu (the son of Tii, who was a descendant of Atea and Atanua) and Hina-ua.

Legends of this sort were current in Hawaii as well. 62 In the long cosmogonic myth or chant already mentioned in speaking of the evolutionary type of creation-myths in Hawaii, mankind, like the greater gods themselves, is the direct offspring of the Bright Light and Pleasant Quiet, 63 for the female being of cosmic origin thus engendered is the parent both of gods and of Kii (= Tii = Tiki), the ancestor of all men by incestuous union with his mother. Another version 64 of what is apparently the same myth states that La'i-la'i, the first female being, was begotten of Po or Chaos. "The King who Opens the Heavens" (evidently a sky-deity), looking down, beheld her, and descending, took her to wife, and from these two all men are derived. 65

The most detailed form of the myth is, however, that from Tahiti. 66 Hina, the daughter-wife of Taaroa said to him, "'What shall be done, how shall man be obtained? Behold, classed or fixed are the gods of the po, or state of night, and there are no men.' Taaroa . . . answered, 'Go on the shore to the interior, to your brother.' Hina answered, 'I have been inland, and he is not.' Taaroa then said, 'Go to the sea, perhaps he is on the sea; or if on the land, he will be on the land.' . . . When the goddess had departed, Taaroa ruminated within himself as to the means by which man should be formed, and went to the

PLATE V

Carved end of a long staff, once wrapped in a great roll of tapa, or bark-cloth, and representing one of the great gods of Rarotonga, Cook Group. It is probable that the deity is Rongo and his three sons. Peabody Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

A comparison of these various myths of the origin of mankind shows the presence of no little confusion. Tiki or Tii is at once the first man, and the creator or progenitor of man; other myths do not speak of the first woman made by Tane as human, but as a deity, whose descendant, Hine-nui-a-te-po, becomes the guardian and goddess of the underworld; and many or most of the characters in the myths are nothing more than thinly disguised personifications of natural phenomena. All this obviously implies a confusion of the human and the divine--theories of actual creation, influenced by the deep-seated desire to trace ancestry back to a divine source.

A transition to the last type of myths explaining the origin of the human race is afforded, in some senses, by a legend from New Zealand which apparently ascribes an independent origin to man. According to this, 67 "an aquatic plant growing in swamps was the male procreating power which engendered the red clay seen in landslips, whence came the first man. This man was discovered by one of the gods before light had dawned on this world."

Inasmuch as the "man" thus discovered was the grandfather of him who separated heaven and earth, it is obvious that here again we have a confusion of terms, and that this man was not regarded as an ordinary human being in any sense, for his exploits are those of gods--exploits, indeed, expressly attributed to Tane and other deities in variant myths.

In the comparison of the legends of the origin of the world it has been seen that Samoa presented special features, and in its most generally received version of the provenance of man it shows a similar individuality and offers the best form of the last of the types of myths relating to human origins. According to the Samoan tale, after Tangaroa had created the world by casting down a rock from heaven and had sent earth and creeping plants to cover it and give it shade, these vines died or were killed, and from the worms which killed them or into which their rotting stalks were changed man either developed or was made. 69

"The earliest traditions of the Samoans describe a time when

It should be noted that, according to one of these versions, when man was first made or evolved from the worms, he was "formless," the meaning apparently being that he did not yet have human shape. Outside of Samoa this myth does not occur in just this form, but in Tonga we find a tale 70 describing the origin of man from worms scratched out of the sand by the sandpiper and left to rot in the sun. It was this bird which was the daughter of Taaroa in the Samoan myths, and which, in one version, brought to Taaroa the worms developed from the rotting vines that he might make them into man. Elsewhere in Polynesia we find little trace of this story, unless the fact that in the Society Group 71 the first men were said to have been originally like a ball, their legs and arms being afterward pulled out, may be taken as comparable to the Samoan idea of an originally formless being. 72 We shall see later that this conception of an amorphous being, afterward becoming human in shape, was also characteristic in parts of Indonesia and Australia.

Reference must be made to one other myth of the origin of mankind which, like the last, is confined to narrow limits,

73 which states that man originated miraculously from a clot of blood placed by two deities in a hollow tree. Elsewhere in Polynesia mankind is not ascribed to such a provenance, but in Samoa 74 it is given in several myths as the mode of origin of minor deities. It is, however, a wide-spread myth of the source of mankind or of individual human beings in various parts of Melanesia 75 and would thus seem to suggest an early Melanesian element in western Polynesia and the Chatham Islands. An origin-myth of a still different sort is that found in the little island of Nieue, which lies between Tonga and the Cook Group, according to which the first man was born from a tree; 76 and perhaps a trace of this same idea may be seen in the New Zealand myth 77 of Tane marrying a tree which gave birth to living beings and minor deities.

In discussing the legends relating to the origin of the world it has already been pointed out that analysis reveals complexity, and that comparison suggests relationship beyond the limits of Polynesia. It is equally clear that in the accounts given of the origin of man there is an equally complex series with similar suggestions of affiliation far afield. This diversity in type within the Polynesian area, and the wide ramification of similarities in the areas lying farther west, will, as we proceed, be found to be no less characteristic of almost all portions of Polynesian mythology.

In a previous section it has been shown how, among the Maori, an evolutionary or genealogical type of cosmogonic myth led up to the conception of a Sky Father and Earth Mother who were the parents of a great group of deities and even (in some versions) of man himself. We must follow this concept onward and trace the further experiences of the divine pair. According to the New Zealand belief, Rangi, the Sky Father, felt love for Papa-tu-a-nuku ("The Earth"), who lay beneath

78 And Rangi set plants and trees to cover the nakedness of Papa, for her body was bare, placing insects of all kinds appropriate to the various sorts of vegetation, and giving their stations to the shellfish and the crabs and various sorts of living things. Then Rangi clave unto Papa, the Earth Mother, and held her close in his embrace, and as he lay thus prone upon Papa, all his offspring of gods which were born to him, both great and small, 79 were prisoned beneath his mighty form and lived cramped and herded together in darkness. "Because Rangi-nui over-laid and completely covered Papa-tua-nuku, the growth of all things could not mature, nor could anything bear fruit; . . . they were in an unstable condition, floating about the Ao-pouri [the world of darkness], and this was their appearance: some were crawling, . . . some were upright with arms held up, . . . some lying on their sides, . . . some on their backs, some were stooping, some with their heads bent down, some with legs drawn up . . . . some kneeling. . . . some feeling about in the dark . . . . they were all within the embrace of Rangi and Papa." 80 So for a long time the gods dwelt in darkness, but at last the desire came to them to better their condition, and for this purpose they planned to lift Rangi on high. The version of this myth of the raising of the sky, given by Sir George Grey, 81 is one of the classics of Polynesian mythology, and deserves to be quoted almost in full.

"Darkness then rested upon the heaven and upon the earth, and they still both clave together, for they had not yet been rent apart; and the children they had begotten were ever thinking amongst themselves what might be the difference between darkness and light; they knew that beings had multiplied and increased, and yet light had never broken upon them,

"The brothers all consented to this proposal, with the exception of Tawhiri-ma-tea, the father of winds and storms, and he, fearing that his kingdom was about to be overthrown, grieved greatly at the thought of his parents being torn apart. Five of the brothers willingly consented to the separation of their parents, but one of them would not agree to it. . . .

Another Maori version 82 introduces several other elements. "Raki, though speared by Takaroa, still adhered to the top of Papa; and Raki said to Tane and his younger brothers, 'Come and kill me, that men may live.' Tane said, 'O old man! how shall we kill you?' Raki said, 'O young man! lift me up above, that I may stand separate; that your mother may lie apart from me, that light may grow on you all.' Then Tane said to Raki, 'O old man! Rehua shall carry you.' Raki answered Tane and his younger brothers, 'O young men! do not let me be carried by your elder brothers only, lest my eyes become dim. Rather all of you carry me above, that I may be elevated', that light May dawn on you.' Tane said to him, 'Yes, O old man! your plan is right--that light may grow into day.' Raki said to Tane, 'It is right, O Tane! that I be taken and killed (separated from my wife), that I may become a teacher to you and your younger brothers, and show you how to kill. If I die, then will light and day be in the World.' Tane was pleased with the reasons why his father wished them to kill him; and hence Tane said to another branch of the offspring of Raki . . . 'Tread on Papa, tread her down;