Polynesian Mythology
Polynesia (meaning "many islands" in Greek) is a triangular grouping of Central
and South Pacific Ocean island archipelagos settled by seafaring voyagers from
the original heartland in Tonga and Samoa. Prior to the 15th century AD,
Polynesian people fanned out to the east, to the Cook Islands, and from there to
other groups such as Tahiti and the Marquesas. Their descendants later
discovered the islands of New Zealand, the islands of Hawai‘i and everything
from Tahiti to Rapa Nui. The various Polynesian languages are all part of the
Austronesian language family. Many are close enough in terms of vocabulary and
grammar to permit communication between some other language speakers. There are
also substantial cultural similarities between the various groups, especially in
terms of social formation, childrearing, as well as horticulture, building and
textile technologies; their mythologies in particular demonstrate local
reworkings of commonly shared tales.
Thus, in some island groups, Tangaroa is of great importance as the god of the
sea and of fishing. There is often a story of the marriage between Sky and
Earth; the New Zealand version, Rangi and Papa, is a union that gives birth to
the world and all things in it. There are stories of islands pulled up from the
bottom of the sea by a magic fishhook, or thrown down as rocks from heaven.
There are stories of voyages, migrations, seductions and battles, as one might
expect. Stories about a trickster, Māui, are widely known, as are those about a
beautiful goddess/ancestress Hina or Sina who shakes her barkcloth to make
lightning, provides fish and sharks to fishermen, brings weaving techniques and
sails her boat to the moon.
In addition to these shared themes in the oral tradition, each island group has
its own stories of demi-gods and culture heroes, shading gradually into the
firmer outlines of remembered history. Often such stories were linked to various
geographic or ecological features, which may be described as the petrified
remains of the supernatural beings.
From oral to written
The various Polynesian cultures share a certain number of oral traditions, that
is, legends or myths traditonally considered to recount the history of ancient
times (the time of "pō") and the adventures of gods (“atua”) and deified
ancestors. The accounts are characterised by extensive use of allegory,
metaphor, parabola, hyperbole, and personification. Thus, a fish, for example,
may at times symbolize an island; to catch a fish may refer to the discovery of
an island. Orality has an essential flexibility that writing does not allow. In
an oral tradition, there is no fixed version of a given tale. The story is free
to change according to the setting, and the needs of the narrator and the
audience. Contrary to the Western concept of history, where the knowledge of the
past serves to bring a better understanding of the present, the purpose of oral
literature is rather to justify and legitimatise the present situation.
An example is provided by genealogies, which exist in multiple and often
contradictory versions. The purpose of genealogies in oral societies generally
is not to provide a 'true' account, but rather to emphasise the seniority of the
ruling chiefly line, and hence its political legitimacy and right to exploit
resources of land and the like. If another the ruling line should rise to
ascendency, it was necessary to bestow upon the new line the most prestigious
line, even if this meant borrowing a few ancestors from the preceding dynasty.
Thus each island, each tribe or each clan will have their own version or
interpretation of a given narrative cycle.
This process is disrupted when writing becomes the primary means to record and
remember the traditions. When missionaries, officials, anthropologists or
ethnologists collected and published these accounts, they inevitably changed
their nature. By fixing forever on paper what had previously been subject to
almost infinite variation, they fixed as the authoritative version an account
told by one narrator at a given moment. In New Zealand, the writings of one
chief, Wiremu Te Rangikāheke, formed the basis of much of Governor George Grey's
Polynesian Mythology, a book which to this day provides the de facto official
versions of many of the best-known Māori legends.
Some Polynesians seem to have been aware of the danger and the potential of this
new means of expression. Thus as of the mid-19th century, a number of them wrote
down their genealogy, the history and the origin of their tribe. These writings,
known under the name of "pukapuka whakapapa" (genealogy books, Māori) or in
tropical Polynesia as "puta tumu" (origin stories) or "puta tūpuna” (ancestral
stories) were jealously guarded by the heads of households. Many disappeared or
were destroyed. Thus in the 1890s, Makea Takau, a Rarotongan chief, ordered his
tribe to burn all their family books, save his own. As a result, Makea Takau's
version became the official history of the chiefly line, removing the
possibility of dissent. At his request, extracts were published in the Journal
of the Polynesian Society.