Tag Archives: hawaii

The fight of the goddesses and creation of Hawaii: Pele and Hi’iaka

The informant, T, is 19 years old. He was born and raised on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. His parents were also born and raised on Oahu. His grandparents on his mom’s side came from Japan and from his dad’s side were raised on Oahu. He is majoring as an Industrial and Systems Engineer. He considers himself American and is full Japanese.

T- “I did a hula performance a couple years ago and it was based on the story of Pele who is the goddess of volcanoes and her sister Hi’iaka, the goddess of the ocean, and they’re fighting because I think Hi’iaka had a boyfriend, and Pele took him away from her and Hi’iaka got pissed at her. So she chased her around and that is how the islands were formed. Pele would make an island because she is the island of volcanoes and her sister would go there and then Pele had to leave and she had to make a new island and yea”

How did you hear this story for the first time?

T-“My hula teacher or hula kumu”

Is that a common story that everyone knows or is it just a hula thing?

T-“Pretty much just hula people or people who are immensely into Hawaiian culture. Not a lot of people know that story”

Analysis- While this myth is known as an explanation to something as big as the creation of the islands, it is odd that only a small group of people really know the tale and actually tell it. This could be due to the fact that the traditional Hawaiian dance is meant to tell stories of the past as well as to be a way for the people to connect and give something to the Hawaiian gods. In the islands, one can see the constant change of the islands as they are formed by volcanoes and how the lava pours into the ocean to create steam and land. This constant and real fight of the land and the ocean is depicted as the two goddesses fighting.

Origins of the Hawaiian Kalo Plant

The informant is an 18-year-old college student attending university in Hawaii. She was born and raised in the Bay Area, California, but has a great deal of family living in Hawaii who she visited frequently when growing up.

While I was on a hike with the informant in San Ramon, California over spring break, I asked her if there were any Hawaiian myths or legends regarding the islands themselves, and she explained to me the history of the taro plant.

“Father Sky and Mother Earth were brother and sister, and they had, kind of like an incestuous relationship, and their first child was a stillborn and they buried it in the ground. That’s what taro plant is, in Hawaii it’s called kalo, and they use it to make a dish called poi. It’s really important to Hawaiians because each taro plant is like the first stillborn, and it’s kinda cool because a taro plant is a stem and a big leaf and there’s a little circle part in the middle that is supposed to be the bellybutton”

The taro plant, called kalo in Hawaii, is a staple in Hawaiian cuisine. This mythology incorporating the taro plant with the origin of the Earth itself shows how much importance Hawaiians place on the land. The land is often still viewed as being Mother Earth, and it is of the utmost importance that Hawaiians are respectful to their ancestors. So, it follows that Hawaiians must be extremely respectful to Mother Earth herself, their land, and this myth encourages every resident of the newly declared state to do their part to take care of their home and warns against wastefulness. This explains why so many native Hawaiians find it necessary to be rude to tourists and foreigners who carelessly destroy their sacred home. The informant said that anyone from Hawaii knows of the origin story describing kalo, and so I asked if there are any specific rituals or techniques that are employed when harvesting the plant. She said that she was not entirely sure, but she does know that you are supposed to pick the root a certain way so as to not hurt the stillborn child. Through this belief, the idea that it is important to not harm the land and to respect it is emphasized once more.

Night Marchers

Night marchers are a legend in Hawaii … um about … so traditionally when Hawaiian royalty had to travel long distances, they would do it at night for their safety and the night marchers were their security that walks with them, and as tradition goes you’re not supposed to look at night marchers, so like, it was also at night so that people weren’t out in the open when they would travel. So people could not see them and if they did, they would die or something, but now… so now there’s a legend that the night marchers still will sometimes be seen in the most sacred areas of the island and they’re really scary. They’re pretty feared by people… you don’t want to get near them. I camped in Olowalu, a spot on Maui, and it’s a super sacred spot… it has a lot of ceremonial sites, and they told us to watch out for the night marchers, so we were really scared that night but we didn’t see anyone.

 

One man was camping one time at another sacred spot on Maui, and he saw a line of torches of lights on the mountain above him, and he thought it was pig hunters maybe, but he realized they were all carrying these torches… but no one carries torches, so he realized they were night marchers. And they didn’t come down to the beach, so he didn’t see them face to face or up close, but he was really spooked. He never went back there or camped there again. Maybe it was the spirits of the night marchers. They, apparently, don’t look like ghosts and they’re supposed to look like real people.

 

Background: I had heard a version of this story earlier when my friend was telling me a little about this, but to hear an in depth version was very interesting for me. I conducted this interview live, so this story was given to me live. What was very interesting for me was to hear how even though these people served as seemingly benevolent people to protect Hawaiian royalty, people were still very afraid of them and could not even look at them or they could expect death. Perhaps this is a continuation of a belief that if people even dared to approach the night marchers and harm the royalty, they would be killed instantly. I thought this was a very interesting piece of Hawaiian folklore that I had not really understood or even heard of before I met my friend and then subsequently had this in depth description of them.

Lepers of Molokai

Another place was Kalaupapa which is where the lepers… it was a leprosy colony on Molokai. I stayed there for a week and there’s like a certain area we were driving through, and there was a big field next to the road and about 2000 bodies buried in the field. We all just got… the most eerie feeling came over us in the car … so clear there was a presence…I think there is a lot of…they would say that those were souls that were never able to be put to rest because they were forced to go to this peninsula and they were trapped there… they were not there by choice, these people suffering from leprosy didn’t want to be there. They’re definitely still lingering on the peninsula.

 

Background: I conducted this interview live, so this story was given to me in person. My friend remembers this story because it happened to her, and there was such a tangible feeling and it was such a visceral experience that she really remembers it very well and it has stuck with her. I had heard about the lepers of Molokai, but I had not known they were trapped on a certain peninsula and forced to stay there; I had originally thought the leper colony was just trapped all over the entire island. That is also scary to me that there are 2000 bodies just buried in the field without the ability to have been put to rest, so I believe that there are probably very strong presences there who reach out to the living in order to try and escape, which is sad. This story is very scary for me to hear.

Moki Hana – the Haunted Dormitory

The informant is an 18-year-old college student attending university in Hawaii. She was born and raised in the Bay Area, California, but has a great deal of family living in Hawaii who she visited frequently when growing up. While I was on a hike with the informant in San Ramon, California over spring break, she was describing her dorm to me and began to tell the story of how it came to be haunted.

“I live in a dorm called Moki Hana on campus. I first heard of the ghost from my RA, he told us about it on the first day we moved in. There’s a closet on my floor on the side of the bathroom with a sink in it that is used as a janitor’s closet. In the 80s a freshman hung himself in that closet, on my floor, and his ghost haunts the tower. The Resident Assistants have to stay in the dorms over the summer and one night one of them felt a really sharp pain on her chest and couldn’t get up, and she refused to sleep in the dorms for a few weeks. You’re not supposed to sleep with your feet to the door because it’s a way for spirits to enter your body. Also nobody will go to the bathroom during witching hour because they don’t want to encounter him. I just try to be respectful when I’m talking about it, especially if I’m in the dorms. Anywhere on campus or in the local vicinity they call the dorm ‘Moki Haunted.’”

In this ghost story, a tragic event that actually took place in the Moki Hana dormitory, the suicide of a freshman student, is transformed into a persistent haunting that affects any student who lives in the dorms. Upon hearing of this, I was reminded of previous conversations that I have had with the informant in which she has emphasized that Hawaii has an extensive history of spirituality, and I believe that this coupled to the sense of isolation and unfamiliarity that many college freshman face when moving to an island away from home serves to amplify the fear instilled within the students who are placed in Moki Hana dorm. The informant’s Resident Adviser may or may not believe in the ghost, but I think that his purpose in informing the freshman who live in the haunted dorm about it is in part to make them aware, but moreso to provide a sense of unity among the residents and as a way of initiating them into the dorm, as for the year they live in Moki Hana the common fear of encountering or upsetting the ghost of the student who committed suicide there will function to bring the residents together.