THE Prologue for the first section, if read literally, seems to picture the rising of land out of the fathomless depths of ocean. Along its shores the lower forms of life begin to gather, and these are arranged as births from parent to child. Poepoe calls this a device "used by the composer of the chant in order to get a source of reproduction as we see it in life," that is, he does not expect the poet to be taken literally. He writes:
Kumulipo was the husband, Po'ele the wife. To them was born Pouliuli. This was the beginning of the earth. The coral was the first stone in the foundation of the earth mentioned in the chant. It was the insect that made the coral and all things in the sea. This was the beginning of the period called the first interval of time. During this time grew the coral, the shellfish (such as the sea cucumber, the small sea urchin, the flat sea urchin, tiny mussels, the oysterlike mussels, the mussels of the sea, the clam, the barnacle, the dark sea snail, the cowry, and so forth). In this interval of time grew the moss and the little plants on land. It was still dark. The water was made to be a nest that gave birth and bore all things in the womb of the deep.
Poepoe knows that the coral polyp builds up the coral and that the shellfish makes its own shell--"it was an insect that made the coral and all things," says Poepoe, But was this known to the poet? The selection of hard-coated creatures as the first forms of life on earth harmonizes with the idea of reproductive power inherent in a stone into which a god enters, an idea fundamental to Polynesian thought about the structure of the world. According to a Tahitian chant of
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creation, the building-up of land during the "chaotic period" is due to "affinity" between rocks of opposite character that "meet and unite."' Pairs of rocks suggesting in shape male and female sex organs were worshipped as ancestral gods in old Hawaii, and fertility fish gods in the shape of stones occur in pairs in old fishponds. Even today the popular belief lingers. "Where else did all the stones come from?" asked a child from a well-educated family; and he brought me a box of so-called "breeding stones," which he assured me would produce young. But his elders must have interfered; the box disappeared before the test was completed.[2]
Following a series of stanzas pairing land and sea forms comes a ten-line epilogue, carrying on the idea of a world in its first stages of fecundity, stimulated to growth by the generative powers at work during this embryo period of its history. Soft-bodied shellfish have emerged out of the hard bed of ocean; along the just-risen shore line, sea plants float in the wash of the waves; delicate land growths stand rooted in the soil, their slender bodies swaying with the currents of air. The birth of the climbing pandanus vine, worshiped as a god of forest growth because of its spike of red at the fruiting point, symbol of fertility, leads directly to the advent of "the man with the water gourd," who is "Kane of the generative water," Kane-i-ka-wai-ola, represented, says Kupihea, in gushing spring water.
"The man with the water gourd, that is a god," begins the passage, and there follows the softening-up of earth and the increase of plant growth. The withering vine (kalina) is revivified (ho'oulu). Propagation (ka huli) causes growth (ho'oka[u]wowo). Rootlets (paia['a]) carry water to bathe and soften the developing tuber. Earth is pregnant (piha) with growth. Earth props up the sky, or, as Kupihea would read the symbol, commoners (honua) serve as staff (ko'o)
[1. Henry, p. 340.
2. Beckwith, Hawaiian Mythology, pp. 88-90.]
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to support (pa'a) the chiefs (lani). May not the familiar Polynesian myth of the sky pushed apart from earth to let in the light of day, often forced upward upon the leaves of a growing plant, refer similarly in a figure to the rise of the chief class in distinction from that of the commoners? The whole passage, thinks Kupihea, here refers, not to the spread of vegetation but to the multiplication of a people through the procreative function symbolized in the "man with the water gourd," Kane-i-ka-wai-ola.
The concluding line, "O lewa ke an, ia Kumulipo ka po," with the reiterated "Po--no" ("Still it is night"), serves to balance the preceding "O he'e an loloa ka po," where the word he'e, I think, refers rather to the waving, twisting motion of sea growths, "sliding" (he'e) about through the water and of land plants swaying in the currents of air than to the squid in particular or to sliding sports, both of which derived ideas have obsessed translators of this passage. The word au, carried over in the first instance from the auau of the line before, may refer to a period of "time" in this unfolding world of the po, perhaps to its "length" (loloa) in the first instance, to Kumulipo as its generative agent in the second. At least, any translation I have seen of this passage has been so incredibly hopeless that an attempt to do justice to the poet's conception will not, I trust, be taken as an indignity to native genius.
Pokini Robinson sees, I think quite justly, in this image of an infant world with creatures floating in the wash of the waves or swayed by currents of air a symbol of the uncertain movements of the young child whose development she considers to be the subject of the whole chant. The rootlets (paia['a]) bathing the manawa she would refer to the veins carrying nourishment to the child through the fontanel (manawa) from which the unborn child is supposed to receive food from the parent and may still draw nourishment after birth if the mother's milk fails.
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1. At the time when the earth became hot
At the time when the heavens turned about
At the time when the sun was darkened
To cause the moon to shine
5. The time of the rise of the Pleiades
The slime, this was the source of the earth
The source of the darkness that made darkness
The source of the night that made night
The intense darkness, the deep darkness
10. Darkness of the sun, darkness of the night
Nothing but night.
The night gave birth
Born was Kumulipo in the night, a male
Born was Po'ele in the night, a female
15. Born was the coral polyp, born was the coral, came forth
Born was the grub that digs and heaps up the earth, came forth
Born was his [child] an earthworm, came forth
Born was the starfish, his child the small starfish came forth
Born was the sea cucumber, his child the small sea cucumber came forth
20. Born was the sea urchin, the sea urchin [tribe]
Born was the short-spiked sea urchin, came forth
Born was the smooth sea urchin, his child the long-spiked came forth
Born was the ring-shaped sea urchin, his child the thin-spiked came forth
Born was the barnacle, his child the pearl oyster came forth
25. Born was the mother-of-pearl, his child the oyster came forth
Born was the mussel, his child the hermit crab came forth
Born was the big limpet, his child the small limpet came forth
Born was the cowry, his child the small cowry came forth
Born was the naka shellfish, the rock oyster his child came forth
30. Born was the drupa shellfish, his child the bitter white shell fish came forth
Born was the conch shell, his child the small conch shell came forth
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Born was the nerita shellfish, the sand-burrowing shellfish his child came forth
Born was the fresh water shellfish, his child the small fresh water shellfish came forth
Born was man for the narrow stream, the woman for the broad stream
35. Born was the Ekaha moss living in the sea
Guarded by the Ekahakaha fern living on land
Darkness slips into light
Earth and water are the food of the plant
The god enters, man can not enter
40. Man for the narrow stream, woman for the broad stream
Born was the touch seagrass living in the sea
Guarded by the tough landgrass living on land
Refrain
46. Man for the narrow stream, woman for the broad stream
Born was the 'Ala'ala moss living in the sea
Guarded by the 'Ala'ala mint living on land
52. Man for the narrow stream, woman for the broad stream
Born was the Manauea moss living in the sea
Guarded by the Manauea taro plant living on land
58. Man for the narrow stream, woman for the broad stream
Born was the Ko'ele seaweed living in the sea
Guarded by the long-jointed sugarcane, the ko 'ele'ele, living on land
64. Man for the narrow stream, woman for the broad stream
Born was the Puaki seaweed living in the sea
Guarded by the Akiaki rush living on land
70. Man for the narrow stream, woman for the broad stream
Born was the Kakalamoa living in the sea
Guarded by the moamoa plant living on land
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76. Man for the narrow stream, woman for the broad stream
Born was the Kele seaweed living in the sea
Guarded by the Ekele plant living on land
82. Man for the narrow stream, woman for the broad stream
Born was the Kala seaweed living in the sea
Guarded by the 'Akala vine living on land
88. Man for the narrow stream, woman for the broad stream
Born was the Lipu'upu'u living in the sea
Guarded by the Lipu'u living on land
94. Man for the narrow stream, woman for the broad stream
Born was the Long-one living at sea
Guarded by the Long-torch living on land
100. Man for the narrow stream, woman for the broad stream
Born was the Ne seaweed living in the sea
Guarded by the Neneleau [sumach] living on land
106. Man for the narrow stream, woman for the broad stream
Born was the hairy seaweed living in the sea
Guarded by the hairy pandanus vine living on land
Darkness slips into light
Earth and water are the food of the plant
The god enters, man can not enter
112. The man with the water gourd, he is a god
Water that causes the withered vine to flourish
Causes the plant top to develop freely
115. Multiplying in the passing time
The long night slips along
Fruitful, very fruitful
Spreading here, spreading there
Spreading this way, spreading that way
120. Propping up earth, holding up the sky
The time passes, this night of Kumulipo
Still it is night.
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