Читать книгу Incredible Hawaii - Terence Barrow - Страница 9

1 A Hawaiian story of creation

AN ANCIENT HAWAIIAN CREATION CHANT CALLED THE “Kumulipo” tells of the emergence of life out of cosmic darkness. In poetic terms it relates a story of evolution resembling the general concept of modern biology which is far from the Calvinist missionary doctrines that replaced it, namely that Adam and Eve and the world were created in a flash about five thousand years ago. Traditional Hawaiian thinking was more advanced on the subject.

The Hawaiians believed in Po, the fecund cosmic night in which was created the primitive forms of life such as coral animals, sea-urchins, barnacles and mollusca in general. The higher animals such as fish, reptiles and birds followed. Man and the gods emerged with Ao, the cosmic day which spread light, both physical and mental, over the world.

The primal parents of man, gods and islands were Papa, the Earth Mother, and Wakea, the Sky Father. Like the gods of Greek mythology, Papa and Wakea had their domestic troubles, mainly because Wakea took other wives. However, the Earth Mother also had a lover.

Interpreted symbolically, the “Kumulipo” offers a poetic story of creation in advance of European acceptance of the idea of evolution in the natural world, and it taught the relatively late advent of mankind.