Haumea
art by Reena
Burton http://www.reenaburton.com/portfolio/
The myths that describe the origins of Haumea are complex,
diverse and many. But most all accept, in one manner or another, that Haumea in
her first of many physical forms, was Papa, the mother of all Hawaiians.
Haumea the goddess, through the granting of a gift of painless birth or natural birth to the
daughter of a god, gained access to the tree of life and the ability to form
change, or be reborn. Haumea could look old and well as young, her form was as
she desired. Through this power she returned to earth again and again assuming
her younger female form and marrying successive generations of her own progeny.
This process continued until she was discovered in these transitions, and that generation marks the
emergence of the chiefly class of men.
In her form as a goddess the lesser goddesses, Pele and her
sisters arose out of her. But not through normal human birth, but rather they were
birthed out different parts of the spiritual body of Haumea. In many ways, the pantheon
of Hawaiian Female goddesses and spirits are all the daughters of Haumea and
her various physical and spiritual manifestations.
There is a chant which describes Haumea's relationship to
man as follows,
From the Makalei version:
Great Haumea, mysterious one,
She returned and lived with her descendants,
She cam back again and slept with her
children
Slept with her grandchildren to the fifth
generation, the sixth,
Seventh eighth, ninth, tenth,
Ten Kapus were pushed aside by the woman Hikiwaoopuna,
By the woman Haumea
One body she had, many were her names
The petted royal one
.....and from
the Kumulipo version.....
....Kio was born, Haumea was recognized
Haumea was recognized as withered up,
She was old, she was not desired,..
She was shown by Uaia to be worn out,
Dried up back and front
She stamped on the ground, left Nu'umea
The earth shook, the woman ceased living
with many husbands,
From Kio came forth the chiefs...
If we allow
ourselves to abstract a bit, we view a society that is deeply involved in its reverence
for the process of procreation. Where each woman is regarded as a physical manifestation
of the goddess Haumea, and each woman is worshipped accordingly. Then, at some time many generations later,
this belief was cast aside and the culture of chiefs arose .
In a world
where the likely first inhabitants were very limited in number, perhaps as few
as a hundred individuals, it is not hard to imagine that procreation would be a
priority, and great respect would be bestowed on each and every woman of child
bearing age, and that, in her pregnant state, she would have almost goddess like
status.
Then, somewhere
in the expansion of the population, Uaia
a male kahuna, overturns this belief. Perhaps because the populations of
the islands had grown to such an extent that procreation was no longer an critical
aspect of the human experience. The importance of any one particular woman diminished,
and it was recognized that not only were women the essence of life, but as they
aged they were likely to become burdens on society as well.
The pendulum
swings:
The era of
the chiefs had begun. The cult of the procreation was overturned, and men, that
aspect of life with greater physical strength, rose once again to power.
Society, for better or worse became masculinized, and females were
marginalized, the role of birthing and
sustaining a struggling population no longer critical to human existence, as
the populations were now very prolific and expanding.
Of course
if the pendulum swings one way it swings
another as well.
And, here I
am being very 'over the edge', it may have done so when Ka'ahumanu, Regent, and for all extensive purposes, Queen
of the Islands, moved to crush the Kapu System after the death of Kamehameha,.(and
before the arrival of the Christian Missionaries).The ending of the Kapu System
had many causes, but one of effects was the ending of male dominated religion,
the death or at least severe marginalization of the pantheon of male gods, and once
again the rise of the more feminine nature of Hawaiian belief.
And let's go
one step farther in pointing out that the resurgence of the female aspects of
Hawaiian culture, occurred at a time when the population was once again under
threat and on decline. Even during its severe discouragement by the missionaries,
the Hawaiian religion that survived was a highly feminized version compared to
the cult of Ku, and the state religions of Kamehameha, and the Ali'i'ai'nu'u of
the previous era.
So in your
daily life in the islands, perhaps you might ask yourself how different particular experiences would
be if the male dominated gods had survived, had resisted the edicts of
Ka'ahumanu, and the flow of western civilization. What Hawaiian culture would we see if its
masculine nature were allowed t dominate once again.
Food for
thought, and in this case Breadfruit is the food of choice. But that’s another
aspect of Haumea for a later story......
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