Daniel E Udoh

The Island Of Voyagers Daniel E Udoh

Oh Lono shake out a net-full of food,
A net-full of rain.
Gather them together for us.
Accumulate food,
Oh Lono
Collect fish, Oh Lono!
(Hawaiian prayer to the God Lono)

The Polynesian mythology encompasses the oral traditions of the people of Polynesia (a grouping of Central and South Pacific Ocean island archipelagos in the Polynesian Triangle) together with those of the scattered cultures known as the Polynesian outliers. Polynesians speak languages that descend from a language reconstructed as Proto-Polynesian - probably spoken in the Tonga - Samoa area around 1000 BC. For hundreds of years these immigrants arrived from the southern Polynesian islands of the Marquesas, Samoan, Tongan and Tahitian islands. They established communities and enclaves which were mostly separate from each other, but by the 13th century powerful priests arrived and began the formation of the "kapu system" of Hawaiian religion and government. This ancient lifestyle evolved with no outside contact for over 600 years.

Prior to the 15th century AD, Polynesian peoples 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 from Tahiti to Rapa Nui, and later Hawai'i and New Zealand. Latest research puts the settlement of New Zealand at about 1300 AD. 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 organisation, childrearing, as well as horticulture, building and textile technologies; their mythologies in particular demonstrate local reworkings of commonly shared tales.