All over the South Pacific, ancient traditions woven into songs and stories speak of gods who had the strengths and weaknesses of men and controlled nature’s forces. The natives of Polynesian islands worship and fear these deities, for the good and bad things that the gods may inflict on them. In Hawaii, ancient creation myths usually highlight four great gods: Ku, Kanaloa, Kane and Lono.

Kane Milohai was the first god who came into being and is responsible for the creation of the universe. It is for this reason that Kane symbolizes life itself, as he is the progenitor of life in nature. Kane distributed to the other gods the domains in which they would rule: Kanaloa was assigned the seas, Ku was the guardian of the forests, and Lono was responsible for food plants. He created all the things found on earth and later created the Great Chief, the first man who was to rule the universe he created. Interestingly, the way the Great Chief was created had an uncanny resemblance to biblical accounts of the creation of Adam: the god fashioning a figure of a man from clay and afterwards breathing life into his creation.

The name Ku means "to stand" and "to strike", which is why the deity named Ku was the god of war in Hawaii. His name was usually combined with descriptive native words that give specific attributes, as in Ku-ka-ili-moku meaning "Ku-the-seizer-of-land". He can be Ku-of-the-deep-forest, Ku-of-the-undergrowth, Ku-adzing-out-the-canoe, and many more. But it is his attribute as Ku-with-the-maggot-dropping-mouth that makes ancient natives tremble in fear at the mention of his name – as Ku is the only major deity for which human sacrifices were made during rituals.

Lono is identified with rain and plants as the god of fertility. He is also a deity for music, and peace, and it is in his honor that the great annual Makahiki festival was held. During the festival period from October through February, excessive work and war was taboo. It is a season for merry-making, games, paying taxes and ironically, planning the next war.

Hawaiian traditions suggest that Lono sometimes manifests into a human form and returns to the islands by canoe, which is why the coming of Captain James Cook in the 18th century was associated by some as a return of the god.

In many chants, Kane is paired with the god Kanaloa, the god of the sea who is symbolized with the squid. The two deities were seen as complementary powers, representing wild (Kanaloa) and taming (Kane) powers in nature. Erroneous interpretations of Kanaloa being an evil force and Kane the good one were most likely the handiwork of European missionaries trying to refashion the four major deities into the Christian mold of Trinity plus Satan. The paired invocation and devotion to both deities simply don’t fit the typecasting of Kanaloa as an evil force. In fact, in some Polynesian islands, the god Tangaroa (the equivalent of the Hawaiian Kanaloa) was considered as the sole creator of the universe.

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