Pacific Islander Religions

This section has texts relating to the religion and mythology of the indigenous cultures of the Pacific Islands.

General

Oceanic Mythology
by Roland B. Dixon [1916].
This is a highly readable and scholarly cross-cultural study of Pacific mythology and folklore, covering Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, Indonesia and Australia. It includes summaries of material only available in obscure 19th Century scholarly journals.

Easter Island

Maori

Polynesian Mythology
by Sir George Grey [1854]
This is a primary source for the myths and legends of the Maori people of New Zealand.

Maori Religion and Mythology
by Edward Shortland [1882]

The Lore of the Whare-Wananga
S. Percy Smith [1913]

Hawaii

Hawaiian Mythology
by Martha Warren Beckwith [1940]
This is an extensive critical study of Hawaiian mythology, with parallels to other Pacific islander cultures and numerous variations on each text.

The Kumulipo, A Hawaiian Creation Chant
translated with commentary by Martha Warren Beckwith [1951]
This is the Royal Hawaiian Creation chant, describing the emergence of life from the ocean and listing hundreds of generations of descendants from the primal gods and goddesses.

The Kumulipo
translated by Queen Liliuokalani [1897]
This is a translation of the same work as above, by the last Queen of Hawaii.

Unwritten Literature of Hawaii: The Sacred Songs of the Hula
by Nathaniel B. Emerson [1909]

Hawaiian Folk Tales
by Thomas G. Thrum [1907]
An anthology of classic Hawaiian folklore, including tales of Menehunes and Kahunas.

Legends of Maui
by W.D. Westervelt [1910]
This is a collection of Hawaiian and Polynesian legends about the culture hero, Maui.

Hawaiian Legends of Old Honolulu
by W.D. Westervelt [1915]
Of all of the sacred landscapes of the Pacific, the area around Honolulu is rich in lore.

Hawaiian Legends of Volcanoes
by W.D. Westervelt [1916]
This book tells of the Fire Goddess Pele, her deeds, family and loves.

Hawaiian Legends of Ghosts and Ghost-Gods
by W.D. Westervelt [1916]
Tales of the Hawaiian afterlife, and those who returned from it by magic or cunning.

Hawaiian Historical Legends
by W.D. Westervelt [1923, no renewal]
Mostly, stories from the period of European contact.

Samoa

The Samoan Story of Creation
by John Fraser (Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 1 164-88) [1891].

Tahiti

Noa Noa
by Paul Gauguin, translated from the French by Otto Frederick Theis [1919]
Gauguin came to Tahiti to find the primitive, but was amazed by the advanced knowledge embedded in their mythology.

Melanesia

Baloma; the Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand Islands
by Bronislaw Malinowski [1916]
A classic ethnographic monograph.