Kumulipo

Key takeaways

Kumulipo belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kumulipo to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kumulipo from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

In Hawaiian religion, the Kumulipo is the creation chant, first recorded in the 18th century. It also includes a genealogy of the members of Hawaiian royalty and was created in honor of Kalaninuiamamao and passed down orally to his daughter Alapaʻiwahine.

Creation chant In the Kumulipo the world was created over a cosmic night. This is not just one night, but many nights over time. The ancient Hawaiian kahuna and priests of the Hawaiian religion would recite the Kumulipo during the makahiki season, honoring the god Lono. In 1779, Captain James Cook arrived in Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaiʻi during the season and was greeted by the Hawaiians reciting the Kumulipo. Some stories say Cook was mistaken for Lono, because of the type of sails on his ship and his pale skin tone. In 1889, King Kalākaua printed a sixty-page pamphlet of the Kumulipo. Attached to the pamphlet was a two-page paper on how the chant was originally composed and recited. Years later Queen Liliʻuokalani described the chant as a prayer of the development of the universe and the ancestry of the Hawaiians. Liliʻuokalani translated the chant under house arrest in ʻIolani Palace. The translation was published in 1897, then republished by Pueo Press in 1978. The Kumulipo is a total of 2,102 lines long, in honor of Kalaninuiamamao, who created peace for all when he was born. There was a lot of fighting between his ʻI and Keawe family, who were cousins, so his birth stopped the two from feuding. The Kumulipo is a cosmogonic genealogy, which means that it relates to the creation of the universe and the descent of humans and other entities. Out of the 2,102 lines, it has 16 wā, which means era or age. In each wā, something is born, whether it is a human, plant, or other creature.

Divisions The Kumulipo is divided into sixteen wā, sections. The first seven wā fall under the section of pō (darkness), the age of spirit. The Earth may or may not exist, but the events described do not take place in a physical universe. The words show the development of life as it goes through similar stages as a human child. All plants and animals of sea and land, earth and sky, male and female are created. These are the first twelve lines of the Kumulipo, in Hawaiian, in Liliʻuokalani's English translation and in Bastian's German translation. Two other significant English translations, Rock's translation of Bastian and Beckwith's translation, appear in Beckwith's 1951 book The Kumulipo.

The second section, containing the remaining nine wā, is ao and is signaled by the arrival of light and the gods, who watch over the changing of animals into the first humans. After that is the complex genealogy of Kalaninuiamamao that goes all the way to the late 18th century.

Births in each wā The births in each age include:

In the first wā, the sea urchins and limu (seaweed) were born. The limu was connected through its name to the land ferns. Some of these limu and fern pairs include: ʻEkaha and ʻEkahakaha, Limu ʻAʻalaʻula and ʻalaʻalawainui mint, Limu Manauea and Kalo Maunauea upland taro, Limu Kala and ʻakala berry. These plants were born to protect their sea cousins. In the second wā, 73 types of fish. Some deep sea fish include Naiʻa (porpoise) and the Manō (shark). Also reef fish, including Moi and Weke. Certain plants that have similar names are related to these fish and are born as protectors of the fish. In the third wā, 52 types of flying creatures, which include birds of the sea such as ʻIwa (frigate or man-of-war bird), the Lupe, and the Noio (Hawaiian noddy tern). These sea birds have land relatives, such as ʻIo (hawk), Nēnē (goose), and Pueo (owl). In this wā, insects were also born, such as Peʻelua (caterpillar) and the Pulelehua (butterfly). In the fourth wā, the creepy and crawly creatures are born. These include Honu (sea turtle), Ula (lobster), Moʻo (lizards), and Pololia (jellyfish). Their cousins on land include Kuhonua (maile vine) and ʻOheʻohe bamboo. In the fifth wā, Kalo (taro) is born. Kamapuaʻa (akua) is born. In the sixth wā, Uku (flea) and the ʻIole (rat) are born. In the seventh wā, ʻĪlio (dog) and the Peʻapeʻa (bat) are born. In the eighth wā, the four divinities are born: Laʻilaʻi (female), Kiʻi (male), Kāne (god), Kanaloa (octopus), respectively. In the ninth wā, Laʻilaʻi takes her eldest brother Kiʻi as a mate and the first humans are born from her brain. In the tenth wā, Laʻilaʻi takes her next brother Kāne as a mate after losing interest in Kiʻi, she then had four of Kāne's children: Laʻiʻoloʻolo, Kamahaʻina (male), Kamamule (male), Kamakalua (female). Laʻilaʻi soon returned to Kiʻi and three children are born: Haʻi (female), Haliʻa (female), and Hākea (male). Having been born during their mothers being with two men they become "Poʻolua" and claim the lineage of both fathers. The eleventh wā pays homage to the Moa. The twelfth wā honors the lineage of Wākea, whose son Hāloa is the ancestor of all people. The thirteenth wā honors the lineage of Hāloa's mother Papahānaumoku. In the fourteenth wā, Liʻaikūhonua mates with Keakahulihonua, and have their child Laka. The fifteenth wā refers to Haumeanuiʻāiwaiwa and her lineage; it also explains Māui's adventures and siblings. The sixteenth wā recounts all of Māui's lineage for forty-four generations, all the way down to the Moʻi of Māui, Piʻilani. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, anthropologists Adolf Bastian and Roland Burrage Dixon interpreted a recurring verse of the Kumulipo as describing the octopus as the sole survivor of a previous age of existence. In her 1951 translation of the Kumulipo, ethnographer Martha Warren Beckwith provided a different translation of the verse, although she does discuss the possibility that "octopus" is the correct translation and describes the god Kanaloa.

Comparative literature Comparisons may be made between marital partners (husband and wife often have synonymous names), between genealogical and flora-fauna names, and in other Polynesian genealogies.

Cultural impact The supermassive black hole M87*, captured by the Event Horizon Telescope, was informally given the Hawaiian name "Pōwehi", a poetic description of generative darkness or the spirit world taken from the Kumulipo. In 2009, the poet Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio performed her poem, Kumulipo, at a poetry event at the White House.

Notes

References

Citations

Works cited

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kumulipo

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kumulipo claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kumulipo before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kumulipo ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kumulipo

In research: Kumulipo appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kumulipo in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kumulipo is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Creation myths, Hawaiian mythology, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kumulipo outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

How to study Kumulipo in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kumulipo means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kumulipo out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kumulipo in simple terms?

In Hawaiian religion, the Kumulipo is the creation chant, first recorded in the 18th century. It also includes a genealogy of the members of Hawaiian royalty and was created in honor of Kalaninuiamamao and passed down orally to his daughter Alapaʻiwahine.

Why does Kumulipo matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kumulipo?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kumulipo.