In Hawaiian religion, Kū is one of the four great

gods A deity or god is a supernatural being considered to be sacred and worthy of worship due to having authority over some aspect of the universe and/or life. The ''Oxford Dictionary of English'' defines ''deity'' as a God (male deity), god or god ...

. The other three are Kanaloa,

Kāne In Hawaiian mythology, Kāne is considered the highest of the three major Hawaiian deities, along with Kū and Lono. He represented the god of procreation and was worshipped as ancestor of chiefs and commoners. Kāne is the creator and giv ...

, and Lono. Some feathered god images or ''akua hulu manu'' are considered to represent Kū. Kū is worshiped under many names, including Kūkāilimoku, the "Snatcher of Land". Rituals for Kūkailimoku included

human sacrifice Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease deity, gods, a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment, an authoritative/prie ...

, which was not part of the worship of other gods.

Names of Kū

Owing to the multiplicity inherent in Hawaiian concepts of deity, Kū may be invoked under many names such as the following, which reference subordinate manifestations of the god.

Forest and rain

* Ku-moku-haliʻi (Ku spreading over the land) * Ku-pulupulu (Ku of the undergrowth) * Ku-olono-wao (Ku of the deep forest) * Ku-holoholo-pali (Ku sliding down steps) * Ku-pepeiao-loa/-poko (Big and small-eared Ku) * Kupa-ai-keʻe (Adzing out the canoe) * Ku-mauna (Ku of the mountain) * Ku-ka-ohia-laka (Ku of the ohia-lehua tree) * Ku-ka-ieie (Ku of the wild pandanus vine)

Husbandry and fishing

* Ku-ka-o-o (Ku of the digging stick) * Ku-kuila (Ku of dry farming) * Ku-keolowalu (Ku of wet farming) * Ku-ula or Ku-ula-kai (ku of the abundance of the sea)

War

* Ku-nui-akea (Ku the supreme one) * Ku-kaʻili-moku (Ku snatcher of land) * Ku-keoloewa (Ku the supporter) * Ku-hoʻoneʻenuʻu (Ku pulling together the earth)

Sorcery

* Ku-waha-ilo (Ku of the maggot-dropping mouth)

Religion

Also known as Akua, he was the (god) of war, politics, farming and fishing. As the husband of the goddess

Hina Hina may refer to: People and deities * Hina (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name * Hina (goddess), the name assigned to a number of Polynesian deities. * Hina (singer), of 2021 group Lightsum Other u ...

, it's been supposedly suggested a form of complementary

dualism Dualism most commonly refers to: * Mind–body dualism, a philosophical view which holds that mental phenomena are, at least in certain respects, not physical phenomena, or that the mind and the body are distinct and separable from one another * P ...

exists, as the word ''kū'' in the

Hawaiian language Hawaiian (', ) is a critically endangered Polynesian language of the Austronesian language family, originating in and native to the Hawaiian Islands. It is the native language of the Hawaiian people. Hawaiian, along with English, is an offi ...

means "to stand" while one meaning of ''hina'' is "to fall".Pukui et al. (1992): p. 25. However, this assertion remains unsupported by evidence from other

Polynesian languages The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family. There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austr ...

which distinguish the original "ng" and "n". The Hina in

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

mythology, for example, is associated with the

moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

, rather than Hinga, "fallen down". Thus, the Hawaiian name "Hina" is likely more connected to the other Polynesian meanings of ''Hina'', denoting a silvery-grey color like that of ''Mahina'' (i.e.,

the Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It orbits around Earth at an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth's diameter). The Moon rotates, with a rotation period ( lunar day) that is synchronized to its orbital period ( lunar ...

in the

). As primordial gods who have existed for

eternity Eternity, in common parlance, is an Infinity, infinite amount of time that never ends or the quality, condition or fact of being everlasting or eternal. Classical philosophy, however, defines eternity as what is timeless or exists outside tim ...

, Kū, Kāne, and Lono caused light to shine in upon the world.

Guardian statues of King Kamehameha I

Kūkailimoku was the guardian of

Kamehameha I Kamehameha I (; Kalani Paiʻea Wohi o Kaleikini Kealiʻikui Kamehameha o ʻIolani i Kaiwikapu kauʻi Ka Liholiho Kūnuiākea; to May 8 or 14, 1819), also known as Kamehameha the Great, was the conqueror and first ruler of the Kingdom of Hawaii ...

, who unified the Hawaiian archipelago under one ruler and established the Hawaiian kingdom. He had monuments erected to Kūkailimoku at the Hōlualoa Bay royal complex as well as his residence at Kamakahonu, both in the district of Kona, Hawaiʻi. Three colossal statues of the god Kū were reunited for the first time in almost 200 years at the Bishop Museum in

Honolulu Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...

in 2010. They were dedicated by Kamehameha I at one of his temples on the

archipelago An archipelago ( ), sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster, or collection of islands. An archipelago may be in an ocean, a sea, or a smaller body of water. Example archipelagos include the Aegean Islands (the o ...

in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries. These very rare statues (no others are known extant) were later acquired by the Bishop Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts and the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

in London. One feathered god image in the Bishop Museum is thought to be Kamehameha I's own image of his god. However it is still unclear whether all feathered god images represent Kū.

Kinolau (body forms)

In the animal world Kū is believed to embody the forms of Manō (shark), Kanaka (man), ʻIo (Hawaiian hawk), Niuhi (man-eating shark), ʻĪlio (dog), Moa (chicken) is also for Kane, Iʻa ʻUla (certain red fish). In the plant world, he is believed to embody the forms of ʻIeʻIe (Freycinetia arborea) vine, ʻŌhiʻa Lehua (metrosideros polymorpha)flower, ʻulu (breadfruit), niu (only the coconut tree trunk), and noni (Morinda citrifolia) fruit.

Citations

General references

* (1970): ''Hawaiian Mythology''. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. * (1891):
Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary
'. Wellington, NZ: Lyon and Blair. * (1992): ''New Pocket Hawaiian Dictionary with a Concise Grammars and Given Names in Hawaiian''. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ku Artefacts from Africa, Oceania and the Americas in the British Museum Ethnographic objects in the British Museum Hawaii (island) Hawaiian gods War gods