“In the beginning there was only Po, the Darkness, an infinite, formless night without beginning, without end. But within that emptiness there emerged a Thought, an intelligence that brooded through an immensity of time and space, Hina.
And in that darkness was created a womb, the Earth Mother, Papa (pa-PAH). Then light was created, the light of the Sky Father, Wakea. In their embrace, male light penetrated female darkness, and from this union of opposites was created a universe of opposites---male and female, light and dark, heat and cold, rough and smooth, wet and dry, storm and stillness-a universe where all things are defined by their opposites.
Thus the Universe was given form and life; for only in the marriage of light and darkness can forms be revealed. Only in sunlight can there be growth of living things, all fathered by light and mothered in the darkness of the womb, the egg, or the soil.
The great spirits of Polynesia were born; the male spirits were known in Hawai’i as Ku, Kane (Kah-ney) the creator, Lono the lifegiver, and Kanaloa, ruler of the dark sea. In the South Pacific they were Tu, Tane, Rongo and Tangaroa. Their sister was the goddess Hina. (Mahina)
Hina was the major ancestral female force of reproductive and creative power, the mother of the lesser gods, and the patron of woman’s arts, crafts, and activities. Her name appears in her many manifestations. As Hina’opuhalako’a she was the mother of all sea life along the reefs, as Hinapukui’a she was a patron of women who gathered seafood on the reefs and cultivated sweet potatoes (men did all the other work in fishing, agriculture, and cooking). As Haumea she was the mother of the fire goddess Pele and many other lesser spirits.
Insulted by her brother gods, she sadly took flight to her retreat in the Moon, where she makes the Polynesian barkcloth Kapa (Tapa). As she beats the white bark on her wooden anvil it drifts away and becomes clouds in the night sky. Mahina is the name for the Moon. It also means “month,” recognizing the female monthly cycle. Gardens, (mahina’ai) were planted in the appropriate month according to the lunar calendar.
Hina is crowned with a lei of sweet potato leaves. While weeding sweet potato vines, women might reach below the surface, caressing the tubers, gauging their growth in the dark womb of the soil, and softly murmuring to them. About her neck she wears a lei of the star-like blossoms of the rare, endemic and endangered pua’ala. As she escaped to Moon, so the delicate pua’ala find safety out of the reach of men by clinging to the edges of high cliffs.”