Archive/ The Vault/The Kumulipo
The Vault · Texts & Tablets
The Kumulipo: The Hawaiian Song of Creation
In the archive
- Held
- Printed for King Kalākaua in 1889; Queen Liliʻuokalani's English translation published in 1897
- Date evidence
- Composed in the 18th century for the chief Kalaninuiamamao; first printed 1889
- Era
- Era IX · The Modern Age
- In the archive
- Oceania · Creation & the First Order
In 1895, after a failed rising to restore her to the throne, Queen Liliʻuokalani, the last monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom, was held prisoner in a room of ʻIolani Palace in Honolulu. She spent part of her confinement translating a chant her brother, King Kalākaua, had printed in 1889: the Kumulipo, the genealogy of her line from the beginning of the world. Her English version was published in 1897. It begins in heat and darkness: "At the time when the earth became hot, at the time when the heavens turned about..."
The first night
The opening lines of the Kumulipo in Hawaiian, with Queen Liliʻuokalani's 1897 translation. Touch a line to read it.
The earth becomes hot
O ke au i kahuli wela ka honua
O ke au i kahuli lole ka lani
O ke au i kukaiaka ka la
E hoomalamalama i ka malama
O ke au o Makalii ka po
O ka walewale hookumu honua ia
At the time when the earth became hot, when the heavens turned about, when the sun was darkened to cause the moon to shine, the time of the rise of the Pleiades: the slime, this was the source of the earth.
Darkness
O ke kumu o ka lipo, i lipo ai
O ke kumu o ka Po, i po ai
O ka lipolipo, o ka lipolipo
O ka lipo o ka la, o ka lipo o ka po
Po wale hoi
The source of the darkness that made darkness, the source of the night that made night; the intense darkness, the deep darkness; darkness of the sun, darkness of the night: nothing but night.
The night gives birth
Hanau ka po
Hanau Kumulipo i ka po, he kane
Hanau Poele i ka po, he wahine
Hanau ka Uku-koakoa, hanau kana, he Akoakoa, puka
The night gave birth: born was Kumulipo ('source of deep darkness') in the night, a male; born was Poʻele ('dark night') in the night, a female. Born was the coral polyp; born was the coral; it came forth.
The first living thing born in the chant is the coral polyp. The first age goes on to the creatures of the sea and the plants of the land.
Study the object
The 1889 Hawaiian text and Liliʻuokalani's 1897 translation are in the public domain.
The holding institution's own viewers
- Liliʻuokalani's translation (Internet Sacred Text Archive)
- Kumulipo, Hawaiian text and translation (Kamehameha Schools)
Paste any IIIF manifest into the viewer to study published images; it needs JavaScript.
The chant
- A genealogical chant (koʻihonua) of 2,102 lines, divided into sixteen wā, "ages" or "eras".
- It was composed in the eighteenth century in honour of the chief Kalaninuiamamao and handed down orally in his family, which led to Kalākaua and Liliʻuokalani.
- The first seven wā belong to pō, the night: out of darkness are born, in order, the coral polyp, the creatures of the sea, the plants of the land, insects, birds and animals, each paired with its counterpart.
- With the eighth wā comes ao, daylight: the first humans and the gods. The later wā trace generations of chiefs, ending with the line of Kalaninuiamamao.
The interactive scroll above gives the opening lines in Hawaiian with Liliʻuokalani's translation.
Why it mattered
Printing the Kumulipo was political. Kalākaua, whose family was not of the old royal line, published it to show his descent from the gods and the first chiefs, at a time when American business interests were pressing on his kingdom. Liliʻuokalani's translation, made in captivity after the monarchy was overthrown in 1893, presented her people's learning to the outside world. Later translations include those of Martha Beckwith (1951) and the scholarship of Hawaiian writers since.
Symbology and sacred encoding
Creation as genealogy. In the Kumulipo the world is not made; it is born. Every creature is a relative, and the chief at the end of the chant is kin to the coral, the fish and the stars. Reciting the genealogy was a way of affirming that kinship and that rank.
Night and day. The division between pō (night) and ao (day) organises the whole chant: the long darkness of growth, then the light of gods and people.
Paired births. Each creature of the sea is born alongside a creature of the land that shares part of its name, for example sea and land plants. Scholars read this pairing as a way of ordering nature through language.
Evolution? Because the chant moves from simple sea life to complex land life, some writers have compared it with evolution. The comparison is a modern reading; the chant's own logic is genealogy.
Connections
Oceania (ch63) and Creation & the First Order (ch46). Compare the Kojiki (V61), another creation account that ends in a royal line, and the Popol Vuh (V32).
What's well supported by the evidence
- A 2,102-line genealogical chant in sixteen wā, printed by Kalākaua in 1889 and translated by Liliʻuokalani, published 1897.
- Its association with the chief Kalaninuiamamao and the royal line.
What is not supported
- That the chant is an early statement of scientific evolution. The resemblance is a modern comparison.
What's genuinely open
- How much the chant changed in oral transmission before it was written down.
- The meaning of many of its names and lines, on which translators differ.
Sources
Text and translation
- Liliʻuokalani (trans.), An Account of the Creation of the World According to Hawaiian Tradition (Boston, 1897), https://sacred-texts.com/pac/lku/index.htm
- Kamehameha Schools, "Kumulipo (Text and Translation)", https://blogs.ksbe.edu/adakina/files/2008/02/kumulipo-text.pdf
- M. W. Beckwith, The Kumulipo: A Hawaiian Creation Chant (University of Chicago Press, 1951)
Studies
- "Kumulipo", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumulipo
- Ka Wai Ola, "Kumulipo is Born in the Night, a Man", https://kawaiola.news/columns/ka-naauao-o-na-kupuna/kumulipo-is-born-in-the-night-a-man/
From The Divine Archives · https://getconexto.com/vault/kumulipo.html