|
Sacred-texts home
Australian
General Easter Island
New Zealand Hawaii
Samoa Melanesia
|
|
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
Te Pito Te Henua, Or Easter Island by William J. Thomson.
This monograph has images of the famous rongo-rongo tablets and one of the few attested
translations available.
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
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
following is a series of books of Hawaiian mythology, folkore, and legends by W.D.
Westervelt from the turn of the 20th
Century. Although Westervelt wrote in a
romanticized style, the folklore is genuine.
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.
Samoa
The Samoan Story of Creation by John Fraser
(Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 1 164-88) [1891].
Melanesia
Baloma;
the Spirits of the Dead in the Trobriand
Islands by Bronislaw Malinowski [1916]
A classic ethnographic monograph.
|