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Ka Po‘e Mo‘o Akua: Hawaiian Reptilian Water Deities
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About Ka Po‘e Mo‘o Akua: Hawaiian Reptilian Water
About the Author Marie Alohalani Brown is associate professor, specialist in Hawaiian religion, at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Product Description Tradition holds that when you come across a body of fresh water in a secluded area and everything is eerily still, the plants are yellowed, and the water covered with a greenish-yellow froth, you have stumbled across the home of a mo‘o. Leave quickly lest the mo‘o make itself known to you! Revered and reviled, reptiles have slithered, glided, crawled, and climbed their way through the human imagination and into prominent places in many cultures and belief systems around the world. Ka Po‘e Mo‘o Akua: Hawaiian Reptilian Water Deities explores the fearsome and fascinating creatures known as mo‘o that embody the life-giving and death-dealing properties of water. Mo‘o are not ocean-dwellers; instead, they live primarily in or near bodies of fresh water. They vary greatly in size, appearing as tall as a mountain or as tiny as a house gecko, and many possess alternate forms. Mo‘o are predominantly female, and the female mo‘o that masquerade as humans are often described as stunningly beautiful. Throughout Hawaiian history, mo‘o akua have held distinctive roles and have filled a variety of functions in overlapping religious, familial, societal, economic, and political sectors. In addition to being a comprehensive treatise on mo‘o akua, this work includes a detailed catalog of 288 individual mo‘o with source citations. Marie Alohalani Brown makes major contributions to the politics and poetics of reconstructing ‘ike kupuna (ancestral knowledge), Hawaiian aesthetics, the nature of tradition, the study and appreciation of mo‘olelo and ka‘ao (hi/stories), genre analysis and metadiscursive practices, and methodologies for conducting research in Hawaiian-language newspapers. An extensive introduction also offers readers context for understanding how these uniquely Hawaiian deities relate to other reptilian entities in Polynesia and around the world. Review A stunning feat of scholarship. This book is not just a narration and catalog of mo‘o akua, but an analysis and cogent explanation of Ho‘omana, Hawaiian religion. Based on an enormous number of mo‘olelo in ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i, together with oral histories, translations, manuscripts, and a full reading of secondary sources, this book takes us a huge distance towards actual understanding of our kūpuna’s philosophies and belief system. It sets a new bar for studies of nā mea Hawai‘i. -- Noenoe K. Silva, professor of political science and ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa
