So begins the Kumulipo—an
extensive Hawaiian genealogy that grounds us
in the long ancestral night of Polynesia. The Kumulipo
(lit. “Born of the Night”) is a majestic
creation chant that describes in glorious detail
the generation of the universe from its earliest
beginnings in the depths of darkness and traces
in more than 2,000 lines the genealogy of
Hawaiian gods, humans, and their chiefs, who
grew up and out of the landscape of the ocean
and the islands anchored within it. The steady
pulsating rhythm of these words when chanted
is designed to emulate each distinct phase of
the birthing of our complex universe, and they
fl ourish like the tiered segments of the projecting
headdress of Lonoka’eho (“Lono in his aspect
as Lono-of-the-projecting-foreheads”), the rare
and monumental fi gural sculpture1 that stands
sentinel at the threshold of Atea: Nature and Divinity
in Polynesia, on display at the Metropolitan
Museum of Art until October 27, 2019. Upright
sculptures such as this monumental Lono
fi gure (fi g. 1) provided a means to connect to the
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FIG. 1 (far left): Installation
view of the Atea: Nature
and Divinity in Polynesia
exhibition at The
Metropolitan Museum
of Art showing the rare
Hawai’ian Lonoka’eho
fi gure on loan from the
Peabody Essex Museum in
Salem, Massachusetts.
Courtesy of The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York.
FIGS. 2a and b (left):
Female fi gure, ‘otua fefi ne.
Ha’apai Islands, Tonga.
18th–early 19th century.
Wood. H: 37 cm.
The Field Museum of Natural History.
FIG. 3 (above right):
Female fi gure, ‘otua fefi ne.
Ha’apai Islands, Tonga.
Early 19th century.
Whale ivory. H: 13.3 cm.
The Metroplitan Museum of Art,
the Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial
Collection, bequest of Nelson A.
Rockefeller, 1979,
inv. 1979.206.1470.