Hawai'ian Mythology Trivia Quiz

Answer: Kane

Kane was the creator. In some versions Kane alone breathed life into the first man and in others it was three gods together, but man was made in Kane's image. He was one of the more important gods.

Answer: Pele

Every stone in Hawai'i belongs to Pele. If you go there, you had better not take a rock home, because in her wrath she will cause you endless problems with bad luck. Besides, it is illegal! (Imagine what would happen if every tourist in Hawai'i took away one little stone!)

Answer: Mau'i

The stories don't tell where Mau'i was standing when he hauled up the island chain.

Mau'i had many brothers who were bigger and stronger than he, and better fishermen, but they were no wiser than ordinary men. When they all went fishing together, the brothers would cast their lines much farther, and hook big fish. But when a big fish was almost completely reeled in, Mau'i would manage to get his hook into it, pull it off his brother's hook, and claim it as his own.

Answer: The sun went zipping through the sky so quickly, a day lasted only a few minutes.

After his mother begged him to help, Mau'i made a lasso, caught the sun and forced it to promise to travel at a more decorous speed. You can go to Hale'akala National Park, where this took place. Hale'akala means House of the Sun.

Answer: A pig

The hog-god was a shape shifter who could appear as a man or fish, but when his bestial nature overcame him, he took on the hog shape. He married Pele, but between his bestial nature and her hot temper, the marriage did not last long.

Pigs were brought to the Hawai'ian Islands when the natives migrated from other Polynesian Islands. The other animals were unknown until after the Europeans made contact.

Answer: Hina

Hina was Mau'i's mother and Pele's sister. She had a number of daughters, too, including Hina Keahi, Hina Kekai, and Hina Kulu'ua, who had control over fire, the sea, and rain respectively.

Answer: Mau'i

Mau'i was enormously strong, but he was also a lazy trickster. He did not use trickery to lift the sky, however. He first lifted it to the tree tops, then to the mountaintops, then finally up where it belongs. He offered to do all this because he wanted a woman to give him a drink of water from her calabash.

Answer: The Menehune

The Menehune were small skilled craftsmen who could be vengeful if humans didn't keep their word. There were a huge number of them. Once a chief promised to give each of them a fish in payment for building a stone-faced ditch. The first time he tried to pay them, he ran out of fish.

The second time, he caught masses of tiny little brine shrimp and gave one to each of the Menehune, thereby averting their wrath.

Answer: Because the person asking might be the shark god in disguise, hoping to catch a tasty fisherman for dinner.

The shark god liked to disguise himself as a great chief and mingle with people on land. He fell in love with a mortal woman, married her, and fathered a son. He told his wife to never let the son eat meat, which she did. However, as soon as the son became a man, he went off to live with the other men, who frequently ate meat.

The younger shark god developed a taste for not just flesh, but human flesh.

Answer: An egg

Pele tucked her sister, in the shape of an egg, into her armpit and carried her from island to island. After Pele fell in love with a chief, she went home to the Big Island alone, leaving her sister and bridegroom to travel there together through great hardship. She was furious when they arrived long past the deadline she gave them, wrongly accusing them of betraying her.