Research Guides: Hawaiian Literature Resources (HAW261 & HWST270): BOOKS: Hawaii

BOOKS: Searching & Borrowing

Use the Hawai'i Voyager Online Catalog to search for books, e-books, and media.

The Basic Search is ideal if you are looking for a book by title, author, or keyword.

The Advanced Search tab allows you to find resources by subject terms, as well as to limit by location, type, or format.

Borrowing books from the Hawaii Pacific Collection:
Loan Period --- 14 days
Renewal (1) --- 14 days
Reference books are library-use only.

Useful Search Terms

HAWAI'I

LEGENDS

MYTHS / MYTHOLOGY

TALES

FOLKLORE

LITERATURE

MUSIC

RELIGION

ANCESTORS / GODS / SPIRITS

Browsing the bookshelves...

The following are general CALL NUMBERS to help you locate books in the Hawaii Pacific Collection:

DU 620s	HISTORY - Oceania (South Seas)
BL	RELIGIONS / MYTHOLOGY
GN	ANTHROPOLOGY
GR 100-500s	FOLKLORE
M	MUSIC
PL 6440s	LANGUAGE & LITERATURE - Oceania, Polynesian
PS 571	LITERATURE - Collections, by region
PZ8.1	FICTION & JUVENILE

E-books ... Read it online!

Ebook Central
The Academic Complete collection contains over 100,000 ebooks from 16 key subject areas. All ebooks are readable online from a single easy-to-use interface. (Formerly Ebrary)

Users can also download a chapter, a range of pages or the full ebook from ebrary. Video: How to download ebrary ebooks [2:26]

Pana Oʻahu: Sacred Stones, Sacred Land
Call Number: E-BOOK

The sixty "heiau" photographed and described in this text are all located on on O'ahu, the island that has experienced by far the most development over the last 200 years. The images provide a compelling argument for the preservation of Hawaiian sacred places.
No Na Mamo: Traditional and Contemporary Hawaiian Beliefs and Practices
Call Number: E-BOOK

Readers both familiar and unfamiliar with Native Hawaiian traditions and practices will find much to reflect on as well as practical guidance and knowledge. The author draws on first-hand accounts from early Hawaiian historians, early explorers and missionaries, and nineteenth-century Hawaiian language publications.
Talking Hawaii's Story: Oral Histories of an Island People
Call Number: E-BOOK

The first major book in over a generation to present a rich sampling of the landmark work of Hawai'i's Center for Oral History, "Talking Hawai'i's Story" preserves Hawai'i's social and cultural history through the narratives of the people who lived it - co-workers, neighbors, family members, and friends.
The 'Ukulele: A History
Call Number: E-BOOK

This is the first fully documented account of the history of the Ukulele as an iconic element of Hawaiian culture. The work goes much beyond the usual ukulele as collectible approach and places the instrument in its social, political, and cultural contexts of Western Europe, Hawaii, and the US Mainland.
The Arts of Kingship: Hawaiian Art and National Culture of the Kalakaua Era
Call Number: E-BOOK

This text offers a sustained and detailed account of Hawaiian public art and architecture during the reign of David Kalakaua, the nativist and cosmopolitan ruler of the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1874 to 1891.
Na Kua'aina: Living Hawaiian Culture
Call Number: E-BOOK

The word kua'aina translates literally as "back land" or "back country." However, in the context of the Native Hawaiian cultural renaissance of the late twentieth century, kua'aina came to refer to those who actively lived Hawaiian culture and kept the spirit of the land alive.
I Ulu I Ka 'Aina [Hawaiinuiakea, Volume 2]
Call Number: E-BOOK

Tackles the subject of the Kanaka (Hawaiian) connection to the 'aina (land) through articles, poetry, art, and photography.
Creatures in the Mist: Little People, Wild Men and Spirit Beings Around the World: A Study in Comparative Mythology
Call Number: E-BOOK

Bringing together a medley of stories, myths, and folklore Gary Varner shares a fascination and respect for humankind's early and contemporary cultures and wonders at similarities across the board.
Ha'Ena: Through the Eyes of the Ancestors
Call Number: E-BOOK

A distinctive work, which blends folklore, geography, history, and ethnography. It casts a wide net over information from earliest times to the present, primarily related from a Native perspective.
Hawaiki, Ancestral Polynesia: An Essay in Historical Anthropology
Call Number: E-BOOK

Through an analysis of the history of Polynesian cultures they present a first-time detailed reconstruction of Hawaiki, the Ancestral Polynesian culture that flourished some 2,500 years ago.
How Chiefs Became Kings
Call Number: E-BOOK

Substantive and provocative, this book makes a major contribution to the literature of precontact Hawaii and illuminates Hawaii’s importance in the global theory and literature about divine kingship, archaic states, and sociopolitical evolution.
A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief: The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawai'i
Call Number: E-BOOK

Tracing the origins of the Hawaiians and other Polynesians back to the shores of the South China Sea, archaeologist Patrick Vinton Kirch follows their voyages of discovery across the Pacific in this fascinating history of Hawaiian culture from about one thousand years ago.

Hawaiian Legends Index

Hawaiian Legends Index

The Legends Index offers subject access to 77 publications of Hawaiian legends in English. The index was created by the Hawaiʻi State Public Library System, and the database and web pages were created and are maintained by the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Bibliography of books indexed [9-page PDF]

E-texts from Ulukau

Nānā i ke kumu = Look to the Source, Volume I [online via Ulukau] by Mary Kawena Pukui
Call Number: DU624.5 .P85 (print edition)

Volume one interprets specific Hawaiian words and phrases and was meant to "clarify distorted beliefs, suggest the rationale behind Hawaiian ritual, and convey some of the poetic imagery of ancient rites and their underlying concepts."
Nānā i ke kumu = Look to the Source, Volume II [online via Ulukau] by Mary Kawena Pukui
Call Number: DU624.5 .P85 (print edition)

Volume two deals with broader concepts and relationships, including such topics as the child, man and woman, dreams and symbols, holiness and healing. It restates the theme of understanding more fully the influences of Hawaiian culture on life today.

Library and web resources for Hula and Mele!
Librarian Nadine Leong-Kurio put together this
wonderful and useful research guide.

hula kahiko at Halemaumau crater on the Big Island of Hawaii

Read it online via ULUKAU

Hawaiian Mythology by Martha W. Beckwith
Call Number: Digital E-BOOK

Online text is courtesy of www.ulukau.org

"This is Martha Beckwith's monumental study of Hawaiian mythology. The book covers every significant theme in Hawaiian mythology, from the origin myths of the Hawaiian gods and goddesses, to more recent legends of star-crossed lovers."
Check out a print copy ... CALL NUMBER: GR385 .B43 1976 Hawaii Pacific Collection

HAWAIIAN FOLKTALES, MYTHS, and LEGENDS

Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Polynesian Ethnology and Natural History
Call Number: Online: Ulukau.org (links below), Vol 4-6 only

"Fornander Collection of Hawaiian Antiquities and Folk-lore"
Volume 4
Volume 5
Volume 6
Akua Hawaiʻi: Hawaiian Gods and Their Stories
Call Number: BL2620.H3 A76 2005

Wonderfully illustrated and written, AKUA HAWAI'I offers simple stories of creation, duty, love, and hope that provide not only a better understanding of the gods, but also demonstrate important lessons about life that still remain today.
The Kumulipo: A Hawaiian Creation Chant
Call Number: BL2620.H3 K85 1981

AVAILABLE ONLINE AT Ulukau.org
"A rare find in ancient Hawaiian literature, a Hawaiian composition not only rich in its poetic power but an authentic source of information concerning pre-European Hawaiian religion, mythology, and way of life... Beckwith rightly compares it to the Greek creation chants and Genesis in the Bible."
Recollections of Kahoʻolawe
Call Number: DU628.K25 A74
Kepelino's Traditions of Hawaii
Call Number: GN671.H3 K46 2007

Kepelino, like Native Hawaiian historians Malo, Kamakau, and Papa 'I'i, worked in the mid-19th century to record Hawaiian historical, cultural, and religious knowledge for future generations.
The Epic Tale of Hiiakaikapoliopele
Call Number: GR110.H3 H6613 2012

This ancient saga begins with the goddess Pele's migration to Kilauea and her spirit's search for a lover. The story then details the quest of Pele's younger sister, Hi'iakaikapoliopele, to find the handsome Lohi'auipo, and bring him back to their crater home. It is a very human account of love and lust, jealousy and justice, peopled with deities, demons, chiefs and commoners. This version by Ho'oulumahie-hie ran from 1905 to 1906 as a daily series in the Hawaiian-language newspaper Ka Na'i Aupuni. It is the most extensive form of the story ever documented, offering a wealth of detail and insights about social and religious practices, poetry and hula, healing arts, and many other Hawaiian customs.
Storied Landscapes: Hawaiian Literature & Place
Call Number: GR110.H38 K39 1999

Chapters: A Search for Küulakai; Aumäkua of Kona, Oahu; Voyaging Chiefs of Käneohe Bay; Killing the Cannibal King; He Mele No Käne: A Song of Life; A Twisted Tale: Jack London’s "Koolau the Leper"
Folktales of Hawaiʻi
Call Number: GR110.H38 P85 1995

Mary Kawena Pukui stands alone in the history of Hawai'i for her unparalleled contributions to the preservation and revitalization of Hawaiian language and culture. This collection includes tales she first heard from her grandmother and mother when she was a child in Ka'u on the Big Island.
Myths and Legends of the Polynesians
Call Number: GR380 .A53 1969

Rich selections includes stories of gods and creation, fairies and supernatural beings, cannibalism and human sacrifice, adultery and revenge, more. Also, expert commentary on stories and Polynesian culture.
Legends of Hawaii
Call Number: GR385 .C64 1965

Contents include: The princess of the rainbow. -- The fire-goddess. -- The seven great deeds of Maui. -- The menehune. -- The canoe of Laka or Rata and those who sailed in it. -- When the little blond shark went visiting. -- The boy Punia and the King of the Sharks. -- Owl and Rat and the Boy who was good at shooting arrows. -- The story of Moe Moe. -- Halemano and the Princess Kama, and MORE...
Teller of Hawaiian Tales
Call Number: GR385 .K59 1946

Stories of gods and goddesses, ghosts and heroes, cowboy adventures, and dangerous journeys among Hawaii's valleys and peaks.
Pele and Hiiaka: A Myth from Hawaii
Call Number: GR385.H3 E55 1993

This book's mythological epic, perhaps more than any other, brings primal elements together, and its lyric power and drama are unsurpassed in traditional Hawaiian lore. Here are captured the poetry of Hawaiian places, the feel of the Hawaiian landscape—whose volcanic features are the handiwork of Pele herself—and the unique mood of old Hawaii.
Hawaii: Tales of Yesteryear, A Collection of Legends and Stories
Call Number: GR385.H3 G39 1977
The Legends and Myths of Hawaii
Call Number: GR385.H3 K3 1972

Contents include: Hina, the Helen of Hawaii -- The royal hunchback -- The triple marriage of Laa-mai-kahiki -- The apotheosis of Pele -- Hua, king of Hana -- The iron knife -- The sacred spear-point -- Kelea, the surf-rider of Maui -- Umi, the peasant prince of Hawaii -- Lono and Kaikilani, and MORE...
Children of the Rainbow: A Book Concerning the Religion, Legends, and Gods of the Natives of Pre-Christian Hawaii
Call Number: GR385.H3 M4

About the Hawaiian Gods, select mythology (including the Kumulipo or creation chant), and many illustrated sacred symbols with explanations. In addition, it does have a few astrological references in the context of the presented mythology or history.
Hawaiian Folk Tales: A Collection of Native Legends
Call Number: GR385.H3 T4 1998

Also available online free at Project Gutenberg eBooks.
Pele and Hi'iaka: A Tale of Two Sisters
Call Number: GR385.H3 V375 2011

One of the great epics of Hawaiian mythology is the story of Pele, goddess of Hawai`i's volcanoes, and her youngest sister, Hi`iakaikapoliopele. This is a passionate story of love, healing, betrayal, and reconciliation, culminating in the reunion of parted lovers.
The Night Marchers: A Tale of the Huakaʻi po
Call Number: GR580 .H69 1977

"In old Hawaii, man and gods and nature were very close, and the curtain between living and dead was woven of cobwebs...The stories that follow are testimony to that sensitivity of spirit so characteristic of the Hawaiian people."
The Kamapuaʻa Literature
Call Number: PL6448 .C43 1987

Subtitle - "The Classical Traditions of the Hawaiian Pig God as a Body of Literature."
Hawaiian Legends of the Guardian Spirits
Call Number: PZ8.1.L934 Haw 2002

A collection of stories that reveal the personal relationship between the ancient Hawaiian people and all aspects of nature. Includes notes that explain the historical, cultural, and natural context of the legends.
Hawaiian Legends of Tricksters and Riddlers
Call Number: PZ8.1.T3785 Haw 1991

A collection of twelve Hawaiian tales about island men who became tricksters in order to survive and others who became riddlers in order to win a place in their society.
HAWAIIAN LITERATURE RESOURCES @ HCC [PDF]
Click this link for a printable list of books

Something New

Voices of Fire: Reweaving the Literary Lei of Pele and Hi'iaka
Call Number: PL6448 .H66 2014

Stories of the volcano goddess Pele and her youngest sister Hiʻiaka are most familiar as a form of literary colonialism. But far from quaint tales for amusement, the Pele and Hiʻiaka literature published between the 1860s and 1930s carried coded political meaning for the Hawaiian people at a time of great upheaval. Voices of Fire recovers the lost and often-suppressed significance of this literature, restoring it to its primary place in Hawaiian culture.
Cunningham's Guide to Hawaiian Magic & Spirituality
Call Number: HawPac BL2620.H3 C866 2009

The people and the deities. The land and the people ; The ways of the deities ; The gods and goddesses ; Pele ; Deified ancestral spirits -- Aspects of traditional Hawaiian culture and religion. Spiritual power ; Taboos ; Experts ; Shrines and temples ; Water ; Stone ; Color ; Plants ; Dance ; The menehune ; Ghosts and night marchers -- Magic and sorcery. Magic ; Prophecy and dreams ; Divination, spirtual possession, and omens ; Birth omens ; Contemporary survival of traditional Hawaiian spirituality.
Pacific Island Legends: Tales from Micronesia, Melanesia, Polynesia, and Australia.
Call Number: GR380 .F56 1999

A collection of 43 traditional or historical stories from the Pacific Islands, New Zealand, and Australia. Includes creation myths, myths of origin, adventures of gods and heroes, kings and queens, and much more.
Hawaiian Legends of Dreams
Call Number: HawPac PZ8.1.L934 Har 2005

A retelling of nine Hawaiian legends illustrating the importance of dreams and their interpretation in Hawaiian culture.
The text is divided into 4 parts: Dreams Sent by the Gods; Dream Romances; Dream Prophecies; Dream Guidance sent by the Spirits.

Mythology

Hawaiian Myths of Earth, Sea, and Sky
Call Number: BL2630.H38 T46 1988 [Haw Pac Ref]

Presents twelve Hawaiian myths which explain how the earth was created, why volcanoes on Hawaii erupt, why the days are longer in summer, and other natural phenomena.
Handbook of Polynesian Mythology
Call Number: BL2620.P6 C72 2004 [Haw Pac Ref]

Table of Contents: Introduction -- Creation and the cosmos -- Deities, themes, and concepts -- Annotated print sources -- Internet web sites.

In The Spotlight

"Arts and Crafts of Hawaii"

Chapters:
1. Food.--2. Houses.--3. Plaiting.--4. Twined baskets.--5.Clothing.--6. Canoes.--7. Fishing.--8. Games and recreation.--9. Musical instruments.--10. War and weapons.--11. Religion.--12. Ornaments and personal adornment.--13. Death and burial.--14. Index.

Hawaii Pacific Collection, 2nd floor
Call number: DU624.7 .B75 2003

HULA

The Hula
Call Number: GV1796.H8 H67 2011 [Hawaii Pacific Collection]
Publication Date: 2011

Dance we will -- Origins : legend & myth -- Pre-contact : a Polynesian memory -- Contact : another myth begins -- The missionaries : "heathen song & dance" -- Kalākaua's renaissance -- Yaaka hula hickey dula -- The torch is passed -- Hapa haole Hollywood -- Quality comes to Waikiki -- Hula goes to war, then booms
Hula: Historical Perspectives by Dorothy B. Barrère...
Call Number: GV1796.H8 B37
Publication Date: 1980
Unwritten Literature of Hawaii: The Sacred Songs of the Hula
Call Number: PL6448 .E6 1964
Publication Date: 1965 (1909)

Hawaiian Proverbs & Prayers

Olelo No'eau: Hawaiian Proverbs & Poetical Sayings by Mary Kawena Pukui
Call Number: Hawaii Pacific: PN6519 .H4 O56 1983
Na Pule Kahiko: Ancient Hawaiian Prayers by June Gutmanis...
Call Number: BL560 .G87 1983

Hawaiian Literature Resources (HAW261 & HWST270): BOOKS: Hawaii

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