Artwork: “Hina” by Herb Kane. The greatest Polynesian Goddess was a complex figu

Artwork: “Hina” by Herb Kane. The greatest Polynesian Goddess was a complex figure of whom many myths were told. Like other major divinities, She was associated with many aspects of life and had many symbols: She was the tapa-beating woman who lived in the moon; She was Great Hina, the death mother; She was a warrior queen of the Island of Women. An all-inclusive divine archetype, Hina appeared in many Polynesian legends, some of which – not surprisingly, for such a complex and long-lived Goddess – contradicted others. In some legends, Hina was said to have been created of red clay by the first man. But others – in Tahiti, for instance – knew Hina as the preeminent Goddess, for whose sexual pleasure the first man was created. This Goddess has two faces, one in front as humans do, one at the back of Her head. She was the first female being on earth, many bearing Her name. One guise Hina wore was a warrior of the Island of Women, a place where no men were allowed, where trees alone impregnated the residents. A man washed up on the shore and slept with Hina, the ageless and beautiful leader. He stayed for some time. But every time She began to show Her years, Hina went surfing and came back renewed and restored. At the same time, Her human lover gradually bowed under the years. Hina returned the man to his people on a whale, which the humans impudently and imprudently killed. The whale was Hina’s brother, and She sent terrible sufferings on the people as a result. Among all the many stories of Hina, however, probably the most commonly known one was that of the Goddess and Her lover, the eel. Living on earth as a mortal woman, Hina bathed in a quiet pool where, one day, She had intercourse with an eel. Her people, afraid of the power of the serpent, killed him, only to find that Hina had been mating with a god. Furious and despairing at having Her affair so terminated, Hina took the eel’s head and buried it. Five nights later the first coconut there, a staple product thereafter to Hina’s folk. #islandgirlsrock #spiritualsunday #polynesian #goddess #hina #sina #legend #mythology #pacific #queen #mother #herstory #moon #coconutorigins #treeoflife -- source link

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