"...
the renewal of kingship at the climax of the
Makahiki coincides with the rebirth of nature.
For in the ideal ritual calendar, the kali'i
battle follows the autumnal appearance of the
Pleiades, by thirty-three days - thus precisely, in
the late eighteenth century, 21 December, the winter
solstice. The king returns to power with the sun.
Whereas, over the next two days, Lono plays
the part of the sacrifice. The Makahiki
effigy is dismantled and hidden away in a rite
watched over by the king's 'living god',
Kahoali'i or 'The-Companion-of-the-King', the
one who is also known as 'Death-is-Near' (Koke-na-make).
Close kinsman of the king as his ceremonial double,
Kahoali'i swallows the eye of the victim in
ceremonies of human sacrifice (condensed symbolic
trace of the cannibalistic 'stranger-king').
The
'living god', moreover, passes the night prior to
the dismemberment of Lono in a temporary
house called 'the net house of Kahoali'i',
set up before the temple structure where the image
sleeps. In the myth pertinent to these rites, the
trickster hero - whose father has the same name (Kuuka'ohi'alaki)
as the Kuu-image of the temple - uses a
certain 'net of Maoloha' to encircle a house,
entrapping the goddess Haumea; whereas,
Haumea (or Papa) is also a version of
La'ila'i, the archetypal fertile woman, and the
net used to entangle her had belonged to one
Makali'i, 'Pleiades'.
Just
so, the succeeding Makahiki ceremony,
following upon the putting away of the god, is
called 'the net of Maoloha', and represents
the gains in fertility accruing to the people from
the victory over Lono. A large, loose-mesh
net, filled with all kinds of food, is shaken at a
priest's command. Fallen to earth, and to man's lot,
the food is the augury of the coming year. The
fertility of nature thus taken by humanity, a
tribute-canoe of offerings to Lono is set
adrift for Kahiki, homeland of the gods ..."
(Islands of
History) |