ISLAND

Acrylic on Canvas 61 x 61 cms Varnished

 

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In the Marshall Islands the being who was responsible for creation was Lowa, perhaps a cognate of the Polynesian sea deity-creator god Tagaloa. He brought the islands into existence by merely making the magic sound "Mmmmm". Some said he dwelt in a primeval sea and others said that he came down from the sky. His offspring, a boy and a girl, were born from a blood blister on his leg. It is not clear however whether they were supernatural beings or the first humans.

The Micronesians did not have a myth about a hero like Maui who sought to obtain immortality for man. It was usually assumed that the gods had decreed that man was to be mortal. The souls of the dead journey either northward or westward to the leaping place which leads either to an island of the dead, or skyward, or underground. Some Marshall Islanders say that the dead must swim a channel to reach the island of Nako, where the spirit food is everlasting, but some are weighted down by their sins and sink.

The favourite bogymen of the Micronesian islands are cannibal spirits or ogres who are characterized by their brute strength and stupidity. The Marshall Islands version of the myth of the two brothers, Rongerik (small cheeks) and Rongelap (large cheeks), who lend their names to two islands in that group, appear to have been lost but stories about the brothers and the very large family of seafaring deities to which they belong have been recorded. There are bewildering variations in the names of the different family members as well as shifts in relationships and attributes. Very often Palulop, the great canoe captain, is said to have been the father of the family and his most distinguished son is Aluluei. Sometimes the relationships are reversed, but whether he is father or son, Aluluei is always the great teacher and patron of the arts of navigation.

The following story tells how the reefs were formed on Majuro by a man named Letao who was a famous trickster as well as having great strength. Letao admired the canoe of a king and schemed to get it from him. To do this, he built an attractive but useless canoe with which to fool the king into believing that this canoe was superior to his own. Letao built his attractive canoe from a wood called kone which is strong and shines but will not float. He then went to the king and offered to exchange canoes and when the king arrived in the morning the canoe was sitting on some large rocks giving the appearance of floating on the water.

 

SOUL POINT 30 x 46 cms Acrylic On Canvas

The king was very impressed with the appearance of Letao's canoe and traded his own canoe for it not knowing that Letao's canoe was not seaworthy. Letao hurried away, leaving the king ashore admiring his new boat. The king then waded out into the lagoon and boarded his new canoe but when he tried to paddle it away it was pushed from the rocks and sank to the bottom of the lagoon.

The king was soaking wet and furious and yelled for his subjects to pursue and capture the tricky Letao. As the canoe raced after Letao, he was laughing and singing. As his pursuers closed in, Letao kicked up sand and coral from the bottom of the lagoon causing a reef to form that blocked their way. Still laughing and singing Letao was last seen sailing into the sea beyond this reef that became known as Majuro.

 

 

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