For my very last blog post. I will be discussing about something called love. I was particularly interested in a few of the readings about love in Hawaiian mythology. Being a Hawaiian myself, I was always interested in Hawaiian mythology growing up. So reading about these historical and mythological stories that I haven’t heard yet were cool to read. Here’s the link if you want to read some: https://mauitime.com/culture/hawaiian-lovers-history-mythology/

Reading these stories made me want to look up some other Hawaiian love stories, one in particular that stood out to me was the love story of Naupaka. Naupaka, a princess, fell in love with Kaui, a commoner. The kupuna (elderly) disapproved of their relationship, so the couple went to seek help at a heiau (sacred place) where they could pray and ask for guidance. At the temple, the priest and the gods both disapproved of their relationship and they were heartbroken. Naupaka tore the flower in her hair in half and gave part of it to Kaui. This is the story of why the Naupaka flowers bloom in halves.

One of the types of heroes from the reading this past week was called an “absurd hero.” An absurd hero is a hero who struggles endlessly without hope and signs of success. A perfect example of an absurd hero is Sisyphus, who is punished with an absurd, endless task.

Sisyphus, according to the Greek myth, was punished for all eternity to roll a rock up a mountain only to have it roll back down to the bottom when he reaches the top. He received this punishment from the Greek gods for cheating death multiple times. Once for tricking Death into handcuffs so no one would die. The second time was when he instructed his wife to not bury him so when the Gods took his soul from his body into the Underworld, he would have an excuse to go back and make sure his body was buried. But instead of letting himself die, he remained living for some years after the fact.

Sisyphus’s punishment can be seen as a metaphor for our own human lives. Like Sisyphus, we must struggle without much hope of success. Myths like this tell us as long as we accept that there is nothing more to life than the struggle, then we can find happiness in it. I think another underlying meaning is that we have to appreciate our wins/successes, because they can be hard to come by. To be better people we have to appreciate the things we have and work hard to get what we can out of life.

During this week in class, I have had the opportunity to learn about monsters in mythology and what they would tend to look like. Our creative project was to individually create a mythological monster that checked off four typical characteristics: be larger than life, have unnatural powers, be a twisted version of humanity, and look ugly. What I decided to make was a giant half-man, half-goat with overpowering strength who happens to have a very bad smell. His name is Dexterious….

Dexterious lives in Greece around the time Hercules was alive. His larger than life size, bad odor, and overpowering strength was more than enough to scare villagers away from their homes so he could steal food. When he didn’t get what he wanted, he would usually just kill anyone standing in his way.

Dexterious checks off a typical characteristic of a monster with his large human like frame and six pack. He is also a twisted version of humanity because he has a human like upper body and arms, but his legs and head are that of a goat. His unnatural powers are shown through his overpowering strength, which he uses to kill villagers in the way of food. And most importantly, Dexterious is very ugly. His large, pointed ears and black teeth show just how disgusting he is. He should probably go see a dentist, if he didn’t already kill them.

During the fourth week of class, our overall theme was about magic in mythology. One of the main ways this was shown was in the form of gifts. A common story found in a lot of cultures is the theft of fire from the gods, which was then given to mankind. For example, in greek mythology the Titan Prometheus is credited for stealing fire from the Gods of Mount Olympus. In Australia, there is a story of a god named Koimul who once had fire, but a hummingbird stole his fire sticks and gave them to mankind so they too could use it. In Hawaiian culture, there is a story of Maui who asks for fire from the fire Goddess Mahu-ika, where at the end she hides herself in fire sticks which he used to give the people fire.

One of the biggest questions that arose from these stories is: why did fire have to be stolen from the Gods? Why did they just not give it up willingly as a gift? I hope to give you a reasonable answer.

Fire is an amazing tool. It can be used to generate heat and light, for signaling, agriculture, cooking, forging, etc. On the flip side, fire can also be used as a weapon of destruction. If used improperly, fire can have disastrous effects on others. I think this is why fire was commonly seen as a resource that previously belonged to a higher power. It has so many different uses and could be seen as not being worthy for us mere humans to wield. I also think that the appearance of fire may have had a factor in this belief. Fire is something bright and beautiful to look at, so possibly people back then may have thought that fire must have had to come from some higher power.

Hopefully this may help clear up some questions about the “why” fire was always stolen, but in the end it’s only a theory. If you have any different theories, feel free to reach out and let me know what you think!

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This week’s theme for class was the concept of Other Worlds. If you do not know what an Other World is, it is basically an entirely different world hidden inside another world. A great depiction of this concept is shown in Space Jam, where Michael Jordan travels through a hole in the ground by Bugs Bunny and is transported into the Looney Tunes world.

On Monday, we were tasked with taking photographs around the entire UW Bothell campus and creating a mythical story about Other Worlds from them. Here is that story:

It all started with two friends who lived in a house called the Truly House. One day, they saw a beautiful dandelion. Not like one they have ever seen before. The two friends like it so much they decide to take it from the ground and keep it for themselves. However, when they did this, they were transported into a dark place they later find is called the Underworld. Waiting for them was each of their dead mothers, who tell them the only way they will ever be able to leave is to beat them in a game of pool. The two friends eventually win, but when they finally returned to their own world, they noticed things were much different than when they left. In the place of their house was the UW Bothell campus and their house had also been relocated. They decided to see what else had changed and noticed that there was a graveyard where all of their friends and family had been buried. So now, if you ever decide to mess with nature, know what the consequences might be.

For the past week, I have had the opportunity to create a unique myth with a few of my fellow classmates. Our task was to create a myth that would explain an aspect of the UW Bothell campus using typical themes like: the creation of something from nothing, to explain the world, to explain values, to record history, or entertainment. For our creation myth, we decided to explain the purpose of the numerous amounts of crows on our campus.

The myth starts off with a mysterious egg that is pushed out of the ground. By Death. From that egg hatches three crows: one dumb crow, one strong crow, and one smart crow. Each night thereafter, they go back to the place they were born and pay respects to their creator. One night however, the dumb crow did not show up to pay respects to Death and it was killed in revenge. The other two crows were scared for their lives as well so they decided to make more of themselves so that more crows would be able to show respect to Death.

So whenever you are on the UW Bothell campus and see plenty of crows flying around in the sky, you know the reason is because they have come to pay respects to their creator: Death.

Written by Austin Aiona

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton