FREE: The Legends and Myths of Hawaii: The Fables and Folk-Lore of a Strange People Paperback – 1989

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Originally published in 1888, 'The Legends And Myths of Hawaii: The Fables & Folklore of a Strange People' by King David Kalakaua is probably the best book currently available on Hawaiian folklore, and due to its authentic pedigree, likely to be for some time.

Written with a certain amount of historical bias and subjectivity, only a thoroughly objective, enthusiastic and well-conceived scholarly overview may be able to be its equal.

In the early 19th century, and under the rule of an inappropriate king, a band of political and religious leaders of the only-recently united Hawaiian Islands formed a conspiracy with the intent of overthrowing the centuries-old native Hawaiian religion and tabu (taboo) traditions.

Though Christian missionaries were to arrive later, the conspirators had recently witnessed the arrival of foreign merchants to the islands, white men who appeared to act as they pleased without receiving fatal punishment from the native gods.

The weak young king, already something of a hedonist, was persuaded by the conspirators to join them in a public display of tabu defiance. Sadly, the conspirators were successful, and on that day the tabu system, gods, and idols--their entire centuries-old religious system--officially went into the fire forever.

Author Kalakaua, a direct descendant of the royal line, was famous during his reign for attempting to reverse this cultural dissolution and return the full majesty of the ancient Hawaiian traditions back to prominence among his people.

'The Legends And Myths Of Hawaii' was part of his effort, and, as such, has an important and dignified history. Throughout the volume, sensitive readers may sense the author's mental, emotional, and historical intimacy with his material. Only a hundred years before his book was published, the Hawaiian people were still 'pure,' free of Western influence, and living a relatively comfortable stone-age existence after fifteen centuries.