Indigenous-produced literature, have grown at a much slower rate. No one knows ex-actly why Kanaka Maoli–produced literature
I was a bit confused with his usage of Kanaka Maoli to describe Hawaiian literature vs. Indigenous literature. For majority of the paper the author uses the term "Kanaka Maoli literature," however, here it is as if the term is interchangeable with the term Indigenous literature.
mo’olelo, oli, mele, mo’oku ̄’auhau
Prior to this sentence moʻolelo was the only Hawaiian word from this sentence mentioned, however the words oli and mele are not italicized as well? His usage of italicization throughout the paper confuses me.
’o ̄lelo ke ola, i ka ’o ̄lelo ka make,
Overall, this article had a lot of interesting and bold points. The incorrect usage of Hawaiian diacritics, however made the paper a little harder to read as it did not flow as well as it could if it was spelt correctly. Moreover, the italicization of Hawaiian words made words and phrases in Hawaiian seem like a foreign language. That is to say, that when the author uses quotes from Hawaiian sources, they did not use quotation marks around the Hawaiian, only the English, such as this example. This was present throughout the paper.
Water, w ater, water, said the Ducks. There's nothinglike water.
As a creation story there are tiny details here and there that remind me of the multitudinous creation and cosmogonic creation stories in Hawaiʻi and even many throughout Oceania. This specific part reminds me of the Kumulipo as well as the moʻolelo Kumuhonua. That is to say, that both of these stories as well as the story being told in the article describes, creates, and sets up a space first and foremost to introduce the darkness and celestial beings/spheres. Then the earth appears that is then filled with water. The Kumulipo supports this by describing the coral as the first entity to be born on the earth after introducing the sun and star constellations. The moʻolelo Kumuhonua supports this by describing how Kāne first created the celestial sphere - hoʻolewa ka lā, ka mahina, a me nā huihui hōkū iā Kāne. He then creates the earth and all of those spaces which is filled by his fresh waters that combine to become the ocean.
Overall, it seems as though Indigenous creation stories may have common archetypes of setting up space that include an ontological hierarchical understanding of the environment.