Polynesian PantheonMountain
Mauna Kea
The tallest mountain in Hawaii and home of Poliahu, the snow goddess. Its summit, often covered with snow, is considered sacred and represents the realm of ice that opposes Pele's volcanic fire. The name means 'White Mountain.'
About Mauna Kea
Poliahu's white mountain
Mauna Kea (Mauna a Wakea in some genealogies) is a snow mountain and the home of Poli'ahu, a goddess of ice who opposes Pele's fire in Hawaiian story. Summit shrines and later telescope conflicts sit on land already named as sacred. The evidence is chant and place-name, not a novel. The peak is a cold counter-realm to Kilauea on the same island.
On the map
Mauna Kea among other places of the Polynesian Pantheon.
Sources and further reading
Source notes
These references are recorded in the catalog. Their passage wording and translation have not been checked, so quotations are not displayed here.
- Hawaiian tradition (Poli'ahu / Pele cycles; Fornander)
About this entry
By Elizabeth Stein for Mythos Atlas. About the author. Editorial notes are grounded in the site's cited sources and can be challenged through the contact page.
Coordinates mark where the myths place a site, or where the tradition locates it today. Mythic realms are left off the map or marked as symbolic placements.
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