Lono

In Hawaiian mythology, the deity Lono is associated with fertility, agriculture, rainfall, music and peace. In one of the many Hawaiian legends of Lono, he is a fertility and music god who descended to Earth on a rainbow to marry Laka. In agricultural and planting traditions, Lono was identified with rain and food plants. He was one of the four gods (with Kū, Kāne, and Kāne's twin brother Kanaloa) who existed before the world was created. Lono was also the god of peace. In his honor, the great annual festival of the Makahiki was held. During this period (from October through February), war and unnecessary work was kapu (forbidden). In Hawaiian weather terminology, the winter Kona storms that bring rain to leeward areas are associated with Lono. Lono brings on the rains and dispenses fertility, and as such was sometimes referred to as Lono-makua (Lono the Provider). Ceremonies went through a monthly and yearly cycle. For 8 months of the year, the luakini was dedicated to Ku-with strict kapus. Four periods (kapu pule) each month required strict ceremonies. Violators could have their property seized by priests or overlord chiefs, or be sentenced to death for serious breaches.

Some Hawaiians have believed that Captain James Cook was Lono returned and indeed this fact may have ultimately contributed to Cook's death (see James Cook - Third voyage (1776-1779)). It is uncertain whether Cook was taken for the god Lono or one of several historical or legendary figures who were also referred to as Lono-i-ka-Makahiki. According to Martha Warren Beckwith, there was indeed a tradition that such a human manifestation of the god [Lono] had actually appeared, established games and perhaps the annual taxing, and then departed to "Kahiki", promising to return "by sea on the canoes ʻAuwaʻalalua" according to the prose note. "A Spanish man of war" translates the queen, remembering a tradition of arrival of a Spanish galleon beaten out of its course in the early days of exploration of the Pacific. A "very large double canoe" is Pukui's more literal rendering, from ʻAu[hau]-waʻa-l[o]a-lua. However, she may have been referring to the blue-sailed invertebrate called the Portuguese man o' war, which Hawaiians speak of, perhaps half in derision, as ʻAuwaʻalalua. The mother honored Keawe's son, perhaps born propitiously during the period of the Makahiki, by giving him the name of Lono-i-ka-Makahiki, seeing perhaps in the child a symbol of the god's promised return.

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