5 sections of this entry are open to everyone: the summary, the people, the symbols, the lineage and the sources. The other 9 (Name and epithets, In the ancient sources, The myths, Worship and archaeology, How the god was depicted, What scholars debate, After antiquity, Did you know?, Codex relic) are part of the full Codex: PRO opens the whole study of all 500 deities, and without a subscription you can read one full entry a day, just like in the app.
The Polynesian gods were worshipped by the navigators who colonized the Pacific islands, from Hawaii to New Zealand and Easter Island. They honored them on sacred platforms (marae) and through the concept of mana, spiritual power. Their myths, such as those of the hero Maui, are still told among the Maori and Hawaiians.
On the marae, sacred stone platforms, priests offered first fruits and invoked the gods before fishing and war. The kapu (taboo) system ruled what was sacred and forbidden, and in Hawaii the hula was born as a devotional dance to goddesses like Pele and Laka.
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At a glance
Kamapuaʻa (literally composed of kama, 'child' or 'man', and puaʻa, 'hog' or 'pig', translating as 'The Hog Child' or 'The Hog Man') is one of the most multifaceted, revered, and trickster-like deities of the Hawaiian pantheon, venerated as a shape-shifting demigod (kupua) who governs agricultural fertility, taro patches, sweet potatoes, heavy downpours, and misty rainforests. Born in the fertile valley of Kaluanui in the Koʻolau district on Oʻahu, Kamapuaʻa was the child of Hina and Kahiki-ula, reared under the magical instruction and protective chanting of his grandmother, the high priestess and sorceress Kamaunuaniho. Endowed with the supernatural capacity to assume manifold body forms (kino lau) — ranging from a fragile piglet to a dazzlingly handsome chief, an eight-eyed tusked boar of monstrous proportions, the sacred kukui tree, or the triggerfish humuhumu-nukunuku-a-puaʻa —, Kamapuaʻa spearheaded an armed populist insurrection against the oppressive rule of his uncle, Chief Olopana, crushing the royal armies in the rocky defiles of Kaliuwaʻa. His mythological saga reaches its dramatic climax in his tempestuous relationship with Pele, the volcano goddess of Kīlauea: confronting her across the volcanic crater, the hog god waged a furious war of elemental forces, pitting mountain rains, fog banks, and dense vegetation against subterranean lava fountains. Following their passionate conciliation, the divine lovers partitioned the Island of Hawaiʻi into complementary ecological zones, reserving the lush, rain-drenched windward slopes for Kamapuaʻa while leaving the dry, basaltic leeward fields to Pele.
9 min read · Reviewed on September 28, 2026 · How we research
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Sacred symbols
The wild hog, the tusks, the rain and the creeping plants
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Family
Parents
Kahiki-ula and Hina (Hina-a-ke-ahi); uncle/stepfather: Olopana, ruling chief of Oʻahu; grandmother: Kamaunuaniho
PPeleKapo (Kapo-ʻula-kīnaʻu, sorceress goddess who distracted him with the kohe lele)
Children
ʻOpelu-nui-kau-i-ke-ao (son born of his union with Pele in the Kīlauea caldera)
Genealogy according to Martha Warren Beckwith, Hawaiian Mythology (1940, cap. 14, 'Kamapuaʻa'); Abraham Fornander, Fornander Collection of Hawaiian Antiquities and Folk-Lore (1918-1919, vol. 5, parte 2, pp. 314-363); William Drake Westervelt, Hawaiian Legends of Old Honolulu (1915); David Malo, Hawaiian Antiquities (1898/1903)
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Sources and further reading
Primary sources
Beckwith, Martha Warren, Hawaiian Mythology. translation: New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940 (reprinted Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1970). read
Fornander, Abraham, Fornander Collection of Hawaiian Antiquities and Folk-Lore. translation: Memoirs of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum, Vol. 5, part 2 ('Legend of Kamapuaa'), Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1918–1919. read
Malo, David, Hawaiian Antiquities (Moolelo Hawaii). translation: Translated from Hawaiian by Nathaniel B. Emerson, Honolulu: Hawaiian Gazette Co., 1903. read
Westervelt, William Drake, Hawaiian Legends of Old Honolulu. translation: Boston: Geo. H. Ellis Co., 1915. read
Studies
Handy, E. S. Craighill; Pukui, Mary Kawena, The Polynesian Family System in Kaʻu, Hawaiʻi. Wellington, N.Z.: The Polynesian Society / Rutland: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1958. open
Kirch, Patrick Vinton, How Chiefs Became Kings: Divine Kingship and the Rise of Archaic States in Ancient Hawaiʻi. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
Valeri, Valerio, Kingship and Sacrifice: Ritual and Society in Ancient Hawaii. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985. open
Name and epithets
The theonym in the Hawaiian language combines the noun kama ('child', 'offspring', 'human being', or 'valiant man') and puaʻa ('hog', 'pig', or 'wild boar'), translating literally as 'The Hog Child' or 'The Hog-Natured…
In the ancient sources
Fornander Collection of Hawaiian Antiquities and Folk-Lore, 1918-1919 (mid-nineteenth-century Hawaiian transcripts).
The myths
The Rebellion in Kaluanui and the Overthrow of Olopana. According to oral accounts collected by Abraham Fornander, Kamapuaʻa was born in the deep valley of Kaluanui as a small shapeless piglet borne by the goddess Hina.…
Worship and archaeology
In pre-contact Hawaiian religion, veneration of Kamapuaʻa was closely intertwined with commoner agricultural practices and the annual harvest festival of the Makahiki, sacred to Lono.
How the god was depicted
Throughout ancient Hawaiian art and landscape, Kamapuaʻa was identified primarily through his physical nature-forms (kino lau).
What scholars debate
Ecological Zoning and Indigenous Ethno-Meteorology. Modern anthropologists such as Patrick V. Kirch and Valerio Valeri emphasize that the mythological division of Hawaiʻi Island between Kamapuaʻa and Pele reflects a pro…
After antiquity
In contemporary Hawaiian culture and the revitalization of indigenous food systems, Kamapuaʻa is celebrated as a heroic patron of agroforestry, agricultural resilience, and populist wit.
Did you know?
The reef triggerfish humuhumu-nukunuku-a-puaʻa, officially recognized by the Hawaii State Legislature as the official state fish of Hawaii, is revered in native lore as the primary aquatic incarnation of Kamapuaʻa.
Codex relic
Tusks that Plow the Earth. The tusks with which he turns the soil and makes vegetation and water springs burst forth.
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