Kāne Milohai- Polynesian GodDeity"Father of Pele"

The Migration to Hawai'i

Kāne Milohai is the father of Pele and her siblings by his consort Haumea, though some Hawaiian genealogical lineages name him as Pele's brother instead. When the family departed Kahiki in the great canoe Honua-i-a-kea, Kāne Milohai traveled with them. Kāmohoali'i guided the fleet through the ocean in shark form. Hi'iaka rode as an egg tucked under Pele's arm. Each deity found a place among the islands as the canoe moved through the Hawaiian chain.

Kāne Milohai was left on Mokupapapa, a low reef far beyond the main islands in the Northwestern Hawaiian chain. His task was to build it into land fit for habitation. He became the sentinel at the edge of the known world, where the inhabited islands give way to open ocean.

The Spirit of Lohiau

Lohiau, a mortal chief of Kaua'i, had caught Pele's desire. She sent her youngest sister Hi'iaka to fetch him. But Lohiau died before Hi'iaka could reach him, and his spirit drifted lost over the sea between the world of the living and the world of the dead.

From his distant outpost Kāne Milohai caught the fluttering soul and restored the chief to life. Without this rescue, Hi'iaka would have found an empty house on Kaua'i and the story of Pele and Lohiau would have ended there. Emerson's account of the Pele and Hi'iaka cycle records Kāne Milohai's intervention as the act that kept the story moving: a god at the farthest edge of the islands, reaching out to pull one man back from death.