Lono- Polynesian GodDeity"God of Peace and Abundance"

Rongo Among the Brothers

In Māori tradition, Lono is known as Rongo (or Rongo-mā-Tāne), one of the sons of Ranginui the Sky Father and Papatūānuku the Earth Mother. When the divine brothers debated whether to separate their parents, who lay locked in embrace with their children trapped in darkness between them, Rongo supported Tāne's plan for separation. After Tāne succeeded in pushing earth and sky apart and Tāwhirimātea launched his furious storm assault from the heavens in retaliation, Rongo was among the gods who fled and took shelter within the body of their mother Papa.

He chose the earth over the sky, the cultivated ground over the battlefield. When Tūmatauenga later conquered his brothers' domains as punishment for their cowardice, he harvested Rongo's cultivated plants, the kūmara and other crops, asserting human dominion over agriculture. Yet the crops still grew under Rongo's blessing.

The Cultivated Earth

The kūmara (sweet potato) was Rongo's most sacred crop, brought to Aotearoa from the mythical homeland of Hawaiki in one of the great voyaging canoes and planted with ritual prayers to Rongo for its success.

Elaborate ceremonies surrounded its every stage. The planting season opened with karakia to Rongo, asking for his blessing on the seed tubers. At harvest, the first kūmara were offered to Rongo before any could be consumed. Specially constructed storage pits, rūa kūmara, preserved the crop through winter, and these too carried Rongo's protection.

In Hawaiʻi, Rongo appears as Lono, one of the four great gods alongside Kāne, Kū, and Kanaloa. Where Kū governed war and blood sacrifice, Lono ensured that crops grew and the seasonal rains fell.

Lono and Kaikilani

A Hawaiian myth explains why Lono returns from the sea each year at Makahiki time. Lono once lived on earth with his beloved wife, Kaikilani. Overcome by jealousy after hearing malicious whispers, he struck and killed her in a rage. When he realized what he had done, grief consumed him.

Lono instituted athletic games and competitions in Kaikilani's honor and then departed Hawaiʻi in a canoe, sailing beyond the western horizon. Before he left, he promised to return one day on a floating island bearing gifts of abundance. Each year at Makahiki, Hawaiians enacted his return from across the sea: his arrival, his procession around the island, and his eventual departure.

The Makahiki

The Makahiki season began in late October or November with the rising of the Pleiades (Makaliʻi) on the eastern horizon at sunset, signaling the start of the rainy season and Lono's return. For the next four months, Hawaiian society transformed. Warfare was kapu. The luakini temples of Kū were closed and their images draped or removed. Tribute was collected from every ahupuaʻa for the chiefs and priests.

Hawaiians engaged in boxing, wrestling, hōlua sledding down grass-covered slopes, and surfing. Hula was performed. Feasts of pork, fish, and taro were prepared. The normal restrictions of daily life were relaxed.

The Lonomakua Procession

The central ritual of the Makahiki involved the procession of the Lono image around each island's coast. This image, called the Lonomakua, consisted of a tall pole topped with a crosspiece from which hung long white tapa cloth banners, their whiteness evoking clouds and Lono's rain. The image was carried clockwise around the island by priests and attendants, stopping at each ahupuaʻa to receive offerings of food and goods.

The procession could take weeks to complete, moving from district to district along the coastline. Communities welcomed the Lonomakua with ceremony and celebration. When the procession completed its full circuit, every district blessed, the Makahiki drew toward its close. A final ceremony marked Lono's departure back across the sea, and Kū's season resumed until the Pleiades rose again.