Kumu-honua

Kumu-honua Oceania
Literal meaning: ‘earth beginning’. The first man of Hawaiian mythology. His wife was called Lalo-honua, ‘earth below’. The original garden made for mankind by the god Kane contained fruits and animals, all of which were available to Kumu-honua and his wife, except for a sacred tree. The apples and the bark of this tree were forbidden, but like the biblical pair they broke the law and were expelled. A great white albatross drove them out. In one version of the myth it is a ‘great seabird with a white beak’ that persuaded Lalo-honua to eat the sacred apples of Kane.