Polynesian Folk Religions

Polynesian oral traditions carried related stories across distant islands. In some island groups Tangaroa was a god of the sea and fishing, while stories of the trickster Māui were widely known.

In Hawaiʻi, the kapu system regulated food and relations between men and women. In 1819 King Kamehameha II ate with women, breaking the taboo; opponents of the change were defeated at Kuamoʻo that December. Christian missionaries arrived a few months later, hastening the decline of the old religion.