Hawaiian Mythology

By: Martha Warren Beckwith

Narrated by: Sarah Kempton

In this now classic text, Martha Beckwith skillfully navigated an expansive collection of books, articles, and manuscripts to compile the definitive collection of mythological narratives of the native Hawaiian peoples. In addition to its importance for Hawaiian folklore and ethnology proper, Beckwith situates these stories within their broader regional context, offering comparisons to the traditions of Tahiti, Tonga, Samoa and other island nations.

©1940 Martha Beckwith (P)2023 Licensing Management, Inc.

awful pronunciation

I have been looking for an audio book version of this book for years. Unfortunatly, the pronunciation of Hawaiian words was very distracting.

I Have Reservations

To begin with I am Hawaiian. While a bunch of these mythologies are interesting and gives me an insight into my heritage. What I have a problem with is the mispronunciation of a bunch of the Hawaiian words and names. It is bad how some of the names of people and places are absolutely slaughtered. The annoyance made it hard to follow some of this book since I had to figure out what they were trying to say.

Academic

The book is more academic than entertaining. The stories are wonderful but written sparsely before being immediately compared to another story from a different island. If one’s interest is purely academic then this book is for you.

Also the Hawaiian phonetics are not adhered to names like Kane (Kah-nay) are consistently mispronounced, which this listener found annoying.

Too much mispronunciation

The five vowels in the Hawaiian language are always pronounced the same. There is no “magic e”. This audiobook would be so much better if just a little effort had been made to familiarize the narrator with the basics of Hawaiian pronunciation. No doubt, longer words can be very difficult, but given that the book is about Hawaiian mythology it seems reasonable to expect that the two syllable name of the highest deity in the Hawaiian pantheon, “Kāne”, could have been pronounced correctly, i.e. as something more like “KAH-NEH”, and not as a homophone of “Cain”.

Beckwith’s Hawaiian Mythology is a must have for any one interested in Hawaiian mythology.

I read the book 20 years ago and was happy to find it finally available on Audible. The book is great and the narrator does a good job overall. The only downside was her lack of understanding of Polynesian pronunciation.

For those interested in exploring more titles on this subject I highly recommend Hawaiian Mythology: The Legends and Myths of Hawaii by King David Kalakaua.