Editing Hawaii (section)

===Polynesian mythology===
{{Main|Polynesian mythology}}
[[File:Tahiti-Oro.jpg|thumb|upright|A sacred god figure wrapping for the war god [['Oro]], made of woven dried coconut fibre ([[sennit]]), made to protect a Polynesian god effigy (''to'o''), carved from wood]]

Polynesian mythology is the [[oral tradition]]s of the people of Polynesia, a grouping of Central and South Pacific Ocean island [[archipelago]]s in the [[Polynesian triangle]] together with the scattered cultures known as the [[Polynesian outliers]]. Polynesians speak languages that descend from a language reconstructed as [[Proto-Polynesian language|Proto-Polynesian]] that was probably spoken in the area around [[Tonga]] and [[Samoa]] in around 1000 BC.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kirch |first=Patrick Vinton |url=https://archive.org/details/hawaikiancestral0000kirc/page/99/mode/2up |title=Hawaiki, Ancestral Polynesia: An Essay in Historical Anthropology |author2=Roger Green |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-521-78309-5 |pages=99–119 |url-access=registration}}</ref>

Prior to the 15th century, [[Polynesian culture|Polynesian people]] migrated east to the [[Cook Islands]], and from there to other island groups such as Tahiti and the [[Marquesas]]. Their descendants later discovered the islands [[Tahiti]], [[Rapa Nui]], and later the Hawaiian Islands and [[New Zealand]].<ref>{{cite journal|last=Wilmshurst|first=Janet|author-link=Janet Wilmshurst|date=December 27, 2010|title=High-precision radiocarbon dating shows recent and rapid initial human colonization of East Polynesia|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America|publisher=US National Library of Medicine|volume=108|issue=5|pages=1815–1820|doi=10.1073/pnas.1015876108|pmc=3033267|pmid=21187404|bibcode=2011PNAS..108.1815W |doi-access=free}}</ref>

The Polynesian languages are part of the [[Austronesian language family]]. Many are close enough in terms of vocabulary and grammar to be [[mutual intelligibility|mutually intelligible]]. There are also substantial cultural similarities between the various groups, especially in terms of social organization, childrearing, horticulture, building and textile technologies. Their mythologies in particular demonstrate local reworkings of commonly shared tales. The Polynesian cultures each have distinct but related oral traditions; legends or myths are traditionally considered to recount ancient history (the time of "pō") and the adventures of gods ("[[atua]]") and deified ancestors.{{citation needed|date=May 2015}}