Pig-Boy is drawn from the stories of Kamapua'a, a divine trickster-hero in Hawaiian mythology. Kamapua'a is a shape-shifter. In human form, he is a handsome warrior. In his pig form, he is a trickster who provokes the powerful.
Sometimes he is a wild piglet, sometimes a voracious hog, rooting in the dark, moist earth. Sometimes he's a monstrous boar with eight eyes and four tusks curled like the crescent moon. Ever changing, this mischief-maker is a lunar animal that can escape pursuers by transforming into the pig-nosed fish (humu-humu-nuku-nuku-āpua'a) or the kukui tree or the elegant 'ama'u fern (singed red, it is said, by the fiery wrath of the goddess Pele).
Hawaiian mythology, the ancient tales that celebrate the many deities of the islands, was oral lore until the nineteenth century, when it began to be transcribed, most notably by G. W. Kahiolo in 1861. In 1891 the Kamapua'a epic was first published in Ka Leo o ka Lahui, a Hawaiian-language newspaper. ---from the publisher
32 pages 978-0152165901 Ages 4-8
Keywords: trickster tale, folktale, multicultural, pig, mythology, gods and goddesses, magic, grandmother, indigenous people, 4 year old, 5 year old, 6 year old, 7 year old, 8 year old
