Disney has had it's share of criticism for not staying accurate in movies like Pocahontas and Hercules, among others. However, when they set out to make Moana, they did bring in several people from Polynesian culture to make it stay on track. We are going to see how good of a job by fact checking Maui's claims in the song "You're Welcome!"
Now, before I give you all the details of how to run this assignment, you need to know who this lady is:
In the 1920s, if you studied mythology, you studied Greek and Roman, or maybe you dabbled in Germanic fairy tales and folk lore. Beckwith, though, believed all cultures deserved to be studied and became fascinated by Hawaiian and Polynesian mythology. There were no books on this, so she traveled to these islands and talked to the story tellers to record their mythology. This was quite dangerous as many of these cultures had little contact and interactions with the rest of the world. Nevertheless, this complete boss did so and wrote a comprehensive book - no, THE comprehensive book on Hawaiian mythology. It was cleverly titled Hawaiian Mythology. You can buy it on Amazon.
It is the source that all other mythology books that cover anything Hawaiian or Polynesian cite as their source. It is also rather dry, sort of like Edith Hamilton's Mythology, but a bit dryer. Rick Riordan hadn't been born yet, much less show everyone that you could actually write mythology in a fashion that is enjoyable to read.
Fun fact - she got kicked out of a theater once because they were doing an act with "authentic hula dancers" and she stood up, halted the show, and lectured them on what they were doing wrong and suggested the crowd demand their money back. :)
What you need:
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