Kane, called Tane in the southern Polynesian islands, is, in the Hawaiian tradition, the god of light, of life, of fresh water and of the forest, and the highest of the four great gods of the Hawaiian pantheon (the others being Ku, Lono and Kanaloa). It is worth noting at the outset that Hawaiian religion is the tradition of the Kanaka Maoli, the Native Hawaiian people, and that although the great gods have cognate forms across the Polynesian islands, Kane answering to Tane elsewhere, the traditions of Hawaii, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Tahiti, Samoa and the other island groups are distinct, each with its own character, and should not be collapsed into a single generic religion.
In the Hawaiian understanding, Kane is above all the god of life and of the fresh water that sustains it: springs and running water are his, and the phrase ka wai a Kane, "the water of Kane," names the life-giving fresh water as his gift, so that to seek the water of Kane is, in Hawaiian poetry and thought, to seek the very source of life. He is associated with the light of the sun, with the forest and its useful growth, and with procreation and the vital force. Hawaiian tradition makes Kane a principal creator: in the accounts of the making of the first human being, it is Kane, often together with the other gods, who shapes the first man from the earth and gives him life. He was worshipped without the human sacrifice associated with the war god Ku, in a gentler cult connected with life, water and growth. Native Hawaiian religion and culture are living, undergoing vigorous renewal today, and Kane remains among the greatest of the Hawaiian gods, the god of light, of the fresh water that is the source of life, and of the living forest.