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Disney’s upcoming animated feature “Moana” promises to be a hit when it goes up on screens across the country Thanksgiving week, but it’s sparked a small tsunami of controversy here among the Polynesian islands that serve as the setting for the film.

Native Hawaiian activists have decried Disney’s plundering of indigenous culture, religion and storytelling, likening the international entertainment behemoth’s telling of the legends of Moana and Maui to brutal Western colonization of island nations throughout the Pacific.

One of the sorest of sore points is the depiction of the demigod Maui as a rotund, self-absorbed lug — reportedly the comic center of the film. The righteous indignation mystifies some fellow haoles with whom I’ve broached the subject.

But imagine Christian annoyance if, say, John the Baptist were depicted in a movie cartoon as an arrogant bumbler and conspicuous consumer of fishes and loaves rather than as a sober, devoted apostle of Christ, and you begin to understand the annoyed perspective of some Native Hawaiians.

So when we received an e-mail recently from reader Hoala Greevy asking, “Who is our Hawaiian Superman?” it gave me pause.

“Everyone in Hawaii knows Maui is our Hawaiian Superman. With the upcoming Disney movie ‘Moana’ set for release, it appears Disney thinks our Hawaiian Superman eats at McDonald’s every day,” Hoala wrote. “So I am left to wonder, are we going to let Disney tell us who our modern day Hawaiian Superman is, or will we decide for ourselves?”

Interesting question. In present-day Hawaii, we’re sadly short on demigods, but there may be a few whose noble good works, sense of aloha and kuleana and love for the aina remind us of Maui’s legendary spirit. More on that below.

Those unfamiliar with Maui lore might find it fascinating. While he has a strong place in Hawaii history and culture, he’s similarly a central figure in island cultures throughout Polynesia, including Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, Tahiti and Mangareva (of the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia).

“Are we going to let Disney tell us who our modern day Hawaiian Superman is, or will we decide for ourselves,” one reader asked.

His exploits and great deeds take slightly different form in each island nation’s mythology, but he’s known in nearly all of them as the demigod who used his great fish hook — his Manaiakalani, in the Hawaiian story — to pull their respective islands from the bottom of the ocean. The legends also mostly include a story of Maui lassoing the sun and restraining it to give islanders more daylight to do their work, and several include tales of him creating fire or discovering the secret of fire.

But he’s also known as a mischief maker and a trickster — and not the usual sort of tricks, either. In one story from Maori mythology, he is married to a goddess known as Rohe, of whose beauty he is quite jealous, in part because he has a face that only his mother, Taranga, could love. He mistreats Rohe and tries to convince her to trade faces with him, an offer she refuses. Once she goes to sleep, however, he casts a spell over her and executes the face swap. When she wakes and realizes what has happened, she flees to the underworld. There, she becomes the goddess of death.

In other cultures, such ancient lore might be confined to history books. But Maui remains a resonant figure in today’s Polynesian and Native Hawaiian culture. In 1993, he merited a tribute song on Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwoole’s album, “Facing Future.” The late singer/songwriter, whose iconic cover of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” has become sort of an unofficial Hawaii anthem, began “Maui Hawaiian Supa Man” as follows:

“Oh, tall is the tale of the mischievous one
Who fished out all the islands and captured the sun
His deeds and tasks I will unmask
So that you’ll understand
That before there was a Clark Kent
There was a Hawaiian Superman.”

Tempting though it may be, we should recognize it’s probably unfair to compare any modern-day superstar to a demigod. Back in the day, superhuman strength, rocket-like speed, the ability to read minds, lassoing the sun and the like seemed to happen with surprising regularity, according to mythology. Today, not so much.

But not everything about modern times in Polynesia is so mundane. The role of women, for instance, has changed dramatically, for the better. In the days before kapu system was broken in Hawaii, women were forbidden to eat certain foods and segregated from men in ways that usually disadvantaged them. Not today. Is it too much, then, to think that if we were to conceptualize a modern Hawaiian superman, we might appropriately consider a Hawaiian superwoman?

So with Hoala Greevy’s question yet unanswered — and an admission that there are more appropriate minds than mine to answer it — I turn this one over to our readers, especially those of you who are Native Hawaiian. Is there anyone today fit to hold Maui’s Manaiakalani? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.