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I was reading about how Pele, the goddess of volcanoes, came to Hawai'i. On page 9, it says,

Na-maka-oka-hai went to the highest of all the mythical lands of the ancestors, Nuu-mea-lani (The raised dais of heaven). There she could look over all the seas from Ka-la-kee-nui-a-Kane to Kauai; i.e. from a legendary land in the south to the most northerly part of the Hawaiian Islands.

This passage makes it sound like Nuu-mea-lani is somewhere in the sky, yet many Hawaiian myths talk about Pele traveling over the sea to get to Hawai'i, implying that it is a land.

Is Nuu-mea-lani an island?

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It varies in different tales.

The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai contains numerous references to Nuu-mea-lani being in the air (emphasis mine):

A terrible sight to Mokukelekahiki to see that lizard; he flew away up to Nuumealani, the Raised Place in the Heavens;

Then Kaeloikamalama flew down with Mokukelekahiki from the heights of Nuumealani, the land in the air.

Lo! on that day, the rainbow pathway was let down from Nuumealani and Kaonohiokala and Laieikawai mounted upon that way, and she laid her last commands upon her sisters, the seer, and Laielohelohe; these were her words:

Lailai flies to heaven, rests upon "the boughs of the aoa tree in Nuumealani," and bears the earth.

Legends of Gods and Ghosts implies that it is an island.

The boy was very angry and said: "You have treated me cruelly, when I only came to see you and to love you. You would have taken my young life for sacrifice. Now you tell me you belong to the temple of my ancestors in Nuu-mea-lani."

Ke-au-nini returned on his ocean journey to Nuu-mea-lani.

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