Pre-Contact Hawaii

[sinjin]

Re: A couple of questions

Having done a bit of sailing myself I was trying to work out how the Hokule'a would have sailed to Seattle since that would've been a neat trick without a keel. Then I went to the PVS site and found out. Matson of course.

[Kalalau]

Re: A couple of questions

Another question I have had for a while is whether the pre-contact religion is practiced any where, any more? We know that the Hula was secretly preserved, despite the missionaries attempts to eliminate it. Maybe the pre-contact religion has been preserved as well. And if so, how is it observed? And what can you tell me about it?

[Kalalau]

Re: A couple of questions

And as long as I'm on a roll, how did the economy work in pre-contact times? Was there money, was it bartering, etc. On one island group money never moves, ownership of it changes, but the money itself is very large carved stones that never move. How did pre-contatc Hawaiians handle it?

[Pua'i Mana'o]

Re: A couple of questions

Another question I have had for a while is whether the pre-contact religion is practiced any where, any more? We know that the Hula was secretly preserved, despite the missionaries attempts to eliminate it. Maybe the pre-contact religion has been preserved as well. And if so, how is it observed? And what can you tell me about it?

This is where the thread can start to get weird, because a lot of modern-day discussions of "precontact Hawaiian religion" invariably gets misconfuddled with "huna", which is as Hawaiian as Lilo&Stitch is.

Going back, why did Hawaiians have the rapid conversion to Christianity like they did? One has to go back to the Battle of Kuamo'o. Kukailimoku was Kamehameha I's war god. And the god stood by Kamehameha throughout his battles, throughout his evolving Hawai'i into a united kingdom. Throughout his political ties. Throughout his marriages.

But as Kamehameha was dying, he did not entrust his war god, to whom he was a faithful worshipper, to his son who was to follow him. Instead, he charged his loyal and favorite nephew, Kekuaokalani, to the task of caring for Kukailimoku.

But the battle of Kuamo'o decided who was to win Hawai'i souls, via the win over the 'ai kapu. In Hawaiian thinking at that time, Kukailimoku did not favor Kekuaokalani as he had his uncle. The god turned his back on him, the god deferred to the Ke'a (Cross) in 1819, as did Pele when Kapi'olani defied her in 1824.

So for the people at that time, they saw this as victor being the stronger god, Ke Akua, Iesu Kristo. Although our Hawaiian gods are our ancestors, they appear in our genealogy, and our mahalo for them is on that profound level, there is a reason that the Battle of Kuamo'o happened once, why it didn't turn into a war, and why even the Hawaiians who thereafter lost trust in the sons of the missionaries who brought the Ke'a to our shores, never lost their aloha ia Iesu.

[Kalalau]

Re: A couple of questions

The more I learn about Hawai'i the more I find that I do not know. Here is yet another question. And let me thank you for your kindness and patience. Based on Jonah K's description of a pre-contact Hawaiian marriage, and knowing that families often adopted children, is it reasonable to say that a Hawaiian family in pre contact days was flexible or fluid? That a man did not possess a woman, for example, or possess children, like in a traditional European style marriage of about the same era? If there were no diseases and if children were always well cared for, there really wasn't any reason for a highly structured family, I just wonder if that was the case. Is it fair to say men and women were more free to associate as they wished?

And how would you say women fared in pre-contact times? Did they have independence, or rights, or were they treated as either inferiors or as a man's property?

[Rickyrab]

Huna vs. Actual Hawaiian Religion

What is huna, and how does it differ from the original Hawaiian religion?

[kimo55]

Re: Huna vs. Actual Hawaiian Religion

What is huna, and how does it differ from the original Hawaiian religion?

huna = dizzyland tiki room

"original Hawaiian religion" = private, sacred, not for the profane and can not be distilled within one paragraph. And if it is, misconceptions ensue.
leave it.
just go to 'huna' if that's yer language.


(PLEASE, people; use the search feature that works sufficiently well, here on HT. We covered aaallllllll this fairly well, in the not too distant past)

[Rickyrab]

Re: Huna vs. Actual Hawaiian Religion

huna = dizzyland tiki room

"original Hawaiian religion" = private, sacred, not for the profane and can not be distilled within one paragraph. And if it is, misconceptions ensue.
leave it.
just go to 'huna' if that's yer language.


(PLEASE, people; use the search feature that works sufficiently well, here on HT. We covered aaallllllll this fairly well, in the not too distant past)

I tried "huna", but seemed to get better results with "tiki".