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The culture of the Native Hawaiians encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms practiced by the original residents of the Hawaiian islands, including their knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits. Humans are estimated to have first inhabited the archipelago between 124 and 1120 AD when it was settled by Polynesians who voyaged to and settled there. [1] Polynesia is made of multiple island groups which extend from Hawaii to New Zealand across the Pacific Ocean. These voyagers developed Hawaiian cuisine, Hawaiian art, and the Native Hawaiian religion.
Hula is the dance form originating in Hawaii. It derives from other Polynesian dance form. It has two basic forms: Hula Kahiko and Hula Auana. Hula Kahiko was developed prior to contact with European cultures. [2] Hula Auana reflects European/American influences and is performed with musical instruments (like guitars) that do not originate from the Hawaiian Islands.
The annual Merrie Monarch Festival celebrates Hula and gathers Hula Halau from across the world. It was created to honor King David Kalākaua, who was the last reigning king of Hawaii. He was known for restoring and elevating Hula in the Hawaiian Islands after the United States missionaries arrived. The halau compete and share their knowledge of Hawaiian culture. Winners are crowned in each category, including an individual female winner, Miss Aloha Hula.
Hula is more than a dance, but an art form that communicates the stories of Hawaiian politics, culture, and tradition. As hula is now practiced and recognized around the world, a very limited repertoire has been brought to mainstream culture. Much of the world views Hula as a fitness trend and cultural dance, but the genre has a much greater significance to the Hawaiian people, telling the stories of generations past. [3]
Polynesians traveled to Hawaii and throughout the Pacific region on voyaging canoes of their own design, navigating using only their senses, observing the skies, wind, water, and wildlife around them.
The outrigger canoe was a common means of traveling around and between the islands. [4] Outrigger canoe paddling spread from Hawaii to become an international sport, educating people from all over the world about Hawaiian culture.
The Polynesian Voyaging Society works to preserve the skills of boat construction and navigation. They build replica canoes like traditional double-hulled canoes, sailing them across the world using Polynesian navigation methods. Their goal is to show the true strength of Polynesian voyagers, making it clear that the voyagers did not stumble upon their land by luck. The double hulled Hōkūleʻa canoe was built in the 1970s to reflect and preserve this knowledge and has since circumnavigated the earth, visiting communities and sharing knowledge since that time. [5]
The traditional Hawaiian religion is a polytheistic animistic religion. Its beliefs encompass the presence of spirits in objects such as the waves and the sky. The Hawaiian religion believes in four gods; Kāne, Kanaloa, Kū, and Lono. Kāne is the God of creation, Kanaloa is the God of the ocean, Ku is the God of war and male pursuits, and Lono is the God of peace, rain, and fertility. [6] They also believe in forty male gods (ka hā), four hundred gods and goddesses (ke kanahā), the spirits (na ‘unihipili), and the guardians (na ‘aumākua). [7] Notably, Pele is the goddess of volcanos and fire. [8]
Hawaiian religion has birthed many central Hawaiian values, including respect for the 'aina (land), which stems from an emphasis on respect for Lono, the God of the land. Religion has also directed the response to volcanic eruptions and lava flows. When a volcano erupts, Hawaiians believe this is a sacred process of the Earth being reborn. This is a time to pray, sing, and give offerings to Pele, the goddess of the volcano. [9]
The Hawaiian religion is protected under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. [10]
Mele are the Hawaiian poems and songs. Ole are chants. Mele and ole are important parts of Hawaiian rituals. Portuguese, Mexicans, and Spanish brought musical instruments such as the ukulele and the guitar that Hawaiians adopted. As Hawaiian music evolved, music using these instruments found worldwide popularity, beginning in the 1920s. Hawaiians invented the slack-key guitar and steel guitar, instruments that were soon distributed across the world. [11] [12]
First contact came in 1778 with an expedition led by James Cook, although possibly as early as 1542 with an expedition led by Ruy López de Villalobos. [13] Christian missionaries arrived in the early 1800s, and began converting the Hawaiians to their faiths and influencing Hawaiian culture. [14] In the 1830s, repeated interactions began between Hawaii and other cultures such as Mexican, Portuguese, and Spanish. [15] Immediate changes could be noticed in Hawaiian culture and daily life.
Many of the missionaries developed negative opinions about Hawaiian culture. [14] After the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom there were many attempts to extinguish Hawaiian language and culture during the early 20th century. Hula, Hawaiian, paddling, and music were all frowned upon. Hawaiian children were sent to missionary schools where they were taught in English and barred from speaking Hawaiian. English also became the language of business and government, although immigrants from Japan, Portugal, the Philippines, and other places brought their languages with them. [16]
In 1898 the United States enacted the Newlands Resolution, annexing the Hawaiian islands. [17] In 1959, following a referendum in which over 93% of Hawaiian residents voted in favor of statehood, Hawaii became the 50th state. At its height the Hawaiian population an estimated 683,000 Native Hawaiians lived in the islands. [18] By 1900 the native population had dropped below 100,000. [18] The Native Hawaiian population was reduced to 20% of the total due to disease, inter-marriage and migration. [19] The diseases spread from outside Hawaii such as smallpox, cholera, influenza, and gonorrhea. Unlike Europeans, Hawaiians had no history with these diseases and their immune systems were unprepared to fight them. [20]
Overthrow and the influence of other cultures caused drastic changes in the Hawaiian lifestyle. The introduction of Christianity led to the overthrow of the kapu system of social stratification. Changes in traditional Hawaiian diet and introduction of foreign disease not only drastically reduced the Native Hawaiian population. Some forms of Hawaiian culture became much more modernized and Westernized as a result of this exchange. The rise of Hula Auana aptly marks the influence of Western instruments and styles on Hula as a whole. [21]
In Hawaiian mythology, Kāne-milo-hai is the brother of Kāmohoaliʻi, Pele, Kapo, Nāmaka and Hiʻiaka by Haumea.
In Hawaiian religion, Hiʻiaka is a daughter of Haumea and Kāne.
In the traditions of ancient Hawaiʻi, Kanaloa is a god symbolized by the squid or by the octopus, and is typically associated with Kāne. It is also an alternative name for the island of Kahoʻolawe.
In Hawaiian religion, the god Lono is associated with fertility, agriculture, rainfall, music and peace. In one of the many Hawaiian stories of Lono, he is a fertility and music god who descended to Earth on a rainbow to marry Laka. In agricultural and planting traditions, Lono was identified with rain and food plants. He was one of the four gods who existed before the world was created. Lono was also the god of peace. In his honor, the great annual festival of the Makahiki was held. During this period, war and unnecessary work was kapu (forbidden).
In Hawaiian religion, Pele is the goddess of volcanoes and fire and the creator of the Hawaiian Islands. Often referred to as "Madame Pele" or "Tūtū Pele" as a sign of respect, she is a well-known deity within Hawaiian mythology and is notable for her contemporary presence and cultural influence as an enduring figure from ancient Hawaii. Epithets of the goddess include Pele-honua-mea and Ka wahine ʻai honua.
Hula is a Hawaiian dance form expressing chant (oli) or song (mele). It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Native Hawaiians who settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of the oli or mele in a visual dance form.
The Merrie Monarch Festival is a week-long cultural festival that takes place annually in Hilo, Hawaii during the week after Easter. It honors King David Kalākaua, who was called the "Merrie Monarch" for his patronage of the arts and is credited with restoring many Hawaiian cultural traditions during his reign, including hula. Many hālau hula (schools), including some from the U.S. mainland and some international performers, attend the festival each year to participate in exhibitions and competitions. The festival has received worldwide attention and is considered the most prestigious of all hula contests.
Ancient Hawaiʻi is the period of Hawaiian history preceding the unification in 1795 of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi by Kamehameha the Great. Traditionally, researchers estimated the first settlement of the Hawaiian islands as having occurred sporadically between 400 and 1100 CE by Polynesian long-distance navigators from the Samoan, Marquesas, and Tahiti islands within what is now French Polynesia. In 2010, a study was published based on radiocarbon dating of more reliable samples which suggests that the islands were settled much later, within a short timeframe, in about 1219 to 1266.
Native Hawaiians are the Indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands.
Herbert Kawainui Kāne was an American Hawaiian historian and artist. He is considered one of the principal figures in the renaissance of Hawaiian culture in the 1970s. His work focused on the seafaring traditions of the ancestral peoples of Hawaiʻi.
The Hawaiian Renaissance was the Hawaiian resurgence of a distinct cultural identity that draws upon traditional Kānaka Maoli culture, with a significant divergence from the tourism-based culture which Hawaiʻi was previously known for worldwide. The Hawaiian Renaissance has been pointed to as a global model for biocultural restoration and sustainability.
Mark Kealiʻi Hoʻomalu is a contemporary Hawaiian chanter, who was born and raised in ʻAiea, Oʻahu. He is best known for his contributions to the soundtrack of the 2002 Disney animated film, Lilo & Stitch, providing the film's two non-Elvis Presley-related songs. His style is both innovative and controversial, as purists disapprove of the liberties he takes in creating new arrangements of ancient chants.
A hālau hula is a school or hall in which the Hawaiian dance form called hula is taught. The term comes from hālau, literally, "long house, as for canoes or hula instruction"; "meeting house", and hula, a Polynesian dance form of the Hawaiian Islands. Today, a hālau hula is commonly known as a school or formal institution for hula where the primary responsibility of the people within the hālau is to perpetuate the cultural practice of hula.
Hawaiian religion refers to the indigenous religious beliefs and practices of native Hawaiians, also known as the kapu system. Hawaiian religion is based largely on the tapu religion common in Polynesia and likely originated among the Tahitians and other Pacific islanders who landed in Hawaiʻi between 500 and 1300 AD. It is polytheistic and animistic, with a belief in many deities and spirits, including the belief that spirits are found in non-human beings and objects such as other animals, the waves, and the sky. It was only during the reign of Kamehameha I that a ruler from Hawaii island attempted to impose a singular "Hawaiian" religion on all the Hawaiian islands that was not Christianity.
George Lanakilakeikiahialiʻi Naʻope, born in Kalihi, Hawaiʻi and raised in Hilo, was a celebrated kumu hula, master Hawaiian chanter, and leading advocate and preservationist of native Hawaiian culture worldwide. He taught hula dancing for over sixty years in Hawaiʻi, Japan, Guam, Australia, Germany, England, North America, and South America.
Margaret Maiki Souza Aiu Lake was a hula dancer, kumu hula, hula teacher, and influential figure in the second Hawaiian Renaissance because of her revolutionary teaching techniques. Because of her work she was recognized as the "Mother of Hawaiian Renaissance." Many of her students became teachers themselves making her the "most important hula teacher of the 20th century."
Native Hawaiian cuisine refers to the traditional Hawaiian foods that predate contact with Europeans and immigration from East and Southeast Asia. The cuisine consisted of a mix of indigenous plants and animals as well as plants and animals introduced by Polynesian voyagers, who became the Native Hawaiians.
ʻUlīʻulī are Hawaiian feathered gourd rattles that are occasionally used as instruments in the traditional Hawaiian dance, hula. This instrument is used in both ʻauana and kahiko hula dances. They are vibrantly colored feather gourd rattles used in kahiko performances to maintain timing and to enhance other sounds like chanting or the pounding of an ipu.
Edith Kenao Kanakaʻole was a Hawaiian dancer, chanter, teacher, and kumu hula. Born in Honomū, Hawaiʻi in 1913, she was taught hula from a young age, and dropped out of her formal schooling before completing middle school. She began to compose traditional Hawaiian music in 1946, choreographing hula to accompany many of her chants, and founded Hālau O Kekuhi in 1953. In the 1970s, she taught Hawaiian studies and language at Hawaiʻi Community College and later the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, where she worked until her death in 1979.